Middle East Peace Plan

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

With respect, the hon. Lady needs to read the peace plan. She will not find within its pages anything to legitimise annexation, which has been spoken about following the publication of this plan. I note that those who made those remarks are now rapidly winding back. I make it clear that the UK Government oppose annexation, which is contrary to international law.

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

My right hon. Friend is right that we need to get back to negotiation, and the UK has an important role to play in that. Baby steps, as he calls them, need to be viable to develop into adulthood, and these, I am afraid, are not. When I last went to the region, the two-state solution was regarded by many as dead. How does he think a two-state solution is realistic when the Palestinians do not get even part of East Jerusalem and are confined to outside the city walls, and when there are no plans to remove those Jewish settlements that are illegal under the Oslo accords?

[Dr Murrison]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s comments. I reiterate the point that this is not our plan, and we are not endorsing it. I suspect he will have gone through this, as I did last night, and made his own annotations about its faults and foibles, and it may well be a long list, but at least the plan is something on the table. At the moment we have no negotiations or talks at all. He will be familiar with both the west bank and Gaza and the terrible situation that people face in those territories, and he will want to do something about it. The only way to do something about it is to get back to political talks and negotiation.

British Children: Syria

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s comments. Her tone, as ever, is spot on. I agree with her; we need to apply compassion to all in this situation. We also, of course, need to bring justice to those who must be brought before the courts. I am interested in the work that she cited and will certainly take a close look at it.

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

I completely concur with my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) and the Minister that these children are the innocent victims of their parents’ actions, and we owe them a duty of care. Since the law was changed in 2013, more than 150 children have been taken into the care system in the UK for fear of the risk of radicalisation by their parents. If the parents of these children were in the UK, those children would hopefully now be safely in the care of extended family members, expert foster carers or even adopted parents. Does the Minister agree that, if we can rescue these children safely, we should work to find them safe homes in the UK, whatever the status of their parents?

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

I am not aware of the details of programmes that the hon. Gentleman talks about, but I would be happy to meet him to discuss that case.

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

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for International Development (Alok Sharma)]

Governments around the world collectively spend around $140 billion every year on aid. However, the United Nations estimates that an additional $2.5 trillion is required annually in developing countries to meet the sustainable development goals. That investment gap needs to be met largely by the private sector. That is why I have established an international development infrastructure commission to advise the UK Government on how we can mobilise additional private sector funds, alongside public money, to deliver on the sustainable development goals.

[Tim Loughton]

I welcome the Secretary of State and the new Ministers to their posts. Representing a coastal constituency, I am only too well aware of the impact of pollution and plastic waste on marine life and our beaches. It was great to join many of my constituents at the recent great British beach clean. Given that much of the plastic problem affects developing countries—especially island nations—how are the Government using the aid budget to help to clear up our oceans?

[Alok Sharma]

My hon. Friend raises an incredibly vital point. He may be aware that the Prime Minister announced at the United Nations General Assembly last month that we are encouraging countries to join the UK-led global ocean alliance of countries in support of protecting at least 30% of the global oceans within marine protected areas by 2030.

Yemen

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 1st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Stephenson]

As the hon. Lady will know, the UK has some of the most stringent arms exports licences in the world. [Interruption.] I know that some Members across this House would be happy to sacrifice our defence industry and jobs, but we work with countries around the world. We ensure that we are exporting defence equipment only to countries that are in compliance with international humanitarian law and, as has been so shown by the recent Court case, we are immediately stopping a supply of new licences and are investigating incidents where licences have been granted contrary to the Court judgment.

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

I welcome the appearance of the Minister of State at the Dispatch Box, Mr Speaker, even if you do not.

As the Chair of the Select Committee has mentioned, the humanitarian situation in Yemen remains horrendous, but the impact falls disproportionately on women and girls. Since the beginning of the conflict, there has been an increase of more than two thirds in reported incidents of gender-based violence. Maternal death rates have also doubled in the past four years, as only a third of maternal and early years health services remain intact. What more can we do to help the most affected part of the Yemeni population for future generations, for the perfectly good reasons mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham)?

[Mr Speaker]

I enjoyed the hon. Gentleman’s question. However, as colleagues will know, I always welcome Ministers to the Dispatch Box to answer urgent questions that I have granted. That point is so blindingly obvious that only a very, very, very clever person could fail to grasp it.

Iran

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Wednesday 25th September 2019 Commons Chamber

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

If the Iranians are implicated in the Saudi Aramco attack, there are also serious implications not only for Saudi Arabia but for other UK allies in the Gulf. I gather that two of the cruise missiles fell short of their target and are in sufficiently intact condition to be analysed for their targeting systems to determine their launch targets. Can the Foreign Secretary update us on the progress made on getting evidence that Iran really was behind the attack?

[Dominic Raab]

As my hon. Friend will know, we are very careful about talking about sensitive intelligence. I can tell him that contrary to the Houthi claims that 10 drones were used, imagery of the damage caused clearly shows that there were not just 10 but between 16 and 19 strikes on the Abqaiq facility. Imagery from the site also shows the remnants of Iranian-made land attack cruise missiles and, frankly, attacks of this scale and sophistication could not have been done by the Houthis.

Hong Kong

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 18th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

I very much agree. I thank the hon. Gentleman, and indeed the SNP, for their very constructive views on this matter. It is very powerful that the House holds together on this issue. Of course there will be times when we have disagreements on the way in which we go about this, or other bits of business, but I think we are sending a very powerful message to our friends in Hong Kong, but also to the Chinese Government, about the unity of minds on this. Yes, we will very much stand up for the idea of the rule of law. That is vital for the success not just of Hong Kong but of China.

Let me turn to the economic dialogue. As I think hon. Members will understand, these things are organised many months in advance, and it is a coincidence that at the height of the Hong Kong crisis we were having an international economic dialogue here in London. One of the cases we made very robustly was about the importance for China of Hong Kong as a financial, and indeed professional, services centre reliant on a rules-based system but also on a UK legal system. That has provided much confidence for external investors. Without Hong Kong, the ambitions that China has for the belt and road initiative, and other bits of its infrastructure planning for the future, will be much more difficult to achieve. That is very much the case that we make to our Chinese counterparts—that having this special status for Hong Kong is in China’s interests as much as Hong Kong’s.

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

Whether in respecting one country, two systems or the Chinese constitution that supposedly respects and protects the cultural diversity of various regions within China’s borders, the Chinese regime, as it has consistently shown itself, is not to be trusted. One need only look at the 1 million Tibetans who have lost their lives since the Chinese invasion, the countless hundreds and thousands more who have disappeared or are languishing in Chinese jails well away from their families with no access from their families either, or the 1 million Uighurs currently in so-called re-education camps. I therefore welcome the robust position that the Government are taking and urge them to go further. Will the Minister also remember that it is not just Hong Kong where we need to have serious concerns about the Chinese human rights record?

[Mark Field]

I thank my hon. Friend for his great and long-standing interest in the proactive approach that we take to human rights, and the rule of law, in trying to influence these matters. We will raise, regularly and at all opportunities, broader human rights issues with the Chinese authorities. However, as he will be aware, Hong Kong has a special status. The nature of the joint declaration means that Hong Kong is in a different position. There are two systems as well as a single country at stake. While I very much accept what he says about the broader human rights issues, there are some fundamental, distinctive issues in relation to Hong Kong, and it is right that we take this opportunity to put them very firmly on the record.

Libya

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Monday 8th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. I like to think that we do try to look at the bigger picture, but she is right. Increasingly, for economic and other reasons, including diplomatic reasons, as she rightly says—having support at the United Nations is important to both Russia and China, for example—we do need to look at the bigger picture. The opportunities that are there because of the rising population of Africa mean that it will receive more and more attention, which is sometimes paid, I am afraid, in a rather nefarious way, as she pointed out.

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

Recent developments in Libya are very worrying for the Libyan population, but in recent years Libya has been a route for many economic migrants, asylum seekers and those fleeing war in other parts of Africa. What assessment has the Minister made of the likely impact on migrants seeking to come across in very perilous conditions to places such as Lampedusa in the Mediterranean, and what discussions has he had with our still EU partners about the precautions that can be taken to deal with a potential flood of further refugees?

[Mark Field]

I am afraid that my hon. Friend is absolutely right: the porous borders in other parts of Africa and the fact that Libya is on the seafront of the Mediterranean make it an attractive proposition. The British Government have allocated some £12 million in this financial year for Libya through the conflict, stability and security fund, which is designed to boost not only political participation but economic development, which is key to providing opportunities to generations of Libyans as well as, hopefully, in other parts of Africa. We are trying to support the delivery of greater security, stability and resilience in the entirety of this region.

Yemen

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Thursday 28th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz]

I absolutely agree and I pay tribute to the hon. Lady for all the work that she has done on Yemen, keeping this issue very much alive in this Parliament and elsewhere. She is right that there is no excuse for bombing medical facilities.

In fact, 19,200 airstrikes have hit since those first raids in 2015. Violence is being perpetrated on all sides. A total of 267 civilians have died because of landmines that are now hidden in the landscape of western Yemen. In January 2019, five charity workers were killed while trying to de-mine. There is no point in the UK Government generously pledging funds if the aid cannot actually reach the people of Yemen.

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

I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) for yet again bringing this subject to this House and for his tenacious pursuit of justice for the country of his birth. In addition to the extraordinary litany of human tragedy, just some of which he has reeled off, and the fact that, incredibly, it seems that no fewer than 80% of Yemeni people are in need of some form of humanitarian assistance, does he agree that there has also been a particularly worrying increase in gender-based violence in a country not best known for its women’s rights? Aid agencies estimate that there has been a 63% increase in gender-based violence, including rape and sexual assault, during this conflict—just to add to the woes of the bombs, the famine, the disease and the warfare that is going on as well.

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I pay tribute to him for his work in the all-party parliamentary group on Yemen. The last time I was in Sana’a, it was with him; he took some beautiful pictures of the wonderful heritage there. He is right: these figures on assaults are even more worrying. In the middle of all this war, there are still these assaults going on. They need to be addressed and they need to be contained.

Following the failure of the Geneva talks, the sides convened in Stockholm in December 2018. Two bodies were established, one to oversee the exchange of prisoners —the Redeployment Co-ordination Committee—and the other to monitor the agreement: the UN Mission to Monitor the Hodeidah Agreement. Critical was the establishment of a ceasefire in the governorate of Hodeidah; that would free a vital port and allow much-needed humanitarian aid into the country. But the peace talks appear to have stalled. The original deadline for troop withdrawals was 1 January 2019, yet agreement as to how to implement the first phase was made only on 17 February. Despite Stockholm, the most up-to-date figures suggest that 568 incidents of violence occurred in Hodeidah alone, along with six coalition airstrikes. I ask the Minister: on what date will the peace talks reconvene, and why do bombs continue to fall on Yemen during the peace process?

I thank the Foreign Secretary and the Minister for their efforts to support the peace process. The Foreign Secretary himself travelled to Stockholm—an indication of where his and the Government’s priorities lie. I am also grateful to the Foreign Secretary for, earlier this month, meeting me and other members of the APPG: the hon. Members for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) and for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), who are in their places; the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Douglas Chapman); my hon. Friends the Members for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) and for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg); and the hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt).

A meeting of the Yemen Quad of the United States, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates took place in Warsaw on 13 February. When is the next meeting of the Quad going to take place? There have been only five meetings since 2015. They must meet every month until we have peace. These high-level meetings must be followed with action on the ground. We need to ensure that the Yemen Government and Houthi rebels implement the agreements made in Warsaw and in Stockholm.

I understand that the Foreign Secretary is visiting Saudi Arabia, Oman and the United Arab Emirates over the next few days. I welcome his efforts to keep pressure on and maintain dialogue with those key countries in the region. I urge him to go to Yemen during that time. What better message could we send our allies and the Yemeni people than to have the British Foreign Secretary himself present in the country and, subject to security considerations, opening a diplomatic presence in Sana’a and Hodeidah? The work of the Yemeni ambassador to the United Kingdom, His Excellency Dr Yassin Saeed Noman, has been important in maintaining our dialogue with the Government in Yemen and President Hadi, who is in Riyadh. I hope that those strong links will continue.

The United Kingdom has long been one of the greatest financial backers of Yemen’s relief effort. That includes £175 million in 2018-19 and £2.5 million for the functioning of the United Nations civilian coordinator’s office, including to assist in de-mining efforts. The £200 million funding announced by the Prime Minister on Sunday 24 February in Sharm el-Sheikh with the Minister for the Middle East, who was in Egypt with her, brings the total amount that the United Kingdom has pledged to £770 million.

But pledges of financial support alone will not feed the victims of this conflict, nor provide the medical help they need, unless the money is spent. We are horrified to hear reports of executions. The Lords International Relations Committee has published a devastating report suggesting that UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia may have been used in Yemen. If that is true, it is a negation of our international obligations.

I commend again the work of the United Nations, the Security Council and special envoy Martin Griffiths for bringing forward resolution 2451 on 21 December 2018 and resolution 2452 on 16 January 2019. Earlier this week, the UN raised $2.6 billion in Geneva at its annual high-level pledging conference, but to the people of Yemen—those who are starving and dying—that is Monopoly money. Around $8 billion has been raised over the past decade, since Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s first pledging conference, but where has the money gone? Where has it been spent, and where is it being held? Since this week’s pledging event, 126 people have died in Yemen.

I am glad that the pledging conference has brought attention to this crisis. Daily, we see individuals and celebrities appealing for financial support on behalf of the Yemeni people. I want particularly to thank Eddie Izzard—who, like me, was born in Yemen—as well as Michael Sheen and our recent Oscar winner Olivia Colman, who have made appeals for Yemen over the last few weeks and who speak in their campaigns for the silent of Yemen.

At last, parliamentarians in other countries seem to be paying attention to Yemen. The US Congress passed House joint resolution 37 on 14 February, calling for an end to American involvement in the Yemen conflict. Congressman Ro Khanna from California, in particular, and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont have been instrumental in maintaining pressure in the United States. It would be good if President Trump could follow their lead and personally participate in these peace discussions.

In Paris in November 2018, at the first inter-parliamentary conference on Yemen, along with Sébastien Nadot, the Assemblée Nationale Member for Haute-Garonne, the APPG and the Assemblée Nationale brought together MPs and activists from across Europe. Following our conference in Paris, a petition was put forward calling for an end to the war in Yemen, which has been signed by 7,600 people.

The next inter-parliamentary conference on Yemen will take place in May in Edinburgh, hosted by the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife and the hon. Member for Glasgow Central, who is the secretary of the all-party group. I extend an invitation to the Minister of State to attend that meeting in Edinburgh and join parliamentarians from Europe and all over the world.

Today, we will send a letter, co-signed by the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), to the Foreign Secretary, urging him to keep Yemen as his top priority and to maintain pressure on our allies for immediate peace. I hope others will sign it. The all-party group is having a meeting next week on the rule of law in Yemen, and on 19 March, just a week before the bloody war’s anniversary, a meeting on the humanitarian situation.

This is what we want the Minister to commit to tonight: we need an immediate ceasefire—the bloodshed has gone on for too long—and we need a date for the next peace talks. Stockholm was a breakthrough, but it was only the beginning, and it needs to be implemented. When will the next round of talks take place? They need to happen now.

I commend the aid agencies, such as Oxfam, the International Rescue Committee, Médecins sans Frontières, CARE International, the Norwegian Refugee Council and Save the Children, which have provided food and medicines. They have food and medicines waiting at the border, but they cannot access the country while there is fighting around the vital entry points. They are coming to Parliament in 10 days’ time. Without them, so many more Yemenis would have died. The United Kingdom Government must work unceasingly with international partners to allow immediate and comprehensive access for the aid agencies to ensure that humanitarian support can reach those most in need. This Parliament, this Government, our country must lead the world movement for peace in Yemen. There is no point holding the pen for Yemen if we do not use it.

I want to end by quoting Amani, a young Yemeni woman currently living in Yemen who wrote this poem:

“Three years have passed and

an English newsreader told

me home was only

a lost young man holding

his Ak47, with no shoes.

But the shackled arms,

malnourished hips stare

into the distance and arcs

of bones screech waiting

for food parcels to arrive

and slouching shoulders

sitting with an empty

stomach it growls, hoping

war could speak, it would

chop it’s tongue, loose it’s

limbs and hide under the

rubble shattered in regret.

Three have passed and counting

You watch your home

collapse to its ground,

the same ground your

fathers fed this soil with

their blistered hands.

The same ground that

raised you, fed you and

taught you to stand

up straight.

Three years have passed and counting

You ask yourself, ‘Do they know

who suffers the most?’

The people in-between.

The ordinary lives.

The survivors.

The forgotten people,

The forgotten Yemen.”

I beg the Minister to spend every working moment in the Foreign Office keeping Yemen at the top of his agenda. I yearn to return to the country of my birth, to the happy times I spent with my parents and sisters, and to take my son and daughter and wife with me. To do this, we need to stop the bombing, save the children and prevent this beautiful country from bleeding to death. It is in our hands.

[The Minister for the Middle East (Alistair Burt)]

I thank the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) for securing this debate. I am very grateful to him and to all the members of the all-party group on Yemen for their ongoing work and commitment to ending this devastating conflict.

The right hon. Gentleman accurately and emotionally describes the horror of the background to this war. While he is here, while the all-party group is here and while Foreign Office Ministers are here, Yemen will not be a forgotten conflict. I do not think anyone can articulate it any better than the right hon. Gentleman, who speaks both from practical political knowledge and a relationship with Yemen that few others in this House have. It is beyond desperation to recognise that the complexities of this conflict, with all the agonies of the people whom the right hon. Gentleman described, do not allow for external actions and concerns to be, on their own, definitive in bringing this conflict to an end. Would that it were up to us to end it, and that we could.

Let me demonstrate what we are trying to do and update colleagues on developments in the political and humanitarian situation and on all UK Government actions to support the UN-led peace process, help the Yemeni people and bring about lasting peace. As the conflict approaches its fifth year, millions of Yemenis are being subjected to appalling suffering. Today, more than 24 million Yemenis—a staggering 80% of the population—are in need of humanitarian assistance. The threat of famine remains, with almost 10 million people at risk of starvation, and that dire situation must be brought to an end.

The Government are clear that the only way to end the suffering of the Yemeni people is for the parties to the conflict to agree a political settlement. That has been difficult because of the lack of trust between them and the complexities of the conflict, about which the House has spoken a number of times. The UN-led talks in Stockholm were a great achievement, and they brought the parties to the conflict together for the first time in more than two years. However, time is running out for the people of Yemen, and that progress must now be mirrored on the ground. It is crucial that the parties implement the agreements to move us closer to the end of this crisis.

We have seen some progress. Since 18 December, the fragile ceasefire in Hodeidah has continued to hold, and there has been a general de-escalation by both sides around the city. Although imperfect, that ceasefire in Yemen is the longest since the conflict began in 2015. A nationwide ceasefire would have an effect on the ground only if it is underpinned by a political deal between the conflict parties, as we saw in Hodeidah. During the last meeting of the Redeployment Co-ordination Committee, the parties also agreed to an initial redeployment of troops away from the ports of Hodeidah, Ras Isa and As-Salif and from critical humanitarian sites around the city of Hodeidah.

Although there have been delays, the UN was able to access the Red Sea mills on Tuesday for the first time in more than six months. Those mills contain enough grain to feed more than 3 million people for a month, although some of it may be spoiled and the UN is assessing the damage. Why was that not done before? It was not done because the Houthis mined the area substantially and regularly, to prevent humanitarian workers from getting there. Some of the stuff has probably also been stolen, but that will be discovered only once the UN gets to those mills. We should be in no doubt about how some of the parties to this conflict have behaved, and the Houthis and Houthi-controlled areas have been the worst for that.

I commend the work of UN agencies—particularly the World Food Programme and its director, David Beasley, whom I met a couple of weeks ago in London—for the work they do, and the risk that all humanitarian workers in Yemen take in doing that work.

[Tim Loughton]

The right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) mentioned a financial commitment of more than £700 million by the British taxpayer, which is phenomenal and generous. How much of that money has been spent, and how much has not been, simply because of some of the obstacles to aid going in that the Minister has described? What more can we do to speed up that aid getting to places where it is most needed?

[Alistair Burt]

I cannot give a precise figure, and the current UN pledging conference held in Geneva this week—the right hon. Gentleman referred to that—was seeking a further $4 billion. A lot of money has been spent, but the figure is imprecise—I will provide an exact figure in due course. We give funding to the agencies, but they cannot always get through and sometimes the grain is not available. Money has to be pooled to be used, but practical difficulties on the ground mean that straightforward easy accountability, and providing a profit and loss account on a regular basis, is more difficult. It is important to ensure that resources are there. The tragedy is that although, as Mr Beasley tells me, food resources have been there, we must keep up the interest in Yemen to ensure that resources exist to provide for more, and the difficulty is in getting it into Yemen.

I will put my brief to one side because I do not have time, but let me get to the practicalities of this issue. The right hon. Gentleman asked about process and when the next conference will take place. Martin Griffiths, the special envoy, has described a process of trying to encourage confidence between the parties, because confidence is extremely low.

I will be blunt about something else. There are people who want to keep the war going. Everyone in this place and in our country assumes that people want to end the conflict. Would it were so. People make money out of the conflict on the ground. If someone can secure a position of power and control the flow of goods, they can do well out of it. We have to make sure that it is no longer profitable for people to continue to wage war, and that requires people to have the confidence that others will not take advantage of them and that there are benefits to peace.

That is what Martin Griffiths is patiently working at. There is no easy timetable. It is not possible to say, “In three weeks, you must meet again and decide” so and so, because they will not. We have to work on a process to get people together and know that, when they do meet, they are prepared to make an agreement and stick to it, and that takes time. It takes much too long, but if it was a process in which we demanded people do things, we would not be where we are today.

Democratic Republic of the Congo: Presidential Elections

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Europe and the Americas (Sir Alan Duncan)]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Bury South (Mr Lewis) for securing this timely debate and I know he has considerable expertise on the DRC. He is a long-standing advocate for the Congolese people, and I think I am right in saying that he has visited the DRC very recently. The Minister for Africa, my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin), would have been delighted to respond on behalf of the Government tonight, but unfortunately she is unavailable and it is my pleasure to take her place.

I note the concerns expressed about the presidential elections that we hope will take place on Sunday and whether they will lead to the first peaceful and democratic transfer of power in the country’s history, and about whether the UK is doing enough to help ensure that they are free, fair and credible. We of course want an election result that is all of these things, and most of all we want a result that can be readily accepted by the people of the DRC, and over the next few minutes I hope to reassure the House that we are doing all we can to help to bring this about.

The Congolese people are understandably impatient for stability and security, and this Government agree, and this is important not only for the DRC but for the region as a whole. We have always been clear in our messaging that only credible and inclusive elections will deliver that long-term stability, and indeed the prosperity, that the DRC desperately needs. So this Government will always condemn acts that hamper democratic processes wherever they take place, but it would be wrong to prejudge these elections before they have happened, and the UK’s approach will be informed by reports from local and international observers, who must be allowed the space to make a full assessment.

Members might recall that in 2016 the UK joined the international community in condemning President Kabila for holding on to power after the expiry of his second presidential term, contrary to the country’s constitution.

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

I declare my interest as the Prime Minister’s trade envoy to the DRC. What assurances has the Foreign Office received about the impact of the warehouse fire and the destruction of voting machines in Kinshasa in a strong opposition area? The Minister referred to the observers, who have largely been paid for by Her Majesty’s Government; we have recruited some 22,000. What assurances has the Foreign Office got that those observers will be doing an entirely independent and effective job?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I will come on to the issue of electronic voting in a moment, and if my hon. Friend has further concerns I will ask my hon. Friend the Minister for Africa to write to him.

In order to prevent Mr Kabila from amending the constitution to permit himself a third term, the international community pressed him to sign the Saint-Sylvestre accord, setting out the terms for establishing a transitional Government which would work towards elections in 2017. Since the accord was signed in December 2016, the UK has repeatedly called on Kabila to honour both the DRC constitution and the Saint-Sylvestre accord, and to enable a peaceful transfer of power through credible elections. Our then Minister for Africa made these points directly to the President when he visited Kinshasa in November last year.

The UK continues to work with the international community, including the African Union and the Southern African Development Community, to press the DRC authorities to meet the democratic aspirations of the Congolese people by electing a new president.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

I really do not think that that is the case at all. The hon. Gentleman has been a steadfast constituency MP on this particular matter. Members might not know that he and I have met in the House of Commons, and I very much respect the way in which he has worked hard on behalf of the Johal family. Mr Johal’s brother is also one of his constituents. I recognise that this is a difficult and distressing time for Mr Johal and his family. Consular staff have visited him on a number of occasions, most recently on 28 December, and I can confirm that there will be a further visit this Thursday, 11 January. I will continue to meet members of the family and the hon. Gentleman, having done so at the end of November, and we are keeping him informed at every stage.

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

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Boris Johnson)]

My priorities for the new year include taking forward Britain’s response to the crisis in Yemen, where we support Saudi Arabia’s right to defend its security while insisting that millions receive the aid that they desperately need. In April, Commonwealth leaders will gather in London for one of the biggest summits that this country has ever hosted, demonstrating the unrivalled network of friendships of a global Britain. Later in the year, as I have said, we will co-host a summit on tackling the illegal wildlife trade.

[Tim Loughton]

Mr Speaker, I wish you and the Foreign Secretary a happy new year. Through the Inter-Parliamentary Union, along with other hon. Members, I recently met Ministers from Madagascar, including the President, who expressed a desire for Madagascar, which is currently the president of the African francophone nations, to become a member of the Commonwealth. As he noted, Commonwealth countries in Africa seem to be doing much better, politically and financially, than others. What measures is the Foreign Secretary taking to encourage Madagascar and other countries without British colonial links to establish close relations with the UK and the Commonwealth, especially after Brexit?