Sudan

Debate between Lord Benyon and Lord Bellingham

Thursday 18th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

To be frank, no. The warring parties have clearly come to the view that there is no benefit to their aspirations in ceasing the conflict. Until one or both realise that this is the case, we will continue to put pressure on them and on those who continue to support them. We have just announced another raft of sanctions. At some point, those supplying them with the weapons, those carrying out the atrocities and those perpetrating this conflict have to realise that it has to stop.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, this truly horrendous civil war was superimposed on a number of existing local conflicts, doing untold damage. They were largely unseen and not taken on board. Further to the point made by the right reverend Prelate, the Minister will be aware that there is overwhelming evidence that the Rapid Support group is being funded first of all by the Libyan militia, under Field Marshal Haftar, by the UAE and by the Wagner Group. Among other things, thermobaric shells, which are absolutely lethal and do a great deal of collateral damage, are being supplied. What more can be done to put pressure on these third parties and state actors?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Some information on this was forthcoming in a Panel of Experts report in early March. We are deeply concerned by the report’s assertion that credible evidence exists of external provision and support, particularly arms, both to the south and to the RSF. Such actions clearly only prolong the conflict. We are engaging with international partners and others to make sure that we are holding those responsible to account, and that, where we can, we exert influence on them to cease stoking the fires of this conflict.

Sudan: Darfur

Debate between Lord Benyon and Lord Bellingham

Thursday 29th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am not sure about that last point and will certainly get back to the noble Baroness on that, but she is absolutely right that this has a destabilising effect across the region. I am shortly to visit South Sudan, where I will be able to see what impact it is having on that country, which has considerable difficulties but not on the scale that we are seeing in Darfur and elsewhere in Sudan. I will absolutely make available to the House all information we can on what we are doing regionally as well as locally.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, as well as the appalling consequences that were outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, is the Minister aware that there are 19 million children in Sudan who have been out of school since April last year? As well as the 700,000 children suffering malnutrition, as has been mentioned, I gather there are another 4 million who are likely to suffer. Is the Minister aware that the RSF has already captured Sudan’s second city, Wad Madani, and—as the noble Lord mentioned the appalling atrocity in Darfur—that the US is sanctioning some of its leaders and also using every diplomatic pressure on those foreign powers supporting the RSF? Can the Minister elaborate further what we have done and what we are going to do?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

On sanctions, asset freezes were applied to three commercial entities linked to each party—the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces—involved in the conflict of Sudan. These sanctions, which target entities that the SAF and RSF have used to support their war efforts, are part of our broader efforts to put pressure on parties to reach a sustained and meaningful peace process, allow humanitarian access and commit to a permanent cessation of hostilities. We do not speculate on further sanctions, but I can tell my noble friend that we are keeping this regularly under review and working with other countries to see if we can stem the flow of arms from countries where we have influence to make sure that that is not heating up an already very dangerous situation.

Storms: Weather Resilience

Debate between Lord Benyon and Lord Bellingham

Thursday 11th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are giving money for property-level flood resilience, and that would entirely fall within this. Software is also now available. For example, I looked some years ago at Bristol, where they had created millions of data points around the city at which they could apply different weather events and see how just a kerb being raised at a certain point, or a wall being extended, can protect a number of properties from flooding. So the noble Baroness is absolutely right: we need to look at the micro as well as the macro effect.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as listed in the register. The Minister mentioned damage to farmland. Obviously, most arable farmers will have the chance to re-drill their crops in the spring and many will benefit from the farming recovery grant. However, in the Fens, covering Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk, a number of horticultural producers have suffered substantial damage to existing crops. They may well not be covered, so what advice can he give them?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My noble friend is right: these floods will undoubtedly affect our food security. Lincolnshire and the Fens is a very important area. Internal drainage boards and managing water levels are an important part of this. I cannot say that the level of rain we experienced was unprecedented, and it certainly was not unexpected. We are going to have more of these events, and we have to be better at managing them.

Storm Henk

Debate between Lord Benyon and Lord Bellingham

Wednesday 10th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Lord raises an important point. I assure him that, through the various fora looking at weather patterns—not least the Environment Agency and Defra working closely together—and through our entire adaptation programme, we are changing our view of the risk, in accordance with the best available science, particularly meteorology. This is a requirement under our adaptation programme, but it is also something we have to do to make sure that our plans and the vast amounts of taxpayers’ money that go into these schemes reflect this.

An important difference that has allowed us to take many more schemes forward has been the partnership funding approach. I do not know the specifics of the noble Lord’s Wyre Forest scheme, but so many did not qualify under the value for money criteria in the past and were not built. Now that we have introduced our partnership funding scheme, with other sources of funding, planning conditions, local levies and a variety of other measures, we have seen hugely increased numbers of schemes and protections put in place. I hope the noble Lord’s scheme will benefit from that and I will raise it personally with the floods Minister to ensure that it is in the programme.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the Minister for the effort he made to visit some of the residents affected and also to the Prime Minister, who went to the East Midlands and Oxfordshire. That does them great credit. I understand from what the Minister said that 2,000 homes have been severely affected and badly damaged and that the vast majority will have full insurance. However, some have not been able to get cover, for a variety of reasons. Can anything be done to help residents facing that plight?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for his point about visits. It is hard to get this one right. Ministers should not be on site and getting in the way while an emergency is happening—but they should also not be too late. I think my colleagues hit the sweet spot; they were able to hear from people affected, feed that through to officials and make sure that, where changes needed to take place, they did. Our job is now to make sure that we learn from this, as we do from every incident.

On my noble friend’s second point, insurance available for people at flood risk has changed dramatically since we introduced Flood Re, which has meant that households that could not get insurance can now get it. That scheme must be constantly reviewed in the light of increased risk. Alongside that, £5,000 will be available to the households he mentioned and Flood Re can also fund resilience repairs under our build back better programme, which provides up to £10,000 towards the cost of like-for-like reinstatement after flood damage.

Child Labour and Artisanal Cobalt Mining in the DRC

Debate between Lord Benyon and Lord Bellingham

Thursday 30th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

On the first point, I will write to the noble Lord about the appointment of the new commissioner. On the second point, there is a market imperative to use less of certain products because they are expensive to obtain and transport across the world, so there is a market mechanism. But there is also a driver for the Government through innovation, particularly in areas such as battery manufacture, to reduce both the weight of batteries and, therefore, the quantity of minerals such as cobalt that are used. The Government are providing funding for innovation in a whole range of ways.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, further to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, I have also had the chance to visit most parts of the DRC and have seen for myself the scourge of child labour. The Minister mentioned that we must get these children out of mines, where they are being persecuted and exploited, and into schools and education. Can he tell us what we are doing to tilt our aid in that direction? Does he have any figures on these children going into school?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The UK’s Partnership Against Child Exploitation programme, which ended in September, was a consortium of six partners that worked to combat the worst forms of child labour in the Central African Republic, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo; the United Kingdom was a key supporter of that partnership. The programme delivered key achievements: 8,430 children are going back to school following a consortium intervention, while 2,583 children have completed training in rights and skills because of PACE support. The point from the noble Lord, Lord Alton, is absolutely right—there is still a serious problem—but we are having some success and we want to see more of it.

Storm Babet: Flooding

Debate between Lord Benyon and Lord Bellingham

Wednesday 25th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

In the wider context, the Government are investing £5.2 billion to build flood and coastal erosion schemes to better protect communities, and almost 60,000 properties are better protected. We tend not to tell the story of the houses that are not flooded; for obvious reasons, we concentrate on those that are. Some 314,000 properties were better protected through the Government’s £2.6 billion investment between 2015 and 2021. The Thames Barrier is vital to the security of this global city that we are in now, and some long-term work is going on around future-proofing it to adapt to rising sea levels and the constant improved data we have on east coast tidal surges. We have had some narrow misses in some communities up the east coast in the past. The Thames Barrier has worked, is regularly reviewed and is expertly managed, but in time, unless we can contain this planet to 1.5 degrees of warming, we have to look at that kind of infrastructure as something that we will need to modify and possibly replace with a larger scheme further on down the estuary.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister mentioned the flooding in Suffolk, and I absolutely agree with what he said. Parts of Norfolk were also very badly affected. As a number of noble Lords have pointed out, the first priority is the victims who tragically suffered death and injury in these floods. The next priority would be the quite dreadful damage to property —to homes, farms, livestock and infrastructure. But the third priority, down the list of priorities, is the widespread discharge of sewage from storm overflows. I gather that this was really severe in many areas. The sheer volume of water is going to mitigate that, to some extent, but there will be lasting impacts on local river habitats in some areas. What more are the water utilities going to do and how will the Government work with them on this agenda?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for his question. This is an absolute priority for the Government and we are putting in record sums. We want to see £52 billion spent by water companies on upgrading their sewage systems. I will give my noble friend an example: there are eight villages up a small chalk stream close to where I live. Every one of those villages has increased in size by between 15% and 30% more households over the last few decades. While some attempts have been made to improve the sewage infrastructure up that river system, a lot more needs to be spent on it. It is now being spent on that and many other rivers, but we need to make sure that we look at this in the context of the vital necessity to protect the environment and the rare and wonderful chalk streams and other rivers that exist, including those close to where my noble friend lives. We also need to make sure that we consider the ability of that infrastructure to withstand the impact of storms, and that those are not just seen as an excuse, by some, to release more sewage into our environment.

Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill

Debate between Lord Benyon and Lord Bellingham

Committee stage
Tuesday 12th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My Lords, I set out earlier my thoughts on these amendments. My noble friend Lord Lucas is a very intelligent and assiduous parliamentarian and raises an important point. But I suggest that this amendment is not necessary, because the species in scope are provided for in Clause 2. Notwithstanding what my noble friend Lord Mancroft says, that is for the simplicity of the functioning of the Bill, so I hope I can persuade my noble friend Lord Lucas to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

I will just add on that last point: surely we should stick to the manifesto commitment, which is on endangered species. That is what we said in the manifesto. Maybe the Minister could stand up again and answer that point. Widening it in this way in Clause 2 to the 6,200 species goes far wider than what we committed to in 2019.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, to follow that up, it seems strange that my noble friend the Minister lamented that there was not a compromise on the Bill—that was when he started his reply to me on my first amendment. The Bill as presented before us is much wider than the manifesto commitment. Surely this would be an area in which a sensible compromise, achieving the aims of those of us who wish to improve the conservation of animals throughout the world and what the Government seek to do, is a possibility. If my noble friend was serious in saying that he laments the lack of a compromise, he ought to tell us where he thinks a compromise might be.

European Union: Trade Barriers

Debate between Lord Benyon and Lord Bellingham

Tuesday 4th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

For trades like that to be successful, it takes two to tango and we want to make sure that our continuing conversations with our partners in Europe are facilitating precisely that sort of trade. There will not be a delay from this side of the border.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. The Minister will be aware that France is 100% self-sufficient in food, whereas we import 48% of our needs. Obviously, some products we are going to have to import, but surely we could do more to be self-sufficient in dairy products, beef and potatoes. Does the Minister agree that one of the key lessons of Covid and the Ukraine war is the need for more food security?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

We are 74% self-sufficient in products we can grow in this country and 62% self-sufficient in all food items. We are setting in train a whole range of policies through which we are trying to assist farmers to diversify their businesses, to find new markets and to find them locally. I absolutely agree with my noble friend that we want to be as self-sufficient in other products as we are in eggs and some dairy products, for example.

Water Companies: Pollution

Debate between Lord Benyon and Lord Bellingham

Wednesday 2nd November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

Norfolk is fortunate to have a number of remarkable chalk streams, which provide spectacularly important habitat. What more can be done to protect them?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My noble friend raises a very important point. The chalk streams strategy, written by Charles Rangeley-Wilson, whom I suspect was my noble friend’s constituent, is a brilliant piece of work which the Government have accepted and which will form the basis of our policies to put these very valuable environmental and ecological systems in a pristine state as quickly as possible.

Nitrate-free Bacon and Ham

Debate between Lord Benyon and Lord Bellingham

Tuesday 18th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The public are informed about what is in their food by the labelling. Any nitrates or nitrites that are in food do appear on the label, so the public can make an informed choice. But I repeat what I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, about the importance of getting a balanced view: there is not a clear scientific link between colorectal cancers and these additives. Of course, we must be mindful that these additives protect consumers from conditions such as clostridium botulinum, which, I repeat, can be fatal.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. Is the Minister aware that the vast majority of large pig producers in East Anglia set the highest possible standards and have also done all they possibly can to reduce run-off into watercourses? Surely, the challenge now is to make sure that smaller producers also follow these very high standards?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right: we want to see improved animal welfare standards, productivity and growth across the agricultural sector. In East Anglia, where the majority of our larger pork enterprises exist, huge strides have been taken. As of yesterday, the pork price was about £1.98 per kilo, which is considerably up on where it was last February, when it was around £1.37. This is a massive improvement, but many pig producers are still finding that their costs of production exceed their income. The Government are doing all we can to make sure that they are a profitable part of our farming sector.

Household Waste Recycling

Debate between Lord Benyon and Lord Bellingham

Thursday 7th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I will leave that one for those concerned to deal with.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, in his reply to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, the Minister said that there should be a national strategy. Does he agree that one of the problems faced by the public is that they get confusing and conflicting instructions on packaging waste? For example, it can say “Not recyclable here” or “Widely recyclable. Consult your local authority”. Surely there is an important need for more clarity.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

There is. Local authorities, which have the interface with the customer or householder, are beholden on this. The drive that we are now pushing to increase recycling rates to 65% will require close working with councils and councils working closely with householders to show them how they can do it with minimal impact on their lives, whatever type of house they live in. We must make sure that we hit our targets because they are important for climate change and the cost of living, as well as for the kind of society, countryside and environment that we all want to enjoy.

Zoonoses Research Centre

Debate between Lord Benyon and Lord Bellingham

Tuesday 24th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right to point out the impact that these diseases have. Foot and mouth cost this country £8 billion and huge amounts of human and animal misery. Subsequent diseases, including Covid, have identified that we need to be so much more prepared for this. We are putting enormously increased resources into scientific research and the infrastructure that supports it. Our science capability in animal health, which is centred at Weybridge, has just been voted £200 million to improve its facilities, and there is much more to come in future. That is all part of being a significant contributor to the global effort to tackle zoonotic disease.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, what assessment has the Minister made of the risk of rabies being imported into this country from pets coming in from Ukraine?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

There is a very large number of pets in Ukraine; it has one of the highest pets to human population percentages anywhere in the world. Rabies is an endemic disease there, but the good news is that over 95% of the many pets that have been brought with migrant families showed immunity to rabies when we applied the ELISA test, which indicates that they have been inoculated. We are trying to fast-track a means of quarantining them which is kind to the migrant but also protects our rabies-free status.

Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Benyon and Lord Bellingham

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th July 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, I have a quick question to ask the Minister. The cost of the committee will be very substantial indeed, with its wide-ranging remit across all government. If these amendments are passed, can he tell us exactly what would be saved in the costs of running the committee?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am sorry, but I did not quite hear the last part of the question. I wonder whether my noble friend could repeat it.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

Yes, indeed. If these amendments are passed, they will obviously greatly restrict the remit of the committee in what I think would be a very wise manner. Can my noble friend give this Committee some indication as to what would be saved in the costs of running the committee?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I understand the question and apologise for missing it first time. No, I cannot give my noble friend that assurance, because the work programme and what the committee would look at will change from year to year as developing evidence about animal welfare takes it down different priority routes. The amendments would obviously quite dramatically restrict the ability of the committee to influence government policy, but I cannot put a monetary value on that. It would be part of the economic impact assessment, which would have to take place at a different stage in this process.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

My Lords, I have received a request to speak after the Minister from the noble Lord, Lord Bellingham.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, does the Minister think that there is a fundamental difference between a lobster and a prawn? If an image of a prawn is magnified many times, we see that it is not dissimilar to a lobster. Of course, when children go shrimping or catching prawns, whelks, cockles or mussels, those creatures are all put into boiling water, pretty well killed immediately and cooked. Does the Minister feel that there is a fundamental difference between those bigger crustaceans such as lobsters and crabs and the smaller ones?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am not an expert, and that is why I want an animal sentience committee that will advise me and my successors on the rights and wrongs of dispatching species of all kinds. I cannot answer my noble friend. I understand the point that he makes. He is a seasoned political debater. This is an issue which requires people who will make decisions about such matters, and that should not be lay men like me.

Diplomatic Service and Resources

Debate between Lord Benyon and Lord Bellingham

Tuesday 13th March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Diplomatic Service and resources.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey. I am grateful for and slightly awed by the array of right hon. and hon. Members present who have much more experience of this issue than I have. It is an extremely important one and I am very grateful to the Minister for being here. I hope that he will be able to address some of the points that I and others raise.

We exist at a time of the greatest turbulence and change. With Brexit, we have the resulting need to engage as never before with countries around the world. We see, never more than this week, challenges to the rules-based order. We see the rise of new powers, such as China, which is stamping its mark on the world politically, economically and militarily on a scale unimagined a few years ago. We also see the influence of political disrupters across western democracies. This is the time to challenge policy of several Governments and many decades that has led to a decline in our commitment to foreign engagement.

It has been a real privilege for me to travel as a Minister, as a trade envoy, as the leader of the UK’s delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and in other capacities, and to see at first hand the astounding professionalism of our diplomatic staff around the world. Numbers are not everything. Having a fluent Arabic-speaking middle east expert as our ambassador to Iraq with the President’s personal mobile number on his speed dial is of incalculable value. However, we have reached a critical moment in our ability to promote our interests abroad.

I had a conversation yesterday with Lord Waldegrave. He has spent time as a Minister in both the Treasury and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and he said, in a way that was somewhat light-hearted but nevertheless heartfelt, that in his impression there has been a multi-decadal battle between the Treasury and the FCO, which the Treasury has now won—a battle between the two great Departments of state that vie for influence with No. 10 and across Government. Two decades ago, it was deemed the right thing to hive off international development to a new Department. Part of that perhaps was a good thing at the time, but I have always felt that part of it was distaste for the concept that aid and influence could ever go together. For me, that has never been a problem: of course they can, and they should.

In some areas, the European Union was seen by some as the deliverer of our overseas influence.

[Sir Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend talks about the Treasury and other Departments. Obviously, the Department for International Development has had successive incredible spending rounds. Does he agree that the military attaché network, which he and I have seen in places such as Africa, does a huge amount of good in terms of influence and building those relationships? Surely, in countries that are basically aid-dependent, DFID should be paying for that network.

[Richard Benyon]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. Later in my speech, I will talk about defence attachés and how we can copy the way that other countries do that better.

I have travelled to parts of the world where the Union flag might exist in the corner of an island state’s flag but there is no Union flag flying over anything that could resemble a high commission, embassy or diplomatic mission. All aid to the Pacific region was delivered through the EU; I could not find one sign of recognition of the sacrifice that the UK taxpayer made to provide that much-needed aid—it all had the EU mark on it.

Well before 2010, embassies were being sold off. They were bricks and mortar whose value in terms of influence vastly outweighed their real estate value. Our missions abroad were reduced and our diplomatic service language school was closed. After 2010, some good things started to happen: the language school was reopened; embassies that had been closed were reopened. But what that really meant was that our diplomatic missions abroad were marginally broader, but shallower too. I was in Mali just as we reopened our embassy there. An excellent ambassador arrived and she took over with a staff of one locally recruited driver. According to the FCO figures, there are now three FCO personnel there.

This year, the Government will spend £2.15 billion on the winter fuel allowance—a welfare element that we all support—but that is more than the £2 billion we spend on our foreign affairs budget. Let us compare how France and Germany—two similar-sized countries, both in the EU—manage their diplomatic services abroad. France spends £4.2 billion on its diplomatic service—more than twice what we spend on ours. As a country, it has a clear view that in order to maintain its P5 status it will stay true to its spheres of influence. Our 30-year bout of post-colonial guilt syndrome in this country, which may well have abated now, never seemed to have a parallel in the French psyche. France maintains a very clear involvement and commitment to countries in north and west Africa in particular, but also across the middle east. It maintains a much more permanent presence in areas where it has a history of influence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Benyon]

I could not agree more. I saw a similar one-post operation in Addis Ababa, where our excellent ambassador, Susanna Moorehead, has forged a team that includes representatives of DFID, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for International Trade into one cohesive force. They certainly punch above their weight, and they are able to influence things as a result. I particularly note what my right hon. Friend said about Zimbabwe. There has never been a more important time for us to engage there. If we allow ourselves to be optimistic, there is the chance that Zimbabwe will emerge from the tragedy of recent decades.

[Sir Henry Bellingham]

Will my right hon. Friend also consider the influence that small missions can have? For example, in the past seven years we have opened embassies in Abidjan, Juba and Antananarivo. Although they have only one FCO-employed official and some locally employed staff, they deliver huge influence and are very warmly received by the host country. Surely we should do that more in Africa and the Pacific.

[Richard Benyon]

I could not agree more. As I said, numbers are not everything. Diplomats’ ability to influence and to project Britain’s engagement abroad is of course down to the skill of individuals and their capacity to get that message across. The number of countries where we do not have anyone is missing from the list of personnel in the FCO’s annual report and accounts. We need to look at that.

I said that I would come back to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (Sir Henry Bellingham) made about defence attachés. France deploys a cadre of highly professional defence attachés who are proficient in local languages and who develop their careers and are rewarded as resident experts in countries across the middle east and north and west Africa. They often attend local staff colleges. Their career involvement in the regions to which they are posted is considered a virtue. I, too, have met some outstanding defence attachés. I know that there has been a change in recent years to try to develop longer-term postings, and that we send people to staff colleges, for example. However, the French colonel I met who had a direct way in to the Minister of Defence in a particular country had that because he had been in that region for 15 years, was fluent in the language and had embedded himself in the politics of the region.