Lord Oates
Main Page: Lord Oates (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Oates's debates with the Leader of the House
(2 days, 14 hours ago)
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Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
The noble Baroness is absolutely right. As she knows, in March I co-chaired with Denmark a UN Security Council meeting particularly on conflict-related sexual violence. This was followed by chairing a round table with the fact-finding mission that we supported on Sudan and managed to get through the Human Rights Council. All these actions were about listening to and hearing the voices of women. Those recommendations were passed to the Prime Minister to ensure that they helped to shape the discussions at the April conference, which will be very important to follow up—this is absolutely vital. From our women, peace and security agenda, we know that the engagement and involvement of women lead to a more sustainable peace.
Lord Oates (LD)
My Lords, following the welcome declaration by the UK, France and Canada of concrete action if Israel does not end the intolerable situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, will the Government take a similar approach with external parties to the war in Sudan? They are fuelling the biggest humanitarian disaster in the world, particularly those supplying drones that are being used to attack Port Sudan, the lifeline for desperately needed humanitarian aid.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
I do not want simply to repeat myself, but it is really important to understand that we were absolutely trying to convey those messages at the conference on 15 April, which we convened. We made very clear that all those engaged regional parties should resist supporting one party or the other and supplying arms. That was the focus of the conference; we made that clear, and that was the outcome of the chair’s statement.