Refugees and Human Rights

Debate between Angus Brendan MacNeil and Paul Scully

Wednesday 24th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

It is great to have this debate today given that Saturday is Holocaust Memorial Day and that this year marks the 70th anniversary of the universal declaration of human rights.

I came to this place after having stood for election on a platform of local issues, but my eyes have been opened over the past three years through travel and by speaking to other people. There was the woman in a Rohingya camp who had seen her sons murdered and the man who had had the back of his head staved in with a machete that morning. There was the Yazidi Christian who had made a dangerous boat crossing with a 10-day-old child during which the boat had been capsized before the navy cutters came to pluck them out of the water.

I have spoken to a CNN journalist who had risked her life by going undercover to film slave auctions in Libya. I have met Venezuelan opposition politicians who had been beaten up due to their political beliefs, and there are now a reported 140,000 refugees in neighbouring Colombia. I have of course been to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, where I saw the hall of names of those who died in the Shoah, which really goes to the crux of things when we talk about suffering.

I do not have the time to do justice to the Government’s policy on Syria, where we are the second-biggest donor to the camps in neighbouring countries. We are supporting people as close to their homes as possible in anticipation of them being able to return, which they want to do, when it is safe to do so. By doing that, we are able to help hundreds of thousands of people there, including many children, instead of waiting until they attempt a boat crossing.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Paul Scully]

I will not due to the time, and I know that the hon. Gentleman’s private Member’s Bill is coming up on 16 March.

I do not have enough time to talk fully about the Rohingya. If we use too blunt an instrument in our diplomacy, we risk the country closing off. Ethnic conflict is already intensifying in northern Shan state and Kachin state, where the situation is actually backed by the popular support of the Burmese people, who already do not believe what the western media is telling them about the ongoing atrocities.

I cannot do justice to the speech of my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Middle East, who responded to the recent debate on the petition on the slave trade in Libya. He is making proactive moves to consider the petitioners’ demands and to speak to as many people as possible to address the causes, which include the migrant path from sub-Saharan Africa.

The conflict, security and stability fund, which has been allocated more than £1 billion for this year, aims to stabilise areas, but only by sorting out conflict, such as ending the war in Syria and appealing to the Burmese Government to ensure that the commander-in-chief ends the situation for the Rohingya, can we start to tackle some of the ongoing situations in Nigeria and other countries and prevent people from feeling the need to leave. It is through soft power, trade where appropriate, quiet and calm diplomacy in the UN and the Council of Europe, where the UK delegation is working this week, and all manner of other ways of mobilising the international community that we will start to succeed.