Civil Society and Human Rights Defenders

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I assure my noble friend that it remains a priority. Indeed, very recently after the appointment of the new Government my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary, the new Minister for Development, Andrew Mitchell, and I met civil society organisations directly to ensure that each of their priorities was fully understood, both in terms of the work we are doing in defending human rights around the world and equally in terms of understanding their development priorities.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, how can the Minister say that it is one of his priorities when government programmes on open societies and human rights have been slashed by 74% between 2019-20 and 2021-22? We know that the most important human rights defenders around the world are women. It is a year and a week since the Government said they had

“decided to restore the women and girls development budget to what it was before the … ODA … cut”.

Why can I not find any evidence of this reversal? Would this not be a horrific, dreadful broken promise if the Government have reneged on that commitment?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, the first thing I would say to the noble Lord is that it is not just about money. One of the primary assets we have is our advocacy and diplomacy. The noble Lord himself is an example of diplomacy and advocacy around the world. I am proud of the fact that the United Kingdom leads on this agenda, not just on freedom of religion, standing up for girls’ rights, standing up for development, standing up for human rights defenders through practical initiatives, yes, but support through money as well. We stand by our commitment to ensuring that humanitarian support and the priority given to women and girls remains part and parcel of our development and diplomacy effort.