Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Deputy Foreign Secretary, what estimate his Department has made of the amount of humanitarian aid supplied to Gaza in the last six months; and what information his Department holds on the countries of origin of that aid.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell
We trebled our aid commitment in the last financial year and we are doing everything we can to get more aid in as quickly as possible by land, sea and air.
As of 9 May, the UK has participated in 12 airdrops into Gaza, and on 17 April we announced £3 million of additional funding for equipment to support UN and aid agencies to get more aid into Gaza, including trucks, forklifts, generators, fuel stores and lighting towers.
On 6 April, the UK announced a £9.7 million package of military and civilian support to set up a maritime aid corridor to Gaza, including the deployment of a Navy ship.
In addition, a field hospital, provided by UK Aid funding to UK-Med, is up and running in Gaza and has already treated thousands of patients, and we have funded more than 2,000 tonnes of food aid, which entered Gaza in March for distribution by the World Food Programme (WFP) on the ground.
Updates on the number of aid trucks and type of aid entering Gaza are published by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) on their publicly available aid dashboard at gazadashboard.unrwa.org. Between 2 November and 2 May 24,390 trucks entered Gaza. It remains challenging to track deliveries by weight and origin.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Deputy Foreign Secretary, if he will make representations to his counterpart in Iran on stopping the execution of Arvin Nathaniel Ghahremani.
Answered by David Rutley
FCDO is aware of Mr Ghahremani's case. We continue to call on Iran to establish a moratorium on executions, including at the UN General Assembly last year. We have sanctioned 94 individuals or entities for human rights violations since September 2022, including the Prosecutor General and Deputy Prosecutor General who are responsible for Iran's application of the death penalty. We continue to call for the release of all those who are unjustly detained in Iran.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Deputy Foreign Secretary, pursuant to the Answer of 12 January 2024 to Question 7549 on Hamas: Audio Equipment, what steps his Department is taking to help support Israel to remove Hamas from power in the Gaza Strip.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell
The UK is doing all it can to reach a long-term solution to this crisis by calling for the immediate release of all hostages, the removal of Hamas' capacity to launch attacks against Israel, Hamas no-longer being in charge of Gaza, the formation of a new Palestinian Government for the West Bank and Gaza accompanied by an international support package, and a political horizon to a two-state solution.
The Prime Minister has spoken with Prime Minister Netanyahu several times, most recently on 30 April. The Foreign Secretary spoke with Foreign Minister Katz on 13 May. He also visited Israel with German Foreign Minister Baerbock on 17 April, met G7 partners in Italy immediately afterwards, and has spoken with leaders and counterparts in the OPTs, Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Iran in recent weeks.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Deputy Foreign Secretary, what assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of the Sri Lankan reconciliation process.
Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan
Sri Lanka is a human rights priority country, and the UK regularly engages with the Government of Sri Lanka on areas of concern, including progress on reconciliation. We recognise the significant doubts expressed by affected communities regarding the credibility of reconciliation mechanisms. The UK has stressed the importance of an inclusive participatory process to build trust. Any mechanism must be independent, meaningful, and transparent, meet the expectations of affected communities, build upon previous transitional justice processes, and provide pathways for accountability. The UK continues to fund work on the removal of landmines and the resettlement of internally displaced communities to support reconciliation efforts.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Deputy Foreign Secretary, what recent discussions he has had with his international counterparts on continuing military support to Ukraine.
Answered by Nusrat Ghani
The UK has increased our military support to Ukraine this year by £500 million to £3 billion, and pledged to maintain that support until the end of this decade, or longer if required. The Foreign Secretary is in constant contact with international partners making the case for allies to increase their military support to Ukraine. His recent international engagement includes, for example: a visit to Ukraine on 2 May; meetings with NATO Foreign Ministers, G7 Foreign Ministers and his counterparts in the USA in April; Germany in March; and Poland, Bulgaria, France, G20 Foreign Ministers and the UN in February.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Deputy Foreign Secretary, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights on the economy.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell
The FCDO has not made an assessment of this nature.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, whether his Department holds information on whether the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has approved Hamas’ use of its supplies and equipment.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell
The UK takes allegations of neutrality violations extremely seriously including reports of diversion of equipment. This is something we monitor in our annual assessment of UNRWA.
The UK is following closely the independent review led by Minister Catherine Colonna which is assessing the mechanisms and procedures that the Agency currently has in place to ensure neutrality.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of the fisheries transparency reforms introduced by Thailand's government in 2015 on fish stocks in the region.
Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan
We are monitoring developments regarding proposals to reform Thailand's Fisheries Act and are engaging with relevant organisations to understand the potential impact of these reforms. The UK complies with its international obligations to maintain labour, maritime and environmental standards, and we encourage other countries to do the same.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, if he will hold discussions with representatives of Thailand's government on its proposed fishing reforms.
Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan
We are monitoring developments regarding proposals to reform Thailand's Fisheries Act and are engaging with relevant organisations to understand the potential impact of these reforms. The UK complies with its international obligations to maintain labour, maritime and environmental standards, and we encourage other countries to do the same.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, if he will make an assessment of the implications for his policies of fishing by China’s state-sponsored distant water fleet in the (a) Andaman Sea and (b) Gulf of Thailand.
Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan
The UK is committed to engaging with other countries, including China, to sustainably manage fisheries, protect ecosystems and combat Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing. We support ocean protection through appropriate funding. For example, at the G7 Leaders Summit in Cornwall, the Government pledged £500 million to create our Blue Planet Fund to help developing countries protect the ocean from pollution, overfishing and habitat loss. We also push for multilateral action internationally, including through Regional Fisheries Management Organisations, the Convention of Biological Diversity and the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation. The UK remains committed to international law and UNCLOS.
China is building a network of fishing bases in developing countries across four continents. Comprising ports, boats, and fish processing plants, the bases service China's distant-water fleet: an armada of over 4,600 vessels (potentially many more) that operates in the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) of 42 countries and accounts for 14 percent of worldwide marine catch by value.