Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to ensure the Protection of Civilians strategy makes the protection of children a priority.
Answered by Andrew Murrison
The Government is currently reviewing its strategy for the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict, and is committed to ensuring that its approach benefits all civilians, including children and other vulnerable groups, and that it reflects the changing international landscape and the complexity of many conflicts. The Government welcomes recent research carried out by academics and Non-Governmental Organisations in this field and is taking their work into account as it undertakes its review. The Government aims to complete the review by the end of 2019.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what plans are in place to ensure (a) the protection of and (b) assistance to human rights defenders in overseas states.
Answered by Mark Field
The UK recognises the important work that human rights defenders (HRDs) do to protect and defend the full range of human rights. Our network of embassies and high commissions will continue to work with HRDs, using the recently updated UK Guidelines on Working with Human Rights Defenders. We support HRDs in a variety of ways: sometimes through financial support, but more often the value we provide is by getting to know prominent HRDs and supporting them either publicly or privately. There is no single template for doing this. It is for Heads of Mission to decide how to implement and use the guidelines, in a manner appropriate to the local context. The UK will continue to use the multilateral system to press for strong guidelines for the treatment of human rights defenders by states. At the high-level meeting on HRDs at the UN of 18 December, we called on governments to allow HRDs to fight for human rights; and enable civil society to engage and challenge governments without fear. In November, we co-sponsored a new UN General Assembly resolution on freedom of assembly and association, further strengthening support for civil society and human rights defenders.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what discussions he has had with his counterpart in Bahrain on human rights.
Answered by Alistair Burt
The UK and Bahrain enjoy an open dialogue where we are able to discuss a range of issues, including human rights. During my visit to Bahrain 26-28 October I had a range of bilateral meetings with Bahraini interlocutors and covered many issues, including human rights.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what discussions his Department has had with his US counterpart on the detention of unaccompanied children on the USA-Mexico border.
Answered by Alan Duncan
As the Prime Minister said on 20 June, the reports and pictures we have seen in the past couple of days are deeply disturbing and wrong. We do not apply similar measures here and will never do so. Later on 20 June, President Trump signed an Executive Order aimed at ending the separation policy.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what estimate he has made of the number of UK citizens serving as UN peacekeepers.
Answered by Mark Field
740 British forces personnel are currently serving in seven UN missions in six countries: primarily in South Sudan, Cyprus and Somalia, with smaller deployments to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Mali and Libya. Further data including a detailed breakdown of troop contributions to UN missions by country can be found on the UN website at https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/troop-and-police-contributors.
Alongside troops and police, there are 12,830 civilians currently serving in UN peacekeeping operations. These civilians are employed directly by the UN. A number of these civilians will be British citizens. Information on the number of British citizens working for the United Nations is not collected by the British Government. Data relating to civilian personnel in UN peacekeeping missions can be found on the UN website at https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/data.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on the recent violence at the Palestinian border.
Answered by Alistair Burt
The Cabinet discussed the Gaza events, on the basis of a briefing by the Foreign Secretary on 15 May.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, whether the Government condemned the violence used by Israeli forces on protesters at the Gaza-Israel border at the recent UN Security Council meeting.
Answered by Alistair Burt
At the UN Security Council Meeting in question, the UK Permanent Representative urged Israel to ensure that its security forces did not resort to the use of excessive force, and noted the urgent need to establish why such a volume of live fire continued to be deemed justified.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps his Department has taken to reduce its use of single-use plastics .
Answered by Alistair Burt
On 27 February , the Foreign Secretary announced that the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) would eliminate avoidable single-use plastics from its UK operations by the end of 2018, and from its global operations by 2020. It is the first British Government Department to announce such a ban. This ambitious target makes the FCO a leader in the fight against plastic pollution not just in the UK, but globally too. Since January the FCO has taken steps to remove avoidable single-use plastic from its UK catering outlets. For example, in its UK canteens, the FCO has switched plastic cutlery and food packaging and cups to biodegradable alternatives and provided additional glasses and china mugs to reduce waste. In early April in the UK we introduced a 50p 'latte levy' on single-use coffee cups which has increased the use of reusable cups from 3% of total hot drinks sales to 46%. In the year to date, our actions have reduced plastic waste from our UK catering operations by about 40% compared to the same period last year. We have requested all Heads of Mission overseas take similar action and are working with our suppliers to further reduce avoidable single-use plastics to enable us to meet the Foreign Secretary's target.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent progress his Department has made in discussions with the Iranian authorities on the detention of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
Answered by Alistair Burt
We remain very concerned about all our dual nationals detained in Iran. We continue to raise their cases with the Iranian government at every opportunity, and make decisions in line with what we believe will produce the best outcomes in their cases. However, we will not be providing a running commentary. We judge this will not be helpful, or in the best interest of each case.