Developing World: Debt Reduction

Lord Bellingham Excerpts

Tuesday 13th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

Further to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, surely we now need to double down on opportunities to sign bilateral trade treaties with different countries, in sub-Saharan Africa in particular. If they can increase their wealth through trade, obviously they will be able to pay off their debt in the future. Can my noble friend say something about those bilateral trade treaties that we are now able to sign post leaving the EU?

[Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con)]

My noble friend asks an important question about how we prioritise the trade deals that we are trying to do. For the poorest countries, the DCTS—the Developing Countries Trading Scheme—is there. Our priorities in terms of trade deals are with India and the Gulf Cooperation Council, which are very complex and need a lot of work. I think that is the right way round.

Ukraine Conflict

Lord Bellingham Excerpts

Wednesday 7th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I am not going to respond to media speculation. I have had the opportunity, as I am often reminded, to serve under a number of Foreign Secretaries and Prime Ministers—including former Prime Minister Boris Johnson —and, since this war started, it is very clear that the United Kingdom’s position has been consistent. It has been strong and firm, whether led by Boris Johnson or his successors—including our current Prime Minister, who visited Kyiv. The position from the UK is clear: we stand with Ukraine.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, there is a catastrophic food shortage in Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia and other countries in the Sahel. Historically, they have relied on grain exports from Ukraine, and indeed from Russia as well. Since Russia renounced the Black Sea grain initiative in July, those exports from Ukraine have fallen by 34%. Can the Minister give his assessment of the current situation? What more can be done to get more grain exports out of Ukraine to those hard-pressed parts of Africa?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend raises a very important point. Ukraine supplied to many across Africa—more than 400 million people were the beneficiaries of Ukraine’s grain exports. I can share with my noble friend that Ukraine is now exporting more grain than at any time since the war began. Monthly export figures for January saw in excess of 4.6 million tonnes of grain go through the Black Sea, which is a 32% increase on the peak month of the Black Sea grain initiative. That has become consistent because—although we praise the UN and other parties, such as Turkey, that brokered the deal—since it has been rejected by Russia, we have continued to stand steadfast. We have helped in the Black Sea and, although it is still very much early days, that is why we are beginning to see an increase. Long may that continue.

Taiwan: Elections

Lord Bellingham Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his work in this area and I will of course convey his thanks to my noble friend the Foreign Secretary. I assure him, and the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, that there are occasions—for example, at meetings of the World Health Assembly—when we have been very much at the forefront of campaigning for Taiwan’s engagement and involvement. On Taiwan as a state, this is not just about Taiwan and China; it is important for the whole world, and ensuring security and stability in the Taiwan Strait is reflective of that priority for His Majesty’s Government.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister mentioned the £8 billion in bilateral trade. He will be aware that there has been a significant amount of Taiwanese investment in East Anglia, particularly in semiconductors, renewable energy and other technologies. Can he say something about the recently signed enhanced trade partnership? Post Brexit, could it be upgraded to a full trade treaty, and will our Ministers be working on that?

Storms: Weather Resilience

Lord Bellingham Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are giving money for property-level flood resilience, and that would entirely fall within this. Software is also now available. For example, I looked some years ago at Bristol, where they had created millions of data points around the city at which they could apply different weather events and see how just a kerb being raised at a certain point, or a wall being extended, can protect a number of properties from flooding. So the noble Baroness is absolutely right: we need to look at the micro as well as the macro effect.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as listed in the register. The Minister mentioned damage to farmland. Obviously, most arable farmers will have the chance to re-drill their crops in the spring and many will benefit from the farming recovery grant. However, in the Fens, covering Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk, a number of horticultural producers have suffered substantial damage to existing crops. They may well not be covered, so what advice can he give them?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My noble friend is right: these floods will undoubtedly affect our food security. Lincolnshire and the Fens is a very important area. Internal drainage boards and managing water levels are an important part of this. I cannot say that the level of rain we experienced was unprecedented, and it certainly was not unexpected. We are going to have more of these events, and we have to be better at managing them.

Storm Henk

Lord Bellingham Excerpts

Wednesday 10th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Lord raises an important point. I assure him that, through the various fora looking at weather patterns—not least the Environment Agency and Defra working closely together—and through our entire adaptation programme, we are changing our view of the risk, in accordance with the best available science, particularly meteorology. This is a requirement under our adaptation programme, but it is also something we have to do to make sure that our plans and the vast amounts of taxpayers’ money that go into these schemes reflect this.

An important difference that has allowed us to take many more schemes forward has been the partnership funding approach. I do not know the specifics of the noble Lord’s Wyre Forest scheme, but so many did not qualify under the value for money criteria in the past and were not built. Now that we have introduced our partnership funding scheme, with other sources of funding, planning conditions, local levies and a variety of other measures, we have seen hugely increased numbers of schemes and protections put in place. I hope the noble Lord’s scheme will benefit from that and I will raise it personally with the floods Minister to ensure that it is in the programme.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the Minister for the effort he made to visit some of the residents affected and also to the Prime Minister, who went to the East Midlands and Oxfordshire. That does them great credit. I understand from what the Minister said that 2,000 homes have been severely affected and badly damaged and that the vast majority will have full insurance. However, some have not been able to get cover, for a variety of reasons. Can anything be done to help residents facing that plight?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for his point about visits. It is hard to get this one right. Ministers should not be on site and getting in the way while an emergency is happening—but they should also not be too late. I think my colleagues hit the sweet spot; they were able to hear from people affected, feed that through to officials and make sure that, where changes needed to take place, they did. Our job is now to make sure that we learn from this, as we do from every incident.

On my noble friend’s second point, insurance available for people at flood risk has changed dramatically since we introduced Flood Re, which has meant that households that could not get insurance can now get it. That scheme must be constantly reviewed in the light of increased risk. Alongside that, £5,000 will be available to the households he mentioned and Flood Re can also fund resilience repairs under our build back better programme, which provides up to £10,000 towards the cost of like-for-like reinstatement after flood damage.

Belarus

Lord Bellingham Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con)]

I can point the noble Lord to speeches I made as far back as 2005 saying that we must always put our national interest first, whether in the need to deport dangerous terrorists or to have an immigration policy that works for our country. I believe that is consistent with remaining in the ECHR. However, as I found when Prime Minister, there are occasions when the ECHR makes judgments as it did on prisoner votes. It said that it was essential that we legislated instantly to give prisoners the vote; I said that I did not think that was the case and that it should be settled by the Houses of Parliament. The ECHR backed down. That sort of flexibility may well be necessary in future.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, the Foreign Secretary will be aware that the incredibly evil and vile Wagner Group was allowed to move to Belarus after the mutiny in Russia was resolved. Does he share my concern about this? Will he raise this with the US Secretary of State when he sees him next week?

[Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right. Belarus has been the No. 1 supporter of Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine and it should be held to account for that. I am certainly happy to raise that with Secretary Blinken when I see him this week.

Child Labour and Artisanal Cobalt Mining in the DRC

Lord Bellingham Excerpts

Thursday 30th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

On the first point, I will write to the noble Lord about the appointment of the new commissioner. On the second point, there is a market imperative to use less of certain products because they are expensive to obtain and transport across the world, so there is a market mechanism. But there is also a driver for the Government through innovation, particularly in areas such as battery manufacture, to reduce both the weight of batteries and, therefore, the quantity of minerals such as cobalt that are used. The Government are providing funding for innovation in a whole range of ways.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, further to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, I have also had the chance to visit most parts of the DRC and have seen for myself the scourge of child labour. The Minister mentioned that we must get these children out of mines, where they are being persecuted and exploited, and into schools and education. Can he tell us what we are doing to tilt our aid in that direction? Does he have any figures on these children going into school?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The UK’s Partnership Against Child Exploitation programme, which ended in September, was a consortium of six partners that worked to combat the worst forms of child labour in the Central African Republic, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo; the United Kingdom was a key supporter of that partnership. The programme delivered key achievements: 8,430 children are going back to school following a consortium intervention, while 2,583 children have completed training in rights and skills because of PACE support. The point from the noble Lord, Lord Alton, is absolutely right—there is still a serious problem—but we are having some success and we want to see more of it.

Ukraine: Post-conflict Reconstruction

Lord Bellingham Excerpts

Thursday 7th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

I can confirm that that was the point my right honourable friend made. The current situation remains that those assets are frozen and cannot be moved unless a licence is issued by the OFSI department within the Treasury. I can assure the noble Lord that we are working in an expedited way with our colleagues in the Treasury to ensure that those funds can be utilised appropriately.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister will be aware of yesterday’s tragic news of the air raid on the Ukrainian city of Kostiantynivka, where 17 people were killed. Millions of pounds-worth of further damage was added to the literally hundreds of billions-worth of damage that has already been done. Surely we should be looking at a co-ordinated, Marshall-style plan for the rebuilding of Ukraine.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My noble friend raises another tragic event. I am sure that I speak for the whole House in saying that we stand once again in unity with the people of Ukraine. It was a blatant attack on a market in the middle of the day. We have heard about the 17 fatalities, and those are added to the many fatalities that have happened already and, tragically, I am sure that there will be others. I agree with my noble friend and I assure him that we are working exactly in that way, with cities being allocated to key countries—for example, there are elements within the city of Kyiv that are specific to UK infrastructure development. Of course, the real challenge is that, every time something is rebuilt, the Russians do not desist from destroying it again, so there has to be a plan. I assure my noble friend that we are working with international partners in that respect.

Ukraine

Lord Bellingham Excerpts

Thursday 20th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, the first thing I would say is that there is someone who can stop this war. That is Mr Putin, and he can stop it right now. We welcome the role China has played in engagement with President Zelensky, but these discussions about Ukraine must be led by Ukraine. As I said in my original Answer, we are working with key partners, including an extended engagement with the G20, including the likes of Turkey, Saudi Arabia and India. This war can stop today: if President Putin withdraws from the occupied territories then peace can prevail. Let us not forget what he did yesterday: he bombed the very grain depots where he stopped that grain from leaving Ukraine. This is not a sign of peace; it is a sign of furthering war.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with the Minister 100%, but there is no case for the West telling Ukraine what to do in a settlement. It must be up to Ukraine’s elected Government, because after all it is their country that has been desecrated by this evil force that has invaded and committed war crimes. Surely we should reject the suggestions of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with my noble friend. That is why my right honourable friend convened a meeting of the UN Security Council. The UN, as an organisation, is set up for exactly these purposes. It negotiated the Black Sea grain initiative. It is Russia that stopped the Black Sea grain initiative. It is Russia that not only stopped it but then went and bombed the very same grain supplies. When we talk about food insecurity in the world, it is not Ukraine’s fault—it is Russia’s.

Zimbabwe

Lord Bellingham Excerpts

Thursday 6th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, first, I acknowledge the noble Lord’s insights and expertise on all issues to do with Zimbabwe. He knows the country very well, and I appreciate his tabling of the Question. With regard to the specific issue of human rights and the importance of progressing on human rights before the elections on 23 August, I assure the noble Lord that we are engaging with all key partners. As he is aware, Zimbabwe is very keen to progress its membership of the Commonwealth, and human rights are a pertinent part of that assessment. I know that we are working very closely with the secretariat in that respect. Ultimately, if Zimbabwe rejoins the Commonwealth, it will be a matter for all members of the Commonwealth, so it needs a cross-Commonwealth approach.

I assure the noble Lord also that we are fully seized with the different abuses of human rights, which regrettably and tragically continue to happen. Even this morning, I have heard of further arrests in that respect. The information is still coming through, but I am aware of further arrests that have been made. We have called for full transparency and the release of those being held in an arbitrary fashion and, indeed, when cases are being pressed, that those court cases are held in a transparent form.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his reply about Job Sikhala but it is not just Job Sikhala who has been arrested: six students have been arrested for doing nothing more than protesting against politicians being arrested. Emmanuel Chitima, Comfort Mpofu, Lionel Madamombe, Benjamin Watadza, Darlington Chigwena and Gamuchirai Chaburumunda may have exotic names but they are not being kept in exotic conditions. They are in prison for protesting, perfectly legally and freely. We must wake up to the fact that Emmerson Mnangagwa is actually more of the same after the evil Mugabe.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend raises a number of cases and I assure him that we are fully aware of them. We remain deeply concerned by the failure to address the allegations of abduction and abuse of opposition members. There are also the cases of Joana Mamombe—which he has raised—Cecilia Chimbiri and Netsai Marova. I assure noble Lords that we have raised our concerns with the Government and have publicly called for full investigation into these allegations. If Zimbabwe wishes to be counted among those countries that are recognised for progression not just bilaterally but, importantly, within multilateral organisations, it is vital that it stands up and ensures transparency of justice systems. It must also ensure that those who are taken and arrested are done so on transparent charges and that if they are not held on any substantial charges, they are released. Freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of protest are key parts of any progressive democracy.