Uyghur Slave Labour: Xinjiang

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Adams]

We will be able to update the House on that cross-Government work in due course—likely in the new year. The hon. Gentleman says that we are behind the curve. I would politely mention that the UK being the first country to require businesses to report how they identify and address modern slavery should be to this Government’s credit. The Home Office made it clear in September that we intend to strengthen those laws. He will have to wait a little bit longer in terms of those actions being brought to the House.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

I want to add my weight to the Chief Rabbi’s intervention, which exposes the abuse of the Uyghur. The Chief Rabbi also said that there must be an

“urgent, independent and unfettered investigation into what is happening.”

Can the Minister comment on that? As crimes against humanity by the Chinese Government grow, has the Chinese ambassador been summoned to explain what is happening?

The Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, on which I sit, is conducting an inquiry into UK business supply chain links to Xinjiang. We are now implicated in this, and we have to take action, not speak powerfully on this issue. Finally, may I encourage the Minister to reach out to the incoming Biden Administration, to learn more about the United States Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act and see how we can collaborate to prevent the abuse of Uyghur men, the exploitation of Uyghur women and the destruction of the lives of Uyghur children?

[Nigel Adams]

My hon. Friend is right to raise a number of points. We are seriously concerned about a number of gross violations of human rights that are being perpetrated against Uyghur men and women and other minorities in Xinjiang. The Chief Rabbi is spot on, and we share his concerns about these violations that are being perpetrated. As I said, we are working internationally and co-operating with our partners on this issue. I am hopeful that my hon. Friend will draw some comfort in the new year from the new measures that we bring forward.

Official Development Assistance

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I do not think it is right to say that just because there is a percentage based on GNI, that means we can deal with a situation of the severity that we face now, with the worst economic contraction in more than 300 years and a budget deficit double that of the previous financial crisis. These are not ordinary times in which the natural stabiliser built into the target can apply. The hon. Gentleman asked how we will safeguard and prioritise; we have an allocations process. We are not going to salami-slice ODA across the different pots of money; we are going to make sure that we do it in a strategic way, and I will be taking that forward in the weeks leading up to Christmas.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend has said that, going forward, the right decisions will be made to deal with everything from poverty to extremism. For that to be the case, he has to focus on the safety and security of women and girls, which requires access for them to good and safe education. Will he update us on how we will continue to do that? During this, the week of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, the greatest number of women being abused are Uyghur women who are being abused by the Chinese state. Will he update us on what support he can provide to Uyghur women?

[Dominic Raab]

I have set out before the House how we will safeguard what we are doing on girls’ education and how we will maintain our leadership role with the global targets that we set.

We are very concerned about the position in Xinjiang. We recently made Five Eyes statements on it and brought together, in the United Nations Third Committee, a much broader pool of countries to express our concern. What needs to happen now is that the UN Human Rights Commissioner, or another independent fact-finding body, needs to be able to have access to check the facts, because China’s rejoinder is always that this is just not happening. There are too many reports that it is, we need to get to the bottom of this, and the UN Human Rights Commissioner has a role to play.

Hong Kong

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Thursday 12th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Adams]

That is the one of the cleverest ways I have seen of segueing from an urgent question on the actions in Hong Kong to a question about Scottish independence—the hon. Member should be applauded for his gall. Of course, we object in the strongest terms to the actions that have been taken in the last 48 hours.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran)—she is my hon. Friend, because we are both members of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China—on securing this urgent question, and I welcome the Minister’s robust language. He stated that China’s policy is to “stifle all voices critical” of it and that China has failed to meet its international obligations. I want to ask about the Magnitsky sanctions; I am not asking the Minister to speculate, but to explain. If our friends and allies can gather enough evidence on Chinese officials’ abuses of the Uyghur, what is stalling the Minister’s Department in doing the same?

[Nigel Adams]

As I have said in previous responses, it is not appropriate to speculate on sanctions or individuals. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office will consider any evidence that is put forward, and if my hon. Friend has such evidence, I urge her to get in touch with that Department.

Detention of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Wednesday 9th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I will not give way just yet; I will see how we get on. I know that there is a lot of intense interest in this debate, and I have had representations from many Members. That makes the case for not only how seriously Members from across the House take this matter, but how much people want to debate it and get a response from the Government. I think we should aim for more debates on the Floor of the House with more time, rather than end-of-day Adjournment debates like this one.

The genocide convention, to which China is a signatory, defines genocide as specific acts against members of a group with the intent to destroy that group in whole or in part. These acts include killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life to bring about the group’s physical destruction, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group, and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. Any one of these categories constitutes genocide. The overwhelming evidence of the Chinese Government’s deliberate and systematic campaign to destroy the Uyghur people clearly meets each of these categories.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on holding this very important debate. She has very clearly laid out the tenet of what is required in international law to say that genocide is taking place in Xinjiang. Unfortunately, though, China’s power within the UN means that the UN is a busted flush, so it is up to our Government—our Foreign Office—to say that enough is enough and we will hold our own tribunal to work out what the evidence suggests, which will no doubt be that genocide is indeed taking place.

[Shabana Mahmood]

I thank the hon. Lady and agree with everything she said. Her remarks are testament to how much cross-party agreement there now is about what is happening to the Uyghur people at the hands of the Chinese Government. I would certainly welcome an opportunity to work closely with her and other Conservative Members so that we can lobby their Government to take the action that we would all, I am sure, like to see.

We should all be alarmed and appalled by what we are seeing, but we should all also resolve to forge a path forward for Uyghur freedom. I do believe that, as the hon. Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani) said, our Government can play a key role in averting disaster. The time has certainly come for Magnitsky-style sanctions on individuals, whether state or non-state actors, where there are reasonable grounds to suspect that the person is involved in serious human rights violations in Xinjiang. There is no good reason to explain why these have not already been activated. I believe that the Government’s current position is that the evidence is not there yet—a position that I have to say I find incredible. If the evidence we already have is not strong enough, then could the Minister tell us what more is required? What line has to be crossed before we say that sanctions are now appropriate?

Sanctions alone will not, of course, be enough. We should go further in using and enforcing domestic avenues of accountability—in particular, corporate accountability relating to supply chains, as my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana) remarked. We cannot allow the fruits of forced labour to end up on our shores and in our homes. I know that British people everywhere would be appalled to think, for example, that the personal protective equipment that we have all come to rely on could have been produced by the abused and subjugated people of Xinjiang. If our words on eradicating modern slavery are to mean anything, then surely the commercial goods that the Uyghurs and others in Xinjiang are forced to make should be squarely in our sights.

Both these options relate to following and then attacking the money. As distasteful as it may seem, money does matter a very great deal. The Chinese Communist party has busily been buying up influence and the silence of other countries. A challenge based on restricting the flow of money for key regime individuals, and also for companies, both Chinese and others, that are benefiting from these crimes would hit where it hurts and send a clear message too.

There are legal options as well. I know that the situation is complicated—China is of course a permanent member of the UN Security Council—but we should not let that stand in our way, as the hon. Member for Wealden made clear. I know that the Government are proud to have co-ordinated a joint UN statement, and I am sure that the Minister will remark on that. I do not wish to sound uncharitable as to the actions that the Government have been trying to co-ordinate. I know that even getting to that point, faced with a concerted counter-effort by the Chinese Government, is significant, but I also know we can do better. As the Bar Human Rights Committee has said, we should lead efforts to establish an impartial and independent UN mechanism such as a special rapporteur, or maybe an expert panel, to closely monitor the situation in Xinjiang.

We should investigate the viability of more innovative legal approaches that could be taken, as we have seen in respect of the Rohingya. The International Criminal Court has intervened to probe the violence against Myanmar’s Rohingya community because part of the crime—deportation—has taken part in Bangladesh, which falls within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court even though Myanmar itself does not. Similarly, we know that deportations are taking place from Jinjiang to Tajikistan and Cambodia, and people are then repatriated to China and later murdered, tortured or sterilised.

Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I think I answered the ICAI question earlier, but I am happy to reassure the hon. Lady and reaffirm that we will not just keep ICAI but strengthen and sharpen its focus, because we welcome and want to see the scrutiny. Indeed, I would like to see more practical policy recommendations, not just the critical analysis. I thank her for what she said about 0.7%. She is right that the DAC rules are an important part of the global infrastructure. There is plenty of scope, and it is absolutely right, for us to ensure that we get maximum value for British taxpayers’ money and to drive a foreign policy that deals with some of the challenges we share with other countries around the world and fulfils our moral responsibilities but delivers for the British people here at home as well.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

I welcome the merger and a new, bold global foreign policy. When it comes to aid, can my right hon. Friend tell me why we sent £71 million of taxpayers’ money to China, the world’s second largest economy? Linked to that, can he commit to tackling the genocide that China is undertaking against the Uyghur, with 2 million incarcerated, and show leadership on the international stage by starting with the Magnitsky sanctions and ending with holding a tribunal against the Chinese authorities, who are undertaking human rights abuses against the Uyghur?

China

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his typically focused and well considered remarks, and for his support. In relation to UK regulation and the regime that applies to imports, we have a strong and rigorous scheme in place, and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy will of course look at any individual cases that he wishes to raise. We are joined up—he asked about this—via the National Security Council and the other structures in a more closely integrated way, and covid-19 has encouraged that more broadly across the board.

On the definition of genocide, I have worked on war crimes since well before becoming a Member of this House, and the real challenge of it is the question of deliberate intention that is ascribed to it. As important as that is—it does bring with it legal implications that help in respect of accountability—the reality is that it can also distract from the fact that we are increasingly confident that there is a strong case to answer, as the Chinese ambassador was unable to do yesterday on “The Andrew Marr Show”, in respect of systematic human rights abuses. Frankly, the legal label on it is to me secondary to the plight of the victims who are suffering under it.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s statement, as we develop a new relationship with China. He mentioned Uyghurs just once in his statement, but he knows that the whole House is concerned about the human rights abuses taking place in Xinjiang. If there is enough evidence for the Americans to apply sanctions on officials in Xinjiang, can the Foreign Secretary have sight of that evidence to see whether we can do the same here? He of course repeatedly states that “genocide” is a legal term and we need international courts to apply it, but when it comes to the UN and China, the UN is a busted flush. Will the Foreign Secretary consider convening an independent inquiry so that we can collect evidence to see whether genocide is taking place in Xinjiang?

Recent Violence in India

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Adams]

The hon. Gentleman makes a sensible and important point. I am pleased that he welcomes the report. Any measures, whether attempting to clamp down on online disinformation or those that my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) raised, are welcome. We are in constant contact on these issues, and we know how important this is to Members of Parliament and their constituents, who may have family in the area. I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s comments.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

I welcome my hon. Friend to his new position. Will he confirm that he will use his high office and every power that he has to make sure that Members’ concerns are relayed to the Indian authorities, particularly given that the brutality seems to have been meted out by those who should enforce the law, as was recently shown in BBC coverage.

[Nigel Adams]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I alluded to our concerns about some of the police brutality that was meted out. We have long regarded protest as a key part of any democratic society. Democratic Governments must have the power to enforce law and order when a protest crosses the line into illegality, but we also encourage all states to ensure that their domestic laws are enforced in line with all international standards.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

The council will indeed be used by the United Kingdom to offer a statement in relation to Israel, and the issues raised by the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) are covered in a number of different ways in our representations to Israel.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

Violence in Iran has escalated. Does the Foreign Secretary share my concern about the reports that 450 Iranians may have been arrested for taking to the streets against a regime that brutalises women and oppresses religious minorities?

[Boris Johnson]

As I said earlier, I have made it absolutely clear to the Iranian authorities that we believe in and support the right of the people of Iran to demonstrate peacefully in accordance with the law. I will continue to make that point to my Iranian counterparts later this week.

Israel: US Embassy

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

Our view has been that recognition of Palestine should come at the time when that is in the best interests of the prospects for peace and the peace process. That remains our position for now.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel isolates the USA. It has been condemned by European and middle eastern leaders, and even by Pope Francis. All say that this hostile act is ignorant and undermines the delicate peace process. Will the Minister confirm that we robustly maintain, with the States, a position of seeking a two-state solution, although I suggest he begins by pointing out where Jerusalem is to President Trump?

[Alistair Burt]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I assure her that there is no change in the United Kingdom’s position, either on the final status of Jerusalem, or on the need for a two-state solution.

Budget Resolutions

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

It pains me to give any kind of negative answer to the hon. Lady, but I must tell her that my diary is very busy. I have had many meetings on the crisis in Rakhine and the Rohingya, and I am not at this stage able to consecrate the time that she wants from me. May I invite her to write to me and I will do my best to help her?

The reason the UK is one of the biggest donors to Bangladesh and to the solution of the crisis in Rakhine is that Burma, one day, will have a great future and we—our country—will be part of that future. When our soldiers and development experts are deployed in northern Nigeria—I have seen for myself the great work that they do—to help defeat the barbaric terrorists of Boko Haram, they are also helping to bring stability to a country rich in natural resources that will, by the middle of the century, have more people than the United States. When we strive to get girls into school in Pakistan, to unite the world behind Ghassan Salamé’s plan for a peaceful Libya, to improve the resilience of Bangladesh to flooding, to help Kenya to beat corruption, or to help tackle the problems of Somalia—all areas in which the UK, global Britain, is in the lead—we are doing the right thing for the world, but we are also investing in countries with huge potential, filled with the consumers of the future.

Our exports rely on shipping lanes and clear international rules enforced with rigour and fairness. We will not be so foolhardy as the Leader of the Opposition, who apparently believes that all this can be taken for granted and left to the good will of foreign powers.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

I am concerned that the Foreign Secretary might be moving on from the aid budget without mentioning a very good project that we are involved in—a finance initiative for women entrepreneurs that is helping women in the developing world to set up businesses, not only providing security and stability but enabling them in future to become trading partners with us.

[Boris Johnson]

I am delighted that my hon. Friend has made that valuable point. The emphasis that she places on women’s commercial potential and ability to drive the economy is absolutely right, and it is one of the reasons why all UK overseas effort is focused, above all, on the education of women and girls. I believe that that is the universal spanner that unlocks many of our problems.

We believe that the international rules-based system, on which our safety and prosperity depends, must be defended and upheld. To that end, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has ensured that Britain has the biggest defence and overseas aid budgets in Europe. The Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defence, DFID and our intelligence services will have a combined budget of £51.2 billion this year, allowing Britain to devote more resources than any other European country to safeguarding our interests and projecting our influence worldwide.

Today, the UK accounts for 13% of the EU’s population but 16% of its GDP, 21% of its defence spending and 25% of its spending on development aid. None of that will be lost to our European friends after we leave the EU, because, as the Prime Minister has said, our commitment to the defence and security of Europe was unconditional and immovable long before we joined the EU, and it will remain equally resolute after we leave.

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[Ms Ghani]

I am a little bit concerned that the right hon. Lady might be misleading the House. The 0.7% figure is enshrined in law, and surely she recognises the extra funding placed not only with the World Service but the British Council, which does a huge amount of work on human rights and education, and deals with some of the trickiest countries around the world. We should not dismiss this country’s commitment to international development.

[Emily Thornberry]

I simply refer the hon. Lady to the Red Book, where she will see that there is less money being spent on international development. It is a great worry to us all and I know it will be a great worry to her. I therefore hope she will join us in speaking to the Chancellor about our responsibilities, because we are at a time of great difficulty internationally. As I have been attempting to outline, there are cuts not only from the United States but the EU. If we are, in effect, spending less money, too, at such a precarious time, that should cause us all concern. It was extraordinary that the Chancellor of the Exchequer chose not to mention it at all in his speech.

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[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

It is very difficult to follow that speech, but on an upbeat note, I welcome this measured, balanced and forward-looking Budget, which, coupled with today’s industrial strategy, looks beyond Brexit with optimism and realism. Alas, the same cannot be said of the Momentum alternative from the Opposition. Only the shadow Chancellor, or perhaps Paul Daniels, could possibly have the chutzpah to claim that spending commitments of £330 billion already racked up, resulting in debt interest payments of £270 billion over the next Parliament—as predicted by the very forecasters whom the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) was so keen to quote earlier—would amount to nothing and pay for itself.

We cannot be complacent, and I certainly welcome the renewed urgency in tackling the productivity deficit and the industrial strategy, which concentrates on smart technologies, clean technologies, fast technology and preventive technology, because that is key. This year alone, China and India will each produce 1 million engineering graduates, many of them working in manufacturing and service sectors in high-tech industries. In 20 years, many of the growth jobs will be jobs that do not exist today, so education is key. That is why I welcome the investment in research and upskilling that is a hallmark of this Budget and today’s vote of confidence by the pharmaceutical companies in this country’s future in that area.

I welcome the help for business and the end of the staircase tax, which was feared. I welcome the help for small house builders in particular, with the extension of the home building fund to help more house building projects on small sites. I also welcome the commitment to more homes. We need to build more homes, as well as more new towns, so I welcome the stamp duty exemption for first-time young buyers. There are some unintended omissions. People will not qualify if buying a property jointly with somebody who has previously owned one or even somebody who has made a loss on previous properties. There are also question marks over how shared ownership is treated, but the principle is absolutely right.

However, we need to be more imaginative in promoting rent-to-buy schemes and creating incentives for the three quarters of a million empty properties that we still have in this country. There is also the bigger issue of fairness in stamp duty. The average price of a house in my constituency of Worthing is £327,000, while in Wrexham it is just £179,000 and in Wakefield it is £186,000, but the rate of stamp duty is the same. Should it not be based on size rather than price, depending on what part of the country people live in? We need to incentivise downsizing by older people to free up family homes, and they would still have to pay stamp duty under the current regime. We need to think smarter about incentivising imaginative intergenerational developments that encourage and enable families to stay closer to each other, rather than being priced out of the area where they grew up.

As chairman of the all-party parliamentary wine and spirit group, I should like to cite one world-beating industry: the wine and spirit industry. It supports 554,000 jobs in this country and generates £50 billion for the economy.

[Ms Ghani]

As my hon. Friend might know, the Foreign Office has 274 posts in 168 countries, and they are perfectly placed to export or promote English sparkling wine, specifically from my constituency of Wealden, as outlined in my ten-minute rule Bill, which he supported earlier this year.

[Tim Loughton]

My hon. Friend anticipates my next point. I am delighted that the Chancellor chose to freeze the duty on wines and spirits, but the duty on a bottle of wine is still £2.16, and the duty on a bottle of sparkling wine is £2.77. In France, the duty on a bottle of wine is 2p. Surely, after Brexit, we can give a boost to the English wine industry, which will be producing 10 million bottles, to allow our quality wines to compete even more on an international level. English sparkling wine beats French champagne hands down in blind tastings throughout the world. Also, why should there be a higher rate of duty on sparkling wine, when it is of a lower alcoholic strength than still wine? Surely that point has been conceded, given the action that is being taken on white cider.

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[Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)]

Coming at a time when we are exiting the EU, this is a prudent Budget. Obviously, we would have liked to see more of our own special things in it, but that is the nature of a Budget. The problem for the Opposition is that, despite stresses in some areas, the British economy is performing pretty well on the whole, which is why the polls show that, even at this stage, the Conservative party is either level-pegging or ahead of the Opposition, which is a real problem for them.

Leaving the EU presents the United Kingdom with an opportunity to think about itself, to redefine itself and to decide where it wishes to go. It was US Secretary of State Dean Acheson who, in the aftermath of the second world war, famously said:

“Great Britain has lost an empire and not yet found a role.”

That was true. When we think about our withdrawal east of Suez and about throwing our lot in with the EU, an individual British role was in a sense submerged by those events, but it is now incumbent on us to talk Britain up and our constituents want us to do that. It may be a difficult challenge for some and, judging by some of the contributions from the Opposition tonight, that is not their inclination, but people want us to talk Britain up and to think about how we can reinvigorate our advantages. With one of the best militaries in the world, we have hard power. We are committed to NATO, and we encourage others to spend the amount of money that we are spending. We are a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Those things give us real global influence, and we should be proud of them and guard them jealously.

Increasingly, our soft power cannot be divorced from hard power; we need to use them both at the same time. We have our values, our parliamentary system, the work of institutions such as the British Council, our culture and our royal family. I say that at a time when the world is yet again focused on us due to the engagement of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

[Ms Ghani]

My right hon. Friend mentioned the British Council, which recently noted that one in seven world leaders studied at a British university. That presents a great opportunity for us not only to promote our universities, but to export our values overseas.

[Sir Hugo Swire]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I will come to that in a minute. When I used to travel around the world on behalf of the Foreign Office, it was fantastic to have the GREAT Britain campaign branding everything that the UK was doing.

On the subject of the Foreign Office, I note that the budget will be £2 billion in 2017-18 and then £1.2 billion in the subsequent two years. I have some nervousness here. I understand the arguments about official development assistance, but let us compare that with the Department for International Development’s budget in those years: it goes from £7.6 billion to £8.2 billion—I cannot quite understand how the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), who speaks for the Opposition, managed to regard that as a cut. I believe that the Foreign Office should own what the UK does abroad. There are too many departments in capitals around the world that do not dovetail with what the FCO is doing. I will leave it until another time to make the point again that the more closely integrated DFID is with the FCO, so much the better.

The Foreign Office needs to expand. We are obviously withdrawing from the European External Action Service—the Federico Mogherini-led overseas diplomatic corps of Europe—so we need to think about where we are going to re-resource our posts around the world. I believe in an international, rules-based system, and I believe in Britain’s role in it. I would also like the UK Government to lead on a new financial architecture. The Bretton Woods system is outdated and fails to recognise the emergence of countries such as China.

I want a properly resourced military that retains our amphibious capabilities and our peacekeeping role. I want the UK to engage better with the Commonwealth, and what better opportunity is there to restate our commitment to it than the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in London next April? I want the UK to recognise and recommit to our responsibilities to our overseas territories. I ask the Foreign Secretary whether we can press the OECD harder to look at the redefinition of aid and to consider why we cannot provide more aid to the overseas territories. Some of the calculations on middle-income countries are fallacious. Financial services are counted in those calculations, but the money does not go to individuals in those countries—the money often flows in and out. We should be able to fund our overseas territories properly.

I would like us to engage with the neglected markets of Latin America. I would like British companies to take advantage of China’s one belt system. My hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani) referred to scholarships, and we should boost the Chevening, Marshall and Commonwealth scholarship programmes, possibly bringing them together as one scholarship programme. We can continue to lead on climate change and on protecting vulnerable states—