Consular Support for British Citizens

Catherine West Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

It is a real delight to be here this afternoon contributing to this debate and to hear the way the hon. Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell) introduced her poignant remarks relating to her constituent. We heard about the important work of the all-party parliamentary group on deaths abroad, consular services and assistance, and the work the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes) has done not just through the APPG but on behalf of his constituent, who is now very well known to those of us who have been here since 2015—I believe the hon. Member was in the same intake as me—listening to Jagtar Singh Johal’s story. I hope the Minister can give us some enlightened news in that regard.

Quite rightly, whenever citizens face difficulty or are caught up in a crisis in any part of the world, they look to the embassy and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office for support. We heard from the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker) about the need we, as Members of Parliament, have for the reassurance that our constituents are being looked after when they are in trouble. We firmly believe that the Government always have a moral duty to support and protect UK citizens abroad, particularly in times of crisis. The hon. Members for Angus (Dave Doogan) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon) spoke movingly about their constituents and their concern.

For much of the time, the support given by embassies through the FCDO is timely and appropriate. That is due to the commitment and dedication of FCDO and consulate staff. I know all Members will join me in thanking them for their tireless work day in, day out in very stressful circumstances to help our constituents. That said, we know of some cases where we feel even more could be done. My hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) has a very well-known case. She and my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) still have constituents in prison in Iran. We know well the stories of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori, but there are others. The Minister will be aware of them.

During the pandemic, many of these difficulties were made even worse. I want to refer briefly to some of the findings that came out of the work we did in Parliament. The Minister has changed since the Foreign Affairs Committee’s report was published, so I want to ensure that the current Minister is on top of it. The operation during spring 2020, which we all remember very well as constituency MPs, was considered by the report to be

“too slow and placed too much reliance on commercial providers”.

Other countries appeared to be quicker to respond through their embassies and consular arrangements. They seemed to be more organised and more speedy. The consular service provided little or no financial support to those who were stranded, and many citizens were unable to gain access to the information they needed in a speedy manner. It went on to state that:

“The failure of the FCO to provide clear advice on what would happen on arrival to the UK caused many travellers a great deal of unnecessary anxiety”,

and that:

“The FCO placed too much reliance on this generic advice and this approach disadvantaged those with medical conditions and those stuck in remote areas.”

Finally, the FCDO had not established a system for logging and recording the location and contact details of UK citizens abroad.

It was therefore very troubling to see some familiar themes when British citizens were trapped in Kabul. We must not confuse Afghan applicants who wished to apply to settle in the UK due to the dreadful situation in Kabul with UK citizens who are still finding their way to the UK—I believe there are some. Will the Minister clarify how many she thinks are still making their way to the UK from Kabul and Pakistan? That underlines the importance of good administration and basic organisation.

We do not need to rehearse what we heard in the Foreign Affairs Committee this week, because we can all ascertain it from the transcript, but there are some themes. The whistleblower mentioned that he felt that only 5% of the people who had written to MPs had had any assistance. It was clear, tragically, that some of those left behind had been murdered by the Taliban. It is not clear from his evidence, which is about 40 pages long, whether he was referring specifically to Afghan individuals or UK citizens, but in either case, it shows how important speed and organisation are.

Another important point in the whistleblower’s evidence is that he believes that

“the FCDO’s institutional approach amounted to a failure to abide by the values set out in the Civil Service Code.”

I will say no more about that because, first and foremost, Parliament is about us as Members, rather than the civil service, but I wonder whether the Minister will take that away.

The 25-year-old man who wrote that document appeared to be quite traumatised because he had wanted to reply to thousands of emails from Members of Parliament. There are some echoes of not just the consular cases that Members are raising, but of what was talked about in the Foreign Affairs Committee on Monday afternoon. I hope that the lessons that needed to be learned in spring 2020 following the repatriation of UK nationals to the UK, in which many of our offices were intimately involved, have been learned, but the debate this afternoon suggests that perhaps some of them have not been.

I have another question for the Minister about the legal position. The motion refers to the clarification of what a Britain citizen can expect. Will she outline what she believes the legal position to be? Can a British citizen expect translation, medical services and so on? That may help us as MPs to understand what we can expect from the FCDO. I do not think this is active Government policy at the moment—otherwise, we would not be seeing these cases—but will the Minister outline whether she or the Foreign Secretary are developing a case whereby there is a legal right for our constituents to expect a level of service when they are abroad? How does that compare with other countries? We all want to see an increase in the support available to citizens to ensure that when it is needed, it is appropriate.

In conclusion, I will pick up two points. The first, which all Members have spoken about, is the traumatic nature of this debate, and I want to put on record, as we all have, the importance of our parliamentary staff. I thank your team, Madam Deputy Speaker, and Mr Speaker, because, in this House, every time we have a crisis, he writes to our staff and reaches out. That offer of support for them is really powerful, because so much of what our staff here do is very intense. During the Afghanistan crisis, many of our staff worked day and night and gave so much, so could you pass back to Mr Speaker’s team how much that means to me and to all of us as employers, Madam Deputy Speaker? It was really moving to hear the hon. Member for Livingston mention her member of staff. Could the hon. Member pass on from this House to the family how much we appreciate all the hard work that she did before she tragically passed away? It is not easy working for elected Members, but we all know that it is so important for our leadership role.

My final point relates to a reflection by the commentator Rafael Behr, whom I am sure the Minister reads regularly because he is a foreign policy commentator as well as being a number of other things. He wrote that sometimes he feels, in observing the current Government, that there is

“the thrill of power without…the burden of office.”

I mean this in a spirit not of anger but of thoughtfulness and contemplation: I think we need to turn that on its head so that we put the burden of responsibility first and the thrill of power second.

Bosnia and Herzegovina: Stability and Peace

Catherine West Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

This really is Parliament at its best, when we are united and speaking with one voice on the importance of saving lives, because this is where we could end up with this very grave debate and the situation in Bosnia Herzegovina. I thank the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns), who clearly has intimate knowledge of the subject and a real passion to deter what could be a terrible outcome if we do not get moving, as the international community, in preventing further conflict, in-fighting and hatred, which so many humanitarians around the Chamber have mentioned. I also want to mention my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), who in this House has a history of stopping violence against women and girls, both domestically and internationally, and the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald). I thank them for securing the debate.

Parliaments have a real role in sparking these debates and in galvanising Governments. We have seen that today. This morning we had the meeting and the briefing from Christian Schmidt, who has a background not just in the defence brief in the German Parliament but in the friendship group with the UK. It is fantastic that he made it such a priority to be here—at the invitation of the FCDO, the Minister, the influential Back Bencher, the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton, and all those who were there, including my hon. Friends the Members for Caerphilly (Wayne David), for Putney (Fleur Anderson) and for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd), who all have a strong history in this area—to counter the beat of nationalism, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale said. Mr Schmidt warned of a potential return to violence and fragmentation. We had a long discussion about the importance of keeping Dayton alive and going, but also of refreshing it, as it was 20-odd years ago.

I briefly want to put on record my background as a visitor to asylum seekers and refugees from the area, mainly young Kosovans, in the late 1990s. That is how I met my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) and then came into politics myself—visiting youngsters in bed and breakfasts in London boroughs. When we visit children in our own constituency, we might have helped their parents as asylum seekers and refugees in the late 1990s.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

Nationalism can be toxic, but there is another crucial ingredient in this potential catastrophe: the interference by other sovereign states, such as Russia and China, and the benign neglect by states that should know better. That is what creates the catastrophe. Will the hon. Lady address that a little in her remarks?

[Catherine West]

I thank the hon. Member for making that point, because the role of the US has come up in the debate. We call the agreement the Dayton peace accords for a reason. I hope that the US will join us and put on record its commitment to maintaining the Dayton legacy.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

What about Russia?

[Catherine West]

I was coming to this, but I am happy to bring forward my bullet points for the Minister. Will she condemn the sale of arms to the Serbian police forces, which has been discussed? Will she condemn the role that Russia is playing in the wider picture, given that it was around the table originally for the Dayton peace talks? Can she give us her current assessment of the danger Russia poses in this situation?

We know that widespread bigotry and hatred can snowball into violence, destruction and ethnic cleansing. Through the international actions that we can all take now, rather than waiting for things to worsen, we can have a real impact, because we know that 26 years ago is but a blink of the eye when the feelings still run high. I was particularly moved by the comment of the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) that he had changed his position during the debates on the Irish question we had here in the 1990s and into the 2000s. He said that he had changed, and I wanted to emphasise our own experience of that conflict—I know that the right hon. and gallant Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) has experience of that conflict, too. We can change and we can hope to be the conveners of change.

My second challenge to the Minister is to ask what is the UK’s role? As the hon. Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall), who is no longer in his place, asked, what will Sir Stuart Peach’s remit be when he arrives in Bosnia? How will he support the work of Christian Schmidt, so that we can lead with the UN High Representative and not be undermined by players such as Russia? Will she respond to the question on sanctions? Are sanctions being considered in the effort to use every single tool available to us?

[Tony Lloyd]

If a sanctions regime is appropriate, does my hon. Friend agree that it is vital that the sanctions be finely targeted, so that they do not hit the people of Bosnia and even those in the Republika Srpska, but are directed at the authors of this nationalism, which is so unacceptable?

[Catherine West]

I agree with my hon. Friend and with the excellent approach he takes on Belarus. I know the Minister is aware of that. My hon. Friend has led in a number of the debates on sanctions in Belarus, and it is the same actor there. I say to the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin), who challenged on the role of Russia, that this is the same sort of undermining of international action as we are seeing in Belarus. The sanctions response from the Government has been good and cross-party. I hope to see that in Bosnia, if the assessment is that sanctions are necessary.

I have two more challenges, and then I will conclude. What increased engagement and proactive work are being undertaken to prevent the slide into the rhetoric and violence of the past? At civil society level and at the economic level, what role can international partners play, both in promoting trade, which the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) talked about, and in promoting the role of civic society, which my hon. Friend the Member for Putney emphasised? Will the UK Government be prepared to continue to act as a convener to bring together the international community, given the tragic past? The right hon. and gallant Member for Beckenham left us with the image of his interpreter and driver being assassinated during the conflict and he himself being at risk.

Let me conclude by saying that the world is watching us. My hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) reminded us of the immortal words of Elie Wiesel. We know that with Holocaust Memorial Day just a month or two away, the work that is done to prevent further loss of life is crucial. Now is the time to act. We must step up. We must, throughout all civic society, as well as through the use of our armed forces and others, put this on record: never again.

Islamophobia Awareness Month

Catherine West Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Afzal Khan]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I could not have put it better myself.

For 2.7 million Muslims, Islamophobia has distressing and real-life implications. A recent example is the far right peddling the narrative during the pandemic that British Muslims were super-spreaders of covid simply by practising their faith. As a result, Muslim communities suffered a shocking 40% increase in online Islamophobia during this period, according to Tell MAMA. The online safety Bill is an opportunity for the Government to better regulate online content, including harmful and racist material.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for accepting my intervention, and for all his work—and indeed that of other Members—on this important issue in the House. Does he agree that the issue is not just about online abuse, but that sports can play a role? I know he will go on to this topic, but with the Ashes ahead of us, surely now is the time to tackle Islamophobia in cricket, once and for all.

[Afzal Khan]

I thank my hon. Friend. Again, that is a point I will touch on.

I have no doubt that those of us who participate in this debate will be on the receiving end of further abuse. Social media platforms have a moral responsibility and a duty to protect their users. Here, a definition of Islamophobia will help establish a mechanism for accountability and improved regulation. I will return to the definition in a moment, but can the Minister outline what measures will be introduced by the Government to keep users safe online, and what steps are being taken to tackle far-right activity?

It would be a mistake, however, to see this as merely an online phenomenon. The Government’s own figures reveal, once again, that Muslims have been victim to the highest proportion of all hate crimes committed this past year. My hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) and I have written to the Conservative party chair over the surge in hate crimes against Muslims following the Liverpool attack. Time and again, we see the conflation of Islam and terrorism, which is wrong and perpetuates a harmful stereotype of Muslims.

Last week, Azeem Rafiq’s powerful and moving testimony about his experience in cricket shone a light on how easily racism and Islamophobia can go unchecked and be simply dismissed as “banter”. A series of attacks on mosques, including in Manchester and east London, demand serious action by the Government. Most recently, a man was convicted of terrorism offences after planning an attack on a mosque in Scotland. Will the Minister outline what steps are being taken to better safeguard places of worship?

Crucially, we must remember that these are not isolated incidents. Home Office data supports this, showing that referrals to Prevent for extreme right-wing ideology have increased exponentially. Many of my parliamentary colleagues and I have pushed for an independent review of the Prevent strategy for several years. A coalition of more than 450 Muslim organisations has boycotted the Government’s review of Prevent in protest at the appointment of William Shawcross as its chair. Shawcross has openly expressed a hostile view of Islam and Muslims, including suggesting that—I quote—“Islamic fascism” was the biggest problem facing our society.

I want to put four questions to the Minister today. Will she outline why the Government appointed someone with Islamophobic views? Will she respond to the overwhelming discontent over Shawcross’s appointment? Will she explain why the Government refuses to engage with the MCB, the largest Muslim organisation in the UK? Who sits on the Government’s anti-Muslim hatred working group, and has she ever met the group?

The appointment of William Shawcross is just a symptom of something that must be addressed in this debate: the Conservative party’s Islamophobia crisis. In 2018, we held a general debate on Islamophobia, in which I delivered the Labour party’s position. Two years later, no meaningful progress has been made and the Government have failed to take any action on this issue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Anum Qaisar (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

Thank you, Mr Dowd; it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I congratulate the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) on securing the debate, and thank the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) for his reasoned contribution.

I had a speech prepared and I have ripped it up, because there are a few matters that I want to put on the record. I will start by saying this: if you want to tackle Islamophobia, you need to listen to the lived experiences of Muslims. Our contributions and lived experiences will help you to shape policy to tackle Islamophobia. I know what it feels like. I was nine years old when I was asked if my dad was a terrorist the day after 9/11. Only a couple of months after that, our mosque was burned to the ground in a suspected Islamophobic attack. Those are my lived experiences, and I know how that feels.

To be perfectly frank, I will not accept a debate in which we are told that we have to take the politics out of it, because the Prime Minister peddles dangerous rhetoric when he says that veiled Muslim women look like “letter boxes”. I am a Muslim. I know how that feels. As the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton said, attacks against Muslim women increased after those comments.

[Catherine West]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Ms Qaisar]

I am sorry, but I do not have enough time to take interventions. When people say, “I don’t see race. I don’t see religion,” they might not, but I do, because there are other people out there who ensure that I know how it feels that I am a little bit different from the rest of you. To be perfectly frank, I really do not care what party Members are in. The Scottish National party is in government in Scotland and the Conservatives are in government in Westminster. More needs to be done across all four nations to tackle this. The Scottish Government recently passed legislation that expanded the definition of hate speech and makes it easier to hold to account those who express prejudice in a threatening or abusive way. That is a step in the right direction, and the UK Government need to do more. We are saying, “Listen to our lived experiences. It’s not party political.”

This has been really difficult to speak about. I will say just one more thing: I am so proud of my identity. I am a Scottish Pakistani Muslim. In the month of Ramadan, you will find me fasting, and breaking my fast by drinking a cold can of Irn-Bru and eating samosas.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe

Catherine West Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Tulip Siddiq]

What I would say is that in the nearly six years that Richard Ratcliffe and I have been campaigned to get Nazanin home, we have heard every platitude. We have heard about no stones being unturned. We have heard about how this issue is top of the Government’s agenda. We know it is their highest priority, but warm words are not enough any more. After six years, I want to see my constituent come home. I do not want to hear from the Government the same rhetoric over and over again, which is what we are hearing.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for giving way. I want to put on the record my heartfelt feelings on behalf of all the people in Hornsey and Wood Green. I also want to point out how long it has taken to resolve the case of my constituent Aras Amiri, who was a member of the British Council—she was almost a Foreign Office employee. There is a feeling that we all think this is inevitable, but we have to get some energy and some push in order to get Nazanin home.

[Tulip Siddiq]

That was a tragic case, and I know my hon. Friend fought very hard for her constituent.

Before I get to a series of questions that I want to ask the Minister, I would like to give the opportunity for anyone else to intervene.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Hunt]

I believe that during the period when I was Foreign Secretary, the decision whether we owed that money was settled. There was an understanding, confirmed publicly by the Defence Secretary, that the money is owed and should be paid. It was going to take, and will take, a real effort to deal with the practicalities. But the Americans managed it and we can most certainly manage it, if necessary by getting an RAF plane to fly gold over to Tehran. There are lots of ways of doing it.

[Catherine West]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jeremy Hunt]

I will make some progress. One other thing needs to happen to ensure that Nazanin and the other dual nationals can come home: we must completely de-link their fates from the outcome of the Vienna talks on the joint comprehensive plan of action. Just as we tell Iran it should not make anyone a pawn in a diplomatic game, we too must live by those words and ensure they are not being used in any way by any country to put pressure on Iran to sign up to that deal. Their fates should be completely separate.

This is a terrible tragedy. It is a shame not just on Iran but on Britain that it has taken us five and a half years to solve it. There must be two outcomes: first, the reuniting of all the families who have been separated by this vile detention in Iran, including Nazanin’s family; and secondly, the legacy of this tragedy must be the end of the vile practice of hostage diplomacy, which must be consigned back to the 19th century where it belongs. Britain needs to learn from this to lead a diplomatic initiative with other countries, so that if someone is taken hostage from one country, we treat it as if they had been taken hostage from any of us. We act accordingly; we deter it and it never happens again.

Sanctions

Catherine West Excerpts

Thursday 4th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

I welcome the Government bringing forward an amended schedule of sanctions, due to some errors in the laying of the sanctions in the House earlier in the year. Today I am wearing my green and purple, because the Minister and I are both aware of how much women activists in Belarus have suffered in the past couple of years, in particular having many of their partners and husbands locked up. They are therefore now in the spotlight politically. They have not chosen to go into politics in the way that we might, but have been forced to by circumstance.

Across the House, I know that every woman MP, including the leadership we have had from our own parliamentary Labour party women’s group, stands up for those women, their right to be human rights activists and their right to be women in the workplace and defends their right to the Belarus of the future that they wish to see. There is nothing worse than seeing a leader getting out of an aeroplane the day after a sham election dressed in black with a rifle on his shoulder, and the terror those people felt at that moment.

It has been wonderful to see the cross-party approach and the support we have had from trade unions, civil society groups, students and the diaspora here in the UK to stand up against the Lukashenko regime and put on record our anger, concern and sadness at what has happened in the past two years. There have been 35,000 arrests and 800 political prisoners—in Europe.

Members from all parts of the House gather together, despite our differences—and we have had a few in the past 48 hours—to say today that we stand with those women for freedom and for the rights that they and their families want to have. The level of brutality that the Belarusian regime is regularly using on its own people was on show for the world when the Ryanair flight was dangerously hijacked—the Minister has already gone into detail about that. Those two activists are still in prison, and today we send out a message from this House that we are on their side and we will not see this regime continue for too much longer. I pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd) and the all-party parliamentary group on Belarus, which is cross party across both Houses, and to the human rights defenders, journalists and trade unions for keeping the issue in the minds of so many across Europe and in the region. It is heartening to see smaller countries such as Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Ukraine, as well as the Polish Government and many across parties in Poland, standing up for the rights of those women and all those activists who want a fresh start.

On the sanctions, it is vital that we do all we can through our economy and through what we say in this House to stop any use of or facilitation through our legal, banking or accountancy services in the UK that could help anyone who has stolen resources from the Belarusian people to launder them through our system. The people of Belarus are entitled to democracy and free elections and we must uphold those principles.

As such, Labour Members welcome the tougher sanctions. I am sure that the Minister agrees that it is vital for our voice in this House to be heard today by the Belarusian people. I hope that we can somehow get the message through particularly to those prisoners of conscience who long for their case to be heard.

As the noble Lord Collins outlined in the other place, we welcome the changes that the statutory instrument outlines to rectify some of the mistakes in previous sanctions, while adopting additional measures in response to the deteriorating behaviour of Mr Lukashenko and his regime. We particularly welcome measures on financial sanctions and measures that seek to remove the ways that the regime has continued to financially sustain itself in the past 18 months. We welcome the inclusion of sanctions on potash exports, which are one of the major exports of Belarus, and which have been continually highlighted as a key way to hold the regime to account.

I have some brief questions for the Minister. First, how will the Government measure the effectiveness of the sanctions, particularly in the light of the ever-diminishing Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office budget? Secondly, we know that international co-operation is vital to ensure that our actions are co-ordinated with our allies and partners and to ensure that maximum influence is put on the regime. Will the Minister outline what additional measures she is taking to work with European partners to ensure that our actions are in line with theirs and that there is a global strategy for protecting the people of Belarus?

Thirdly, I would welcome the Minister outlining whether there has been any recent assessment of Russian support for the regime in Belarus. Given that the relationship between the UK and Russia is strained, what levers could she use to try to influence Moscow so that we can see more freedom and justice for all those political prisoners who we in this Chamber want to support?

Kurdish Political Representation and Equality in Turkey

Catherine West Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

I am pleased to speak in this debate under your chairship, Dame Angela. Like everyone else in the Chamber, I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response. I also put on record my thanks for the moving speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Feryal Clark), who is of course the first Turkish woman to be elected to the House of Commons. The fact that she grew up in Turkey as a Kurd adds a special poignancy to today’s discussion.

I also put on record my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle). The topic of today’s debate is his expertise—his special subject. He is a continuing and passionate campaigner for the Kurdish people. The rights of minority groups across the globe are not debated in this House often enough, but it was due to the diligence of his inquiry and the hard work of all the members of the all-party group that he gave such a detailed speech on the findings of his report. It was excellent.

The debate today could not come at a better time. Only yesterday, I received a copy of a letter sent to the Foreign Secretary by the UK Civil Society Women’s Alliance international working group, which outlines their serious concerns about the ongoing pattern of detention and the unfair trials of activists, particularly those from the Kurdish minority, and includes specific examples of those who have been detained.

We know from the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) about the 1,400% increase in femicide in Turkey, on which the report of the APPG chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown commented. That level of abuse against women must be taken seriously. I am very keen to hear the Minister’s thoughts and what action the Government are taking in relation to the Istanbul convention. Dame Angela, you will remember the intense discussions that we had in the House about the convention. In fact, it was the subject of an Opposition day debate. We all came in and made speeches. Every hon. Member was concerned, of course, that our own Government should ratify the Istanbul convention, but crucially it was women from the region we are discussing who raised this very concern. I hope that we will hear some encouraging news on that point from the Minister.

As we have heard from hon. Members across the Chamber today, this is not a new issue. Many right hon. and hon. Members have asked questions in the House about Kurdish people in Turkey, and specifically about the discrimination and repression that they face and have historically faced, not least in the form of military action and the curtailing of their cultural freedoms. The hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) talked about a robust definition of global Britain; that must surely include an answer to the question of what our role is. Personally, I found it a little troubling that, following the Brexit vote, the first excursion that the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), the then Prime Minister, made was to Turkey to shake hands with the President and to sell more weapons.

As the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for Stirling (Alyn Smith), said, we need assurances that our own manufactured weapons are not being used for internal repression. I know that that is an element of the way that our procedures work, and that my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown has expertise in this area. However, we seek assurances that those weapons are not being used for any violence against Kurdish people in Turkey.

Obviously, the Kurdish communities in Turkey are not a single homogeneous bloc. Some Kurds have even served as senior Government Ministers in the AKP Government. That said, the Kurdish minority as a whole, and particularly those who support the Opposition in Turkey, experience appalling levels of discrimination, which have no place in a democratic society. We have heard of the detention and removal of dozens of Kurdish and Kurdish-supporting regional mayors—48 regional mayors have been arrested—and of the removal of 154 lawmakers in Ankara. Imagine if 154 MPs were locked up here—imagine the outcry! The political voice of pro-Kurdish political parties is being eroded by the current Government and, with it, the democratic wishes of the Kurdish people are being ignored and attacked.

We heard about Mr Demirtaş, and his ongoing imprisonment, from my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North. What specific representations has the Minister made to President Erdoğan in relation to Mr Demirtaş, and can we expect his release any time soon? What representations have been made about the abuse of courts by the Executive over what should be a legal matter, rather than something where the Executive are overruling the courts?

The greatest example of the ongoing attack against the Kurdish people is the attempt by Turkish authorities to outright ban the HDP itself. The HDP has been a staunch supporter of Kurdish rights since its formation, and garners much of its support from Kurdish areas. In the years since it was founded, the Government have moved to stifle its progress. Since 2016, it has been estimated that more than 10,000 parliamentarians, elected officials and party members have been imprisoned. As we know, the Turkish authorities are attempting to ramp up the pressure and choke off the HDP, through shuttering it and denying representation to the millions who have freely cast their votes for that party. Such a move, against a political party that has been supported by many Kurds, is an affront to democracy.

I heard at first hand from HDP lawmakers earlier this year about their concerns for their position, and for Turkey’s democracy more generally. The attack on Kurdish rights, the rule of law and the fundamental freedoms of democracy is deeply concerning. We heard about the freedom of the press from my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson), and in a very good speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown, which went into the detail at length, so I will not repeat that now.

We urgently need the UK Government to take a more active role. We heard from my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (John Spellar) that, as Turkey is a major NATO ally and a friend of the UK, we cannot and should not sit by and allow this to happen. We should feel able to criticise our friends and allies when they are doing wrong and praise them when they are doing right—for example, on the refugee crisis, in which Turkey is making an enormous contribution, not just in numbers, but in education and health services. That is not lost on those of us who see that good work. However, equally, if we are friends and allies, we must be able to say when we are worried, and the treatment of the Kurdish minority worries us deeply.

In her summing up, I hope that the Minister will outline her response, or the Department’s assessment of the legal case in Belgium, because it would be good to have on the record in Hansard the FCDO’s assessment of the Belgian court finding that the PKK was not a terrorist organisation. My understanding is that the UK’s position is still that elements of the PKK are terrorists, but I would like to know whether officers within the FCDO have looked at the legalities of the Belgian case. The UK signs up to the same treaties as Belgium, and we have the same norms and values, so could she please outline where the Belgians might be taking a different view from any UK legal counsel?

Finally, I will conclude by thanking all Members for being here for today’s debate. Thank you, Dame Angela, for your excellent chairing of the debate, and I very much look forward to hearing from the Minister. Given that there is so much time left in the debate, I hope that she will accept some short interventions.

Violence against Christians: Central African Countries

Catherine West Excerpts

Thursday 23rd September 2021 Westminster Hall

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Ms Ali, and to contribute to this important debate. I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for his continued support for this issue in the House, as well as the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), who I know well from the all-party parliamentary group on North Korea, and who shares with me a real concern about human rights across the globe. The work of the all-party parliamentary group for international freedom of religion or belief looks so interesting. I receive the newsletter, but it is difficult to fit in all the meetings, due to my role. I know the important work that comes out of it feeds into debates like this. It is a delight to be here and to listen to the different thoughts of Members.

The right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) made a very important comment on resources for the role that the Prime Minister has given the hon. Member for Congleton. The resource must be there so that effective scrutiny can take place, not just in country—there is a real need for the hon. Member to travel to, for example, Nigeria, Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of the Congo—but of the merger of DFID and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and how that sits alongside the trade brief, so that one Department or Minister is not saying one thing while another is saying something else almost simultaneously.

Although the merger is still in its infancy, I do not think that Members who are interested in foreign affairs have really seen the full forcefulness that we could have, given the excellence of the civil service and so on. We cannot really feel the impact of the special envoy, because it has not all quite been brought together yet—the vision has not quite been laid out. I hope we will see more of that vision in the coming months and that the role of the hon. Member for Congleton will be underlined, because it is so important to see where minority religious groups are being persecuted.

Something I appreciate about the APPG is that it defends the rights of those who have no religious beliefs. My constituents often write to me on that issue—I have very well known humanists in my constituency. It is such an important point. In some countries in the world, it is not acceptable to not be a believer, so I am so pleased that the APPG underlines the rights of those with no religious beliefs.

[Andrew Selous]

Does the hon. Lady take some comfort from the fact that a good Christian friend of mine went to visit an atheist imprisoned in Indonesia to console him? Like me, she would probably like to see rather more of that sort of thing.

[Catherine West]

I think there is too much hatred between different groups in the world. What we need to do, as debates like this do, is to promote tolerance, understanding and respect.

That brings us back to the point made by the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald): we are all worried about cuts to the DFID programme. With a 66% cut in our aid to the poorest continent in the world, we worry that some of the very long-term, slow-burn work on developing civil society, tolerance and understanding, and education—girls’ education, in particular—might be lost. I suppose the Minister will give me reassurances on that question.

Hon. Members have laid out very well the severity of the persecution, discrimination, abductions, sexual violence and killings that we have unfortunately seen in the countries we have talked about today. South Sudan is obviously a notable one. Seeing the murder of those two nuns on the bus last month was tragic, and something that I know our constituents care deeply about and want us to be talking about.

I also thank hon. Members for raising the Bring Back Our Girls campaign. It was very powerful when Michelle Obama highlighted it, but I think that we did do a lot more in the House at that point, and it would be facile to think that that problem has gone away. We know that if 1 million children were not attending school anywhere else, we would be up in arms about it, so it is important to highlight that.

From my work as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on malaria and neglected tropical diseases, I know that Nigeria has a huge malaria burden. It does seem that the global health security question is often married up with conflict, violence and the persecution of minority faiths.

I put on record the excellent work of Open Doors and Christian Solidarity Worldwide, which do such important work and have fed into the Bishop of Truro’s independent review. My colleague, the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire, has gone into where we are with the review in depth, so I shall not repeat that. However, I would appreciate it if the Minister said where she thinks we are with the 22 recommendations.

We all welcome next year’s ministerial conference—it is important to get people around the table talking about the recommendations and how we can do more, but we need to apply more urgency to the task. As we know, the violence is getting worse. It was good that we had the example of what is happening in south Kaduna. This is not a time to withdraw mentally; we must keep up the focus, even though we have had the 66% cut to the aid budget, which, of course, some of us in this Chamber voted against. We must not lose that focus on education, civil society and the promotion of tolerance.

I commend the right hon. Member for Gainsborough on his comment about working with partners. I share with him the commitment to work with friends in France, across the Sahel and across the region, because it is only by working with all our partners that we can achieve what we want. Where the French have put in a lot of resources, let us work with them, sharing the expertise that they may have in a particular area and complementing it with the UK’s specialities and niche approaches, so that together we offer the most secure environment we can for those African nations.

I want briefly to highlight three other hon. Members. Back in September, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) asked the former Minister, the right hon. Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams), what assessment the FCDO had made of

“the adequacy and effectiveness of the distribution of aid to persecuted Christians.”

We heard at that time that

“the UK will be the third largest donor within the G7 as a percentage of GNI. We will spend more than £10 billion in aid”

in 2020. Will the Minister before us say, in her concluding remarks, whether she feels that the posts across the FCDO network will retain their regular network reporting on local human rights situations, including in relation to the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of religion or belief?

In April 2021, my hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans) asked the former Minister—again, not the Minister we have here today—about tackling

“religious persecution and gender based violence of Christian women in countries around the world.”

The former Minister replied that the UK was committed to that. Will the Minister before us say what shape her commitment will take to defending freedom of religion or belief for all, and recognising that women and girls from religious minorities often suffer because of both their gender and their faith?

Will the Minister lay out how she will ensure that our human rights policy work considers the intersectionality of human rights, including the importance of addressing the specific vulnerabilities experienced by women and girls in the countries we have talked about today? For example, in the DRC, a project with faith leaders and community action groups halved women’s experience of intimate partner violence from 69% to 29%. These actions and our commitment can make a difference, and the DFID funding is crucial, so I look forward to the Minister’s comments in that regard.

Through UK Aid Connect, will the FCDO continue to support the Coalition for Religious Equality and Inclusive Development programme, managed by the Institute of Development Studies, to work with women from religious minorities in the five countries in Africa and Asia that have been pinpointed, to understand the problems that are faced and identity effective approaches to tackle these issues?

[Mr Virendra Sharma in the Chair]

It is a delight to speak in this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I look forward to finishing my brief remarks under your chairmanship.

We have had a good airing of the issues in this debate. We have talked about security, and specifically about violence against women and girls, and the 1 million girls who are missing from the education system in Nigeria alone. We have also heard about hotspots such as South Sudan and the Central African Republic. We have thanked the NGOs who work tirelessly to bring these matters to the attention of the UK Government. They have high expectations, as do our constituents, that we will focus on the areas that have been outlined today, so that violence can be reduced and we can put in place the civic society model that we have here, which should be expected abroad as well, where women are respected, there is a focus on education, and basic human rights and safety are promoted.

I look forward to hearing from the Minister, who is new to her role. I thank the hon. Member for Strangford and all hon. Members who have participated in the debate on this important topic.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vicky Ford]

Okay; let me make a little progress, and then I will take interventions.

When countries protect and promote freedom of religion or belief, they tend to be more stable, more prosperous and safer from violent extremism. The Minister responsible for human rights, Lord Tariq Ahmad, continues to work closely with the Prime Minister’s special envoy, my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), whom we are honoured to have here today, in delivering those goals.

As we have heard, challenges to freedom of religion or belief sadly persist in central Africa—especially in countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic—and countries such as Nigeria. We are particularly concerned about human rights in those countries. Christians make up the majority of the populations of many central and southern African countries. However, those of minority religions, such as Islam, face frequent difficulties in exercising their rights. That can include violent attacks by armed groups, and converts often face additional pressures, such as being ostracised by their communities because religion is so closely tied to culture and heritage.

As the APPG report highlights, violence in the region is often triggered by inter-communal disputes. Although victims may not be targeted specifically because of their religion, the intersection of identity rights and religion cannot be ignored.

[Catherine West]

Thank you, Mr Sharma, for reminding us of the length of the debate. The Minister is making a very good start to her speech by talking about the role of women and intersectionality. In her assessment of her role, which I understand is in its infancy, how does she see the envoy, the resources and the reorganisation within the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, with trade off to the side, coming together, so that we can better understand, as parliamentarians, how we can scrutinise the arrangements?

[Vicky Ford]

Let me deal with the first of those points, as clearly we can scrutinise arrangements in many different ways in this place, including being able to intervene in Westminster Hall debates on the newly appointed Minister for Africa on a Thursday afternoon. As we all know, there are many ways to ask questions of the Government. I also point the hon. Lady to the integrated review, which is worth reading, because it sets out in great detail how different Departments will work together not only to support British interests across the globe, but to help build partnerships with other countries.

We recognise that women and girls from religious minorities can often suffer because of both their gender and their faith. That is why our human rights policy looks at the intersectionality of human rights: for example, the importance of addressing specific interests such as gender-based violence, which may be experienced by women from religious minority communities. The Prime Minister’s special envoy for freedom of religion and belief, my fantastic hon. Friend the Member for Congleton, has spoken about that double vulnerability that many women from religious minorities face, including at an International Women’s Day event organised by the UK Freedom of Religion or Belief Forum this March. I thank her for the effort that she puts into this work, because having that additional voice on those sorts of platforms really helps in continuing to reiterate these important messages.

The hon. Member for Strangford spoke very powerfully about incidents of violence and abuse in the DRC. The UK is deeply concerned about the violence against civilians in the DRC, including the recent attacks by the armed group Allied Democratic Forces. Back in April, the British embassy in Kinshasa issued a joint statement with international partners condemning the attacks perpetrated by the ADF in Beni and North Kivu, and we continue to urge the DRC Government and the UN to work together to protect civilians from ongoing violence and address the root causes of conflict. The previous Minister for Africa, my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East, raised this issue with the President on multiple occasions. We are committed to ensuring that the UN peacekeeping mission MONUSCO remains focused on delivering its mandate to protect civilians, and that vulnerable communities remain central to the UN’s work in the DRC.

In the Central African Republic, there are long-standing concerns about violence along religious lines. I am grateful for the APPG’s explorations of the nuances of the conflict and the religious tensions in that country, which will further enrich the Government’s understanding and help to inform our approach. Sadly, hate speech and inter-communal tensions remain prominent in the CAR, and disinformation can be used to drive divisions for political and economic gain, so while the current conflict is not predominantly religious in nature, the lack of formal justice and reconciliation mechanisms mean that tensions could become defined along religious and ideological lines. We will continue to monitor this issue very closely, and FCDO officials are working with researchers in the CAR to understand more about the role that disinformation is playing in fuelling this conflict. We continue to shape the peacekeeping mission mandate in both countries to protect vulnerable communities and promote inclusive dialogue.

Turning to Nigeria, my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton and many others spoke passionately about the violence and, indeed, the increase in violence in Nigeria. We are very troubled by the rising insecurity in that country, including terrorism in the north-east, where insurgents from Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province are responsible for regular attacks on both Christians and Muslims. Both groups regularly attack Nigerians of all faiths who do not subscribe to their extremist views, causing immense suffering in both Christian and Muslim communities. Separately, there is inter-communal conflict and banditry occurring across multiple states; again, that continues to blight both Christian and Muslim groups. The drivers of those conflicts are deeply complex; they can be highly localised and relate to a number of different factors.

We really welcome the APPG report on Nigeria. It analysed inter-communal violence in the middle belt, and acts of terrorism committed by Boko Haram and ISWA in the northeast. A full response was issued by my predecessor as Minister for Africa, my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East, which emphasised our support for solutions that get to the root causes of the conflict—addressing the root cause is so important if the violence is to be reduced. My predecessor visited Nigeria in April, and discussed the increasing of security across the country with the Government and community leaders. During the Nigerian delegation’s visit to the Global Education Summit in London in July, he also discussed the impact of insecurity, potential religious dynamics, and issues such as school kidnapping with the Nigerian Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Minister of State for Education.

We totally condemn the devasting impact that this violence has had, and is having, on people in Nigeria. We continue to make clear to the Nigerian authorities, at the highest levels, the importance of protecting civilians—including all ethnic and religious groups—and protecting human rights for all.

Oral Answers to Questions

Catherine West Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I thank my hon. Friend, and he is absolutely right. We celebrate the role of all communities and all religions in this country: they make Britain what it is. He is absolutely right to say—I regularly raise it with my colleagues and opposite numbers overseas—that particularly in Muslim-majority countries it seems there is not quite as much concern as in the UK and other western, non-Muslim-majority countries about human rights abuses. This is an actor-agnostic issue; it is merely about treatment—persecution—based on religion, creed or ethnicity. We call on all countries to uphold those basic values, but particularly those most directly affected with the victims in Xinjiang.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab) [V]]

Last week, the Government finally gave the EU ambassador the legal recognition they so arrogantly denied him earlier this year, and last month we saw the Government’s needlessly antagonistic approach towards our European partners overshadow the G7 summit and consequently hamper international efforts to tackle pressing global challenges. Does the Foreign Secretary now accept that this was a mistake that has undermined our relationship with Europe, and will he commit to treating our European partners as equals to ensure that we can work together on common concerns such as security, freedom of speech, covid and climate change?

[Dominic Raab]

Particularly after the Harry Dunn case, and what we learned about the risk of finding gaps in immunity—including long-standing gaps that date back to the last Labour Government—I will make no apologies for being very careful with EU representation, which falls somewhere between a normal international organisation and a sovereign Government’s mission. We must ensure that privileges and immunities are tailored to their functional need, and that we do not find ourselves with a gap. That means that we can hold people to account for ordinary crimes, as the public would expect. Frankly, given the various voices from the Labour Front Bench who have raised the case of Harry Dunn, I am utterly surprised that the hon. Lady would not expect us to take such a rigorous approach.

Official Development Assistance and the British Council

Catherine West Excerpts

Wednesday 30th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell). I agree with him that it seems inconceivable that the UK could move away from its commitment of 0.7% of GNI to the world’s poorest.

The hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) reminded us, when she introduced today’s debate, that it was so important to follow the money. It worries me that we still have a lack of transparency on which programmes will be cut. I hope that the Minister will lay out some more details this afternoon. The hon. Lady has a strong reputation for standing up for women and girls, and so much of that has come out in our speeches this afternoon about the impact of this cut to the budget on women and girls throughout the world.

We know also that the UK’s soft power will be severely affected by the proposal to cut back the amount that is spent on overseas aid. The BBC World Service could be at risk. When I was living in Nanjing in China, working as a teacher, I knew the importance of tuning in to listen to the regular news, because it was one of the only things that I could trust, knowing that it was coming essentially from high-quality news sources in London.

I must mention the importance of the British Council in promoting values and promoting the exciting and wonderful offer that the UK has in its university sector. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) spoke extensively of his experience in Russia, working for the British Council. It gave him an incredible insight into the importance of culture and the importance of soft power in changing minds and being persuasive.

The importance of the English language has been mentioned during the debate this afternoon. We know that people often have their first encounter with the English language through the English language examination system administered by the British Council. We know also the importance of language learning for our students here in the UK, whether that be community languages, modern foreign languages in secondary schools—the number of students taking them is at an all-time low—or undergraduate and postgraduate language learning promoted by the Erasmus and Horizon schemes. That is all part of the UK’s soft power and contributes to the effectiveness of persuasion in winning arguments in terms of our values, the importance of democracy and the rule of law.

I wanted to devote my last couple of minutes to the importance of the global health research and development elements of ODA funding. Dame Sarah Gilbert received an enormous ovation and applause at Wimbledon yesterday—why? It was because she is one of the inventors of the AstraZeneca vaccine, and she and her whole team have given us a glimpse of freedom. Where did her learning come from? It developed in research to create the malaria vaccine. Research and development is so important because although there may not be a specific application that very day, it will come in very handy in the future.

The idea that we would cut back now on global health security is just nonsense. For example, we know that reducing the price of viral load testing for HIV by 40% in sub-Saharan Africa, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) and Lord Herbert in the House of Lords have said, is an important CDC innovative financing approach. Crashing that infrastructure, which has been built up over a number of years, would do immense damage to HIV research.

Furthermore, we know that such cuts will have an impact on our own regional universities; Professor Gilbert is just one very high-profile example. In research around genomic work, we are still in the foothills of understanding the important links in the work done in developing countries on new zoonotic diseases that come through the animal kingdom to human beings. We have excellence, and we must not get rid of our excellent science research and development links with developing countries in a bid to be populist.

Scientists, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa but across Africa and in Asia as well, are working together in a sense that is equal to our British scientists. That is the model of aid that we want to see, where the scientists are on an equal footing and have a collegial approach. British science is at its best where it is not a patronising hand-out, but collegial with other scientists across the globe, particularly in Africa and Asia.

This is an important year for the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting. Malaria eradication is one of its key aims. Prince Charles has just become the president of Malaria No More UK, which is attempting to promote the importance of strengthening health systems across Africa and supporting research and development with a results framework that incorporates progress against malaria and other neglected tropical diseases, as well as improvements in key indicators of community-level service provision, as core metrics of success.

I hope that the Minister will respond to those points. Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to contribute to the debate.

Deforestation in the Amazon

Catherine West Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to contribute under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe, to this very timely debate secured by the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling). There is a great deal of cross-party consensus. I obviously agree with the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson) about the aid cuts. I hope the Minister will give an assessment of the impact that the reductions being made by the Department will have on the subject of today’s debate.

Without a doubt, the Amazon rainforest is a vital bulwark in the international fight against climate change. It is apt that we are having this debate as the Government prepare to host the critically important conference of the parties climate summit in Glasgow later this year. It is impossible to overstate the importance of the Amazon. It has long been considered a vital carbon sink, and the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) related that to his own experience of farming. Scientists estimate that the vegetation and trees making up the forest contain a staggering 76 billion tonnes of carbon. It is also home to a rich tapestry of wildlife and rivers. It was lovely that my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) and the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara) quoted the indigenous leaders, who have spoken with such heartfelt poignancy about their current position.

Despite that, the situation today remains precarious. Some scientists estimate that if we lose just 5% more of the Amazon, it will trigger a tipping point. The forest will no longer be able to sustain itself and we will lose the Amazon as we know it. The warning signs have been there: from 2012 to 2016, there was a 200% increase in carbon loss. Before that, between 1992 and 2014, half a million square kilometres of Brazilian Amazon was either degraded or deforested. Other Members have cited very useful statistics. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) linked what we eat off our plates with the impact it has day in, day out in the Amazon.

Of course, there are no signs that there will be a reversal in fortunes while we have the current Government position in Brazil. Under President Bolsonaro, the Brazilian Parliament is about to improve, with the endorsement of a presidential decree, a legislative package that will alter key environmental legislation. That includes an amnesty for land grabbers and the approval of major infrastructure projects that will see swathes of the forest paved over.

What assessment has the Minister made of the excellent work of the international panel of jurists, chaired by our own Philippe Sands QC, which has come up with a definition of ecocide as the fifth pillar of the International Criminal Court? Obviously, headings 1 to 4 are the human rights ones that we know well. What assessment has the Minister’s Department made of the fifth—the new definition of ecocide? Does she believe that that legal instrument, if it is approved, will be useful in our deliberations on how to manage this crucial question?

As well as the very clear risks of climate change, we must be alive to the human dangers of ongoing and increasing deforestation. That has been so eloquently laid out by Members that I need not repeat it. In the past 18 months, we have become particularly attuned to the danger of pandemics, and there is a very real and clear risk, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West said, that further deforestation may cause another deadly pandemic. Biologists and epidemiologists have been ringing the alarm about that for some time. Does the Minister believe that that is an effective use of some of the global health spend in her Department, which I know she is trying hard to protect? Does she think this might be a worthy subject to fund, in terms of global health priorities? This is a moment when we are all focused on the way that coming into close contact with the animal kingdom can lead to deadly viruses such as covid-19. It is a question that desperately needs further research. We have the intellectual firepower here in the UK; I hope that the Minister, as a great champion for universities and the link between global health, universities and foreign policy, will opine on that. The Amazon is thought to be home to 10% of known species on earth, so risk of another zoological pandemic originating from the region could not be starker.

The UK is uniquely positioned to act. Many of us mentioned the global COP summit in Glasgow. What dialogue has the Minister had directly with the ambassador regarding the deforestation question? Did he suggest, as some Brazilian MPs suggested to me, that the Amazon grows back? Could she enlighten us about how that bilateral conversation is going, saying whatever she can say in public?

Turning to the role of the financial sector, my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) made a very eloquent speech about our financial centre and the impact of our banks, our insurance and all the other instruments, which we might be able to challenge. I hope that the Treasury will become more activist about that. What protections are the Government putting in place so that trade between the UK and Brazil enshrines environmental and human rights protections during the negotiations? In a trade negotiation, it is amazing how far-reaching the discussions can be. Will the Minister also tell us where she thinks the Department for International Trade is up to in its discussions? I assume that they are at a preliminary stage, but now is a great time to be talking about the issues that we in Parliament are raising. There is no time like the present, especially when we are talking about the environment.

Other hon. Members have spoken so well in the debate, such as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who raised the question of drought. That is another specialism within the new FCDO that I know the Minister has many thoughts on. Has she given any consideration to that?

I want to finish there to give the Minister plenty of time and so that she can perhaps allow a couple of interventions. I thank hon. Members for taking part, and I want to put on record how deeply we care about the environment and our relationship with Brazil. I hope we can all send a message from our Parliament to theirs and when we can travel again I hope we can welcome Brazilian MPs here to discuss this issue in person.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Wendy Morton)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) on securing this debate. We have had a very broad debate with a lot of contributions from right across the House. This issue means a lot to my right hon. Friend and quite clearly to Members across the House. It means a lot to me as well. Given the breadth of the debate, I will endeavour to answer as many questions as I can. On whether I will have time for interventions, let us see how I canter along, but I will try my best.

Protecting the Amazon is a priority for the UK. The pandemic has been a powerful reminder of the great global challenges that pose an existential threat to our security and prosperity here in the UK. We recognise that in our integrated review of UK foreign policy, in which we said that tackling climate change and biodiversity loss is our No. 1 international priority. Climate change and biodiversity loss are inseparable. We cannot stop climate change without protecting the natural environment, and we cannot protect the natural environment without tackling climate change. Conserving the Amazon is a crucial piece of the puzzle.

As we heard, the Amazon is one of the world’s most precious places. It is one of the most biodiverse places on earth. Its role in the global ecosystem, producing oxygen, absorbing carbon dioxide and regulating rainfall and temperatures, is huge. It is home to numerous indigenous people. Around a quarter of all drugs used today are derived from rainforest plants. It is estimated that the Amazon stores almost five years’ worth of global emissions of carbon dioxide. If deforestation is allowed to carry on, it will reach a tipping point—potentially in the next 10 years. Unchecked, the Amazon will be turned from carbon sink into source of emissions. That is one of the gravest risks that the world faces. It is a critical time for action on climate change, as we prepare to host COP26 in November. We know there is no path to net zero without a massive escalation of efforts to protect and restore nature, and crucially to protect the Amazon.

As president of COP26 and recently president of the G7, we have put nature at the heart of our response to tackling climate change. The leaders’ 2030 Nature Compact set out G7 ambition to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030, highlighting nature’s role in tackling climate change; tackling deforestation through supporting sustainable supply chains; and participating in the COP26 forest, agriculture and commodity trade dialogue.

The problems with deforestation do not stop with climate or biodiversity. There is a strong link with security. Across the Amazon, illegal deforestation is inseparably bound up with criminal organisations. They operate transnationally, trafficking wood, minerals, drugs and people. Tackling illegal deforestation is vital, whether through alternative livelihoods or law enforcement co-operation. More than anything, it requires strong and principled political leadership.

It is not a challenge for any one country or even one region alone. The world’s tropical forests benefit all of us, and all countries have a shared responsibility as consumers and producers alike. The furniture we buy and the food that we eat can make a difference. We know that to protect the Amazon we need to support the efforts of countries in the region. There are three that contain more than three quarters of the forest between them: Brazil, Colombia and Peru. We cannot achieve our aims without Brazil, and I welcome Brazil’s recommitment to zero deforestation in the Amazon by 2030, which it announced at the Earth Day summit this year.

We are eager to see the robust implementation plans that Brazil will need to deliver on that commitment. We are using our diplomatic capabilities and ODA programming to encourage the Brazilian Government to recommit to implementing and enforcing the Brazilian forest code, which is an important legal mechanism for protecting the Amazon rainforest. For Brazil, setting out those plans will bring advantages. It will shore up investor and consumer confidence and unlock private sector financial flows.

We are working at a national level with Brazil and with individual regions, for example, supporting the state of Mato Grosso to reduce deforestation, through our climate finance programmes. Brazil needs to tackle its problems of deforestation urgently, and we are closely watching the rates of deforestation and Brazil’s actions, as the dry season approaches.

A number of hon. Members referred to vulnerable communities and indigenous peoples. We are engaging with state Governments and local authorities. We have a results-based agreement with the states of Mato Grosso and Acre, which helps indigenous communities to develop sustainable income sources, and strengthen food security. Around 20,000 families have benefited so far.

Through the ICF partnerships for forests programme, the UK also supports almost 2,000 indigenous people, to strengthen their livelihoods through sustainable forest management. Our embassy international programme works to better understand the needs of indigenous peoples, supporting vulnerable communities during the pandemic.

As we ask other countries to act on climate change, it is only right that we make our own commitments. We have committed to double our international climate finance to £11.6 billion over the next five years, and to invest at least £3 billion of that in solutions that protect and restore nature. We are engaging the multilateral development banks and asking them to put nature first across all their work, and to support countries to fulfil their environmental commitments

As we announced at President Biden’s climate summit, we are helping to build the Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest finance coalition, which aims to mobilise $1 billion in financing. It will kick off what is expected to become one of the largest ever public-private efforts to protect tropical forests and support sustainable development.

Reducing our footprint overseas is critical to that development. This year, through the forest, agriculture and commodity trade dialogue, we are bringing together the biggest producers and consumers of the commodities that drive deforestation—cocoa, cattle, soy and palm oil. Together with those countries and co-chair Indonesia, we are agreeing actions to protect forests and other carbon- rich ecosystems, such as the Amazon, while promoting trade and development.

[Catherine West]

While the Minister is speaking about the private-public partnerships, could she comment on the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) on the banking—financial—sector, which we are famous for, so that it is a virtual circle?

[Wendy Morton]

I am about to come onto that point. In May, our joint statement, drafted with the 24 signatory countries on collaboration, was endorsed by critical Amazon countries, such as Brazil, Colombia and Peru. I have talked about a responsibility to reduce our impact at home. We are bringing forward a law that will make it illegal for larger businesses in the UK to use forest risk commodities produced on land used illegally. That will make sure there is no place for illegally produced commodities on our supermarket shelves, and support other countries to enforce their own forest protection measures. At the same time, we are working with UK businesses to improve the sustainability of their soy and palm oil supply chains through roundtables on these.

On the point raised by the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) about the importance of engaging with the financial sector on deforestation, the UK Government are funding a phase 2 global resource initiative taskforce, tasked specifically to make recommendations on addressing deforestation and linked finance. It will report with recommendations to the Government in the autumn.

Those initiatives are helping UK supermarkets and restaurants reach 100% sustainable soy and palm oil to reduce the UK’s environmental footprint overseas. Alongside that engagement with businesses, we urgently need financial decision making and investments to take account of nature. The launch of the taskforce on nature-related financial disclosure this month marks an important milestone in that process and builds on our leadership in green finance.