Oral Answers to Questions
Mike Kane Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
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Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Mr Andrew Mitchell)
East Africa currently represents the world’s largest and most severe humanitarian crisis. We have allocated £156 million in life-saving aid across the region this financial year.
Mr Mitchell
I am sure that when the hon. Gentleman has time to study yesterday’s “Integrated Review Refresh” in detail, he will see that it contains much to be welcomed in respect of the future of Britain’s international development leadership. However, he is right to talk about the intense humanitarian needs that exist in the area that he has mentioned. In Ethiopia we are helping to deliver humanitarian support to 8 million people, alongside efforts to promote water conservation. In Sudan, £320,000 vulnerable people are receiving food support thanks to British assistance. In South Sudan, 200,000 are receiving emergency food and nutrition, and in Somalia—which I visited in December—4.4 million people have received water, sanitation and hygiene support from Britain since 2018, and 3.2 million have received emergency food. The hon. Gentleman can therefore rest assured that we are absolutely on the case, and are doing everything we can to support the international effort to counter what may well be the fifth year of drought.
Mike Kane
The £156 million of aid to which the Minister referred is five times less than the amount provided by the UK Government six years ago to deal with a milder crisis. In a week when we are talking about displaced people, we are facing an exodus of biblical proportions in east Africa. What more can the Government do to help those communities to stay in their homes?
Mr Mitchell
The hon. Gentleman is right, in that the aims of British development policy are to help people to remain in their own homes and be safe and secure and, indeed, prosperous. What we are seeing in the horn of Africa is an immense crisis of extraordinary proportions to which the whole international community must respond, not only with money but with skill and expertise, and British leadership is at the forefront of that.
Chinese Consul General: Attack on Protesters in Manchester
Mike Kane Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
I will take that point away and discuss it with the team. Just as we have in many countries, there are consulates general not only at the main embassy but across large areas. Thinking of our own, the One HMG programme was done to help us bring together our trade and agriculture experts and those working in-country. He is quite right that we see consulates general across the UK for many embassies that are accredited to the Court of St James’s. I will take that point away.
Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
I join the Minister and the Opposition Front Bencher in praising Greater Manchester police. We should have not seen scenes such as that in our great city. I am disappointed that this issue has had to be raised as an urgent question, because the Foreign Secretary was making a statement on his Department’s media channel about it last night. I am concerned that he is not here.
The Minister summed it up: these diplomats are accredited, so what happens when they are replaced in the consulate of Manchester? Will those officials have a semblance of the common good and allow encounter and dialogue, or will they be replaced with further state-sponsored thugs?
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
The Chinese embassy and Beijing will no doubt send a new consul general in due course. We will be clear, as we always are with all those who come to serve in their embassies in the UK, that we expect the highest standards from all staff. That will continue to be the case.
British Indian Ocean Territory: Sovereignty
Mike Kane Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
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Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Cummins. I congratulate the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) on securing this debate. Since becoming a Member of Parliament, it has been my great pleasure to get thoroughly involved with the Chagos community in my constituency, which numbers 300 to 400 people. What a wonderful community it is! They celebrate their annual mass on Chagos Day at St Anthony’s in Woodhouse Park, to which I am invited. The food is fantastic as well.
What a wonderful community, but what a horror story. I describe the Chagossians’ removal from those islands in that era as the mother of all injustices. I have about 13 constituents who still remember the days and weeks that it happened; they have told me about having their crops burned and their animals shot, being forcibly lined up on a boat to sail 800 nautical miles away to wherever—the Seychelles or Port Louis, Mauritius—and having their way of life ripped asunder. They are some of the most horrific stories I have heard in my eight years in this place. Then, to compound what I have called the mother of all injustices, there was then the injustice of their treatment in Mauritius.
We have had 50 years of systemic failure—failing these people who live in systemic poverty. It is passed on from generation to generation. The reason why so many Chagossians live in the constituency of the hon. Member for Crawley (Henry Smith), I would say, is because they get jobs at the airport, as they do in my constituency. We have to do more. We have to go further and faster to begin to break down the systemic poverty that the Chagossians have suffered generation upon generation. I think we can do it.
The UK is subject to the rule of international law. The hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham is right. We see at first hand China’s tentacles everywhere in my constituency and in my city. There is no need to tell that to a Mancunian at the moment—we see what China is doing in its consulate in my city, where the consul general came out and dragged in Hong Kong protesters, beating them up. A foreign state in my city is perpetrating this. We had a wonderful relationship with that consulate for 60 years, but, in the last five or 10 years, we have seen the change in the authoritative tone of the Chinese Government.
But we are subject to the rule of law. This International Court of Justice ruling against us at the UN has forced us into a position. The UK has to enter some form of negotiations, and we should carry those out in a way that, as the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) said, achieves good outcomes for the Chagos communities. Good outcomes mean the Chagossians getting British passports—how many of us who represent Chagossian communities have struggled, following the treatment of the Windrush generation in the past few years, to get them ordinary British passports? It means getting the right to remain to do that, to allow them to get better jobs and bursaries for education and to enable them to send back the natives who came here if they want a burial on those islands.
I have, for all sorts of reasons, taken over the chairmanship of the APPG, on which I have sat for eight years. We have campaigned religiously to highlight the plight of this community. Next week, I will meet with Chagossian Voices again to hear at first hand their thoughts on these negotiations. In my first act as chairman, I wrote to the Foreign Secretary, who has now kindly agreed to come and address the group early in the new year, so we will get first-hand information about the stage of these negotiations and what the intent of the British state is.
Many of us present have campaigned for years on this subject. Let us make sure that we put the Chagossians, their rights and their dignity at the heart of everything we do going forward.
Chinese Consul General: Manchester Protest
Mike Kane Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Jesse Norman
The hon. Gentleman knows that we have opened the British national overseas channel. We have offered support from the Home Office and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, and those individuals remain under the rule of law and therefore the purview of the police, as would any other residents in this country.
Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
The right to protest is a British value that stems from 1819 and the Peterloo massacre in our great city, which is why this Government’s inaction is gnawing at our moral core. Powerlessness corrupts, and absolute powerlessness corrupts absolutely; the Government are being sclerotic in this case, if that is not part of the wider malaise. However, I too know the Minister to be an honourable man, so in that spirit can he tell us what discussions he has had with either the Mayor of Greater Manchester, the leader of Manchester City Council or Greater Manchester police to reassure the people in our great city that action will be taken?
Jesse Norman
The hon. Gentleman is a Manchester MP and I respect the force of his passion on this issue. As with the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), there is nothing more deadly than when a member of the Opposition is kind about the gentleman at the Dispatch Box, so I am aware of the danger there. I would correct the hon. Gentleman on the issue of the rule of law and due process in this country; it goes back way before Peterloo, and one would think of the codification or formalisation of legal changes in the 17th century, if not earlier. He also brilliantly misquotes Lord Acton. On Greater Manchester police, that is a matter for the Home Office, but I can be absolutely certain, as can he, that they will be following the debate with considerable interest.
Chinese Consulate: Attack on Hong Kong Protesters
Mike Kane Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
It was only in 2015 that we were welcoming his excellency, Xi Jinping, to Manchester, where he spoke of our city’s historical links with Wuhan and investments in Manchester airport, Manchester City, the University of Manchester and the Manchester international festival, but much has changed. Having met local Hong Kong residents in Trafford, which my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) mentioned, and having been personally at the rough end of Chinese state tactics—having met Cardinal Zen who is under house arrest in Hong Kong—I think that this country, to use the Mancunian vernacular, needs to grow a pair and say to China, “Be a force for good in the world and stop being state-sponsored thugs.”
Violence against Religious Groups: Nigeria
Mike Kane Excerpts(1 year, 11 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Vicky Ford
It is really important to look at what we have done. I have mentioned a number of different projects, and others are coming. For example, our LINKS programme has facilitated investments worth more than £14 million. That has created 20,000 full-time jobs and has been helping to pay more than 48,000 people and increase their incomes since 2019. As I said, when I visited the region, I was moved to hear how the relationships between community members and members of the forces had significantly improved in the Lake Chad basin. It is a very difficult part of the world with high levels of conflict—the country has some of the highest levels of conflict in the world—but there were slithers of optimism that we should continue to try to develop.
Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
I, like hundreds of millions across the planet, had the pleasure of celebrating Pentecost yesterday and, with no disrespect to the Minister, I think that the FCDO still does not get this. The Government must recognise the anti-Christian nature of the attack on the birthday of the Church yesterday, because there were also attacks at the Chapel of the Pentecost in Jerusalem. Does she agree that the religious dimension must be addressed for progress to be made?
Vicky Ford
As a Christian, I know how important Pentecost is—it is a really important service—and to attack Christians at prayer is a hideous crime. It is also a hideous crime to attack anyone from any religion who is trying to worship and pray for peace. It has ripped away the peace of that community, of those who lost their lives and of their families. At this point, it is not clear who was behind the attack or what motivated it specifically, but there could be up to 50 victims.
As I said in my opening remarks, it is clear that religious identity can be a factor in incidents of violence in Nigeria. We have seen attacks against churches; we have also seen attacks against mosques. It is really important that we work together with Nigeria—a country that is 50:50 in Muslims and Christians—across the fence to call for peace, to call for calm, and to call out those who attack others, whether religiously motivated or otherwise.
Digital Persecution
Mike Kane Excerpts(2 years ago)
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The Minister for Asia and the Middle East (Amanda Milling)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) on securing the debate, which, as she set out in her excellent speech, is an important one. I thank her for everything that she does as the Prime Minister’s special envoy for freedom of religion or belief.
I make it absolutely clear that human rights must be protected both offline and online. New technologies and online communities provide a platform to strengthen democracies and human rights, but they also provide new tools for repression, persecution and censorship, which are putting open societies and democratic freedoms under pressure.
The UK Government condemn all actions that violate human rights, whether offline or online. We share the concern of my hon. Friend and others about the growing use of digital technology to target human rights defenders and civil society. We are troubled to see the increasing levels of gender-based harassment and abuse online, and we are strongly opposed to Governments unlawfully shutting down or restricting access to the internet and social media.
Everyone should be able to make the most of the positive opportunities that the online world offers. That is why the Government are pursuing a three-pronged approach to promote internet access and protect human rights online. First, we are pressing states to uphold their human rights obligations and working with them to spread digital access to excluded groups. Secondly, we are campaigning for media freedom and leading international efforts to promote digital democracy. Thirdly, we are working with international partners, including through the UN, to protect those whose rights are abused or violated online.
On the first, we regularly raise issues of concern with other Governments, in public and in private. We have led international efforts to hold China to account for the human rights violations that we have heard about today.
Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
I am very grateful to the Minister for giving way and I join her in congratulating the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) on securing the debate. Just before the pandemic, as part of the International Catholic Legislators Network, I had the great honour to meet Cardinal Zen, who has campaigned for religious freedom in China his whole life. We had to meet in secret, in a secret room, at a time we could not announce because we had to run the gauntlet of Chinese demonstrations and surveillance from a hotel across the road. This was in Portugal. That is the type of behaviour going on for people who want to practise their religion. It is not good enough and the Minister is right to set out the points she is making.
Amanda Milling
I am grateful for that intervention. As I will set out, we are leading efforts to hold China to account for human rights violations and I will set out some of the conversations that have been had.
We were the first country to lead a joint statement on China’s human rights record at the UN. Last month, the Foreign Secretary expressed her deep concern, in an address to the UN Human Rights Council, about the violations occurring in Xinjiang and Tibet. We made clear our concerns about mass surveillance in Xinjiang, which my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton discussed, including in a joint statement alongside 42 other countries at the UN in October. We also raise our concerns directly with the Chinese authorities at the highest levels, and I personally raised these issues with the Chinese ambassador to London in December. Meanwhile, we continue to work with our international partners to address the human rights violations taking place across the People’s Republic of China. We have imposed sanctions on senior Chinese officials and introduced enhanced controls to block exports of technology that might facilitate human rights violations.
The UK co-founded the Media Freedom Coalition in defence of journalists. The coalition has issued statements about the deteriorating media environments in Egypt, Belarus, Hong Kong, Myanmar and Russia, among others. We have committed £3 million over five years to the UNESCO global media defence fund, which has supported more than 1,700 journalists, including many of those who have received threats online. We also support media freedom through our development aid budget and have spent more than £400 million on that over the past five years. Last December, we joined the Freedom Online Coalition taskforce, which is committed to tackling the growing problem of internet exclusion and shutdowns. We also fund the #KeepltOn campaign, run by the digital advocacy non-governmental organisation Access Now. The campaign brings together a coalition of more than 240 organisations from 105 countries in a global effort to end internet restrictions and shutdowns.
We also support projects that use the online world to foster open societies. Through our digital access programme, we are closing the gap for excluded groups, strengthening cyber security and spreading economic opportunities. Our most recent figures show that, in just one year, the programme benefited 2.3 million people in almost 300 communities in Indonesia, Brazil, Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa. Within the United Nations, we are working to build a coalition of states committed to promoting digital access, protecting human rights online and countering disinformation. We have co-sponsored UN resolutions to urge member states and social media companies to combat misinformation, antisemitism and all forms of hatred. We are also looking forward to hosting the freedom of religion or belief conference in July, which my hon. Friend mentioned. I thank her again for everything that she is doing to support the conference in her role as the special envoy. The impact of digital technologies on freedom of religion or belief and human rights more broadly will be on the agenda.
In order to have influence abroad, we must set an example at home. We are committed to turning our Online Safety Bill into law to require tech companies to tackle illegal activity and content on their platforms, including hate crime, harassment and cyber-stalking.
I am incredibly grateful to my hon. Friend for securing the debate. The online space and new digital technologies represent not only opportunities, but challenges for the protection of human rights. We have heard about some of the terrible abuses and violations perpetrated through digital means.
Iran Detainees
Mike Kane Excerpts(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Elizabeth Truss
As I said, I have raised this specific case, but I would be happy to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss it further.
Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
The American academic Margaret Mead famously said:
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
So well done to the Foreign Secretary, her Ministers and her Department, and to my hon. Friends the Members for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) and for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq), whose work on this has been indefatigable. I do not want to strike a discordant note, but in relation to what the shadow Foreign Secretary, the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) and the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) have said about this deal, I think all of us in Parliament would be happier if there had been some briefing and scrutiny, even on Privy Council terms.
Elizabeth Truss
I hear what the hon. Gentleman says. We do have an arrangement, and it was part of the very careful negotiations that have taken place over the past six months that this deal would be kept confidential. We have the humanitarian assurances on the IMF front and I will see what I can do within the bounds of that. However, the United Kingdom is a country that keeps its word and we have given our word to keep this confidential.
Executions in Saudi Arabia
Mike Kane Excerpts(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Amanda Milling
As I have said, we regularly raise concerns about human rights, but, specifically, Lord Ahmad, the Minister responsible for human rights, raised them during his visit to Saudi Arabia earlier in February.
Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
Pope Francis recently said that the death penalty is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the human person, and is inadmissible in all cases. Following on from what the right hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) said, 1.7 million Catholics live in Saudi Arabia—8% of the population. King Salman has a cordial relationship with the Church, and the Crown Prince recently visited the Archbishop of Canterbury to talk about inter-religious dialogue. What pressure can we put on civil society groups to explain to the royal family there that many of their people do not believe in the death penalty and give them an understanding as to why we do not believe in it?
Amanda Milling
The UK Government and partners do raise human rights issues and also our opposition to the death penalty. As I have said, the UK strongly opposes the death penalty. Saudi Arabia remains a human rights priority country, which is, in part, because of its use of the death penalty, but also because of its restrictions on women’s rights, freedom of expression and freedom of religion and belief.
Oral Answers to Questions
Mike Kane Excerpts(4 years, 6 months ago)
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Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and First Secretary of State (Dominic Raab)
May I start, Mr Speaker, by saying it is an honour to be the first Member at the Dispatch Box to congratulate you on taking the Chair? You will not have an easy task, but I am confident that with your technical expertise and your long experience and good humour, you will do an absolutely superb job.
The UK has consistently opposed Turkish military action in Syria. We condemned it with our European partners and we are concerned about the impact it will have on stability, on the humanitarian crisis and also on the counter-Daesh effort.
Dominic Raab
The hon. Lady is right to say that the first responsibility is of course with any parent or prospective parent who would take their children out to a conflict zone. We have made it clear that we are willing to repatriate unaccompanied UK minors or orphans where is no risk to UK security. We would consider carefully individual requests for consular support more generally and subject to national security considerations, but of course the UK has no consular presence in Syria from which to provide assistance, and that makes it very difficult to help, but we respond on a case-by-case basis.
Dominic Raab
We talk to all the parties and players involved. Obviously there is an important NATO component. The US withdrawal of troops is, of course, a matter for them, but we note that a small residual number of troops are going to be left for counter-Daesh operations. We support the deconfliction mechanism that is in place to try to ensure that the airspace can be correctly and properly policed.