Overseas Development Assistance

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Wednesday 26th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con) [V]]

My Lords, as I and colleagues have said, cutting aid from 0.7% to 0.5% is not a choice that was made easily and was not what any of us wanted to do. However, the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and the Chancellor are all in agreement that they want the UK to return to 0.7% as soon as the fiscal situation allows, as confirmed in the integrated review. We do, of course, hope that that happens as soon as possible.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, how does the Minister respond to this week’s Sunday Times report that hundreds of millions of doses of medicines for treating neglected tropical diseases, donated by pharmaceutical companies, will go to waste as funding cuts will leave these life-saving medicines in warehouses, undelivered? What is his assessment of the impact of the ODA cuts on the Government’s ability to meet the 2019 manifesto commitment to “lead the way” in eradicating malaria?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am afraid that I am not aware of that report, but I will ensure that whichever colleague in the department in whose portfolio this sits will respond to the noble Lord. On global health more broadly, we have, for instance, pledged up to £1.65 billion to Gavi to support routine immunisations. We have also made new public commitments of up to £1.3 billion of ODA to counter the wider health, socioeconomic and humanitarian impacts of the pandemic. Of course, we have had to prioritise our Covid response because Covid is the dominant health issue today, but it not the only health issue, of course. We remain one of the world’s biggest funders of health globally.

Integrated Review: Development Aid

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Wednesday 28th April 2021 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

That the Grand Committee takes note of the reduction in United Kingdom development aid and its impact on achieving the objectives outlined in the Integrated Review of national security and international policy.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I express my thanks to colleagues on the Cross Benches for choosing this Motion for debate, but also to the many Members from all parts of the House participating today. They all bring significant expertise and knowledge to our proceedings, including the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, the sponsor of the International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Act 2015, and former Ministers, including my long-standing friends the noble Baronesses, Lady Chalker and Lady Northover, and the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, who with great principle and honour resigned her post in protest at the abnegation of the Act. I also thank the Library for the excellent note prepared in advance of the debate, and draw attention to my role as an officer of several relevant all-party parliamentary groups.

In 1970, as a student, I campaigned for the implementation of Resolution 2626 of the United Nations, urging developed nations to raise their aid contribution to 0.7%, and in seven parliamentary elections which I contested in Liverpool always committed myself to voting in Parliament to support that target. The Motion enables us to reiterate our commitment to what is, after all, a long way short of the injunction to tithe; to drill down into the integrated review’s objective for the UK to be

“a force for good in the world”;

and to ask how that claim can be squared with a precipitous cut in development aid from 0.7% of GNI to 0.5%. I hope that the Minister will tell us whether he agrees that the estimate of a £4 billion cut in real terms is correct.

In response to today’s debate, the Minister will be pressed on the central question: whether the Government intend to introduce legislation to reduce ODA funding this year and, if not, how they intend to ensure that they are acting lawfully and in accordance with their statutory obligations. I particularly look forward to the speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, who will address that point further.

Yesterday, Dominic Raab, the Foreign Secretary, appeared before the International Relations and Defence Select Committee. He has previously said that

“we will need to bring forward legislation in due course.”

Does that remain the case? If the Government’s position is now that legislation will not be necessary because 0.7% will be restored when fiscal circumstances allow, can the Minister describe the fiscal criteria that will be used to permit a restoration to 0.7%? By sleight of hand the temporary could, as we all know, so easily become permanent.

The immediate fiscal criteria do not look very promising. The Office for National Statistics says that in 2020 we recorded our worst economic performance in more than 300 years, with the economy contracting by 9.9%. But if times are tough and require draconian cuts, how do we square these cuts in aid with the cost of increasing the number of nuclear warheads—also announced in the review and in contravention of our non-proliferation commitments?

Even before these drastic cuts in ODA, we were confronted by the reality of a smaller cake, but our spending priorities and life-and-death decisions should have been shaped by parliamentary scrutiny and informed by a review—not, as with the merger of DfID and the FCO or swingeing cuts to ODA, retrospectively justified by one. As my noble friend Lord Hannay said last week, the cart has preceded the horse.

Circumventing legislation, avoiding scrutiny, curtailing debate and upending due process and good governance lead to bad decisions. Many of us are jealous of the role of Parliament and object when we see it diminished. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay of St Johns, chair of the International Relations Committee, on which I serve, specifically points to what she calls the review’s

“lack of consistency in the approach to relations with countries in Africa”—[Official Report, 22/4/21; col. 1986.]

and the failure to provide details of the effects on individual countries. Today, I hope the Minister can rectify that lack of detail—cut by cut, sector by sector, country by country. Concealing these details from Parliament is simply unacceptable.

In a curious, largely undefined, phrase the review says:

“We will be active in Africa”.


What will this mean in Tigray, in anglophone Cameroon, in ravaged Mozambique, in South Sudan, in northern Nigeria and in combating the rise of Jihadist ideology? What is the review’s justification for switching emasculated resources from west Africa and the Sahel? Ahead of this debate I drew the Minister’s attention to UN estimates that, in the Horn of Africa, some 4.5 million Tigrayans urgently require emergency and life-saving assistance and that over 2.5 million children are malnourished. People are being starved to death and, in terrible massacres reminiscent of Darfur and Rwanda, there have been brutal killings and an estimated 10,000 women raped. Unbelievably, some Tigrayans have fled to Yemen, believing that they will be safer.

As the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, will no doubt remind us, development is impossible without conflict resolution. Is it the case that the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund has been cut by a staggering £363 million —by 50%? That will merely add to the 70 million people displaced worldwide, making no sense in terms of our security, let alone our humanitarian duties.

Consider Yemen, where the FCDO’s Chris Bold says that aid has been cut by 50%. Millions are facing starvation and food insecurity. Around half of all children under five in Yemen—2.3 million—are projected to face acute malnutrition in 2021. Nearly 400,000 are expected to suffer from severe acute malnutrition and could die if they do not receive urgent treatment. No impact assessment was made of the effect of the cuts on vulnerable groups such as women, children, people with disabilities or displaced people. Why not? This is downright irresponsible. In an excoriating remark, Mark Lowcock, the UK’s first special envoy for famine prevention, said that we are trying to

“balance the books on the backs of the starving people of Yemen”.

Bilateral programmes in Yemen, Syria and Sudan will be disproportionately affected as it is harder to extricate the UK from multilateral programmes, so funding is lost merely because it is allocated through the wrong line. Yet in yesterday’s welcome session with the Foreign Secretary, he said that the Government were not salami slicing. He was asked about his seven strategic criteria for the FCDO: climate change, Covid, girls’ education, science and technology, open societies, humanitarian assistance and trade.

Measure the criteria against resources and the random way in which it has been done. Girls’ education, an FCDO priority, will be cut by 25%. Save the Children says that humanitarian preparedness and response will be cut by 44%, despite 200 NGOs warning that more than 34 million vulnerable people will face famine or famine-like conditions.

CSW says that

“spending on the newly formed Open Societies and Human Rights directorate”

is set

“to fall by as much as 80%.”

The FCDO priorities of promoting freedom of religion or belief and media freedom no longer specifically appear in the criteria. Will their programmes be reduced? How will the John Bunyan fund and the Magna Carta fund be affected?

This morning, Sky News reported that a memo prepared for Minister Wendy Morton estimates that bilateral funding for water projects in developing nations will be cut by 80%. Clean water, handwashing and good hygiene are critical defences in the fight against coronavirus, which has claimed 3 million lives globally, and today we think especially of our friends in India. Since 2015, the UK has helped over 62.6 million people gain access to safe water and sanitation. That is something to be incredibly proud of, not to curtail.

Ahead of Glasgow’s COP 26 summit on climate change, we must not lose focus on water security. My noble friend Lady Hayman will doubtless remind us of this and how our ODA contributes to the defence of the planet. The Royal Society says that we are weakening those defences, with global programmes in science cut by—in its figures—well over £500 million and the UK no longer regarded as a reliable partner.

Meanwhile, Devex reported yesterday that funding for polio eradication will be cut by a catastrophic 95%. David Salisbury from Chatham House also warned that the slashed funding

“could threaten the eradication initiative.”

In 2019, the former International Development Secretary Alok Sharma rightly said:

“If we were to pull back on immunisations, we could see 200,000 new cases each year in a decade. This would not only be a tragedy for the children affected and their families, but also for the world. We cannot let this happen.”


So, why are we now letting it happen? In Questions earlier this week, the noble Lord, Lord Collins, asked for details of how much ODA will be dedicated to the polio eradication programme, the Gavi vaccine alliance, the Global Fund and nutrition programmes. I hope he will be answered today. The race to buy up vaccines has merely underlined gross inequalities worthy of Lazarus and Dives.

My noble friend Lord Crisp, a former Permanent Secretary at the Department of Health, will remind us that many British clinicians voluntarily provide support to their colleagues in low and middle-income countries such as Myanmar. It is essential that the FCDO holds to its commitment to support this vital work at this awful time in a country where, following the coup, medical staff are themselves targets for assassination. In addition, we should significantly improve arrangements for diaspora to send remittances from the UK to developing countries.

Voluntary giving is personified by our flagship Voluntary Service Overseas, which, thanks in part to the efforts of my noble friend Lady Coussins and an intervention by the Select Committee, will receive a welcome extension of the V4D grant. However, it will still sustain a 45% cut in funding with, as it states, over 4 million people losing access to VSO services and with no ability to plan for the future of international youth volunteering and its International Citizen Service.

There are other extraordinary UK flagships, such as the increasingly emasculated British Council and the courageous BBC World Service, whose journalists are persecuted and vilified in Iran and driven out of China for exposing genocide against the Uighurs and breaking information blockades in North Korea and Myanmar. BBC World and the British Council, like VSO and our championing of the rule of law—which the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, will doubtless speak about—combine our values with global reach. They are fine examples of soft power, or what Joseph Nye dubbed “smart power”.

The review describes the UK’s soft power as

“rooted in who we are as a country”

and

“central to our international identity as an open, trustworthy and innovative country”.

The review also states:

“It helps to build positive perceptions of the UK”


and to

“create strong people-to-people links”.

Yes, but how will we be perceived if we break commitments and carefully nurtured relationships, are seen to disregard our own laws and foolishly allow other actors, such as the CCP, to replace a country committed to the rule of law, human rights and democracy with its authoritarian economic coercion and its use of debt bondage, suborning countries and multilateral institutions through its $770 billion belt and road projects?

While I welcome the Government’s decision finally to cut aid to the regime of the Chinese Communist Party by 95%, I would be grateful if the Minister could respond to today’s report from the Independent Commission for Aid Impact. It says that, last year, opaque arrangements and pockets of public money in multiple departments, described as a “complex mosaic”, led to a record £68.4 million being used as aid to China, up from £44.7 million in 2015. Why have we been doing this, not least while the CCP is identified in the review as a “systemic” threat to the UK and its interests?

To conclude, yesterday, the Foreign Secretary emphasised the importance of transparency, an integrated approach and value for money. Transparency will be assisted by a commitment today from the Minister to publish all planned spending of UK aid in 2021-22 and to resist the usual default that we will learn more in due course. Programmes cannot be planned and implemented on that haphazard and erratic basis.

The integrated review insists that we are

“one of the world’s leading development actors, committed to the global fight against poverty, to achieving the SDGs by 2030 and to maintaining the highest standards of evidence and transparency for all our investments.”

It promises a “new international development strategy” that, from next year, will realign UK aid with what it calls a strategic framework, about which we will hope to hear more. To achieve all that, it will be crucial to restore the commitment to 0.7%. We should do this because it is in our national interest but also because it is morally the right thing to do. Generous altruism and self-interest are two sides of one coin. All five of the UK’s living former Prime Ministers have called on the Government to think again. I hope that this debate, with such an impressive array of formidable speakers, will reinforce that call. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, for his response to a debate marked by well-informed and wise speeches—many rooted in personal and first-hand experiences. In the absence of government time, the Cross Benches have performed an important service in facilitating this debate. The Minister has just told us what we are doing using our overseas development aid; indeed, it was a compelling speech about the importance of ODA. But he did not address what we will no longer be able to do—which is the point of this debate.

During the debate many noble Lords rightly paid tribute to Lord Judd. He was widely admired and respected. In the Commons, we overlapped by literally a few days—I was elected in a by-election just before the 1979 general election—but a friend put me in touch with him as someone whose brains I should pick. It was a privilege to meet him and subsequently, during my time in your Lordships’ House, we frequently found ourselves on the same side of the argument—as we would have been today. All sides of the House have rightly remembered him today with respect and affection.

Anyone who doubts the purpose or point of your Lordships’ House should read today’s debate. I thought that the arguments deployed, from wherever they came, were arguments that need to be addressed over the long term in the way we think about our development aid programmes. I hope that the Hansard report of the debate will be circulated widely to people who either disparage or do not understand the point of your Lordships’ House.

It is sometimes said that politics is the religion of priorities. In this instance, we have chosen the wrong priorities; we have made the wrong choice. We cannot say that we will be a force for good in the world—which is what I want this country to be—and then take this kind of decision.

These are just some of the headlines from the debate. Noble Lords have succinctly said things like: “This cut shames our country”; “There has been no risk assessment”; “It has been dog-whistle politics”; “We need to be more transparent”; “We can’t turn it on and turn it off”; “It’s a very serious mistake”; “These are deeply misguided proposals”; “We should be leading the world”; “War zones are poor zones” and “It’s particularly short-sighted and politically indefensible”. Another Peer said, “Sustainable development is in everyone’s interest.” We are told to be a “science superpower” and a “superpower in soft power” but these cuts will threaten our ability to influence either. Of course, we were also reminded of what the Minister himself said in a previous incarnation: that foreign aid benefits us all.

We have a clear legal obligation. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, and many others made that clear during the course of the debate. I did not feel that we had an answer from the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, to that central question. I hope that a letter will be sent following the debate to those who participated, setting out the Government’s response on the legality and constitutionality of the decision that has been taken. Even though the Minister has tried to address a lot of the remarks that have been made, I hope he will not feel that is the end of this process. Prorogation is about to be on us, but I hope that he and his officials will sit and read Hansard, and respond to that central question and others that have not been answered.

There is a story about two Pre-Raphaelite painters, Rossetti and Morris. Whenever Rossetti saw someone in need, he would pour out everything in his pockets, walk away and never think about that person again. Morris, on the other hand, never gave a penny to anyone, but he said that he would work for a world in which there would be no more need. One was all heart and the other all head. In our debate today, we have heard a combination of those things. Martin Luther King put it well when he said:

“One day we will learn that the heart can never be totally right if the head is totally wrong. Only through the bringing together of head and heart, intelligence and goodness, shall man rise to a fulfilment of his true nature.”


Being a force for good, combining heart with head, surely lies at the heart of what we have been debating. I renew my thanks to everyone who has taken part in this excellent debate and I hope we will not walk away from this Room and forget the commitments the country has rightly entered into and which it must persist with. I thank all who have participated.

Motion agreed.

Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 22nd April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB) [V]]

My Lords, the Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, rightly says that the UK’s ambition should be to emerge as “a force for good”, while in his introduction to the integrated review, the Prime Minister says that

“liberal democracy and free markets remain the best model for the social and economic advancement of humankind.”

In drawing attention to the all-party groups of which I am an officer and to the current inquiry of the International Relations and Defence Select Committee, on which I serve, I want to drill down into the review’s objective that we will tilt towards the insufficiently defined Indo-Pacific and how we will constrain the Chinese Communist Party.

The integrated review recognises China’s increasing assertiveness as

“the most significant geopolitical factor of the 2020s”

and

“the biggest state-based threat to the UK’s economic security.”

It describes China as a “systemic competitor” and says the UK

“is likely to remain a priority target for such threats”,

including “cyber-attacks, disinformation and proxies.”

Yet, conspicuously, the review does not even mention Taiwan, which recently recorded its largest CCP air incursion yet. Why not? Combined with Russia’s opportunistic sabre-rattling against Ukraine, these challenges by autocracies pose a serious threat to international order. The Foreign Secretary has described the CCP’s industrial scale violations against the Uighurs and we call out China’s violations, including CCP sanctions on parliamentarians exercising their duties and BBC journalists committed to truth telling. We say we will stand up for them and for our values but continue to conduct and increase business.

I ask the Minister directly: is it licit for a signatory to the convention on the crime of genocide to do business as usual with a state credibly accused of genocide? Given what we know about Xinjiang’s concentration camps and slave labour, what changes are we making to our supply chains? What are we doing to make the UK less dependent on China, especially in strategic sectors?

Recent reports by Jo Johnson and Civitas warn of infiltration of UK higher education, intellectual property theft and worse. In its report Inadvertently Arming China?, Civitas says that more than half of the 24 Russell Group universities have worrying links with Chinese military-based institutions, including agencies involved in developing weapons of mass destruction. It says the UK’s response is

“a picture of strategic incoherence.”

We need to do better than that.

The threat to our way of life is symbolised by the treatment of Dr Li Wenliang after he tried to warn the world about Covid and the CCP’s imprisonment of a courageous young lawyer and citizen journalist, Zhang Zhan, tortured for going to Wuhan to expose the truth. It is symbolised by the jailing of Hong Kong’s democrats and the genocide of Uighurs.

In response, the review rightly emphasises and urges a multilateral response and for the UK to aim to be:

“the European partner with the broadest and most integrated presence”.

What can the Minister tell us of the proposed D10 alliance of democracies and President Biden’s suggested summit of democracies? What would the UK’s role be? Might potential allies like Singapore and Vietnam be excluded by too-narrow definitions? Strengthening ties with established Asian democracies, such as Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, and encouraging emerging democracies, such as Indonesia and Malaysia, and enhancing alliances with long-standing friends such as Singapore and India, will be key.

We must stand with those fighting tyranny in Burma and Hong Kong, and those like Australia who are sanctioned for speaking out. Note that China’s threat that Five Eyes countries should be careful lest their eyes be poked blind—their words—has been followed by New Zealand’s decision to leave Five Eyes. To achieve the review’s laudable aims, we must strengthen our alliances, stand with our friends and see how the frequently suborned multilateral architecture, especially at the United Nations, can be salvaged.

Hong Kong: Pro-Democracy Campaigners

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Monday 19th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, my noble and learned friend raises some important points about the people of Hong Kong. As he will have noted, we have taken specific steps to broaden the offer to British nationals overseas and their families. That process is operating well. Of course, if anyone seeks the sanctuary of the United Kingdom because of the persecution they face, we will look at each case individually and provide the support needed. That applies to anyone around the world.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, as a patron of Hong Kong Watch and an officer of the All-Party Group on Hong Kong, I personally know Martin Lee, the father of Hong Kong democracy, Margaret Ng, a formidable lawyer, and Jimmy Lai, a champion of free speech and a full holder of a UK passport. Does the Minister agree they deserve better than a medieval star chamber and a Stalinist show trial? Is the debasement of law by puppets and quislings not best met by calling out the Chinese Communist Party at the next meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Council, focusing on, as the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, said, the CCP’s lawbreaking and treaty-breaking, and its sentencing, imprisonment and detention in psychiatric institutions of women and men whose values we share?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I agree totally with the noble Lord on the issue of values. That is why, as I am sure he would acknowledge, we have led in statements and in consolidating and increasing support at the Human Rights Council. It is something I have personally been engaged in and will continue to campaign for and make note of. He raised the cases of various individuals. Speaking personally, I saw the final interview Jimmy Lai gave just before his arrest, and it is quite chilling to see the conduct that happened thereafter to someone who stood up for media freedom. What has he been arrested for? It is for illegal assembly. We need to put this into context as well.

Chinese Government Sanctions on UK Citizens

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Wednesday 14th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, first, let me assure my noble friend that, while acknowledging that we have important trade between the UK and China, we are not currently negotiating a trade agreement with China. On the issue of genocide, which has been debated in your Lordships’ House as well as the other place, we have already made the Government’s position absolutely clear: that is a determination for the courts and there is a due process to go through before that determination is made. But I can share with my noble friend the actions we have taken, notwithstanding that issue being determined or otherwise. We have acted and led on action against China, both with direct sanctions, as we have imposed recently against senior government officials in Xinjiang, as well as in multilateral fora such as the Human Rights Council, where we have seen increased support for the United Kingdom’s position and statements.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB) [V]]

My Lords, the Minister will know that the Chinese Communist Party’s sanctions against parliamentarians should always be seen in the context of the harrowing evidence of genocide and human rights violations given by courageous witnesses to the All-Party Parliamentary Groups of which I am an officer. Parliamentarians must not be cowed or intimidated into silence or losing focus on those substantive issues because of sanctions. In a week in which young Joshua Wong, who has spoken in your Lordships’ House, has seen his prison sentence extended, did the Minister also see that 75 year-old Koo Sze-yiu, a pro-democracy campaigner who has already served 11 prison sentences, said when defending himself in a Hong Kong Court that he would not seek mitigation or leniency for treatment of his cancer as he fully intended to continue protesting? He said:

“The next time, I will deliberately break the National Security Law. Do not be lenient or take pity on me.”


Does not such courageous dignity demonstrate to the CCP that it has united East and West, young and old and parliamentarians from all political traditions? Was not Liu Xiaobo, who suffered at the CCP’s hands, right when he said:

“Freedom of expression is the foundation of human rights, the source of humanity and the mother of truth”?

China: Convictions of Democracy Campaigners in Hong Kong

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Tuesday 13th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

I totally agree with my noble friend’s second point and I assure him that we are working directly with partners. He will be aware that on 9 January the Foreign Secretary released a statement with Australian, Canadian and US counter- parts on the mass arrests. On 13 March the Foreign Secretary issued a statement declaring a breach of the joint declaration. We continue to work with partners on further steps we may need to take.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I join the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, in thanking the Minister for his support following the imposition of sanctions. I declare that I serve as vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong and as a patron of Hong Kong Watch. Has the Minister noted that, following the Chinese Communist Party’s sanctions on European Union parliamentarians, major parties in the European Parliament have indicated that until sanctions against their MEPs are lifted they will not ratify the European Union comprehensive agreement on investment with China? While sanctions attempting to curtail free speech are imposed on UK parliamentarians, are the Government willing to make a commitment today to take similar action and see how concerted measures can be taken to ensure that parliamentary free speech is not impeded?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I note what the noble Lord has said. Again, I pay tribute to his work in standing up for the rights of people in both China and Hong Kong. We will continue to observe and work with our partners to see what further steps we can take. I cannot answer the specific point he raised on trade, and nor would he expect me to at this juncture, but, in terms of our relationship, we are keeping all things actively under review.

Human Rights Update

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con) [V]]

[Inaudible]—and also his own work in this respect. As I have already mentioned, I align myself with and recognise the strong sentiments of and the incredible role played by many in your Lordships’ House, and in the other place, on all sides of the two Chambers, in ensuring that we move forward in a constructive way on the important issue of the continuing suffering of the Uighur people. I fully acknowledge and respect the important contributions and role of Members in the other place, as well as your Lordships, in this respect.

On the specific point that my noble friend, and the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, raised on ensuring that unfettered access should be guaranteed, I absolutely agree; we are calling for that for Michelle Bachelet, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. On the specific issue of accountability and justice for those committing these crimes, I am sure my noble friend has noted the statement that my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary made jointly with the US Secretary of State and the Canadian Foreign Minister in this respect.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s Statement and its repetition here today by the Minister. In thanking him, and the Foreign Secretary, for the role that they have played in making a reality of these Magnitsky sanctions, I endorse everything that the noble Lords, Lord Collins and Lord Polak, and the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, have said. I have two questions for the Minister. First, higher up the food chain are people like Chen Quanguo, who has been responsible for giving the orders in Xinjiang against the Uighurs. Can the Minister, without going into individual cases, at least assure us that just because people are higher up the food chain, they will not avoid these Magnitsky sanctions in the future? Secondly, returning to the point made by the noble Baroness about pathways to determining genocide, can the Minister at least assure us that if he believed there to be convincing evidence of a genocide under way, in Xinjiang or anywhere else, he would not be in favour of continuing trade with a country complicit in genocide?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con) [V]]

My Lords, on the noble Lord’s second point, the United Kingdom has been seen to be taking action against anyone, or any country, that is found to be engaging in genocide following a judicial process, and, indeed, even where genocide has not been declared by a legal court. A good example is the suspension of trading relationships and other agreements. In answering the noble Lord’s first question, I also recognise that, yes, the United Kingdom does ensure that we produce a robust evidence base. As was seen recently with the situation in Myanmar, there have been occasions where we have taken action directly against people such as those leading the coup in that country.

Hong Kong: Electoral Reforms

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 11th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, on the noble Baroness’s point about sanctions, of course, that is one of several tools at our disposal in taking action against those who continue to suppress democracy and the rights of democracy. I did indeed hear the “Today” programme and the description of the congress’s decision. The best thing that I can say from the Dispatch Box about that decision is that it is anything but democracy: it is the continuing saga of further suppression of the democratic rights of the people of Hong Kong and of their right to choose their own representatives. We will continue to use all channels to ensure that China looks again very carefully at the situation in Hong Kong. On the issue of sanctions, as well as other tools at our disposal, I assure the noble Baroness that we are giving full consideration to everything available to us.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interests as vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong and as a patron of Hong Kong Watch. Given that BNO is not an accountability measure, what single action have we taken to hold the Chinese Communist Party to account for breaching the internationally binding Sino-British joint declaration? What cross-government assessment is being made of the CCP’s involvement in our critical national infrastructure? One example is the China General Nuclear Power Group, which is blacklisted in the US for stealing nuclear secrets, but which owns one-third of Hinkley Point in the United Kingdom?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

On the noble Lord’s second point, I can assure him that we take a very robust attitude to the operation of Chinese firms and companies within the United Kingdom. Of course, when there was a big challenge concerning the issue of 5G, we reflected on the provisions for that. I can point the noble Lord to several specific actions that we have taken, including those at the UN, dating back to May 2020. Most recently, on 22 February, the Foreign Secretary directly addressed the UN Human Rights Council, calling out the systematic violation of the rights and people of Hong Kong.

Myanmar: Protesters

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Wednesday 10th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, on my noble friend’s second point, we are currently reviewing all our trade because of the situation on the ground in Myanmar, and certainly not continuing it until such time as we see democracy restored. On the point about the ambassadors and others, at the UN and here in the UK, I stand for their courage and bravery—I am sure I speak for everyone in your Lordships’ House in that. They continue to represent the people of Myanmar in this country and elsewhere.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Democracy in Burma. Can I return the Minister for a moment to the question from my noble friend Lady Cox, specifically calling for a high-level United Nations Secretary-General-led visit to the region and ask whether he will press that? On the question by the noble Lord, Lord Sarfraz, will the Minister look particularly at the nonrecognition of the credentials of the junta’s appointees to the United Nations and to the Court of St James in the United Kingdom?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, on the noble Lord’s second point, I have already said that the current ambassador to the UN and the ambassador to the Court of St James continue to be the representatives of Myanmar in this country and at the UN. On the high-level visit, as I have said before, we are working through the Security Council and I will update noble Lords accordingly.

Tigray Conflict: Axum

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Tuesday 9th March 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of reports of a massacre at Axum in Tigray, which Amnesty International said may amount to crimes against humanity.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare my interest as a vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Eritrea.

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)]

My Lords, we believe that the allegations about human rights violations in the Amnesty report are credible. Over recent weeks, multiple reports, including from Human Rights Watch and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, have begun to document the scale of possible abuses and human rights violations in Tigray. Since the conflict started, the UK has called consistently for an end to the fighting, and I reiterate those calls today, as well as the need for urgent independent investigations into the atrocities in Tigray in order to end impunity.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. With vast numbers of Tigrayans having been displaced and 4 million now facing a manmade famine, reports from Amnesty and Human Rights Watch underline the allegations of crimes against humanity at Axum and allegations of an unfolding genocide. What are we doing to hold those responsible for this to account, including Nobel laureates? Why did we not jointly table last week a resolution with Ireland to the United Nations Security Council, despite China and Russia threatening to block it, along with supporting the international calls there for an immediate withdrawal of Eritrean troops from Tigray? Surely this is a prerequisite to ending the depredations in Tigray.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord that the situation in Tigray is dire. Since the conflict began, the UN Security Council has now discussed Ethiopia on four occasions. During the most recent discussions on 4 March, to which he referred, there was a clear consensus that the situation in Ethiopia, particularly the humanitarian situation, was of deep concern. It is regrettable, as he has pointed out, that certain members of the UN Security Council are continuing to block further discussion, and indeed public discussion, in the current sessions. However, we continue to press for actions in this respect.