Gaza: UN Human Rights Council Vote

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Monday 21st May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

I will repeat what I have repeated before—this is clearly set out in the United Kingdom’s concerns about the whole process:

“The loss of life, casualties and volume of live fire presents a depressingly familiar and unacceptable pattern. This cannot be ignored.”

The hon. Lady comes to her own conclusions about what she thinks has happened, but others have different narratives. It is clear that the extent of the live fire has caused casualties that raise prima facie questions about what has happened, which is why we must find out what the answer to that is.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

The IDF and people here in this Chamber constantly refer to the “Gaza border” despite it not being internationally recognised. If it is a border, what state are the victims of Israel’s latest shooting spree in? If it is not a fence that entraps 2 million people, will the UK recognise the state of Palestine and push for an independent investigation, not just a whitewash by one party?

[Alistair Burt]

The hon. Gentleman makes a series of assumptions, and I understand where he is coming from. As I indicated last week, the United Kingdom will recognise the state of Palestine when it is conducive to the peace process, but there are more processes that must be gone through. If we are to find out what truly happened in Gaza, there must be a better option than that presented by the Human Rights Council last week.

Iran Nuclear Deal

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Wednesday 9th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

My hon. Friend speaks on this matter with a great deal of interest and authority. The IAEA has conducted 400 inspections and confirmed nine times that Iran is in compliance. Iran has reduced its number of centrifuges by two thirds and its stock of enriched uranium by 95%. On that basis alone, the agreement must be counted a success.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

First the Paris agreement and now the Iran deal—does this show that the USA’s signature is not worth the paper it is written on? Our Government must show that we honour our agreements. We must particularly protect British interests and British companies against forthcoming US sanctions that will affect us. Will the Secretary of State build an alliance with the remaining partners in the Iran deal, whose collective GDP is twice the USA’s, and use the EU sanctions-blocking regulations that were first used in 1996? Just as we have on the Paris agreement, will we strengthen our resolve to thwart this retrograde step by the Trump Administration?

[Boris Johnson]

We will certainly work with our friends and partners to keep the deal going and to protect the interests of UK companies and people.

Rohingya: Monsoon Season

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Tuesday 8th May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Jo Stevens]

I do have some information. An island has been identified as a potential space for refugees to move to. I am concerned about it because, as I understand it, the island is like a floodplain, so people would not be in a better position were they to be moved there. I hope that the Minister can give us more information about that, if he has been discussing it with the Bangladeshi Government.

Agreements have been reached with other refugee-hosting nations, including Jordan, Lebanon and Ethiopia, which provides an indication of what can be achieved with the right package of support, combined with strong partnerships. In my view, strong partnerships and political leadership on the rights of the Rohingya, and action against Burma for its gross violations of international law, must go hand in hand. I want our Government to take a lead.

In January, I wrote to the Minister for Asia and the Pacific, the right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field), at the Foreign Office to ask the Government to support a referral to the International Criminal Court. In February, I was one of 100 parliamentarians who wrote to the Foreign Secretary in exactly the same terms. What was the response of the Burmese Government? It was to ban individual members of the International Development Committee from visiting Burma. The Minister will say that a UN Security Council resolution on a referral might be vetoed by Russia and China, but that is exactly why we in the UK must start to support a referral, building global support—from the European Union, the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation and other countries—to overcome such opposition. Our Government can hardly ask other countries to support a referral when they do not even call for one themselves.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making a very important point. Will she consider suggesting, first, that the Minister also look at freezing the assets of the Burmese Government and of people who are connected to that Government? Secondly, because the ICC covers citizens of signed-up countries, the Government should be clear that any UK citizens, or those with joint citizenship, could be referred to the ICC if or when any incidents occur.

[Jo Stevens]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. The Government should take every possible measure to show the horror we feel about what I believe to be a genocide in Burma. We should be taking the political lead, and everything that can be done should be done. As Edmund Burke, a former Member of Parliament, said, the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing. This humanitarian and human rights disaster is about to be compounded by a natural disaster, which was entirely avoidable. It cannot be allowed to happen again. Burma cannot be allowed to operate with impunity and to set an international precedent for the unpunished genocide of a minority population.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

It is a delight to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh.

This is an enormously important debate. We have heard the statistics about the amount of rainfall, so I shall not rehearse them, save that the north-eastern part of Bangladesh receives the greatest average precipitation of some 4,000 mm per year. By the end of the monsoon season, as the Minister knows because he has been there so often, a third of the country is under water. As other right hon. and hon. Members have seen, and as I saw when flying down from Dhaka to Cox’s Bazar in September, the landscape is vast and watery, barely above sea level. Many areas of Bangladesh are treacherous and cut off in the monsoon season, which was absolutely visible. There are already huge pressures on the population as a whole—not just the Rohingya—as a result of global warming and the rains. When those rains come, communities can be accessed only by boat, houses are damaged, crops and livestock are lost and, importantly, the rice harvest is often lost, which impacts the population’s future.

In the pre-monsoon and monsoon seasons, there are access constraints on the mud roads to which the hon. Member for Cardiff Central (Jo Stevens) referred. They become impassable, footpaths become slippery, and earthen stairs and slopes become dangerous and may collapse. Members who have been to the camps will know that they are like something from Mars or the moon, and will have seen the deforestation that has gone on to create mounds of earth. Where hills and mountains were covered in greenery, there are now barren, muddy landscapes with little to hold the soil together. Shelters and facilities will be flooded and damaged, prompting displacement and overcrowding in even more of the camp.

This issue is not new—as the Minister knows, it goes back 20 years—but Rohingya camps have never existed on such a scale, and never before have so many people been confined in such a small, cramped and inhospitable place, so there is no direct experience to indicate how that number of people will survive the monsoon. They have withstood monsoons in the past, but not in such numbers.

When I visited in September, I saw vast deforestation. An elephant rampaged through the camp, killed someone and was shot. People thought that was terrible, but to be fair to the elephants, every single bit of their habitat is gone. As far as the eye could see, the landscape was totally barren and vulnerable to landslips and shelter collapse. We were there for several days, and we actually witnessed 100 small, pitiful homes of the sort the hon. Lady described that had been washed away overnight. I felt utterly guilty to be listening to the heavy rain in my hotel in Cox’s Bazar. As we have all seen, many of the Rohingya in camps do not have shelters at all—some simply shelter under plastic bags and other small pieces of plastic, which they hold over their heads. It is pitiful. After several nights of heavy rain, the gullies that people had been easily fording turned into death traps, and we saw an individual who had drowned while trying to access food for his family being pulled out of a flooded gully.

I am appalled that, to resolve the overcrowding that no doubt exists in the camps, 100,000 individuals from that very camp may be relocated to Bhasan Char island, which the hon. Lady mentioned. That island—a misnomer if ever there was one—is basically a large mudflat. It is a shifting bank of sand that did not even exist 20 years ago. It is not an island but an accumulation of sediment formed by the Meghna river. It changes shape radically. If anyone has not looked at it, it is possible to go online and see its changing contours. Sometimes it is totally submerged under floodwater. It is not a suitable place to create a haven for the Rohingya.

I wrote to the Secretary of State and pointed out that the topography of the island makes it extremely vulnerable to flooding and cyclones, and that it regularly disappears underwater. I also mentioned the increasing concerns about the adequacy of resources such as food, water and additional facilities, and about humanitarian access to the island. I wrote that I am worried that the planned settlement—the media are trying to look at what is going on on Bhasan Char island, but it is being planned in quite a secretive manner—would, in effect, act as a prison camp. It would allow the refugees to be resettled, but I am concerned that the island would not be a safe haven for the Rohingya.

The Minister has stated that the Government have

“concerns that the island may not provide safe accommodation for Rohingya refugees and we have shared these concerns with the Government of Bangladesh.”

Given that building is going on apace, and that plans are going on apace to relocate 100,000 people to Bhasan Char island, I want to know what progress if any has been made with stopping that relocation. A huge amount of building is going on. The designs for the island show that there will be cyclone shelters, which look amazingly like prison blocks. They are absolutely tiny. The Rohingya who are there are already traumatised. I question what the value of those cyclone shelters will be, if they are imprisoned on a featureless mudflat in the bay of Bengal, cut off from the current aid groups that are in the camps on the mainland.

The flooding of contaminated water has already been referred to. Camp sanitation is bleak—I know because I have used it. I am not surprised that there are outbreaks of E. coli and other faecal matter diseases, given the overflowing latrines. We do not know what facilities will be on Bhasan Char island. I would like to know if the Minister plans to visit Bhasan Char island to reassure us.

The UK has just generously pledged £70 million more. That is £129 million pledged on behalf of the British taxpayer. Many of my constituents are fundraising for the Rohingya. I do not think many of them are aware that there is a potential Alcatraz—as I refer to it—in the bay of Bengal. I would like to know whether the British Government plan to visit given the amount of development that has already happened there.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

When the International Development Committee visited, we were told that NGOs had identified significant amounts of other land that would be safe for the Rohingya to be put into. Does the hon. Lady agree that the British Government need to use all their powers to get the Bangladeshis to release the land that the aid agencies have identified, and focus less on putting them on to an island?

Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords]

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 1st May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Richard Benyon]

Well, I have. I just think new clause 3 leaves it much more open for Parliament to make a decision, and I am quite content with that, although I am open to other suggestions. Some people say that the Joint Committee on Human Rights might be best placed to carry out this scrutiny, but I see, from delving into the Standing Orders, that Standing Order No. 152B(2)(a) states that the Joint Committee has a remit to look at

“matters relating to human rights in the United Kingdom”.

What we are talking about here is matters relating to human rights anywhere. We could be talking about someone who is evicting the Rohingya, for example, or actions taken in conflicts or situations as yet unknown and unforeseen. We need to ensure that we can look at human rights everywhere.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

As a member of the CAEC, I urge the right hon. Gentleman to think again about using it as a model for a scrutiny Committee. I sit on it, and it struggles to function—it did not meet for two years—but one thing that it did recommend was a measure to allow the Government to shut down brass-plate companies, on which I have tabled an amendment in the next group.

[Richard Benyon]

I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman is making. I am not completely wedded to that idea. I simply say that this is in our grasp—this is now Parliament’s duty. Following the very good discussions that I have had with my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), the Chairman of the Liaison Committee, and my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), the Chairman of the Procedure Committee, as well as with other wise heads and people with much more experience than I have, I know that we need to design something that really works. The crucial thing that works in Congress and in other Parliaments is what is known in the United States as the “congressional trigger”, under which it is possible to really ask questions of the Executive. Through the measure that we are discussing today, the Executive are giving Parliament the power to get this right, and we must take that duty very seriously.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jo Swinson]

What we are discussing here is having additional checks at the Companies House end. For other organisations, some additional checks already happen. The hon. Gentleman is right that I did do a bit of a test run to check what I had said about it being straightforward. Happily, it generally was fairly straight- forward and an easy system to use. None the less, I think that there would be a way we could use new technology to improve enforcement work through the Companies House website. Additional resources will be needed if we are to take this seriously, and I hope that the Government will recognise that in their response.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

For £12, disreputable individuals can register UK companies and begin trading arms internationally through a network of subsidiaries. For £12, they receive the legitimacy of a trading company and a respectable business. We know that this is the case because it has been happening for 10 years, and it could well be happening right now.

We know that this has been happening thanks to the investigative work of Amnesty International and other non-governmental organisations. In 2014, Ukranian-based S-Profit Ltd, which was registered here in the UK, was named by the South Sudanese Government as brokering a £44 million small arms deal. The South Sudanese Government are subject to sanctions; yet, astonishingly, S-Profit Ltd is still a registered British company.

In 2009, the Committees on Arms Export Controls found that a company called Hazel UK had been brokering arms to Libya, Syria and Sri Lanka, which violated sanctions against those countries at the time. This company is still registered. I could go on. For example, System Use Contract Ltd brokered arms to Rwanda. I have a long list.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bob Stewart]

I am intrigued by this. Fundamentally, the hon. Gentleman is saying that there is a brass plate and a registration with Companies House, but there is actually nothing between that and a company working abroad. Is he saying that there is no connection and absolutely no way that these people can be traced, or have I got it wrong?

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

This is not about tracing. These companies use British registration but undertake activities through a set of subsidiary companies or other companies that they are linked to abroad to take part in the nefarious activity. The individuals might be directors of both companies, for example.

The current threshold of requirement to disbar individuals or strike off a company is at the criminal level of responsibility, but that level is just far too high. If it were brought down to the civil level of responsibility, the Minister would be able to take action. Now, the Minister may feel that he would not want to take action and I am not compelling him to do so. I am simply giving him the powers, if need be, that already exist in the Insolvency Act 1986. This is not about extending powers that have never been used before.

The Government say that there is no information about these companies at all. Well, let us look at S-Profit Ltd, a UK-registered company that brokered arms to the South Sudanese Government. This Government have received copies of the contracts involved. The Ukrainian directors of the company have even admitted that the contracts were genuine, as did the Ukrainian state company responsible for brokering the weapons. It is not enough for a criminal action, but it is clearly enough for a Minister to invoke the public test—that is, to ask whether the company is acting against the public interest and breaching sanctions. Such companies should be struck off, so that they cannot use the brand Britain as a front for their activities.

When Sir John Stanley was in this place, he recommended the same powers in the Committees on Arms Export Controls. I am not trying to bring in something that is hugely controversial. The Government have already said today, in general, that they would like to take action on these things. I was really disappointed that we were not able to get the Government to support this. I tried to meet the Government a number of times, even coming up in recess time to do so, with the meeting being cancelled 20 minutes before it was due. It is a real shame, and I would like the Government to give way. However, I will not press the amendment to a vote on this occasion if they make a commitment to look at this further and to take it on, as I think they have done today. I hope we can work together on this.

[Hannah Bardell]

Thank you for letting me speak, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was not expecting to get in, so it is a real privilege to have the opportunity to bring up the rear of the debate.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) for her steadfast work on this Bill. I also thank other Members across the House. In particular, we heard an excellent speech by the hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds), who spoke about SLPs and the negative impact—the devastating impact—they have had across the UK. I recently met a Moldovan human rights lawyer at the Council of Europe. Many Members will be familiar with the nefarious activities of the Moldovan Government and certain oligarchs. She—I will not name her—has experienced huge tragedy in her life, being separated from her young son in trying to fight the Government, who are using an SLP to launder money and are engaged in criminal activities.

The point about reputation is really important, not just for Scotland but for the rest of the UK. The Scottish name is being used, and misused, through a piece of legislation. By and large, those who use SLPs are doing so for legitimate reasons, but a few are spoiling it for the many. SLPs are increasingly being abused by money launderers because of their unique characteristics. The hon. Member for Oxford East mentioned the Russian laundromat case, which extracted £16 billion out of Russia between 2010 and 2014. There were 114 SLPs in the laundromat, two of which were core laundering vehicles. Progate Solutions no longer exists—the Sarajevo-based Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project uncovered that company and highlighted its activities—but it is still being used to launder money. The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman), who has done a lot of work on this, described there being an “explosion” of SLPs. In terms of the statistics, 82% of all SLPs registered at the end of 2016 and 70% of SLPs incorporated during this period are registered at just 10 addresses.

Getting to the core of the issue of transparency, this is about how business is being done now. We look at gender pay reporting and the impact that that has had on business in this country. That is a move forward. It was interesting to hear some Conservative Members talking about resources for us to have the power to investigate these companies. Our very limited and stretched public resources are being used so that our trained taskforces can investigate them. If we bring about a more transparent system and more transparent laws, our vital resources can be directed towards other crimes to protect our citizens. This is fundamentally about protecting our citizens across the UK.

With regard to Companies House, it is important to put it on record that I do not think anybody would want to criticise the staff or the job that they do, but what has happened to some consumers cannot be right. I have had constituency cases where people have bought services or goods, the company has gone bust, and they are left with nothing—neither their money back nor the items. A constituent of mine followed the individuals concerned through their registration in Companies House, and discovered that they had set up a new company and started trading again within a few weeks. She was told by the police that there was nothing that she could do because this was an entirely legitimate practice. It cannot be right that people are allowed to do that. That is why we feel that new clause 2 is so important.

Protecting Children in Conflict Areas

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Wednesday 25th April 2018 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I want to declare, as relevant items in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, that I went to Jordan with Oxfam in 2015 and made two visits with RESULTS UK, which supports the work of the all-party parliamentary group on global education for all, which I now chair.

I warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Dundee West (Chris Law) on securing the debate and on his powerful opening speech. It is also a great pleasure to speak after the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham). Both are active members of the International Development Committee, and they have raised important issues. I look forward to the response from the Minister and from the Labour Front Bench.

As I listened to the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire I reflected on visits that the Select Committee has made, and was struck by the opportunities we have had to meet children who have escaped from some of the worst conflicts in the world. In Uganda last year, we met Congolese children who were being educated in Kampala. They had escaped the appalling conflicts that have scarred the Democratic Republic of the Congo for many years. In 2015 I visited the Zaatari refugee camp with Oxfam, and met Syrian children traumatised by the experience of barrel bombs being used on the communities where they had grown up. They had to flee and all that they and their families wanted was the opportunity to go back to a peaceful Syria. Most recently, of course, the Committee last month visited Cox’s Bazar—the hon. Lady told the story of the families we met when we were there.

I have also been reflecting on the experience of the predecessor Committee, when we went to Nigeria and met the amazing campaigners for girls who had been abducted by Boko Haram. One of the factors that we need to address when talking about children in conflict is the actions of armed groups such as Boko Haram, as well as the actions of Governments. The hon. Member for Dundee West was right to remind us about the children of Yemen, the appalling consequences of the conflict there, the atrocities by all sides, and the impact on children growing up there.

As crises around the world become more complex and protracted, it is vital to use opportunities such as today’s debate to restate the centrality of the protection of children to our development and foreign policies. As the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire said, schools wherever they are should surely be safe havens for children. Even when crisis strikes or even in conflict, children should not be denied the fundamental right to education, yet often schools are targets for attack by armed forces and groups. In some cases they are even turned into military bases or barracks. Even the presence of armed personnel close to a school puts children in the line of fire. There are countless examples from conflict zones around the world where that has happened. Of course there is an addition element—children’s vulnerability to recruitment as soldiers or to sexual exploitation.

I welcome the fact that the Minister last week signed the safe schools declaration on behalf of the United Kingdom, making us the 74th country in the world to do so. I am pleased about that because I and others called for it to happen when we were here to debate the Select Committee’s report on global education just before the Easter recess. The declaration is important. It commits Governments around the world not to use schools for military purposes, and to ensure that they are protected even during military operations. Now that the UK has signed it, we have an opportunity and responsibility to encourage as many other nations as possible to sign up. I hope the Minister will use her good offices to do so.

I want to state my appreciation for the efforts of the fantastic Send My Friend to School campaign, which has mobilised public opinion, particularly among children and young people in this country, on global education. In particular, it ran a high-profile campaign encouraging the UK to sign up to the safe schools declaration. As the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire said, it is a big challenge to ensure that the increasing number of children caught up in conflict situations, either internally displaced or living as refugees, get some sort of quality education.

More than half of the world’s registered refugees of school age are not in school. Funding for education in humanitarian emergencies is not readily available, and less than 2% of global humanitarian funding goes towards education. When we visited Cox’s Bazar, we saw the efforts being made to provide some sort of education, but essentially the child-friendly spaces in the camp provided two hours’ education a day. That is clearly better than nothing but we need to aim for much better. It is perfectly understandable that humanitarian support in the form of food, water and shelter is given first priority, but surely we must not neglect the importance of investing in education for children who have been forced to flee their homes. What more will the Government do to work with the authorities in Bangladesh to ensure that the fleeing Rohingya refugees have access to quality education while they are displaced?

I reiterate some of the points the hon. Lady made about the Education Cannot Wait fund, which was launched in 2016 at the World Humanitarian Summit. As she rightly said, the UK has played a leading role and is the biggest single funder. It is a fund dedicated to education for children in emergencies and protracted crises. DFID has pledged £30 million already, but we know that, as conflicts become more protracted, it will be even more important to have funds such as Education Cannot Wait. I would welcome confirmation from the Minister today that the Government maintain that commitment.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency has long been regarded as one of the best multilateral organisations in the world. It operates in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Gaza and the west bank, and provides services for more than 5 million registered Palestinian refugees and their descendants, who have been displaced since the 1940s. UNRWA has been hit recently by a decision by the Trump Administration in the United States to cut its funding.

Child protection is central to UNRWA’s work. Given the volatile nature of the region, Palestinian refugee children have faced enormous challenges, including as a consequence of the conflict in Syria, the impact of the Israeli occupation and the blockade of Gaza, and simply the protracted nature of their displacement. Even faced with all those crises, UNRWA has come up with innovative ways in which to ensure that children caught up in them are protected and given an education. When the Select Committee visited Jordan and Lebanon, we visited an UNRWA school in Jordan, and were impressed by the quality of education provided for those Palestinian children.

In Syria, UNRWA has developed a series of self-learning materials for children in hard-to-reach or besieged areas who have been out of education for prolonged periods. A series of summer learning activities and catch-up classes is provided to students who have missed out on education, to help them to catch up with their peers. The agency also runs recreational spaces supervised by teaching staff and support counsellors, where refugee children can learn and engage in recreational activities, hopefully free from the threat of violence. In 2012, UNRWA launched its own education TV channel, broadcasting from Gaza and providing additional educational support to students and parents. It broadcasts English, maths, Arabic and science lessons to refugee children across the region, to ensure they do not miss out on learning the vital skills they need for their future.

I urge the Government, and the Minister if she has time in her response, to both reaffirm the UK’s long-standing commitment to UNRWA, and say that we will work with other donors to ensure that funding cuts by the US do not hit the vital work it does.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government should support moves from other multilateral education funders such as the Global Partnership for Education to look at funding non-state actors where they control particular regions, such as the Kurds in the northern region of Syria, so that they can access education funding for their children?

[Stephen Twigg]

That is an important point for both GPE and Education Cannot Wait. The agencies best placed to provide education in some of these emergency situations are often non-state actors. It is important that informal as well as formal education receives the necessary funding. Last week, I met with Alice Albright, the head of GPE, to discuss what more the organisation can do to support Syrian refugees, particularly in Lebanon and Jordan, and Rohingya refugees. GPE is looking at those issues, and my hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw our attention to them.

The hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire touched on the important issue of sexual exploitation in the aid sector. I put on record again my tribute to her personally. She has been raising the issue for some time, well ahead of recent public and parliamentary interest. I remind colleagues that that follows damning reports of sexual misconduct by Oxfam aid workers in Haiti. As a result, our Select Committee is conducting an inquiry into sexual exploitation. In Haiti, aid workers exploited aid recipients after the earthquake in 2011. I thank The Times, in particular, and other journalists for shining a light on that appalling situation.

As the hon. Lady rightly reminded us, there have been long-standing concerns that some United Nations peacekeeping missions have failed the children they are meant to protect. In February, the UN revealed that it had registered 18 cases of sexual abuse and exploitation by its peacekeepers and civilian personnel in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Some of those involved were minors, and we have had previous complaints about actions by UN staff in a number of countries, including from Senegal, Uruguay and South Africa. In those instances, people who were sent to protect children from crises tragically became the very people committing violence, adding to the crisis. If we are to protect children in future crises, surely we have to be able to trust the people who are meant to be there to provide that protection.

My final point is one that has already been touched on: the mental health impact of crises on children. Of course, when a crisis strikes, the first step of any humanitarian response is the basic services of food, water and shelter, but the psychological impact of those conflicts on children should not be overlooked. Without access to proper mental health and psychosocial support, there is a risk that children will develop greater problems later in life, and that their ability to rebuild their lives after conflict will be limited.

Last December, War Child published a report calling on the Government to commit a minimum of 1% of humanitarian funding to mental health services for children and their support networks. I ask the Minister to set out in her response what priority the Government place on the challenges of mental health and psychosocial support for children caught up in crises. Protecting all children caught up in conflict is important. That means protecting them from the threat of violence in whatever form it might take, including sexual violence, but also, in so far as we can, it must surely mean allowing children to live as normal a life as possible and preparing them for life after conflict.

That is why education is so central to this debate on the protection of children, and why the UK has such an important role to play not only in our bilateral work on education, but in the multilateral organisations such as Education Cannot Wait and the Global Partnership for Education. The right to education surely does not end when a conflict begins. It is critical that children caught up in conflict are still provided with every opportunity to continue to learn.

Yemen

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Tuesday 24th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

The UK is not meant to sell weapons to countries when there is a clear risk that they will kill innocent civilians or break international humanitarian law. We sell 50% of all our weapons to Saudi Arabia, and 61% of all the killings have been the result of Saudi and coalition airstrikes. What is the Government’s red line on breaking international humanitarian law? When will we stop licensing the killing of innocent civilians?

[Harriett Baldwin]

The hon. Gentleman might even be a member of one of the Committees involved in this, so he will know exactly what the wording is for our arms exports criteria. We have heard from other colleagues about the missiles that are being fired into Saudi Arabia, and this allows me to reiterate—perhaps in conclusion, Mr Speaker—that a political solution is the only way forward to bring long-term stability to Yemen.

International Development: Education

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Thursday 29th March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

I echo the comments we have heard. As a member of the Select Committee, I was very pleased to be able to support this report. I have to refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests—I, too, attended the RESULTS UK trip to Liberia last year. Liberia is an interesting case study, because of the recent pilot that the Liberian Government have undertaken. They have trialled a number of alternative models of education: one whereby they have used Bridge International Academies, which we touch on in the report; one whereby they use local NGOs as providers; and one whereby they use completely non-profit international NGOs. When we spoke to some of the international NGOs on that trip, I was reassured about their motivation for engaging in those projects, which seemed very clear to me: they were there to help to reform the education system and then hand it back to the Government, with the idea that it should be the Government, in the long run, providing all or the vast majority of education services in-country.

Street Child, which works internationally, added only $50 extra to the $50 provided by the Government, meaning that there was $100 to educate each child. However, Bridge Academies added hundreds of dollars extra to educate each child from external money, meaning that no Government in the developing world would be able to sustain that level of investment if the schools returned to the Government. The report that follows and the outcomes base are interesting because they show that the Street Child education was more inclusive, reached out to more young people and had the same or equivalent outcomes as Bridge Academies. That study means that the Department needs to relook at its involvement with Bridge Academies and other providers and consider value for money. It is one of the first case studies in which we have seen schools running side by side in one country and sometimes in the same city. The Government in Liberia want to move towards a project with the Global Partnership for Education whereby they would directly run the schools. Although we are not a major funder directly to Liberia, we are a funder through the GPE, and we need to look closely at that model and reflect that in our work. I hope the Minister will take it into consideration.

The GPE, whose Senegal replenishment conference I attended with the Secretary of State, requires countries to spend 20% of their tax revenue on education. We do not achieve that domestically, so we are asking developing countries to achieve a very high bar. DFID achieves only about 10%—we hope that that is growing—which poses the question: are we asking others to do something that we do not achieve ourselves, either in the international development budget or in our domestic budget? We need to reflect on that, because power is not just about being a funder and setting the rules, but about leading by example and showing others the way.

On the GPE and replenishment, we recommended in the report that the full amount—$500 million, which is about £300 million—should be invested over the three-year term. I have written to the UK Statistics Authority about the use of Government statistics in this respect. The Government say in their response that there is a 50% increase on their previous contribution. I do not believe that fully reflects the picture. The pledge last time was £300 million over four years, which is £75 million a year. The pledge this time is £225 million over three years, not four, which is £75 million a year. The per-year figure is identical. The Department is right that we did not spend all our pledged money last time, which meant that we spent only about £50 million a year. We might spend the full amount this time, but we cannot compare what we spent to a pledge. One has to compare either a pledge with a pledge where we have maintained the same pledge, or a spend with a spend, in which case we cannot tell what we will spend until after the spending period. We have imposed almost exactly the same conditions in terms of the cap and performance indicators on these pledges as we did last time, which was one reason why we did not fulfil the full cap last time. This time, I hope the GPE manages to meet all our conditions and that it is able to draw down the whole amount.

We have given a very generous amount, and I do not want to take it away from the Department at all that we are the single biggest country donor and the second biggest donor after the EU, to which, of course, we have contributed, in the GPE. We should be very proud of that, but we should be so proud that we do not have to fudge the figures. I would appreciate the Department coming back and saying, “Yes, we understand that for public relations purposes we did this, but the reality is that we are looking for a like-for-like match.”

I also note that, on the same day as the pledge was announced, the Department released its new plan—its policy refresh—for education. Broadly, it was a very positive policy refresh, but I am concerned about page 16, which states:

“Securing teacher reform will be politically challenging for national decision-makers. It will often require long negotiation with influential teachers’ unions which have the capability to mobilise at national scale should they oppose reform. Politicians who rely on teachers’ political support face difficult trade-offs in negotiating improvements”.

I am worried about the tone that that sets. It does not talk about unions in a positive way. It does not say that politicians who work with unions are more likely to get added value in reform if they bring teachers along. It sets up a clear dichotomy between reform and unions, which is a real shame. I would hate to see again the negative and pernicious attitude that was in the Department for Education with the Secretary of State a Government ago. He described unions and teachers as “The Blob”. I am sure that that is not what the Department meant, but that phrase was very poor and did not positively engage with teachers’ unions, which have played a very positive role globally and sit alongside our Secretary of State on the governing board of the GPE. We should see them as partners, not adversaries.

Finally, I want to touch upon some of the issues around the international finance facility for education. We recommended that the Department commit to that. It only partly agreed to do so in its response, saying that it will look at the issue and when it has greater detail it will decide. I am worried that this is the same approach that happened with the GPE. We asked for an early announcement and a pledge to refinance. The Government said, “Oh yes, just wait.” Only the day before did they announce—on the GPE—the amount we would pledge. If we are trying to leverage more money and support, we must announce early—we must be a forerunner, not a follower. With the GPE, we have pledged an amount now that is unlikely to reach the cap and really has not leveraged a greater amount. I worry that if in the international finance facility for education we do not pledge early, strongly and unequivocally, other countries and donors will hold off. I hope the Minister will be able to make a slightly stronger commitment than the Department did in its report.

I have picked out some of the things I disagree with in the Department’s response, but it is important to note that, on the vast majority of things, we are clearly at one—the Government, the Committee and, I hope, Parliament. We support global education. We understand the value that it gives to people and children in the developing world, particularly to young girls and people with disabilities, where we have led the way. We also understand the value for our country of providing a world that is more educated and more equipped to engage in positive economic activity, and that fulfils the human rights we value.

UK-EU: International Development

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Wednesday 21st March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Dr Williams]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for raising that issue. Together with our EU partners, we are the world’s largest donor, but if we are alone we will fall down the pecking order. At least some of our influence comes from working with EU partners, but I concede that our role and our leadership as a stand-alone player are still very important.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making very good progress. Does he agree that it is not just money that is important to our influence in the EU? In the final stages of the sustainable development goal negotiations, there were four actors around the table: the EU, the US, the G77 and the co-chairs. Is there not a risk that if we do not come to an agreement with the EU, we will lose a seat in some of the informal negotiations that shape development policy?

[Dr Williams]

I thank my hon. Friend for that wise intervention. Yes, there is a risk that we will lose much of our influence if we do not get this right.

My final point is that we need to think seriously about what kind of country we want to become. The Select Committee on Foreign Affairs recently warned that the rhetoric of “global Britain” risks becoming nothing more than a slogan. Just a fortnight ago, DFID signed a controversial new humanitarian partnership with Saudi Arabia, despite what it is doing to put 8.4 million people in Yemen at risk of famine. When we form the wrong alliances, it could spell disaster for development. Some may say that we could form aid partnerships with nations such as the United States, but that would put our existing work at risk, especially in the light of the President’s Executive order that brings back the so-called global gag rule. We could find our ongoing progress on sexual health and reproductive rights held back by others’ beliefs.

Our partnership with the EU must surely be one of our top priorities. Given what is at stake and the risks of getting it wrong, we cannot afford to treat our humanitarian partnership as a bargaining chip in Brexit negotiations. The impact of our contributions on millions of lives and the amplification that they give to DFID are far too important to sacrifice in Brexit negotiations. I hope that today we will have a chance to put party politics aside and restate what I believe is a widespread commitment to moving forward with an ambitious and substantive partnership with the EU on international development.

To move forward, we need to fully understand the Government’s position, so I hope the Minister will paint a clearer picture of it today. In September, the Government published an ambiguous Brexit position paper, “Foreign policy, defence and development”, that made a commitment to an ambitious international development partnership with the EU. Six months on, however, the details are still lacking. Just weeks ago, DFID published a new paper that suggested that the UK will seek flexible engagement with different funds. It says that we will continue to seek influence and a seat at the table wherever we can—hardly a clear or compelling vision. Surely the public, our EU partners, non-governmental organisations and developing nations deserve more clarity than that.

I ask the Minister to provide some clarity by answering the following questions. What EU funds do the Government want to contribute to? Will the Government continue making contributions to the central EU budget, or only to ring-fenced funds outside it? Will they actively push for the European development fund to remain independent, ring-fenced and outside the scope of the central EU budget? I understand that that is far from certain. What influence would we need to secure from the EU in order to consider the negotiations to have been successful? What exact plans is DFID making for a no-deal scenario?

Tamsyn Barton, the chief executive of the UK international development network, Bond—British Overseas NGOs for Development—has already warned that DFID runs the risk that the EU will see it as cherry-picking. The Government’s new paper also urges so-called creative thinking. I hope that our negotiations in this important area of humanitarianism will not suffer from the same negotiating weaknesses that we have seen elsewhere.

I hope that this debate will be just the beginning of a meaningful discussion on the future of the UK-EU international development partnership. Questions remain about how Parliament will have a say on this crucial topic in the future and about how we will exercise real scrutiny over the Government’s position. The UK has collaborated with the EU for decades, with shared goals and values, to eliminate hunger, poverty, disease and inequality and to tackle conflict and crisis at scale. That partnership is too important to risk. We must now get on with the business of making sure that we preserve it once we leave the European Union.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Mr Hanson, for calling me to speak. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (Dr Williams) for securing this debate, which is very important. Hopefully it will spur on the International Development Committee, which I sit on, to expedite its planned inquiry into this issue.

I will briefly touch on a number of issues, which supplement those that have already been raised, and which are particularly about the co-ordination of non-governmental organisations. At the moment, Britain and London are one of the leading hubs for NGOs and aid organisations around the world. Those organisations receive a number of substantial grants, from not only the British Government but the European Union, and they receive them because they have their headquarters or administrative offices in the European Union.

One thing we must ensure in any leaving of the EU is that we do not disadvantage NGOs that have decided to base themselves in Britain—very often because the British people have been so generous historically in supporting international development. We not only have Oxfam in Oxford, of course, but this city—London—is a leader for international development. Having a commitment that the Government will not only continue to support these NGOs from Government funds but go and bat for the NGO sector so that these NGOs are eligible for EU funds, even if their registered address is in London, will be vital to ensure that they continue their co-ordinated work. I hope that the Government will make a commitment on that.

On visits with many hon. Friends, I have seen how co-ordination on the ground is so important. Often, one of the big players—in other words, the EU or the United States Agency for International Development—takes a co-ordinating role between Government donors in countries, and Britain has often stepped up to co-ordinate EU efforts. Sierra Leone is one good example of that. Making sure that Britain is able to take the lead in co-ordinating Government efforts in-country, whether we are part of the EU or we have a memorandum of understanding with it, will be really important in ensuring that we continue batting like that.

The other thing I want to raise is the 2019 report to the high-level political forum. I welcome the fact that the Government themselves will report to that forum, which evaluates the sustainable development goals, but the EU will also report to it in the same year. How the Government feed into that report—feeding in the good work that Britain does—will be important, because it is international frameworks that help to leverage our money so that we have a bigger bang for our buck. However, if the EU report does not include British priorities, there is a danger that our voice will be diminished on the international stage. It would be really good to hear from the Minister on some of those issues.

I will finish by saying that very often, in my experience of international development diplomacy, and as I mentioned previously, it has been the EU that has led and co-ordinated, and it has been Britain within the EU that has helped to push the EU to be a leader in certain areas. I wonder whether the Government have had any significant discussions about how they will continue to play a leading role in “EU-plus”—I say “plus” because we will not be in the EU—co-ordination in New York when we are involved in these important negotiations. I ask that because there is a real danger, when we leave the EU, that if we do not have an arrangement with the EU to negotiate jointly with it, we will just not be “in the room”.

I leave Members with one anecdote. I was in the negotiations that set up the HLPF, and I remember that we went off into a small room. It was, as I mentioned earlier, the US, the EU and a few other big players. At the end of the negotiations, we had worked out a deal, but Switzerland came and said, “We’re not happy with that deal. We don’t like it.” The chairman turned around to Switzerland and said, “Well, I’m sorry, Switzerland. You’re not one of the big development players. You have a choice: you can either put up or you can shut up, but we are not changing our negotiated position now. You can vote against it and let the whole thing fail, and you will be the pariah of the world.” Switzerland decided to shut up and live with the negotiated text, which it was not quite happy with. There is a real danger that if we do not ensure that we leverage work with our partners in the US and the EU, we will become a poor relation, as Switzerland was on that night of the negotiations.

[David Hanson (in the Chair)]

We now move to the Front-Bench winding-up speeches. Given where we are now, I suggest that both Front-Bench Members take up to a maximum of 10 minutes each, and then I will call the Minister.

International Development Committee: Burma Visas

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Wednesday 28th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

I thank my hon. Friend for his work in all those areas, and indeed as the Conservative party’s vice-chairman in charge of London affairs. I do not know where he gets the time to do all this work. Joking aside, I agree with everything he says. In many ways, we need to have a proper perspective on this issue, not just from the Bangladeshi side but from Burma too, in order to see to what extent there is any efficacy in being able to return to Burma at the earliest opportunity.

May I ask all Members here please to keep faith with Burma and the Burmese people? However much we distrust, dislike and wish to dislodge any Government, we must remember that this is important work that is being done. If we do not do it here in the United Kingdom, it is not clear that anyone else is going to have the commitment that we have; part of that, as everyone knows, is for historical reasons. Please keep that faith.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am, of course, disappointed by this, as one of the Committee members refused a visa. I am also deeply disappointed as a Member of Parliament who represents a city that not only gave Aung San Suu Kyi the freedom of our city but allowed her to curate the Brighton festival a number of years ago. This is a huge personal disappointment for me. Aung San Suu Kyi seems more and more now to be part of the problem, and not the solution, in some of the ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. This is happening not just to the Rohingya but also perhaps to Chinese nationals and Christian minorities in Burma. Will the Government consider convening an emergency summit to put sanctions in place not only against Burma but possibly even Aung San Suu Kyi’s family assets here in the UK? Will we immediately review some of our other aid projects such as the £5 million that we gave to Yangon University in a project with Oxford University last month, to make sure that that money is not being used for academic work that undermines the Rohingya? Could we at least try to go to the Security Council to get a referral to the ICC? It is better to have tried and failed than to have not tried at all.

[Mark Field]

The hon. Gentleman is right to identify the fact that, apart from the issue around the Rohingya—terrible though it is, and on a different scale from other minorities—other minorities have also suffered in that country, often for many decades. I take on board much of what he said. I have covered some of the issues about why we have not gone for a UN Security Council resolution at this stage. I hope that whatever investment is being made between the universities of Oxford and Yangon, some of it may be for very positive reasons, and we should not necessarily criticise it. However, we need to get to the bottom of that.

Syria: De-escalation Zones

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Monday 26th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

I do not wish to go back over the points that I have already made this afternoon about the red line that was, alas, crossed in 2013. Where there is incontrovertible evidence of chemical weapons attacks by the Syrian regime, with the connivance of the Russians, then—to answer the question that has been posed many times—the people responsible for those attacks should be held to account. By the way, it was as a result of UK lobbying and the activities of this Government that after the Khan Shaykhun attack we listed several members of the Assad military and imposed new sanctions on Syria. That is the way forward. To get to the question asked by the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), in the end it will be the fear of prosecution, sanctions and being prosecuted for war crimes that will have the most powerful effect on the imagination of these individuals.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

I agree entirely with the Foreign Secretary that we must aim for a political solution. Do today’s revelations in the media that we have spent more on our air campaign in the region than we have on humanitarian aid in both Syria and Iraq during the same period show that we should put our money where our mouth is and prioritise aid, sanctions and peace negotiations, not a costly air campaign next door that does not seem to be working?

[Boris Johnson]

Much as I admire the hon. Gentleman’s idealism, I must respectfully disagree with him. I believe that our military campaign has been highly effective in removing Daesh from Raqqa and Mosul. It was invaluable. The UK had the second biggest number of missions in the air campaign, as the House will know, and it was crucial that we did that. At the same time, as I have said to many hon. Members, we should not neglect the towering work of our humanitarian aid workers. We support the White Helmets very generously, for example, and they have saved 100,000 lives, which is something in which the people of this country can take a great deal of pride. Britain is leading in the humanitarian effort in Syria.