Chinese Consul General: Manchester Protest

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman]

The fact of the matter is that we have already laid out an approach to this. As I said, the last time an ambassador was summoned to the Foreign Secretary was in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. There are diplomatic channels through which these things occur, and we need to respect them. As regards the question of arrest, an individual might have been arrested, or they might not have been; that is at the discretion of the police. That remains the case whether they are outside the embassy or on any other parts of our streets.

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

Can the Minister outline what tangible steps have been taken to protect the Hong Kong community, Tibetans and Uyghurs from intimidation, threats and actual use of violence from the Chinese state on UK soil—tangible steps?

[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.

Global Vaccine Disparities

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[John McDonnell]

There is a lesson I thought we had learned decades ago, which is that when we have viruses such as this, whether it is polio, covid or others, unless we treat the world, eventually we will become vulnerable again. That is exactly the experience we are going through now. Even with covid, we are going through it again. As we know from information from the past month, a new covid variant has arisen, and from what we hear, that variant is more transmissible than anything we have experienced. On all those issues, unless we have a global strategy to vaccinate the world, unfortunately we will not be able to isolate ourselves from future infections and future tragedies.

Let me return to the issue of the TRIPS waiver, which a number of hon. Members present have raised in various debates. It is worth reminding the House that there was a call from most countries to waive the rules during the pandemic. The tragedy for us was that the British Government were implacably opposed to the waiver. Britain was one of the last countries standing, and only on the last day did Britain sign up to the World Trade Organisation’s very poor compromise on the waiver. I will be frank: I think that is disgraceful. It is disgraceful for a Government of a country that had all the vaccines we needed. The onus was on us to do everything we could to prevent this infection from spreading, and to do all we could to assist poorer countries.

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his important contribution to the debate. On the one hand, the Government are currently negotiating a free trade agreement with India. On the other hand, they blocked the proposal from India and South Africa for a TRIPS waiver at the World Trade Organisation. Does my right hon. Friend think that is the right approach to take to the issue of fair distribution of vaccines, and to our relationship with India?

[John McDonnell]

The issue that my hon. Friend raises is something that we have raised before. I commend India and South Africa for the work they did in lobbying so hard to try to get international agreement on the TRIPS waiver. We need to learn some lessons from this period, and one of them is that when the Government act unilaterally in this way, they contaminate future relationships—whether they are over trade or other matters of co-operation. I think that is the anxiety that many of us have. It is a disgrace that we actually sought to prevent others from making the drugs that they needed.

Many countries around the world are shocked at the way they have been treated by this country, and they want to start to do things differently. South Africa has set up an mRNA hub to try to crack this revolutionary technology, which we think can be used not just to prevent severe cases of covid, but potentially to create treatments for a wide range of diseases, such as HIV, malaria and certain types of cancer. The big corporations still refuse to share their know-how, but South Africa has worked out how to make mRNA vaccines and—even better—is sharing this know-how with other countries patent-free. A couple of weeks ago, President Biden’s Administration announced that they would work with the hub to help it. Many European Governments have offered funds, but Britain has done nothing. The Government must support those efforts and protect them from the pressure that will come from the industry. This is a new model of how medicines can be developed, and it deserves our support.

It is not just about covid. I believe that the way we produce medicines is broken. I ask the Minister to talk to Lord Jim O’Neill, who has been trying to get the pharmaceutical corporations to produce the antibiotics that our medical establishment has depended on for many years. He has been trying to engage in a dialogue to change practices within the pharmaceutical industry, but the corporations have done nearly nothing. Look at HIV/AIDs. We now have the means to wipe out HIV through pills that stop transmission. New injectables have just come online. Again, the countries that most need them are being overcharged or shut out of the market altogether. It goes on and on.

We have an industry committed to making huge amounts of money, but not to making and sharing the medicines that humanity needs. We have to change that, and conversations are happening across the world about how to do it—except here, where the Government’s commitment to shareholder return appears sacrosanct and is prioritised above saving lives and reducing human suffering. My warning is this: it is not only ethically obscene; it is bad for us, too. It means that the British taxpayer is getting a terrible return on their investment in new medicines, that the NHS is overpaying for medicines such as covid vaccines, and that we are not developing the medicines we need to prevent the next health epidemic.

There are huge healthcare disparities, because many people still lack adequate public, universal healthcare systems. Sadly, however, the UK Government, like the World Bank, is still pushing a deeply inadequate private, market-based healthcare model in many countries. It is telling that some of the hospitals that were supported with British development funds refused to treat covid-19 patients in the first wave of the pandemic. Many died, and many were left destitute by this model. It is time for the Government to stop pushing that failed model and start helping to build national health services for all.

Let me come to the specific requests for the Government. A coalition of different organisations, which includes Just Treatment, Global Justice Now, Oxfam, STOPAIDS and many others, is calling on the Government to demonstrate support for the World Health Organisation’s mRNA technology hub initiatives. The hubs will help to end the covid-19 pandemic for all by increasing manufacturing capacity for treatments and technologies.

More broadly, the hubs will support self-reliance, independence and health equity in lower income countries. They will ensure that we are adequately prepared for the next pandemic. The UK Government must provide financial support to the hubs and ensure that pharmaceutical companies share their manufacturing know-how and refrain from undermining the success of the hubs with intellectual property barriers.

As the new Administration is formed under a new Prime Minister, will the Minister, first, now back the coalition’s request that the Government use their influence to encourage Pfizer, Moderna and BioNTech to share their technology and know-how, and urge companies to remove intellectual property barriers to the production of mRNA products and related technologies? Specifically, the UK Government should call on Moderna to revoke the patents they hold in South Africa and prevent other pharmaceutical companies from similarly undermining the work of the new mRNA hubs.

Secondly, will the Government make a public commitment to support and finance the €92 million that mRNA hubs need to fund the initiative over the next five years? Some 59% has been raised so far from other countries, but not this country.

Thirdly, will the UK stop blocking the trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights waiver at the World Trade Organisation? Will the Government ensure that the TRIPS waiver has a minimal duration of five years and includes all forms of intellectual property, including medical tools beyond vaccines, treatments, and diagnostics?

I hope that, with a change of Prime Minister and Administration, there is a window of opportunity for the Government to think again on the vital issue of how to prevent the loss of life and human suffering that has taken place on a global scale, which we have done so little to assist in tackling.

I expect the Minister will repeat the Government’s response to the petition that was lodged on this issue by many members of the general public, restate the various contributions and donations that have been made and compare us to others. The reality is that the financial contributions do not go anywhere near what is necessary. More importantly, the issue that must be addressed is the blocking of the local production in lower income countries of the means by which we can tackle the pandemic. If it is not, that will be a stain on this Administration.

Strategy for International Development

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin), and I will come on to her point about soft power in a moment. I join others in congratulating the Chair of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), on securing the debate. I also join them in stressing just how wrong-headed the abolition of the Department for International Development was, as was the decision to cut development funding to just 0.5% of our national income, which was an act of self-harm just as much as it was an act of harm to the developing world.

Beyond our moral responsibility, as one of the richest nations in the world, to help the very poorest in the world, there is surely also a strong national, domestic set of reasons for rethinking our approach to international development, which covid and refugees risking their lives to cross the channel have helped to underscore. I entirely understand the argument that our constituents’ needs must always come first, particularly in the middle of a cost of living crisis, but whether or not to give aid to countries overseas is not a binary choice. I would also gently say in passing that the choice would be even easier if the Treasury had not wasted billions of pounds on covid loans that should never have been given.

As the hon. Member for West Worcestershire said, it is in Britain’s national interests to build up our soft power, just as it is important to have real military power to call on in the very worst of times. Soft power comes from our global trade and business links; from the work of our universities; from our cultural institutions, such as the BBC, other parts of the media and the British Council; from the quality of the work our diplomats do in the Foreign Office; and, crucially, from the quality of the development support and leadership we provide.

If aid is used well in other countries, that helps our country too. For example, better police forces in other countries help to limit the potential impact of overseas criminality here. Better health services in developing countries help to prevent the spread of disease—think Ebola—to UK shores. Better opportunities for higher standards of living in developing countries help to reduce people’s reasons for taking perilous trips to start new lives in countries such as ours. And better governance, as well as efforts to support peace and build stable countries, helps to prevent conflicts and reduce the numbers of refugees needing to travel to more stable countries.

Then there are the even more intangible benefits of development assistance and other examples of soft power. If we are seen to help the world’s poorest for the best of reasons in countries that are not as rich as ours, doors open for other parts of our Government and for players in the business world, on whom our economic success depends. So there is a strong moral case for aid, but the self-interested case for aid is also powerful.

I gently say to Ministers that it is a mistake to have axed the Department for International Development. By the time I joined the Department as a Minister in 2003, it was already world leading. It was held in considerable regard across the developing world and on the world’s great stages at the United Nations and the G8. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) said much more eloquently than I can, the talent of the Department’s officials was stunning and striking. I digress briefly to acknowledge the passing recently of one excellent official I worked with, Danny Graymore, who did some remarkable work on access to medicines. He was rightly recognised for his service to our country and to development.

The calibre of the Department’s Secretaries of State was beyond question. We had the remarkable Clare Short, the excellent noble Lady Valerie Amos, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central and Douglas Alexander. The Department had clear and obvious support from Prime Ministers and Chancellors of the Exchequer, certainly from 1997 to 2010 and, to be fair, in the first years of the Conservative party’s time in government. I say in passing that I hope I managed not to do too much damage to the Department’s reputation while I was there.

Between 1997 and 2010, Britain helped to lift almost 50 million people out of poverty and initiated a huge programme of debt relief. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) made a powerful point about the need for a new programme of debt relief; if only there was someone in this Government with the imagination to lead such an effort.

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Several whistleblowers have revealed that there was chaos and a failure of leadership at the newly formed Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office when the merger between the Foreign Office and DFID took place, and particularly during the fall of Kabul in Afghanistan. The leadership was distracted by the merger, senior DFID staff were unable to access FCDO systems, and that meant that support on the ground for our staff members was poor. Does my hon. Friend agree that this Government prioritise a political response rather than humanitarian support for people on the ground?

[Gareth Thomas]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and it will be good to hear the Minister’s response to that. I will certainly make some brief remarks about Afghanistan and the plight of the people there.

I was just mentioning the difference that the Department for International Development made and could potentially make again. We helped to get 40 million more children into school in the 13 years the Department was run by the Labour party. Polio was on the verge of being eradicated thanks to the vaccination programmes we funded across the world, particularly in countries such as India and Pakistan. Having initiated the strategy, I am particularly proud that more than 3 million more people were able to access life-preserving HIV and AIDS drugs in countries such as Malawi and Zambia, as you will remember only too well, Madam Deputy Speaker.

We improved water and sanitation services for more than 1.5 million people. We invested in better maternity and family planning services in countries such as Nepal. When earthquakes and other disasters struck, we led the way in improving the humanitarian conditions of those hit—in Sri Lanka after the tsunami, for example, or in Pakistan after the earthquake in Kashmir.

Other major countries, including the US, Germany, France, Japan and Norway, have separate Departments providing aid on the one hand and doing the hard yards on diplomacy on the other. The skillsets required of our diplomats and our development experts are very different. Development experts are focused on ensuring our aid goes where it needs to go to make a real difference, while our diplomats are rightly push a range of UK Government priorities to their counterparts.

The relentless focus the Department for International Development placed on its poverty reduction mission put it centre stage. The fact that that aid did not appear conditional on backing Britain all the time made our presence and our money even more welcome and, as a result, made the access and influence of our diplomats that little bit greater. It is striking that Ministers have offered little rigorous rationale for the merger. Frankly, the sooner both that and the cut in aid are reversed, the better.

I want to challenge the Minister gently on why governance is no longer part of the priorities for our aid spending. I think of the funding we provided before 2010 to help developing countries invest in better statistics collection services. That may not sound particularly important in the context of huge hunger or education needs, but without the ability to collect statistics about what is happening on the ground in a country we cannot make good decisions about the allocation of resources, work out where to send the next tranche of money to make a real difference or hold politicians and Governments to account. We need governance efforts in these countries that help to target corruption by funding the equivalent of the National Audit Office or the Public Accounts Committee; to support independent media to hold politicians to account; to bring to light the examples of corruption and to get rid of people from politics who are serving their own interests rather than the interests of the people; and to help to train high-quality civil servants so that instead of relying on NGOs or overseas aid, they can run things in their country for themselves. At my most naive, I want a world where aid and NGOs are not needed, but for that ambition to come just a little bit closer, we need to help countries to build effective Parliaments and effective Governments with great civil servants so that they can provide services to every community in every corner of their country. We should seek to back good governance and prioritise that as part of our aid strategy going forward.

Other speakers have mentioned the cuts in funding to the global multilateral system. I echo the comments about support for the global fund. I hope the Minister will be able to give Members in all parts of the House an assurance that that will be appropriately backed at the coming pledging conference. We are seeing cuts in funding to the global multilateral system at a time when there is so much need, and when we need honest brokers in the UN system to co-ordinate humanitarian relief and tackle the provision of support for hunger and poverty. That has never been more needed than now. It is a hugely retrograde step to cut by so much the funding to the World Bank, the African Development Bank, the United Nations Development Programme, and so on. Indeed, when Ministers made those decisions, they went against their own review of multilaterals, which found that funding through multilaterals delivers more bang for our collective buck and reduces administrative costs to the taxpayer.

I want to make some specific points about countries that are of interest to my constituents. We have cut our bilateral funding to Pakistan by some 57% from about £463 million in 2016 to about £200 million a couple of years ago. Even two and a half years ago, Pakistan had the second highest numbers of refugees in the world, placing huge pressure on the country and the systems in place there. Given what happened in Afghanistan just 10 months ago, the pressures on Pakistan are even greater, with powerful challenges in terms of food insecurity, getting good-quality education, economic empowerment, and good family planning and other health services. It would be good to hear a clear rationale from the Minister for such a huge cut in funding.

Nepal and Sri Lanka are also, for different reasons, facing huge challenges in making progress towards the SDGs. Due to climate change, too many people in Nepal have had to leave the country for much of the year to go to India or other countries to seek work. It is therefore crucial to do as much as we can to help economic empowerment in Nepal. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) briefly alluded to Sri Lanka, with which a huge number of my constituents have very close connections. If ever there was a country that has made the case for a greater programme of debt relief—I echo his point, too, about China as the lender of last resort—it is Sri Lanka. There are huge human rights and governance concerns in Sri Lanka, as my Tamil and Muslim constituents know only too well, but it is striking that all the peoples of Sri Lanka are suffering hunger, loss of jobs, and real wage insecurity. I wonder whether, in the short term, the Department needs to be doing more to help the people of Sri Lanka.

Lastly, on Africa, the move away from aid being used for poverty reduction is perhaps the most striking thing in the tilt towards the Indo-Pacific. In my Front-Bench role, I have been struck by how a series of businesses have argued that Africa is where Asia was 10 to 15 years ago. Some countries have very fast developing economies, and some countries are making huge efforts on the quality of their governance. It therefore surely makes even less sense to be withdrawing aid and withdrawing our influence in Africa when our business community is beginning to look with such interest at its prospects in Africa. I am not advocating for tied aid—absolutely not—but the more we resume strong soft power and strong influence in Africa, the more down the line we can help our businesses win contracts in Africa and help to create jobs, too.

I end by urging the next Government to rethink their approach to the abolition of the Department for International Development. It needs re-establishing quickly, and we need to move quickly back to 0.7% of our national income being spent on aid.

International Mother Language Day

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Apsana Begum]

I thank the hon. Member for making such an important point, which is actually a running theme of my words here today.

I know people who tell me that there are things they can say in their mother language that they cannot say in English, and that there are things they can say in English that they cannot say in their parents’ language. And there is no doubt that we are richer for the range of people who call Britain home but carry in their hearts the language of another land. So, Language Martyrs Day and International Mother Language Day emphasise the significance of protecting, nurturing and embracing different cultures, languages and ways of life.

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a very important speech. I am proud to be a Member of Parliament in England, for Stockport. At home, my parents speak Hindi, which is one of the languages of India; indeed, it is the main language. I believe that Hindi is the fourth most spoken language in the world—over 341 million people speak it as their native language—and I am proud to be able to speak it, read it and write it in addition to English.

The point I am trying to make is the point that my hon. Friend made about protecting and respecting other cultures and languages. On this point, does she agree that the persecution in China of people who teach or want to speak Tibetan, which is the native language of Tibet, has to stop, because freedom of expression, freedom of association and freedom of religion are fundamental rights?

[Apsana Begum]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point and I hope that the Minister can address it in her remarks.

As I was saying, Language Martyrs Day and International Mother Language Day emphasise the significance of protecting, nurturing and embracing different cultures, languages and ways of life, accepting ourselves and accepting each other, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) has just said.

As the MP for a diverse and dynamic constituency, for me every day highlights the benefits of celebrating our various cultural heritages and linguistic diversity, learning from different traditions of living together and interacting with each other, and—importantly—nurturing the language and culture that grow out of those experiences. In short, multiculturalism is a privilege, not a problem, and diversity of language makes the collective fabric of our society stronger.

Yet the last few years have seen a growing trend whereby there are some attempts to engage in the so-called “culture wars”, with anti-immigration rhetoric being used as a smokescreen to hide society’s wider failings, legitimising racist attitudes and exacerbating social marginalisation.

Unfortunately, language can be used as a tool to construct certain people as “the other” and to force them to assimilate. All around the world, states have often restricted official use of minority languages, because of the idea that it is necessary to use only specified languages. The pandemic exposed the fact that many minority language speakers continue to be excluded from learning and accessing crucial information, which has had significant implications, for example for the roll-out of the vaccine and the fact that people from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds have faced greater risks and endured greater hardships.

Language diversity plays a key role in people’s identity and it plays a similarly key role in our wellbeing and mental health. That is why it is vital that local and public provision of community language services is free at the point of use and that digital technology is made widely available for multi-lingual learning. At a time when many people are worried about knife crime, radicalisation and many young people’s lack of a sense of belonging, it is devastating that these sorts of services are being cut and privatised. Indeed, local community language services, which were a huge part of my life growing up and of the lives of so many people around me, have now been outsourced and cut, making them another casualty of the programme of public sector cuts that has been disastrous for everyone. I find that particularly sad because it was through such services that I myself learned to speak, read and write Bangla, and it is my constant wish that my Bangla and Sylheti skills were better than they actually are.

The opportunity to use one’s own language and the language of one’s family can be of crucial importance for individual and collective identity and culture, as well as participation in public life. Language services help to provide people with an understanding of their first language and culture, raise educational attainment and promote inclusion, because when people understand their community language, they understand their community and their elders better. Of course, during the covid crisis, language barriers and challenges regarding intergenerational communication were part of putting certain segments of our communities at greater risk. Multilingual education based on people’s mother tongues is therefore a key component of inclusion in education.

The United Nations and others have long argued that education based on the first language or mother tongue must begin from the early years of every child’s life. The theme of this year’s International Mother Language Day is “Using technology for multilingual learning: challenges and opportunities”, which speaks to the role of technology in advancing multilingual education. School closures have been a prominent feature of the covid-19 crisis, and while communities around the world had to use technology-based solutions to maintain continuity of learning, too many lacked the necessary equipment means such as laptops and other items, internet access and accessible materials. As such, many of us campaigned for everyone to have access to the internet and to the technology needed. In today’s world, fast, reliable broadband is not a desirable extra but a fundamental requirement for a decent life, and it is most certainly vital for education and linguistic development. That is why the Labour party’s 2019 manifesto pledged to offer free and fast broadband to every household in the country by 2030—a pledge, and a manifesto, that I was very proud to stand on.

It is also crucial to recognise the role of specialist language media outlets in providing high-quality journalism and addressing the issues that different communities face. In the face of an increasingly politically and culturally homogenous media landscape, media diversity is key to empowering everyone, and it plays a key role in reaching out to, informing, including and representing ethnic minority communities in particular. There is a great need for the histories, cultures and languages of those communities to feature much more across the whole educational curriculum, local services and the cultural sector.

Language Martyrs Day and International Mother Language Day emerge from a history of jostling powers and political struggles. I think about how the Black Lives Matter protests all over the world recognised the importance of the inclusion of diverse cultural storytelling through their demand to ensure that school curriculums include educating young people about racism and imperialism. There is a need to rebalance historical and social narratives that currently exclude certain experiences and perspectives. We all have a duty to make sure that the next generation, at least, has a better understanding of the historical injustices that contribute to the institutional racism that persists in the UK and elsewhere today.

Ultimately, Language Martyrs Day and International Mother Language Day is an opportunity to see the rich tapestry of our linguistic diversity as something to be cherished—a joyful kaleidoscope of possibilities and potential to be revelled in. People, with all our diversity and rich traditions, have much more to gain by standing together than being divided. We do not have to be alike to have the same interests and shared sense of solidarity.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Logan (Bolton North East) (Con)]

I fell into today’s debate just like I fell into languages upon becoming an adult, and I thank the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum) for bringing this debate to the Chamber today. It is a very fun debate, and I am most interested to hear and learn what everyone has to say.

The hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) referred to pride, and I was wondering, what am I proud of? I am proud of being a sometimes English-speaking MP from Northern Ireland, representing the constituency of Bolton North East, who in any given week probably spends about 20% of his time speaking Mandarin Chinese because that is what I speak with my daughter at home. It is probably more standard than my English.

From a very personal perspective, I absolutely understand the sheer importance of learning languages. On leaving university, I spent roughly 14,000 hours trying to learn Mandarin Chinese; I read and write about 4,000 Chinese characters, and read the newspaper or whatever else, and I have gained a huge amount from the capacity to improve cognitive ability.

The Minister will understand what I am about to say. As someone who was born and grew up in Northern Ireland, I know that language and culture can often be politicised, unfortunately. In my own case, I come from an Ulster Scots or a Protestant Unionist background in the town of Ballymena in County Antrim, and when I was growing up we did not learn Gaelic at school. We never came across the Irish language. Therefore, when we met people from the other community if they had what, to us, looked like a nuanced sort of name, we did not know how to pronounce it half the time.

Three years ago, I took it upon myself to spend a week in Glencolumbkille in Donegal, on the west coast of Ireland, trying to learn Irish Gaelic. Do you know what, Sir Edward? It is more difficult than Mandarin Chinese. Perhaps it is just because I am getting old, but I was humbled by the experience. At least Chinese characters look different from the word go, so there an expectation; Gaelic has what look like English-language letters, but when I tried to read them my teacher told me I was getting them completely wrong.

The personal dimension is very important, and my first message to my fellow countrymen in Northern Ireland is to be open to different languages and cultures. When people as their native tongue have English, which is the hegemonic language of the world and spoken more than any other language as a second language, they have nothing to be worried or scared about. The British Council, among others, does a fantastic job at projecting soft power across the world.

My constituency of Bolton North East has one of the largest and most flourishing Indian Gujarati Muslim communities in the United Kingdom, bar a very few of the 650 constituencies out there. The hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse said that sometimes people are sceptical about diversity or have a fear of it, but I am the complete opposite. I see nothing but opportunity. I think of my Gujarati community, along with a significant Pakistani community, as a massive opportunity for us, especially at a time when south Asia and its distinctive economies have such a promising future in what is already shaping up to be the Asian-Eurasian century in front of us.

My own shortcoming on this is that I have had on my desk here in Westminster, for the last year and a half, a book about learning Urdu. When I asked people if I should learn Hindi or Gujarati, they said, “They are all beautiful languages, but Urdu is slightly more beautiful.” I am not sure if the hon. Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) would agree with that.

[Navendu Mishra]

I would like to share the fact that Hindi and Urdu are very similar when spoken, but they are written differently. Hindi is written left to right, but Urdu is based on the Arabic script and it is right to left. I would encourage the hon. Gentleman to learn either, then he will be able to speak both, but he will have to do a lot more work when it comes to writing.

Relationship with Russia and China

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Thursday 24th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) for securing this important debate. The eyes of the world may be focused elsewhere at present, but it is vital that we do not lose sight of other nations where people face abuses. My thoughts and prayers are with the people of Ukraine today as they face aggression. Military aggression in Ukraine is not acceptable, and the House stands in solidarity with the people of Ukraine.

I thank the Office of Tibet, Tibet Action and Free Tibet for their briefings ahead of this debate. I thank, too, the all-party group for Tibet for all the work that it does. I declare an interest as the vice-chair of the said all-party group. I was pleased to have the opportunity to meet the Office of Tibet in London last year at the Labour party conference where I heard about the experiences of the Tibetan people.

Since it was annexed more than 70 years ago, occupied Tibet has been closed off to much of the rest of the world, preventing us from witnessing the repression against the people that live in the region. According to the Free Tibet campaign, the Chinese Government have been orchestrating a deliberate and systematic elimination of Tibet’s distinct and unique cultural, religious and linguistic identity through a sinicization of Tibetan Buddhism, its culture and its language.

Worryingly, those sinicization measures are reported to have increased in intensity over the past decade, reflecting the Chinese Government’s further attempts to subdue the Tibetans, who continue to resist the occupation. This process includes the Chinese Government’s bilingual education policy of replacing the Tibetan language—the common language of all Tibetans—with Mandarin. In the words of the Free Tibet campaign, this

“strikes at the very root of the Tibetan identity”.

It was reported late last year that two teenage Tibetan students were detained for opposing Chinese-only instruction in their school. A Tibetan teacher was also arrested after her Tibetan-language school was forced to close. According to research by the Tibet Action Institute, as many as 900,000 Tibetan children are estimated to have been separated from their families, while the teaching of the Tibetan language has faced further restrictions, with limitations on monasteries that wish to provide language classes.

Last month, I asked our Government whether they had raised that exact issue, specifically regarding Chinese-run boarding schools in Tibet, with their counterparts in China. I must say that the response to my written parliamentary question was disappointing. Although I am encouraged to hear that measures are being taken to urge the Chinese Government to respect the rights of all its citizens, including those in Tibet, I appeal to the Minister today to push specifically on this issue to ensure that families do not continue to be coerced into sending their children to residential boarding schools.

Nor has religion emerged unscathed from this process, with the Chinese Government imposing a raft of restrictions that are almost certainly designed to make Tibetan Buddhism compatible with President Xi’s vision of “religion with Chinese characteristics”, as he has described it. In reality, that has meant limitations on the influence of Tibetan Buddhism in community life and monasteries repeatedly being placed under Government control and surveillance. In practice, that means all monasteries being forced to fly Chinese flags and hang portraits of political figures on their premises.

The Government are also accused of proactively coercing Tibetans into renouncing any allegiance to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, a process that also extends to outlawing the portraits of His Holiness and arresting Tibetans who carry out seemingly small acts of resistance such as calling for his return to Tibet or singing songs that wish him a happy birthday. In the past three years alone, authorities have ordered Tibetans to place shrines to President Xi and other Government leaders inside their homes in place of religious figures. The Free Tibet campaign also reports that in some counties, authorities have gone to such lengths as physically inspecting households to ensure that that order has been carried out.

Finally, I will focus briefly on Drago county in eastern Tibet. Since last October the county, which is in Sichuan province, has been the site of a series of demolitions of sites of religious and cultural significance, accompanied by arbitrary arrests and alleged torture. One such example is reports of Government officials tearing down a Tibetan Buddhist monastic school that once housed more than 100 young Tibetan students. That was followed soon afterwards by the destruction of two Lord Buddha statues, including one that stood almost 100 feet tall, the construction of which was only completed in 2015 with funds donated by Tibetans and Buddhist disciples.

Further evidence of Government aggression and destruction includes the demolition of several monks’ residences, in addition to monastery prayer flags being removed and burned. It is clear to those who witnessed those incidents that, as well as lacking any free or informed consultation with the locals, the demolitions were carried out very deliberately to cause maximum distress, with members of the community in some cases ordered to assist in tearing down schools and statues, and others forced to watch. I hope the Minister will make a note of those ongoing events, given that the forced inspections continue to take place on an almost daily basis, which has led to the lives of all those involved rapidly deteriorating.

I want to highlight that 10 March is observed annually as Tibet Uprising Day. In 1959, hundreds of thousands of Tibetans banded together to revolt, in defiance of the Chinese invasion a decade earlier. That peaceful protest was violently crushed by the Chinese Government.

In closing, I urge the Minister to heed the concerns of hon. Members on both sides and push the Governments of China and Russia to ensure that all rights are respected, and that a way of life is not imposed on people that leads to the destruction and desecration of everything from the heritage to the culture, language and even the very identity of the Tibetan people. Their voices must continue to be heard.

Global Vaccine Access

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Murray. I thank the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) for securing this debate at a time when the pandemic is wreaking devastation on the poorest and most vulnerable nations on earth and brutally exposing their lack of access to vaccines. I know that she is a longstanding campaigner on the issue of equitable access to vaccines for everyone. I also thank organisations such as Global Justice Now for the important research they have done to raise awareness of this issue. I am a member of the International Development Committee; it is good to see other colleagues from the Committee attend this popular debate. The Chair of the Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) has done a lot of good work on this issue.

One of the reasons for the pernicious spread of coronavirus, and the high global death toll, is the failure of Governments, such as ours, to support the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights waiver, proposed by the Indian and South African Governments last summer, just months before the omicron variant emerged. That was despite India and South Africa proposing, as far back as October 2020, that a waiver of intellectual property rules on covid-19 vaccines, tests and treatments would allow low and middle-income countries to manufacture life-saving tools. Despite most countries, including the United States, supporting the waiver, the UK, the EU and Switzerland all prevented progress.

Action at the time would have led to life-saving covid vaccines, medical equipment and medicines all being produced licence-free. However, more than a year after the start of the global vaccination drive, our Government are still putting hundreds of thousands of lives at risk by not supporting the waiver. The reality is, as we all know, that no one is safe until everyone has access to vaccinations and all nations are immunised.

Sadly, instead of supporting lower and middle-income countries, our Government have actively blocked them from making their own vaccines and have continued to oppose a waiver on intellectual property rights. I would therefore like to hear the Minister respond to the concerns that she and her colleagues are continuing to block solutions to the covid pandemic, given the severity of the crisis affecting both the NHS and the economy as a result of rapidly escalating levels of omicron cases. Denying lower and middle-income countries full, unfettered access to vaccines is incredibly short-sighted and will lead to a situation whereby our own population will remain at risk.

A global disease needs a united, global effort to eradicate it and reduce the risk of further mutations. An intellectual property rights waiver is therefore a vital way to achieve that, and we must follow the lead set by the Biden Administration in supporting that. The Government abolished the Department for International Development. That was extremely short-sighted and regressive, and will ultimately cost many, many lives. What happened was shameful. To put the situation into context, in a six-week period over November and December, the EU, UK and US all received more doses than African countries took stock of in the entire year. That is truly shocking.

[Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

Some 700 million doses of the vaccine were delivered instead of the 2 billion that were promised through the COVAX programme by the end of the last year. Does my hon. Friend agree with me that what is inherently wrong with the COVAX programme is that it has an unequal distribution embedded in it, and for that reason ensures that facilities that are given exclusive licences are over-relied on. Facilities can also implement export bans in their countries to stop the vaccine being distributed more widely.

[Navendu Mishra]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point, and I fully agree with her.

I will finish on the point that, despite having already made billions in profit, Pfizer and Moderna continue to refuse to share the new generation of vaccine technology with the World Health Organisation’s mRNA hub in South Africa. That is a major concern, and little appears to have been done since Amnesty International urged Governments, including our own, to deliver 2 billion vaccines to low and middle-income countries before the end of 2021. The continued failure to act will fuel an unprecedented human rights crisis and lead to an untold number of deaths in those countries. We must do more, and the Government have to do a lot better.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vicky Ford]

I will answer the points that have been made on this, and if I have time, I will give way at the end. The flexibilities within the TRIPS system that were used to tackle the HIV/AIDS crisis are really important. We remain open to all initiatives that will have a demonstrable impact on vaccine production and distribution, and we continue to engage constructively in discussions at the World Trade Organisation to that end. However, we need to focus our efforts on actions that will make timely and substantive differences, such as further voluntary licensing and technology transfer agreements. That is why we support the voluntary licensing approach taken by the team at Oxford University and AstraZeneca. Their collaboration with the Serum Institute of India has massively scaled up manufacturing for global supply.

On manufacturing, we are also providing technical support to develop business cases for Biovac to manufacture vaccines in South Africa, to Institut Pasteur in Dakar, Senegal and to the Moroccan Government. This technical support is helping to catalyse the investment that will see those vaccines produced on the African continent this year. We are also engaging with the new Partnership for African Vaccine Manufacturing. Focusing on supporting manufacturing on the continent of Africa is absolutely one of my key priorities. However, vaccine supply must be matched by the capacity of health systems to deliver them. We have been working to support and strengthen health systems in some of the most vulnerable countries, and we recently launched the “Health Systems Strengthening” position paper, which sets out our determination to do more on building overall capacity. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Theo Clarke) and others point out, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance is really important, and we continue to be a leading supporter. Our commitment of £1.65 billion over five years will help to vaccinate 300 million more children against preventable disease and improve health system resilience against future pandemics.

[Navendu Mishra]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Order. We do not have time for an intervention, I am afraid. Wendy Chamberlain has to sum up. The Minister will draw her remarks to a close.

Tigray

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Wednesday 8th September 2021 Westminster Hall

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Davies. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), my colleague on the International Development Committee, for securing the debate at a critical juncture for millions of Tigrayans. I also note the briefings from Oxfam, Amnesty International and Protection Approaches. As we have heard today, the escalating tensions in Tigray are deeply concerning and the international community must act urgently to put pressure on the Governments of Eritrea and Ethiopia and the Tigrayan authorities to bring an end to this latest conflict, which has now lasted almost a year and cost thousands of lives.

The UK Government must do all they can to de-escalate the rising tensions, investigate the reported war crimes and put pressure on all sides to allow non-governmental organisations to access the thousands of Tigrayans who are the victims of this conflict. Their lives remain at risk and they will continue to suffer unless urgent action is taken to permit vital aid to enter the region.

More than 400,000 people in Tigray are experiencing famine-like conditions. To put that in context, that is more than the rest of the world combined. Furthermore, the Red Cross has estimated that almost 6 million people in Tigray and the neighbouring regions of Afar and Amhara are going hungry, while an additional 1.7 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance as a result of the conflict. It is clear that we are witnessing a humanitarian crisis unfold before our eyes in Tigray.

I am a proud member of the International Development Committee. Earlier this year we urged the UK Government to intervene in the crisis to bring a swift end to the conflict and help facilitate humanitarian access. Since then, there has been a deterioration in the humanitarian situation, while the ability of non-governmental organisations and aid organisations to access the region has diminished. For example, Oxfam told Members of this House that aid organisations are struggling to transport the 100 trucks a day of food supplies that are required into the region. It is vital that the UK Government apply pressure to ensure that there is unfettered, unimpeded access to Tigray to enable that lifesaving aid to be delivered to thousands of citizens.

Given our historic relationship with the region, we should do all we can to help. Amnesty International has raised concerns that attacks and mass killings have continued unchecked since the conflict started in November 2020, with crimes against humanity taking place on both sides, between the Ethiopian and Eritrean Governments and Tigrayan rebels. Worryingly, a report this week by The Daily Telegraph revealed that, since July, soldiers occupying parts of Ethiopia’s Tigray region have been involved in what has been described as an ethnic purge of native people, who are being thrown into concentration camps and massacred by the dozen. Witnesses in the northern city of Humera, near the border with Eritrea, have claimed that soldiers from Amhara province have been conducting Taliban-type door-to-door searches for ethnic Tigrayan people, the result of which is that thousands of residents have been forced into makeshift detention centres.

Such scenes followed reports, which have since been corroborated by the UN, of Eritrean troops systematically killing hundreds of unarmed civilians in the northern city of Aksum over a two-day period in November 2020, which saw open shooting in the streets. Amnesty International has said that could amount to a crime against humanity and has also described it as just the tip of the iceberg, given the mass killings that followed. The charity has also heard shocking reports of gang rapes of people held in captivity, which they have described as sexual slavery, as well as clear examples of sexual mutilation of survivors, which is a crime under international law.

The toll on all citizens in the region has been unbearable. Since the beginning of the conflict there have been widespread and systematic campaigns of destruction and looting, including the theft of farm animals, which has significantly affected harvesting across Tigray, compounding the famine and starvation of the population.

It is clear that the UK Government cannot delay action any further. We must not lose sight of this crisis and the fate of thousands of Tigrayans while the eyes of the world are on Afghanistan, and we must continue to add pressure to allow organisations such as the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights to have access to Tigray to investigate the situation further and carry out a thorough assessment of the impact of this conflict.

The charity, Protection Approaches, which works to tackle all forms of identity-based violence and mass atrocities, has rightly stated that the UK Government have a legal obligation to prevent further conflict in the region under the 1948 convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide.

It is also a matter of national interest and, left unchecked, the financial and human cost will be enormous. Much would be in keeping with what Tigrayans have already called for, which is a commitment to a negotiated end to the war. The UK should help facilitate that. Failing to support them in that endeavour would lead to an ongoing conflict that will cost tens of thousands more lives.

Beijing Winter Olympics and Chinese Government Sanctions

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Thursday 15th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab) [V]]

I want to start by thanking the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) for securing this important debate. The work that he does, alongside the hon. Member for Dundee West (Chris Law), on the all-party group for Tibet is vital in raising awareness around the human rights abuses committed by the Chinese Government.

I am grateful that the debate has been called, but it is depressing that this matter even needs to be discussed at all. This Parliament has recognised that genocide is taking place against the Uyghurs in north-west China. The motion debated in April called on the Government

“to act to fulfil its obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide and all relevant instruments of international law to bring it to an end.”—[Official Report, 22 April 2021; Vol. 692, c. 1211.]

Yet here we are discussing whether it is acceptable for this country’s athletes to participate in games held in a country committing those atrocities.

I would like to draw the House’s attention to the situation in Tibet. At the time of the last Olympics held in China, in 2008, thousands of Tibetans took to the streets to protest and were brutally suppressed, with hundreds killed. The full total of deaths remains unknown. Since then, we have seen the forced erosion of Tibetan culture, from the replacement of the Tibetan language with Mandarin in schools to the repeated use of arbitrary detention and widespread torture. In addition, large religious communities have seen thousands of residents forcefully removed and their homes demolished. The rich Tibetan culture, Buddhist religion and Tibetan language are being forcefully eroded, and freedom of thought, opinion, expression, religion and conscience is being not just undermined, but actively eradicated.

I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the organisation Free Tibet. The work that it does in raising awareness of the oppression of the Tibetan people, culture and language should be placed on record. None the less, it remains unacceptable that more has not been done by this Government to call out these hideous abuses that have been going on for decades. They have pursued a foreign policy of complacency that pans out as a foreign policy of complicity.

Following the vote in April, where were the Government sanctions against China? Why have the Government not made a commitment to boycott these Olympics? What measures are being put in place to support those fleeing the oppression of the Chinese state? These are not just rhetorical questions, but points that should have been considered right back when these issues started to raise their ugly heads.

These winter Olympics provide a choice for this country: to stand up for oppressed people and human rights or to turn a blind eye to atrocities. Shamefully, this Government’s continued silence speaks a thousand words. When the HSBC bank repeatedly refused to unfreeze the assets of Hong Kong activists, including one activist who fled to our country, after they had been crowdfunding for lawsuits against police brutality, did the Government speak out? I am sure we can all guess the answer. Now we have a chance to take an international stance determined by human rights and one that recognises people’s rights to practise their religion freely, to worship, to express their views and to use their language. I would urge the Government to follow that path and call for a boycott of the winter Olympic games.

Covid-19 Vaccines: Nepal

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Tuesday 6th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Adams]

I thank the hon. Lady. She is absolutely right to speak up for the Nepalese diaspora in her constituency and elsewhere. What I can add to my response to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) is that the United Kingdom is stepping up. We were first out of the blocks delivering equipment, for example, to India when the second wave hit in India. Of course, whatever we do will never be enough. It is a really, really challenging situation—the hon. Lady will appreciate that—but 269 ventilator machines have been donated, and thousands of pieces of personal protective equipment. We are constructing an oxygen plant in Kathmandu, with an additional plant in Pokhara; that will be completed by August. We are stepping up. We are also working with the Gurkha Welfare Trust to help those Gurkhas who have served this country so brilliantly. Through the UK-funded welfare trust, we are ensuring that lifesaving support and supplies to Gurkha veterans and communities are getting through. That includes three medical clinics and subsidised hospital treatment.

I understand that, as of last week, just 8.8% of Nepal’s population have received a first vaccine dose and 2.6% have received both doses. I understand that some will accuse us of failing Nepal in its time of need. I can tell hon. Members that nothing could be farther from the truth. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the UK Government have reprioritised over £40 million of foreign aid through the British embassy in Kathmandu to help Nepal respond to the challenges of covid-19, and at each phase of the pandemic, as it changes and as waves come along, we have tailored our support to Nepal’s needs

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for giving way; in my experience I have always found him open to dialogue. I congratulate my good friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma). The Minister was right to point out, early in his speech, that the UK and Nepal have a long relationship, going back over 200 years, and the Nepali community in Britain makes a significant positive contribution to this country. I appreciate that the Minister is aware of the problems of COVAX, particularly when it comes to the delivery of vaccines. India and South Africa made a proposal at the World Trade Organisation regarding a trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights—TRIPS—waiver, that would have facilitated the provision of covid vaccines, medicines and equipment to low and middle-income countries, which unfortunately the British Government blocked. I notice that the Biden Administration have changed their position and are now supporting that TRIPS waiver. Does the Minister agree that the UK Government should also amend their position on such a waiver, to help countries such as India, Nepal and so many others?

[Nigel Adams]

I can tell the hon. Gentleman that we are of course acutely aware of the challenge, whether that is getting first or, in the 1.4 million cases scenario, second doses. We have supported the Government of Nepal in liaising with and approaching the secretariat about the issue. As he knows, because it was announced recently, the majority of our over 100 million shared doses will go through the COVAX facility. That will help lower and middle-income countries enormously; that roll-out has now begun. Of course we are working constantly with Governments who are in need of those vaccines.

If I may get back to Nepal, we have targeted our support at the immediate health response and at the economic consequences of lockdowns, which we are acutely aware of in our own country. We have funded water sanitation and hygiene facilities for 400,000 people, safe spaces for women in isolation centres, cash and voucher assistance for the most vulnerable, and nutritional support for women who are pregnant or breastfeeding.

In response to the second wave of covid in Nepal, we have provided additional medical support through our embassy in Kathmandu. We have funded experts to support the federal Government response. We have helped to establish temporary treatment centres in hotspots and, as I said to the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra), we constructed an oxygen plant in Kathmandu, with another one coming in Pokhara next month. We have delivered medical equipment and PPE to local governments in the worst affected areas. That has included providing oxygen concentrators and ventilators for hospitals in Banke and Mugu. Throughout the pandemic, the Gurkha Welfare Trust—I referred to that in response to the hon. Member for Strangford—has been UK funded, and we have also ensured access to life-saving support and supplies to veterans and their communities.

In May, my colleague, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, who is Minister for South Asia and responsible for the Nepalese portfolio, spoke to Mr Gyawali, Minister of Foreign Affairs, to discuss what further support the UK could provide. In response to that conversation, a military flight from Brize Norton arrived in Kathmandu a week later. It carried 260 ventilators and many thousands of pieces of PPE. Make no mistake, Mr Deputy Speaker, those pieces of equipment and that assistance are saving lives in Nepal as I speak. I recognise, however, that medical supplies are only part of the solution. Vaccines are also crucial—that point has been raised in the other place on several occasions by Lord Lancaster, who takes a keen interest in Nepal.

We are playing a leading role in ensuring equitable access to vaccines for countries such as Nepal. The COVAX initiative sits at the centre of that effort, and the United Kingdom was integral to building COVAX from scratch. Our early commitment of more than £548 million, which in turn leveraged $1 billion of funding from other donors, allowed COVAX to arrange supply deals with vaccine manufacturers. Despite supply challenges, COVAX has started to make significant progress in delivering vaccines around the world, with almost 348,000 doses already delivered to Nepal, and another tranche on the way in the next few weeks.

Ninety-six per cent. of vaccines distributed by COVAX to date have been the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine, including in Nepal. Clearly, the United Kingdom was crucial to the development of that vaccine. We provided £90 million to support the initial research and development, and the subsequent manufacturing required to produce the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine. What is more, we made clear that, as part of that funding, the vaccine should be affordable around the world. In total, more than 0.5 billion doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine have already been delivered at a non-profit price globally, with two thirds going to lower and middle-income countries.

With United Kingdom support, a global licensing deal was also struck to transfer AstraZeneca’s technology to other manufacturers and establish 20 supply chains across the world, taking it to even more people. We have also been at the forefront of efforts around the world to boost confidence in covid-19 vaccines. Unfortunately, misinformation about vaccines—which can spread quickly, as we all know, on social media, with no respect for borders—has the potential to undermine trust and confidence in vaccines, which, ultimately and sadly, can cost lives. At the G7 global vaccine summit earlier this month, the UK Government and Google Cloud announced that they would work with some of the world’s leading tech companies on new digital solutions to tackle misinformation around vaccines.

Furthermore, the United Kingdom has supported the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank to provide special finance to Nepal to tackle the consequences of covid-19, including to purchase those vaccines. The World Bank has already released $75 million and the Asian Development Bank will shortly agree an additional $165 million financing deal with the Government of Nepal. The United Kingdom supported these contributions as a shareholder in both those banks. With that finance and COVAX allocations, the Government in Nepal will be able to vaccinate seven out of every 10 Nepalis when, clearly, supplies allow.

We have also used our presidency of the G7 to spear- head a commitment from G7 members to share 1 billion vaccine doses by June 2022. At least 100 million of those vaccines will come from the United Kingdom. As the House knows, the majority of our shared doses will go to COVAX. I am sure that the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall will understand that we are not yet able to announce the detailed allocations of those, but we will endeavour to share with him and the House that information regarding the distribution as soon as possible.

Let me emphasise that the United Kingdom remains committed to supporting Nepal’s development and recovery from covid-19, and I hope that some of the measures that I have outlined in answer to hon. Members’ interventions put some clarity on what we have actually delivered for the people of Nepal. As I said, we have reprioritised over £40 million of foreign aid to help Nepal respond to this awful pandemic. We sent scores of life-saving equipment to help Nepal respond to the country’s second wave and we have played a leading role in establishing COVAX and ensuring access to vaccines for Nepal—and not just Nepal, but all developing countries.

Question put and agreed to.

Official Development Assistance and the British Council

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Wednesday 30th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

I express my gratitude to my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) and the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) for campaigning on this important issue. I also pay tribute to all the organisations and individuals who have provided support to countries across the globe, including Save the Children, the Red Cross, Oxfam, Global Justice Now and others.

I draw the House’s attention to the British Council, which works hard to encourage cultural, scientific, technological and educational co-operation with Britain. This week its CEO wrote to its Public and Commercial Services Union representative, warning that it intends to make 15% to 20% job cuts over the next two years. This is a disgrace. The programmes that the British Council undertakes internationally ensure global friendship with the United Kingdom. The Government must urgently intervene to save jobs and make funding available to plug the shortfall in the organisation.

The world has faced a catastrophic pandemic and, unless we take an internationalist view, we will never overcome this tragedy. Pulling up the drawbridge and hiding away from the rest of the world is never the answer, but that is exactly what the Government did when they made the political choice to abolish the Department for International Development and merge it with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office at the height of this pandemic. DFID was an international leader on development issues, and one of the best examples of global Britain.

During these pandemic times it is often said that no one is safe until everyone is safe, but the Government’s actions speak louder than words. They have cut vital coronavirus research, including a project tackling the variant in India, by 70%, and recent media reports have informed us that the Treasury delayed plans to send surplus PPE to India over a dispute regarding its allocation towards overall aid spending.

[Alexander Stafford]

The hon. Gentleman mentions so-called cuts, but will he acknowledge the vital role this Government have played in delivering vaccines and oxygen to countries like India? Actually, this country has given a lot to many other countries during the pandemic.

[Navendu Mishra]

This Government were one of the few to oppose the proposal from the South African and Indian Governments for a TRIPS waiver that would have resulted in vaccines, medical equipment and medicines related to covid being produced licence free. That would have led to much more vaccine being available, so I urge the hon. Gentleman to lobby his Front-Bench team to make sure the UK reverses its position on this important issue. We know that President Biden of the United States has reversed his position, having initially blocked the waiver proposed by India and South Africa. The unnecessary delays to PPE going to India have deeply negative consequences. Cutting aid will have almost no impact on the UK’s finances, but it will heighten poverty in some parts of the world.

In addition, there has been a £48 million cut to the NHS overseas training scheme, which trains medical staff in some of the poorest countries. The scheme works with 500 health facilities across Africa and Asia, in places that suffer a deficit of medical staff. The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine would have seen NHS staff provide training to 78,000 healthcare workers in Nepal, Uganda, Ethiopia, Bangladesh and Myanmar. The UK has 820 Bangladeshis, 118 Ethiopians, 572 Ugandans and 1,988 Nepalis working in our NHS.

The CDC Group, which promotes privatisation and unaffordable private hospitals in the global south, is due to receive £779 million this year. It seems that cuts apply only to projects that support development. Disgracefully, aid spending targeted at meeting strategic priorities will be cut by only 37%, and funding for the much-criticised conflict, stability and security fund, which last year was found to have supported brutal police squads in Nigeria, has fallen by only 19%.

This multibillion pound cut to overseas development assistance has a momentous human cost. There is no question but that these cuts will result in thousands of unnecessary deaths. Cutting programmes including humanitarian aid, global health, girls’ education, water and sanitation, food insecurity and malnutrition, and sexual and reproductive health have real consequences. The UK must return to 0.7% of GNI on ODA, under the internationally agreed definition, and the Government must bring a meaningful vote to the House on this important decision.

Finally, I echo the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham thanking all aid workers across the world and the excellent FCDO staff. They do an important job in extremely challenging circumstances, and they deserve our support and gratitude.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anthony Mangnall]

Quite right. If I had children I would be going back to say exactly the same thing—all to come, I am sure.

The debate is also about the British Council. I have lived in Singapore and I have worked in Nigeria. I have seen the value of these organisations. I have seen the value of soft power for the United Kingdom. I look back on 2012, a moment in which the UK exhibited its global superpower soft power. We were able to show that we were leading across the world. I hate that we are going down this route and reducing the two things that promote us in the best way.

[Navendu Mishra]

Does the hon. Member agree that using an us and them attitude is not helpful? The UK is one of the richest countries in the world and has a proud record of supporting projects across the world, and dividing people into us and them is not helpful at all in this debate.

[Anthony Mangnall]

The hon. Gentleman makes a fantastic point, and it is one that I will end on. If we are uncomfortable with how people view 0.7%, it is down to this House and to us as Members to explain it properly and show them the true value of what Britain does in a globalised world.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh]

My right hon. Friend is very kind. I suppose being the last Thatcherite is better than being the last Majorite.

Actually, funnily enough, according to the latest opinion polls, opinion is changing, because people are waking up to the fact that in the middle of a global pandemic it is probably not a very good time to cut aid—all these problems are now coming back to bite us.

[Navendu Mishra]

Does the UK not have a special responsibility when it comes to Yemen, as a permanent member of the Security Council but also as one of the largest suppliers of weapons to Saudi Arabia, which has a big role to play in the Yemen conflict?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

The UK does have a role, and I fully accept the point about the Commonwealth. We have heard that we should prioritise the Commonwealth, but as we have also heard, where are these cuts falling? On the Commonwealth. But we cannot just direct our aid to the Commonwealth; we have to direct it where it is most needed.

On the Thatcherite point—and this is not the humanitarian point, because many people have made the humanitarian point, which I associate myself with—I remember, in my first Parliament, listening to Enoch Powell. He sat over there on the Opposition Back Bench. In fact, my first rebellion was to force the Government into requiring workplace trade unions to hold postal ballots, while the Minister defended workplace ballots; but I leave that to one side.

Now, what would Enoch Powell have said on this subject? He would not have liked the 0.7%, but he would have said it was ridiculous to have an arbitrary limit of 0.7%, to reduce it to another arbitrary limit of 0.5% and then to promise to increase it back to 0.7%. As he would have said—I cannot do the Birmingham accent, unlike my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield—“It is a logical absurdity. It is a nonsense built on stilts. It makes no sense” that all these civil servants, in the middle of a global pandemic, are running around cutting all these programmes, and next year, if we believe the Government—and of course the Government would never tell an untruth to the House, would they, so this is only a temporary cut—all these programmes, after this pandemic, are going to be restored. [Interruption.] The Minister is shaking his head. So are they not going to be restored?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Ellwood]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I congratulate him on the work that he is doing. There is a great example of where British leadership can be seen on the international stage. Yemen requires leadership. We have been there for some time and have not utilised our relationship with the Saudis to prevent them from doing what they have been doing. We could have better harnessed our friendships and capabilities in order to bring a conclusion to that particular challenge.

I worked as a Minister in both the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, as it then was—I was Minister for the Middle East and North Africa—and the Ministry of Defence, and I can confirm how siloed our Whitehall Departments still are. I concede that things are definitely getting better, but if global Britain is to have meaning, exhibiting increased resolve to play a role on the international stage, it will require greater cohesion between our internationalist-facing Departments, which even today remain too siloed.

I would go further than the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee and introduce the role of a Deputy Prime Minister, with the arc of responsibility to co-ordinate the MOD, DFID, FCO and trade initiatives, so that we can develop grand strategies to tackle some of the global hotspots that we are engaged in. We do need to expand our Whitehall bandwidth.

[Navendu Mishra]

Does the right hon. Gentleman share my view that abolishing DFID at the height of a global pandemic was a backward step, and that the role of development is far too serious to be left to the now much larger FCDO, and without a dedicated Minister at the top table?

[Mr Ellwood]

My biggest criticism about that is what is done in practice to the Department and the important voice at the Cabinet table and at the National Security Council. Now we have only the Foreign Secretary there, not another voice, and that is what we have lost.

We absolutely need to expand our Whitehall bandwidth to be able to recognise the current challenges to which we could provide solutions and also the looming ones that are coming over the horizon. This is the point I hope the Minister will listen to. The real backdrop to this debate that we must all recognise is where our complex and dangerous world is heading. If there was one welcome outcome of the G7 summit, it is the realisation that unless the west becomes less risk-averse, regroups and reunites, the next decade will get very bumpy indeed.

I have been consistent in my clear message to this House: over the next five years, the world is getting more dangerous, not less, and more complex, not less. Authoritarianism is on the rise, new power bases are emerging, and states are starting to rearm at an alarming rate. To compound matters, we now have the growing challenge of climate change, which is already having an impact on security and governance in some of the world’s most vulnerable regions. Storms, floods and droughts will affect agricultural productivity, damage economies and lead to mass migration, most notably from Africa to Europe. This goes back to the point about where the challenge is: it is not in Dover; it is actually in Africa. Simply put, global security in our ever complex and confusing world is on a worrying glide path, and right now there is no grand plan to alter the current trajectory. The threat picture is greater and more complex than during the cold war, and it requires addressing.

The political scientist Joe Nye introduced the term “soft power” a decade ago. It is the ability to influence the behaviour of others to get the outcomes we want by attracting and co-opting their support. However, in the spirit of Sun Tzu, who said:

“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting”,

I argue here today that a new global soft power war or soft war is already at play, but we in the west have yet to wake up to its reality.

China is weaponising its immense soft power to significantly advance its influence and reach, and to promote its own interpretation of the international rules-based order. We are seeing this gathering apace across Africa and Asia through its one belt, one road infrastructure programmes and its gifting of 5G networks and military support to ensnare dozens and dozens of countries into its sphere of influence. It is also securing senior leadership positions in international organisations such as the United Nations to neutralise any criticism of its errant behaviour, and is now contributing ever more significant Chinese military forces to UN peacekeeping missions. As we have heard today, it is using its Confucius centres—now over 600 across the globe—to advance its message.

This will be China’s century, as it eventually overshadows and overtakes America as the dominant military, economic and technological superpower, yet here we are in Britain still failing to put two and two together. For a nation that usually prides itself on its place and influence in the world and its grasp of global situational awareness, I am genuinely baffled to understand why it is not reading and responding to this bigger picture. China is offering a competing authoritarian ideology and is leveraging its colossal economic growth to undercut western competition. On this current glide path, the world will splinter into two spheres of competing influence. Now is not the time to cut our defence budgets or our aid budgets as these threats increase, yet here we are doing both.

There is a phenomenal opportunity for British leadership here, made all the easier with the new US Administration, to craft a post-Brexit international role at the very moment the west is required to regroup. I urge this Government to listen to the voices here today in this Parliament and see the bigger picture, recognise the scale of the threat we face, invest in the statecraft and the hard and soft power tools we need, and expand Whitehall’s international bandwidth, for the actions we the west choose to take over the next few years could have implications for how the next few decades play out.