Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South and Walkden)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what recent steps her Department has taken to ensure that Palestinian communities have been meaningfully consulted in the development overseas aid initiatives intended to support them.
Answered by James Cleverly - Shadow Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government
Development programmes in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPTs) work to preserve the prospect of a negotiated Two State Solution and to improve the lives of Palestinians throughout the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, in line with the UK's longstanding position. The UK engages with a broad range of stakeholders to understand the impact of UK programming, including in the OPTs.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South and Walkden)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 26 October 201 to Question 903830 on the Palestinian Authority: ODA recognising the importance of supporting Palestinian institutions, what plans her Department has to restore funding to the salaries of Palestinian health and education professionals in 2021-22.
Answered by James Cleverly - Shadow Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government
Our future spending allocations will be set in the next Spending Review and full budgets for 2021 will be published in due course, including in our regular Statistics on International Development website and in the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office Annual Report and Accounts.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South and Walkden)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what the humanitarian mine action budget will be for the next three years.
Answered by James Cleverly - Shadow Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government
Over the next 3 years the UK's demining work will continue to save lives across the world. The Global Mine Action Programme 3 (GMAP3), due to begin in 2022, will involve landmine clearance and risk education to help affected communities keep safe and capacity development for national authorities to help them manage their landmine contamination.
As one of the founding signatories to the 1997 Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention and a leading supporter of mine action, the UK will also continue to work towards ending the use of landmines and cluster munitions. The UK has now taken on the Presidency of the Convention on Cluster Munitions and will use its leadership role to encourage more states to sign and implement this important treaty.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South and Walkden)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment she has made of the barriers preventing UK-based international non-governmental organisations to sign up to the Inter-Agency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme.
Answered by Amanda Milling
The Inter-Agency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme is run by the Steering Committee for Humanitarian Response (SCHR). SCHR has consulted experts to analyse applicable legal frameworks and to provide guidance to current and potential users to build confidence in the scheme and to help remove any potential barriers to implementation. Since May 2021 the FCDO has funded a full-time administrator role which has boosted SCHR's capacity to engage with organisations considering signing up and to support existing signatories. There are over 100 organisations now implementing the scheme, of whom around one third are UK-based international non-governmental organisations. Under the scheme approximately 200,000 checks have been carried out with no legal or administrative challenges and over 75 people who posed a potential safeguarding risk have not been employed as a result.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South and Walkden)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of the Taliban's decision to ban girls from school in Afghanistan.
Answered by James Cleverly - Shadow Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government
Supporting education for children, and particularly girls, in Afghanistan, is a priority for the UK Government and we are working with other donors to coordinate a consistent international response. Taliban policy on girls' education remains unclear, particularly in respect of girls' secondary education. We will continue to work with the international community to use our influence to secure girls' rights, including the right to education. Before making any funding decisions we will look carefully at how we might support girls' equal access to schooling.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South and Walkden)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment she has made of the impact of malnutrition as a result of the collapse of the Afghan Government in August 2021 on (a) women and girls, (b) humanitarian assistance, (c) economic development and (d) the refugee situation.
Answered by James Cleverly - Shadow Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government
Even prior to August 2021 food insecurity was a cause for concern in Afghanistan and the UN's Flash Appeal now estimates that 12.2 million people, or 30 per cent of the population, are facing 'emergency' or 'crisis' levels of food insecurity. We have committed £286 million of development and humanitarian assistance for Afghanistan and will work with the UN and other partners to do all we can to alleviate the humanitarian situation.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South and Walkden)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what recent assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of reports on drought in the Afghanistan region; and what assessment she has made of the impact of those reports on (a) the refugee crisis, (b) women and girls, (c) economic development and (d) humanitarian assistance.
Answered by James Cleverly - Shadow Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government
We are very aware of the risks posed by another year of drought in Afghanistan and the UN has analysed the impact of the drought to inform the international humanitarian response. We are particularly concerned about the situation of women and girls, and have emphasised the importance of unfettered humanitarian access. We have committed £286 million of development and humanitarian assistance for Afghanistan and will work with the UN and other partners to do all we can to alleviate the impact of the drought on the humanitarian situation.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South and Walkden)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment she has made of the need for food assistance in Myanmar for internally displaced people in (a) Kachin and (b) Northern Shan.
Answered by Amanda Milling
The UK remains one of the leading donors supporting the humanitarian response in Myanmar. Since the coup, we have provided £15.3 million in humanitarian funding for the Red Cross, UN, and local and International Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs). Where necessary, we have also reprioritised humanitarian funding towards urgent needs, including food and Covid assistance, in Kachin, Shan, Chin and the Southeast. Over the last year the UK has been building up the humanitarian response capacity of communities themselves through partners. This has enabled the UK to get support to very hard to reach communities. Through a network of local responders and communities, 25,000 newly displaced people have been reached with cash and emergency food support in Northern Shan. In Kachin, our partners have reached over 7,500 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) with food and cash assistance. UK support has been critical in covering major food gaps in several IDP camps between March and August 2021, when other partners could not reach or support these people. The UK remains strongly committed to helping those most in need in Myanmar.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South and Walkden)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment she has made of the political situation in Myanmar.
Answered by Amanda Milling
The UK Government condemns the military coup in Myanmar, the violence against the people of Myanmar and the detention of members of the civilian government and civil society, including State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint. The state of emergency, and all restrictions on rights and freedoms, should be lifted immediately and power should be returned to a democratically elected government. I [Minister Milling] am particularly concerned at reports this week of significant, indiscriminate violence by the military in Chin State, and elsewhere in the country. The UK is committed to supporting a peaceful resolution to the crisis.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South and Walkden)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what recent discussions she has had with her international counterparts on an arms embargo on Myanmar.
Answered by Amanda Milling
The UK is a longstanding supporter of an arms embargo on Myanmar. We are clear that countries should not sell arms to the Myanmar military. The UK helped secure and strengthen a comprehensive EU arms embargo on Myanmar following the 2017 Rohingya crisis. Since we left the EU, we have transitioned this into domestic law. We are working closely with partners to coordinate pressure on those who sell arms to the military, and have used our leadership role at the G7 and UN to this end. On 5 May, the UK secured a G7 Foreign and Development Ministers' Meeting Communiqué that committed G7 members to continue to prevent the supply of arms and technical assistance to the military. The G7 Leaders' Communiqué of 13 June reaffirmed G7 unity on pursuing additional measures should they prove necessary. On 18 June, the UK worked with partners to deliver a UN General Assembly Resolution which urged member states to prevent the flow of arms to Myanmar.