Middle East and North Africa
Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Hamish Falconer(1 week, 5 days ago)
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Mr Falconer
I thank my right hon. Friend for his question. I do not want to prejudge the review, but we provide consular assistance to many thousands of British nationals every year. There is, of course, a debate, which the shadow Foreign Secretary alluded to, on whether or not Alaa Abd el-Fattah should have been made a citizen in 2021, but in 2024, when we came into government, he was undoubtedly a British citizen. We will continue, I am sure, to provide consular assistance on a non-judgmental basis if a British national is in considerable distress overseas. British nationals of all kinds can rely on the support of the United Kingdom if there are outstanding questions about their treatment.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge) (Con)
First, I welcome the Minister’s statement. I certainly agree with him on the strikes in Syria, and with the view that he has taken towards the Houthis in Yemen, who have murdered so many people over recent years. May I ask him about a separate aspect of the Iranian situation? We see extraordinarily courageous protestors on streets across Iran, in various cities and towns. We also see Russian cargo aircraft landing in Tehran, presumably carrying weapons and ammunition. We hear reports of large amounts of gold leaving Iran. Could he update the House on any of those reports, which suggest that the regime is preparing for life after the fall?
Mr Falconer
For reasons that I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will understand, I am not in a position to give a detailed update on the reports that he alludes to. I simply underline the point that I made in my statement, which is that the freedom of assembly and the right to protest are inalienable rights of the Iranian people, and we want to see the Iranian Government respect that.
Ukraine: Forcible Removal of Children
Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Hamish Falconer(1 month, 4 weeks ago)
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Mr Falconer
My hon. Friend asks an incredibly important question. She is right to suggest that children are bearing the worst brunt of conflict. I was in Yemen this week, and I was appalled to see so many children with both moderate and severely acute malnutrition. That malnutrition is in very significant order created by the Houthis, who have restricted aid access into north Yemen and, indeed, detained UN aid workers and seized their offices. What the Russian forces do in Ukraine is seen elsewhere: it is seen by the Houthis and by militias in Nigeria. This country will stand up for an international rules-based order, which includes the protections that children are entitled to. We will continue to work to ensure the safe return of those 20,000 Ukrainian children. Six hundred of them have been identified by the mechanism that we co-fund and co-founded with the Ukrainians, and we will continue to work to ensure that all the remaining children are returned.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge) (Con)
I welcome the courage of the American people over many decades in standing up for our liberties and defending our freedoms, and I draw attention to the fact that this wonderful act of generosity has supported a US economy that has grown more powerfully, more capably and in more directions than any other economy in human history, making the United States the richest and most powerful country the world has ever known. Would the Minister agree with me that that stance on the side of truth and justice has genuinely been a great blessing for all free peoples, and that we should be standing up against people traffickers and child traffickers—by, for example, calling out folk like Jeffrey Epstein—but that seeing the world’s largest child trafficker almost getting away with it would be a betrayal of the great American values that have led to the happiness and prosperity of one of the wonderful countries of this world?
Mr Falconer
I thank the right hon. and gallant Member for his question. The US and UK have stood together on questions of European order ever since the second world war, and I am incredibly proud that it was a Labour Foreign Secretary who led on the creation of NATO. I know that our American friends continue to see questions of European security and order as being of the utmost importance, and that security and order cannot co-exist in a world in which territory is seized by force and children are abducted in exactly the way he describes.