PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Topical Questions - 26 April 2022 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

Despite having failed in his initial aims, Putin continues his barbaric war in Ukraine. The United Kingdom, together with our allies, has stepped up sanctions and lethal aid. We have put more sanctions on than any other nation, including on oligarchs and banks, and we have supplied everything from hundreds of Starstreak anti-air missiles to ammunition. This week, our ambassador, Melinda Simmons, is returning to our reopened embassy in Kyiv. We will continue to back Ukraine until it prevails and Putin fails.

In addition to the devastating impact of the conflict in Ukraine itself, the International Monetary Fund report shows that this is now having an impact on world food prices, particularly affecting some of the world’s poorest communities. In Yemen alone, there is evidence that food prices have increased by 150%. Will the Secretary of State tell us what assessment her Department has made of the impact of rising food prices in some of the world’s conflict zones and what the Government’s response will be?

I call the Foreign Secretary—speed it up, please.

The hon. Lady is absolutely right: we are working closely with our international allies. We committed extra billions at the spring meetings last week to help to provide food aid to the rest of the world. We are also restoring our humanitarian budget, as part of our aid budget in the United Kingdom, to help to deal with the crisis.

I am working very closely with my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), who is our religious freedom envoy. I am pleased to be hosting and attending the global summit to promote the freedom of religion in July, and we continue to make progress on implementing all the recommendations of the Truro review.

I call the shadow Minister.

Wars rage in Africa, the middle east and now Ukraine. There is a growing climate crisis, food prices are surging and 300,000 children face death by starvation in Somalia. Britain’s reputation is in tatters after two years of callous aid cuts, having shut down the world-renowned Department for International Development. It is clear that Britain needs a strategy for long-term development to stop lurching from crisis to crisis. Can the Secretary of State confirm today exactly when the new strategy will be published? Will it be backed with the funding, focus, ambition and expertise needed to make a lasting difference in the world?

We will be publishing our new development strategy this spring. There are some key elements to the strategy: first, we will restore the budget for women and girls and restore the budget for humanitarian aid. In the face of the appalling crisis in Ukraine, we have already committed £220 million of development funding, and we are one of the largest donors.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the fantastic work that he is doing with the local community in Keighley and Ilkley. We are seeing people across Britain really contributing to the effort to support the people of Ukraine. We have now issued more than 70,000 visas to Ukrainians. We are working with Foreign Ministers right across Europe to ensure that we are completely co-ordinated, particularly with those Governments that are close by, like the Poles.

I call the shadow Minister.

We are now three weeks into the UN-sponsored truce in Yemen, which has resulted in the release of 14 foreign captives including UK national Luke Symons and his family. It is also intended to open roads, allow fuel through the port of Hodeida and allow commercial flights from Sanaa to Jordan and Egypt. But it is a fragile truce that could collapse at any minute, so can the Minister tell me what steps the UK is taking to support Hans Grundberg, the UN special envoy for Yemen, to keep the peace and to prevent a return to conflict and a re-escalation of the humanitarian crisis in Yemen?

The UK welcomes the two-month truce announcement in Yemen. I reassure the hon. Gentleman that we continue to support the UN special envoy and co-ordinate closely with international and regional partners.

I thank my hon. Friend for his question and for being such a strong voice for the Chagossian community; I know that he has a large Chagossian community in his constituency of Crawley. We have gone to great lengths to find projects for that money that will benefit the Chagossian community. I would like to meet my hon. Friend to discuss what more we can do.

I make it very clear that there is an agreement between the Government of Rwanda and the Government of the UK: they have agreed with the Home Office to make sure that the rights of those who go from the UK to Rwanda are protected. May I point out to the hon. Gentleman that just last month, the UN Refugee Agency sent 119 refugees to Rwanda, and the UN itself described it as a very safe country? In December, the UN said that Rwanda had done an excellent job on integrated refugees. Will he please look at what is being said right now about how Rwanda is caring for these people with kindness?

Exmouth has welcomed Afghan refugees and their families while the Government work hard to find them long-term accommodation around the UK, but sadly some of their friends and family members have stayed behind. What reassurances can my right hon. Friend give that UK aid reaches those who need it most in Afghanistan, not the Taliban?

That fire was devastating. The UK is leading diplomatic and development response efforts on the ground, which include chairing an international co-ordination group that has visited the site and is assessing potential response options. This week our ambassador met the President of Somaliland, senior Cabinet members, the mayor of Hargeisa and the fire service commander to help shape our response. We are leading the international community, but also working with the locals on the ground.

The Taliban’s decision to suspend secondary school classes for girls in Afghanistan was deeply disappointing. Can the Minister confirm that the Government are working with our international allies in continuing to pressurise the Taliban to allow equal access to all levels of education?

I will happily follow up that case after this questions session.

The people of both Myanmar and Ukraine are risking their lives to continue fighting for freedoms that have been taken away. In both those countries, the Westminster Foundation for Democracy was running projects that were making a real difference in bolstering their democracies until the men with guns moved in. Today is the 30th anniversary of the foundation, of which you, Mr Speaker, are a patron, and many Members on both sides of the House have played an active role for a generation in promoting peace and democracy around the world, currently in about 30 countries. The Foreign Secretary has recently resolved our funding issues. Will she agree to play a leading role in events celebrating this anniversary, and ensure that her Department continues to give its own in-house open societies champion every chance to do even more good work?

I am pleased that we were able to resolve the funding issues so that the Westminster Foundation for Democracy could continue its excellent work. What we are learning about as a result of the Ukraine crisis is the strength of democracies in fighting back and fighting for what they believe in, and it is organisations such as the foundation that help to provide the intellectual ballast for them to do so.

The Spanish Government stand accused of using Pegasus, the controversial Israeli spyware, to hack into the phone of a Scottish solicitor who was representing Professor Clara Ponsati, Catalonia’s former Education Minister and now a Member of the European Parliament. Does the Foreign Secretary agree that if this occurred, it would constitute a disgraceful breach of solicitor-client privilege and a direct attack on a democratically elected politician, and will she take the matter up with the Spanish ambassador next time she meets him?

The Minister will be aware that next Tuesday is World Press Freedom Day, yet free media are under greater pressure than ever before, particularly in Russia where independent journalism has been ruthlessly suppressed. Does she agree that the need for independent news providers such as the BBC World Service is greater than ever, and will she ensure that they continue to receive all the funding they need?

My right hon. Friend and constituency neighbour is absolutely correct. We totally condemn Russia’s attack on Ukraine and the lies it is using to promote it. It is seeking to undermine Ukraine’s sovereignty, to obscure the truth and to hide war crimes. An independent media, including the World Service, is vital. We are providing the World Service with over £90 million this year, but we have also created a Government information cell to counter Russian information and ensure that the people of Russia can access the truth.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. We are clear on our position on the settlements: they are illegal under international law and we urge Israel to end settlement expansion. This is something that we raise with our counterparts.

Has my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary had an opportunity to raise the cases of my constituent Aiden Aslin and of Shaun Pinner with her Ukrainian and Russian counterparts? These two British citizens continue to be held in captivity and to be tortured and abused for propaganda purposes by the Russian military, which I hope all of us in this House will uniformly condemn. We want to see those individuals released as soon as possible.

I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s work on combating sexual violence in conflict and the fact that the Government have upgraded the money for this area. If she recognises that the International Criminal Court and the United Nations do not bring better outcomes for survivors of sexual violence or bring perpetrators to justice, does she agree that we need to look at a new international mechanism that the UK could lead?

I certainly agree with my hon. Friend that we need to bring these perpetrators to justice. That is why we are funding the ICC to do more, as well as collecting our own evidence and working with the Ukrainians, but if a new mechanism is needed, we would be prepared to lead the work on that. The conference later this year on the prevention of sexual violence is a good opportunity to do that.