Richard Foord MP: speeches

Speeches

• 17 Oct 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  East Devon district council is making available £207,000 for young people’s sports facilities in Honiton. How can central Government contribute to that initiative?

• 17 Oct 2024 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  I was contacted this week by a resident of Sidmouth whose parent was interned in a Japanese camp during world war two. She wrote to me about her father’s affidavits, which are held by the Imperial War Museum, saying, “They do not make good reading, but bear great similarity to what is happening in Gaza.” Will the Government make a statement about their stance on whether Israel’s far-right Ministers Smotrich and Ben-Givr should be subject to UK Government sanctions? Also, will they offer support to the International Criminal Court as it seeks arrest warrants for the likes of Netanyahu and Hamas Leader Yahya Sinwar?

• 16 Oct 2024 · Carer’s Allowance · Hansard source

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  The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions was on the radio this morning, and I listened to her on the BBC describing how “the benefit system can have a real impact on whether you incentivise or disincentivise work.” I heard from her that this new Government intend to incentivise work, and in that we wish them well. I wish to highlight the case of a constituent of mine, Amanda Jennings from Ottery St Mary, who reached out to me pleading for support. She is a mother and a full-time carer for her adult son who has severe autism. Amanda was recently notified by the Department for Work and Pensions that she owed almost £2,000 dating back to 2019, due to carer’s allowance overpayments. To compound that stress, a civil penalty was imposed. Her problem was that she had been receiving wage slips giving an hourly rate, and the payments were processed by an external payroll agent, so she did not have a reliable monthly income like we do. Despite raising queries and assuming that the DWP was receiving up-to-date information, she was accused—wrongly—of misreporting her income. The consequences for her family have been severe. Her son, who had re-entered education after years of disengagement, has dropped out, and her own health has deteriorated. She is not alone—more than 40,000 people nationally face similar financial penalties for minor income discrepancies. The Liberal Democrat stance is plain: carers should not be punished for minor unintentional breaches of income thresholds. The current system is rigid and punitive, with a cliff edge that does nothing at all to incentivise work. Earlier, I heard the former Secretary of State talking about the business of clawback, and whether it could be done retrospectively. Looking to the past, perhaps he needs to be reminded that with the furlough scheme, the previous Government failed to claw back millions and millions of pounds—indeed, the Public Accounts Committee reckoned £2.3 billion—that was incorrectly paid to employers whose employees continued to work while they were receiving furlough money. It is just like the former Government to go after the people at the bottom of the pile who are most in need, when it is the people who have been described today who most need the support. I hope that the Government will make the most of the independent inquiry that I am glad they have set up, and ensure that any changes incentivise work and make work pay.

• 15 Oct 2024 · Gaza and Lebanon · Hansard source

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  A moment ago, the Minister supported the current UN Security Council resolution 1701, which was established under chapter VI of the United Nations charter and relates to peacekeeping. The Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), said earlier that we could potentially deploy British troops to supplement UNIFIL. Will the Minister ensure that no British troops are deployed into that situation until there is a peace to keep, or, under chapter VII of the charter, peace enforcement?

• 14 Oct 2024 · Ukraine: Military Support · Hansard source

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  Last week, President Zelensky of Ukraine met with German Chancellor Scholz. Zelensky said: “For us, it is very important that aid does not decrease next year.” It is welcome that the Foreign Secretary will meet with EU27 Ministers later to discuss the war in Ukraine, but will the EU27 plus the UK be in a position to assure Zelensky that military aid to Ukraine will not decrease next year, regardless of what happens in the presidential election next month?

• 14 Oct 2024 · Afghan Special Forces Relocation Review · Hansard source

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  The Minister talks about the parallel independent inquiry on the deployment of special forces to Afghanistan between 2010 and 2013. Former members of UK special forces told the BBC’s “Panorama” earlier this year that they believed their veto powers on applications by Afghans claiming to have served with the Triples represented a conflict of interest. This conflict of interest might not have arisen had there been good parliamentary oversight of UK special forces. Will the Government consider extending the scrutiny powers of the Intelligence and Security Committee so that it has oversight of UK special forces?

• 10 Oct 2024 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  House buyers in Acland Park in Feniton thought that they were buying homes in which they could raise their families, but their deeds stated that the Acland Park Management Company would apply to get the road adopted by county council highways and the sewers by South West Water. Since then, the management company has become insolvent, the roads and sewers have not been adopted and the residents cannot move or sell their homes. Will the Government grant us a debate on flawed, failed and rip-off property management companies?

• 10 Oct 2024 · Universities: Freedom of Speech · Hansard source

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  When the Minister considers whatever comes next after the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act, will she consider the business of foreign funding for international students, their scholarships and research institutes? In particular, will she ensure that no tests or conditions are imposed by other states on international scholarships, bursaries and funding for research institutes?

• 10 Oct 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  One hundred and fifty parishes in Devon wrote to Devon county council last year asking for 20 mph zones, but only six were successful. Those that were not successful were told that they could pursue the measure through so-called “community self-delivery.” My constituents think, “But this is what we pay our council tax for.” Does the Secretary of State understand that?

• 8 Oct 2024 · VAT: Independent Schools · Hansard source

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  Does the hon. Lady agree that people putting their children through independent school are paying twice? They pay once through their fees and once through income tax. If they are removed from the system, that will mean less money for education.

• 7 Oct 2024 · Anniversary of 7 October Attacks: Middle East · Hansard source

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  I join the Prime Minister in condemning the Iranian ballistic missile attack on Israel last Tuesday, and I support the role of UK armed forces in defeating it. Back in January, the Prime Minister said that parliamentary approval of military action is needed only when deploying troops. We do not know how Israel will respond to the Iranian attack, and the Government could find themselves asked to contribute at short notice. Can the Prime Minister set out what he meant when he said that a parliamentary debate and vote would happen only when deploying troops?

• 12 Sept 2024 · Short-term Lets: Regulation · Hansard source

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  The Minister makes a good point about how she and the Government are setting out on a new term and looking at these things for the first time. But the furnished holiday letting regime is set to change in April 2025, so will she consider a pause and looking at that again, given that there has not been any assessment by the Office for Budget Responsibility of what effect it might have?

• 12 Sept 2024 · Short-term Lets: Regulation · Hansard source

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  It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mrs Harris. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake) on calling this debate. Many of us in this House were eager to have it, so we are glad that she secured it. I am also glad that she referred to examples of short-term lets from beyond her constituency of Cities of London and Westminster because it would be a real error to see short-term lets only from the perspective of the sorts of properties that are available in the area outside this Palace in which we speak today. I urge the Minister and civil servants who might be listening not to draw entirely on examples of the challenges that London boroughs experience around short-term lets. They would be welcome to come at any time to Devon and the Honiton and Sidmouth constituency that I represent to see the fantastic tourist businesses that exist before they consider regulation of the sector. We must beware of having a one-size-fits-all policy that might fit very well here in London but that does not fit nearly so well in our rural areas and coastal towns and villages, which are quite depopulated. It was only yesterday that there was a debate in this Chamber on the depopulation of rural areas, and such depopulation is what is at stake here. We know from the Professional Association of Self Caterers UK that traditional self-catering businesses could be subject to some of the new rules that are being introduced after the spring Budget, which was introduced by the right hon. Member for Godalming and Ash (Jeremy Hunt) when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer. The right hon. Member talked about stripping away parts of the furnished holiday let regulation system to create what he thought would be a level playing field. However, I can assure you, Ms Harris, and others that there will not be a level playing field, because there is no level playing field between those traditional holiday lets—the self-catering businesses that are already so excellent—and some of the fly-by-night Airbnb properties that are put on the market for overnight rent but taken off long-term lets. They are neither available to long-term renters nor being marketed to the same standards that we have come to expect of traditional self-catering properties. This issue is crucial for the economy of Devon. I have with me a report from the Devon Housing Commission, which has been examining the shortage of housing stock in the county. It says that the “traditional” holiday let sector is at risk of losing £779 million of income. That sector encompasses not just those people who let their farmsteads or perhaps their heritage houses; it also includes the food and drink sector and the entertainment and tourist sectors, which depend on holiday makers. The Liberal Democrats welcome the proposal for a registration scheme and the efforts to try to make more housing available for those seeking long-term lets. However, we also need to be careful. In particular, I urge that we pause the furnished holiday let regime that the former Chancellor of the Exchequer introduced in the spring.

• 12 Sept 2024 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  The Chancellor of the Exchequer offered assurances on 29 July from the Dispatch Box about the construction of railway stations at Wellington and Cullompton, but this was contradicted the following day in a letter I received from the rail Minister, who said that those stations were still at the design stage. The rail Minister offered a meeting in the Tea Room when the House was sitting, but given that the House is about to adjourn for three weeks for the party conferences and the next Transport questions are not until 10 October, can the Leader of the House suggest how I might progress the case for a station at Cullompton with the Rail Minister with urgency?

• 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source

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  I welcome the fact that the Health Secretary talks about a shift from hospital to community care; that builds on Lord Darzi’s finding that 13% of beds are occupied by people who are waiting for care in more appropriate settings. Caring for patients in community hospitals is much more cost-effective than caring for patients in big acute hospitals like the Royal Devon and Exeter hospital where I live. What thought has the Secretary of State given to the use of community hospitals that have lost beds in the last decade, such as Seaton, Axminster, Honiton and Ottery St Mary?

• 10 Sept 2024 · Ukraine · Hansard source

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  On behalf of the Liberal Democrats, I wish to add to the tributes that others have paid to Lieutenant Rhodri Leyshon. He served with the Commando Helicopter Force in 846 Naval Air Squadron at Yeovilton. The Royal Navy said that Rhodri was one of their “most trusted and highly capable aircraft captains and instructors”. Our thoughts are with his family. I am reminded of the saying “train hard, fight easy”. It is attributed to the 18th-century Russian commander Field Marshal Suvorov, but the Russians are not practising that today, sending to the front Russians who have had as little as two weeks’ training. By contrast, the training that has been provided under Operation Interflex has enabled Ukrainian troops to hold ground and exploit Russian weaknesses. The Liberal Democrats welcome the announcement last week at the Ukraine Defence Contact Group that Operation Interflex will continue until the end of 2025. Indeed, we have welcomed announcements on Ukraine from the current Government and the previous Government, and we would not want to see any party political capital sought from the solid British support for Ukraine. We have seen some failures by the British state in recent years to plan for contingencies, whether post-invasion planning for Iraq or for a non-flu pandemic. We have discovered that sometimes in the British state there is a little bit of “hope for the best”. On support for Ukraine by the United States, what contingency planning is being undertaken for an uplift in our support for Ukraine—and by other states in the Ukraine Defence Contact Group—in the event that a gap opens up with a US Administration under Trump and Vance?

• 9 Sept 2024 · Sanctions: Syria · Hansard source

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  I echo what we have heard about the effect that this dreadful war has had on the people of Syria. We understand that 300,000 civilians have been killed since the war broke out in 2011, and more than 13 million people have been displaced internally or have had to leave Syria as refugees. We have been talking this afternoon about sanctions and about how we might tighten the noose on trade and on financial transactions. If we see the situation on the ground improving we might need to loosen that noose, but what is happening on the ground in Syria is still appalling. More on that later. First, bilateral aid between the UK and Syria has been falling in recent years, from a high of £300 million in 2020 to £205 million the following year, £158 million in 2022 and £150 million last year. We have seen the halving of our bilateral humanitarian aid to Syria. I question whether one reason for that may have been co-option of humanitarian aid—a concern that was flagged in a 2019 report by Human Rights Watch called “Rigging the System”, which pointed out that the Syrian Government of al-Assad had co-opted reconstruction funding in Syria and had “developed a policy and legal framework that allows it to co-opt humanitarian assistance and reconstruction funding to fund its atrocities, advance its own interests” and to “punish those perceived as opponents”. This SI is specifically about carve-outs for petrol for humanitarian workers. I am sure that the Government will have assured themselves that those humanitarian workers will not be siphoning fuel for the Syrian Government, but I ask the Minister to reinforce that reassurance when he responds. Finally, we heard earlier that there have been strikes in Syria. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has suggested that the strikes, allegedly carried out by Israel, were on a programme to develop short and medium-range precision missiles and drones. If that is so, it is the same site that was struck in 2017 when an Israeli strike was suspected on a rebel-held town in northern Syria. Will the Minister confirm that, by supporting humanitarian groups and organisations, we are not in any sense affording the Assad regime access to fuel to carry out his dreadful crimes in Syria?

• 9 Sept 2024 · Sanctions: Russia · Hansard source

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  Given that this change to the law seeks to tighten economic and trade restrictions on Russia, the Liberal Democrats support this statutory instrument, which has been carried on from the work of the previous Government. However, if we step back from the detail of what this SI seeks to do, it is worth looking at some of the context in which it has been tabled. Proceeds from oil and gas sales within Russia’s federal budget rose by 41% in the first half of 2024. That is partly accounted for by the fact that oil prices have gone up and the rouble has become weaker, but we cannot get away from the fact that Russia is profiting from its oil and gas sales in a way that was not the case a year ago, and is getting far greater proceeds from the sale of its oil and gas. That matters, of course, because Russia is using that money for its grossly illegal aggression in Ukraine. It is thought that those oil and gas sales account for between a third and a half of the total Russian federal budget, so we have to ask how that is happening. Yes, it is partly happening via Russian ships that are part of this so-called shadow fleet, and it is welcome that the SI will prohibit those ships from entering a port in the UK. It is welcome that those ships can be detained in the UK and will be refused permission to appear on the UK’s ship register, but the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) is exactly right: we also have to think about what other countries than the UK are doing. According to the Financial Times, the oil trade between India and Russia almost doubled to $65 billion in 2023. India imported very little crude oil before the invasion of Ukraine; now it is the No. 2 importer of Russian oil, after China. It is alleged that India has been refining Russian crude and re-exporting it to European nations that are otherwise seen as subject to, and complying with, our sanctions regime. It was also interesting to hear from the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Gordon McKee) about the use of dual-use technology. It is true that Russia is seeking to become increasingly self-sufficient, while it also looks to China and India to import technology in the fields of artificial intelligence, space technology and energy technology. Earlier this year, we saw the former Russian Deputy Prime Minister Andrey Belousov, previously Minister for the Economy, become the principal Minister for Defence. We now need to move to the next stage: when we think about dual-use goods, we need to think about how to make sure we can throttle the Russian economy so that it is not importing goods that can be used for aggression in Ukraine.

• 4 Sept 2024 · Security in the Democratic Republic of the Congo · Hansard source

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  It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) for securing the debate. He came from exactly the right position at the outset: it is about seeing the context from the perspective of the most vulnerable people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We all have our own statistics on the horror of what is going on. I have read that in 2022 more than 38,000 attacks against women and girls were reported in North Kivu province alone, and most of the women and girls were reported to be attacked by armed men and displaced men in camps for IDPs. What has been going on there is tragic. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) spoke about British policy. We should think about UK policy and the difference it can make. In 2018, the Conservative Government said that more than 2 million people had been lifted out of poverty in the DRC since 2005, thanks to UK international development aid. It is good that DFID in particular had a positive effect on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but we should also think about how sometimes our support is conditional. Aid conditionality is not always beneficial to people on the ground. We also have to think about how we support the neighbouring countries. The sanctions imposed on Rwanda by the UK and US Governments in 2012 were very effective in halting support by the Rwandan Government for the M23 militia group. Since 2021 we have seen the re-emergence of M23, but so far there does not seem to have been quite the same effort to put the brakes on Rwandan support for M23 in the DRC. I am conscious that we should be thinking not just about international development, for which the Minister is responsible, but about joined-up government. In April this year, the then Government defended their so-called Rwanda plan: a transfer of £380 million to Rwanda for the so-called economic transformation and integration fund. No thought at all seems to have been given to what effect the Rwandan Government were having in the DRC with their alleged sponsorship of M23: if hon. Members want evidence of that, they need only watch the BBC “Question Time” clip in which the then Home Office Minister of State revealed that he was not even aware that Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are different countries. Very plainly, some of the thinking in the Home Office was not joined up with the thinking in the FCDO or the thinking in relation to international development. Finally, it is very positive to see that the new Government have already been thinking about peace in the DRC. I read that Lord Collins, the new Under-Secretary of State for Africa, went to Angola in August shortly after the signing of a ceasefire agreement between Rwanda and the DRC as part of the Luanda process, so we have seen some positive steps in UK policy and support in recent months.

• 3 Sept 2024 · Unpaid Carers · Hansard source

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  Does my hon. Friend agree that one other Department that might be quite interested in a cross-Government strategy is the Treasury? My constituent Amanda had a civil penalty applied on the basis that she misrepresented her earnings, which has made her frightened to go back to work or to work more hours. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is damaging to the economy if we have people not going out to work?

• 3 Sept 2024 · International Special Tribunal: Ukraine · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered the potential merits of an international special tribunal on crimes of aggression in Ukraine. It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford. The motion should refer to “the crime” rather than “crimes”. It should be singular because this debate is about the crime of aggression. I think it might have been amended to the plural by the Table Office, but I very much hope that we can keep the crime of aggression as the topic for this debate. It is 15 months since we last had a debate on the crime of aggression and the potential merits of a special tribunal on Ukraine. On 9 May 2023, I opened a debate in this Chamber some 15 months after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia in February 2022. It is easy to forget the shock that many of us felt two and a half years ago when we woke up on 24 February to discover that our intelligence agencies had been right all along in their forecasts and that the Kremlin had deployed more than 150,000—some think nearer 200,000—of Russia’s armed forces personnel across the border into Ukraine. It is that original decision and original aggression on which this debate should focus. The crime of aggression is defined as “the planning, preparation, initiation or execution by a person in a position effectively to exercise control over or to direct the political or military action of a State”. It is called a “leadership crime”, because under the Rome statute criminal responsibility is limited to “a person in a position…to direct the political or military action of a State.” The key thing about the crime of aggression is that it is the original sin—the leadership crime from which flow other international crimes, including war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. If Members have looked at newspapers this week, they may have seen that there has been press attention on Putin’s visit to Mongolia and suggestions that Mongolia should heed an International Criminal Court arrest warrant to transfer Putin to The Hague. That arrest warrant relates to an alleged war crime: the unlawful deportation of children from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation—like other war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Ukraine, that would not have occurred had it not been for the original aggression. When I addressed the previous Government 15 months ago, I said to the Conservative Minister that the special tribunal should be as international in character as possible, because a national tribunal based on Ukrainian law, or a regional tribunal, would not be sufficiently international in character for the personal immunities—which relate to Heads of State, Foreign Secretaries and Presidents—to be disapplied. The preference of G7 members has been for the creation of a Ukrainian court using Ukrainian law but based in The Hague, but the problem with such a proposal is that if the special tribunal is part of a domestic legal system, none of the international elements of the tribunal will apply. As Head of State, Putin would have immunity in a foreign domestic court. Only Russia would be able to waive that immunity. Foreign Ministers and diplomats also have a similar personal immunity under the domestic courts of other countries, such as Ukraine. With the Minsk agreements, we saw a willingness on the part of the Kremlin to accede to some demands only to row back on those agreements subsequently. In any future negotiation we cannot have some sort of bargaining or bartering away of personal immunities in favour of a political agreement that the Kremlin can then renege on, as it did before. Immunity applies to Heads of State and Governments for acts performed in the exercise of their functions, even after they have left office, and as such they should be dealt with by an international court at an intergovernmental level. Fifteen months ago, the then Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office Minister stated that the UK Government did not have a definitive view about whether a special tribunal should be a Ukrainian court established with international support or a fully international court. They said at that time that all options were on the table. Previously, the UK has traditionally held the position that only the UN Security Council has the power to disapply personal immunities, but clearly that idea would not fly given that Russia has veto power over any Security Council resolution. The Minister responsible for Europe, the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), was present at the debate 15 months ago in his capacity then as a shadow Minister. He asked the Conservative Government about immunities and said they were a “critical issue…that we would need to address in any model” —[ Official Report, 9 May 2023; Vol. 732, c. 114WH.] of a special tribunal. In February this year, an international conference to consider a special tribunal took place just across the road from here, at Church House. The communiqué from the conference referred to the merit of a strictly international tribunal or a highly internationalised tribunal having key international features: an international agreement; reference to international law for the purposes of jurisdiction; significant international components, such as prosecutors, judges and venue; and firm international backing, where possible, from international and regional organisations. The communiqué said: “We believe this would offer the best hope of disapplying relevant immunities and give a tribunal full legitimacy, and complement the ongoing work of the ICC (in investigating alleged acts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed on the territory of Ukraine).” The effect of lifting immunities could relate to that most precious thing for any tyrant: their reputation. The late Paddy Ashdown visited Slobodan Milošević several weeks before NATO military action against Belgrade in 1999. Lord Ashdown commented that Milošević “seemed more frightened by the threat of indictment by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, than...of NATO bombing”. Twenty years ago, at the height of liberal interventionism by what at the time we called rather grandly “the international community”, Lord Ashdown reflected on international justice in relation to war, writing that “these new courts and tribunals, which the world has established in recent years...have the potential to become instruments not only for justice, but also for prevention, since they can represent a...warning to belligerent or tyrannical leaders.” These days, there is far less talk of a “global village”, and terms like “international community” are used far less readily and do not strike a chord in the way they did 25 years ago. In February 2022, when the UN Security Council considered a resolution condemning Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, both India and China abstained. The Council of Europe is seeking to fill the gap. An international tribunal based on a treaty with the Council of Europe would be sufficiently international to overcome the personal immunities, if its founding treaty was open to any state to sign and it was ratified by at least 60 states. The involvement of the Council of Europe in the creation of a special tribunal, together with the potential accession of non-member states from outside Europe to the treaty creating such a tribunal, would contribute legitimacy to the effort to prosecute the crime of aggression committed in Ukraine. Yesterday evening, I talked to someone else who participated in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Sir Geoffrey Nice was the lead prosecutor of Slobodan Milošević for the UN, and he wrote the following to me after our conversation: “No self-respecting lawyer—indeed, no self-respecting human—should have anything to do with any court premised” on “an immunity, granted by political agreement”. I know that this issue is of genuine interest to the Minister, and I look forward to hearing any contribution from her or from other Members about whether the UK should have a stance whereby personal immunities should be disapplied. Surely, we cannot see immunities applying for President Putin, President Lukashenko, Sergey Lavrov and other senior architects of the aggression in Ukraine.

• 3 Sept 2024 · International Special Tribunal: Ukraine · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to all hon. Members who have participated in the debate. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) took us back to first principles when he talked about freedom, liberty and democracy. It is a reminder that while we are talking about arcane legal matters, this is also a matter of the self-determination of the Ukrainian people and their ability to choose their own future. He also gave us the image of David and Goliath, and it is partly through the proposed special tribunal that it is suggested the international community could try to tip the scales in favour of David. The hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell), who is no longer in the Chamber, talked about the loopholes in sanctions. He was right to do so; I was informed earlier this week that oil services companies are still actively doing business with Russian energy companies. SLB, which has UK offices at Buckingham Gate, is one such company. Essentially, though inadvertently, it is contributing funds to Moscow’s war machine. My hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran), the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, reminded us of the important work of the core group of more than 40 states established in 2023. It is encouraging that the UK is part of that group, but we could be a more prominent voice were the Government to choose to go down that route. In addition, my hon. Friend talked about the spectre of a second Trump presidency. We know that Donald Trump regards himself as a dealmaker; he thinks of himself as someone able to broker a deal and get a compromise. When we are dealing with absolutes such as international justice and the crime of aggression, there is no room for that sort of grubby compromise, because on the line are the deaths of the 11,000 civilians that we have heard about this afternoon. The hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns) talked about the rewriting of history by Putin, which we definitely need to be wary of. He tends to engage in historical revisionism. Even before the full-scale invasion, he was engaged in that in relation to Ukraine. In December 2019, he talked about how Poland was somehow responsible for the attack by Nazi Germany because it had laid itself open to attack by Hitler’s military machine. We need to make sure that the record of history is written correctly in relation to Russia and Putin. The hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford also talked about UK support for Ukraine. I think that we should be very wary of getting into party political turf wars on that one. I see nobody from the Reform party in the Chamber, but that is the only political party in this Parliament not to buy into the consensus on UK support for Ukraine—long may the solid support between political parties continue. In the last Parliament, Grant Shapps, as Defence Secretary, announced an uplift in military aid for Ukraine from £2.5 billion to £3 billion, and that was welcomed automatically. We should not seek to score political points on this issue. Finally, I am grateful to the Minister for her comments. I will continue to press the Government on the point about personal immunities that I led on, and I will talk to the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), who I know is very interested in this matter, too.

• 2 Sept 2024 · Ukraine · Hansard source

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  The Foreign Secretary has spoken of his warm relations with the running mate of Donald Trump, J. D. Vance. That is just as well, because Vance said previously that he does not really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another. While Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister is talking about changes to Russia’s doctrine on the use of nuclear weapons, Vance is joking about how Britain is somehow the first “Islamist country” with nuclear weapons. Will the Minister tell the House what efforts the Government are making to rid Vance and some others in the Republican party of the idea that the security of Ukraine and the security of Europe is somehow not important to the security of the United States?

• 30 Jul 2024 · Gaza: Humanitarian Situation · Hansard source

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  As shadow Foreign Secretary, the Secretary of State urged David Cameron to publish the FCDO’s formal legal advice on whether Israel is breaching international humanitarian law in Gaza. Do the new ministerial team still think there is a compelling case for publishing the Government’s legal advice, and will the Government be publishing it?

• 30 Jul 2024 · Lebanon · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s statement and his advice to British nationals, which seems like a very wise precaution and could prevent our having to evacuate British citizens in the future. I join him in condemning the Hezbollah strike in the Golan Heights, which killed 12 Druze children. Our thoughts go out to their families. However, now we find the region on the precipice that many of us have feared since 7 October last year: the escalation of this dire conflict to another front, with Israel’s Minister Smotrich warning of an all-out war with Hezbollah. The UN special co-ordinator for the middle east peace process has urged “maximum restraint” and the immediate cessation of rocket fire across the blue line. We welcome that call and urge the UK Government to work closely with regional powers to do whatever we can to de-escalate the situation. My question to the Foreign Secretary is this: has he, and have his colleagues, engaged with the UN special co-ordinator? If not, will they do so, given the special co-ordinator’s vital role in moments such as this? The Liberal Democrats welcome the Foreign Secretary’s call for an immediate bilateral ceasefire to end the humanitarian devastation in Gaza, to get the hostages home and to open the door to a two-state solution. This is a deeply insecure region and that insecurity is felt by everybody who lives there: Israelis, Palestinians and others. A two-state solution will deliver the dignity and security they need, and I am reassured to hear that he will be making those calls on regional powers when he next visits the region.