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  • Jeremy Corbyn – 2022 Speech on International Human Rights Day

    Jeremy Corbyn – 2022 Speech on International Human Rights Day

    The speech made by Jeremy Corbyn, the Independent MP for Islington North, in Westminster Hall, the House of Commons, on 8 December 2022.

    I congratulate the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) on securing today’s debate and on the speech that she made earlier and her remarks about the parliamentary human rights group, which I have been a member of since I was first elected. It is a genuinely independent human rights group and has done a fantastic amount of work over the years. Long may it continue.

    It is wonderful to have a debate here in Westminster Hall on a Thursday afternoon, but why is the debate not on the Floor of the House? Why is it not in Government time? Why is there not a Foreign Office report on human rights, as there was every year from 2003 onwards? It is simply unacceptable that a Government who claim to fully adhere to all UN human rights protocols cannot do a report on our own activities and views on issues facing different countries around the world—things that are extremely important.

    We have to put this debate within the framework of the human rights law that we have. We put into law the Human Rights Act 1998, which then put into UK case law the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, as well as the European convention on human rights, which was already recognised and, as the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) pointed out, was written by UK barristers and judges in 1948.

    The Government have constantly objected to the European Court of Human Rights—its administration and its judgments—and got very excited about an interim judgment that prevented an unnamed asylum seeker being removed to Rwanda, where he had never sought to go, anyway. That was then used to start a huge campaign about why we should withdraw from the European Court of Human Rights and the European convention on human rights. As the hon. Member for Rhondda correctly pointed out, if we withdraw from those, we then withdraw from the Council of Europe because there is no basis for being in it.

    The function of the Council of Europe relates fundamentally to human rights. It monitors the election of judges to the court. Everyone accepts there are inefficiencies within that legal system—I am sure there is no part of the British legal system that has any inefficiency in it whatever. The important point is that we are adherents to the European Court and the European convention on human rights.

    Mr Carmichael

    I assure the right hon. Gentleman, from my own years in legal practice, that if he wants to find inefficiencies in a legal system, he does not have to go all the way to Strasbourg to find them. The point is that the Human Rights Act did all the things that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned, but it did more than that, or we have subsequently used it to do more than that. We have hardwired it into the devolution settlement for Scotland and Wales, and also into the Good Friday agreement and the devolution set-up for Northern Ireland. How can that hardwiring be undone without damaging the institutions that are protected when the Human Rights Act is invoked?

    Jeremy Corbyn

    The right hon. Gentleman’s points are absolutely correct. The 1998 Act enshrined the laws I have mentioned, but it also created a culture of human rights that has developed in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland through foreign policy and in many other attitudes. When the Minister responds to the debate, I hope she will make it very clear that there is no question of a British Bill of Rights or a Bill of Rights that undermines the principles of the United Nations’ universal declaration of human rights, the European convention on human rights or the European Court of Human Rights. If we go away from that, then what future is there for human rights in this country? Who are we to lecture anybody, anywhere around the world, on abuses of human rights if we have walked away from the very conventions that we are supposed to be adhering to in the first place?

    The arguments used to oppose the interim judgment made by the European Court of Human Rights was that the asylum seekers were “illegal”. Let me be absolutely clear and put it on record that there is no such thing as an illegal asylum seeker. The legal right to seek asylum is set out in international law and in UK law, as we should understand and respect.

    Yesterday, I was at the Committee on Migration, Refugees and Displaced Persons of the Council of Europe. It was a lengthy but fascinating meeting that was very well attended by people from all over the member states of the Council of Europe. There were two significant reports, one of which was about the situation facing refugees from Afghanistan. It looked at problems with Afghan refugees settling around Europe, the poverty in which they are living, the numbers now being pushed back from trying to enter Greece or other European countries—I will come to that in a moment— and the desperate poverty of people in Afghanistan.

    There have been 21 years of war in Afghanistan. Billions of pounds and dollars have been spent on that particular war. We have left behind the chaos of a lack of human rights and respect for people, along with desperate poverty and hunger. I know it is not central to this debate, but we can do a lot better by the people of Afghanistan than ignoring the situation. Whatever one’s views on the Afghan war, we have responsibilities to those people and the poverty in which they have been left.

    We also had a very interesting report from the International Committee of the Red Cross on the question of asylum seekers. It put forward six policy recommendations, which I will refer to quickly because I am conscious that colleagues wish to speak. They are:

    “National authorities and regional bodies should: Acknowledge the tragedy of missing migrants and address the problems their families face as a result of this situation. Put in place preventive measures such as ensuring that the respective legal frameworks are compatible with international law and adequately address the main humanitarian problems. Integrate the missing migrant issue into continental, regional and national policy and cooperation frameworks. Strengthen bilateral and multilateral cooperation in search efforts, including humanitarian rescue activities if migrants are in distress…Establish clear pathways to be followed in searching and identifying persons missing in the context of migration…Respond to the various needs of families and ensure institutional and legal frameworks that allow for an individual specific assessment and response.”

    Those policy recommendations were important because the number of missing people around the world is increasing very fast. I was astonished to hear that far fewer than 20% of those who die in the Mediterranean or other seas around Europe are ever identified. That is life for some people. They live in poverty, under oppression, seek asylum somewhere else and die, unnamed in an ocean, while trying to get to a place of safety. On International Human Rights Day, of all days, can we not have a sense of humanity in our approach towards these people and the desperate situation in which they are forced to live at the present time?

    Pushbacks, which I believe to be not just illegal but immoral, are practised in a number of countries, and the argument often put forward, particularly by Conservative politicians, is that we should have almost a military response to people trying to cross the English channel. These are desperate people trying to get to a place of safety. We should bring them to a place of safety and look after them after that—let them contribute to our society. The cause of people seeking asylum has to be examined, because we cannot look at human rights in the abstract. The reality is that it is driven by war and the appalling invasion of Ukraine. Millions of people have sought refuge, and there has been a terrible loss of life, both of people in Ukraine and of conscripted Russian soldiers. Russian peace activists have also been arrested. Hopefully, there will be some kind of process to bring about a cessation of the fighting and a long-term solution to the issues that have led to the war in Ukraine.

    There are so many other wars that I would go on for far too long if I tried to mention all of them. I have already referred to Afghanistan, but the situation in Iraq is far from perfect. I still meet people who have sought asylum from Iraq, and I meet people from Libya who have sought asylum from that country. What is the connection between those three countries? All have had UK military involvement in their conflicts. The war in Yemen, to which the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and others referred, is largely occasioned by huge supplies of American and British weaponry to Saudi Arabia, which uses them to oppress the people of Yemen.

    Then we have the occupations, which are always wrong in any context. They include the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the colonialisation of the West Bank through the settlement policy. Again, that leads people seeking safety to go somewhere else. The consequences of our inaction, or positive action in supplying arms to the aggressor in many cases, often lead to the problems that we are now concerned with and complaining about.

    Africa is often not mentioned in many debates, yet the reality of war in the Congo and other places is that it leads to huge displacements of people. It is occasioned by huge quantities of often small arms and lighter arms being sold to fuel those conflicts, and they are often funded by mineral interests and those who seek to gain land or power. We have to look very seriously at those issues.

    My friend the hon. Member for Rhondda mentioned the situation in Colombia. I was in Colombia for the first round of the presidential election—I had been there before—and I talked to a lot of human rights groups, farmers groups, trade unions and academic groups. I did a seminar at the Catholic University while I was there. To the credit of President Petro, his new Government and Vice President Francia Márquez, they have started peace talks with the other guerrilla groups. They are trying to bring about a total peace accord, and they are proposing substantial land reform legislation. It is going to be very difficult, because there is an awful lot of opposition to what they are achieving from very powerful vested interests, and we have to wish them well in that process.

    I hope that in this debate and future debates we look to our own culpability in all this. I have mentioned the wars, but we also need to think about the huge volume of arms sales that we are promoting and the way in which our embassies around the world have been turned into commercial operations for British companies in order to improve British exports. I can understand the need for that, but not at the expense of taking away the human rights advisers or, indeed, of no longer continuing the former policy, both within the EU and nationally, of having a human rights agenda in our overseas trade arrangements.

    Sometimes, however, one gets good news in a difficult situation, and yesterday there was a very interesting judgment in a court in Oaxaca, Mexico. I have been quite involved in supporting the case. A young woman called Claudia Uruchurtu was arrested while she took part in a demonstration in Oaxaca against the corruption of the mayor of her town. The mayor of the town of Nochixtlán was deemed to be corrupt, and she was part of the opposition to what the mayor was doing. At the end of the demonstration, she disappeared. Her body has never been found. She has never been located. Her family, who live in the UK, were obviously desperately worried about her.

    After a lot of action by good people in Mexico, including the British embassy and others, who did a great deal to support the family, the case was brought to court yesterday and the mayor was found guilty in the case of the disappearance of Claudia. The sentencing has not yet happened—we await that next week—but it is significant that in this one case of somebody’s disappearance under duress pressure, the perpetrator has been found guilty. That will give some hope to the families of the many, many others who disappeared in Mexico, of which there are at least 100,000 in recent years.

    While one obviously condemns the disappearances and the abuse of human rights, one should pay tribute to the Government of President López Obrador for taking on these cases. It is creating a culture of respect for human rights and empowering the Ministry of the Interior to investigate historic abuses of human rights, including the disappearance of the 43 Ayotzinapa students some years ago.

    There was news today that the Al Jazeera broadcasting channel is referring the case of the murder of Shireen Abu Akleh to the International Criminal Court. I wish the channel well in doing that. Shireen was shot in cold blood for no other reason than that she was filming Israeli soldiers oppressing Palestinian people. She is one of many journalists who have been injured or shot not only in the conflict in Palestine but in many other places around the world. We should recognise that there are all sorts of human rights defenders and they come in all shades. They can be journalists just as much as human rights defenders from voluntary human rights organisations. We should be doing all we can to speak up for them.

    The issues abound in many other countries that I could refer to today. Briefly, I obviously concur with the remarks made about the women of Iran and their bravery in demanding human rights themselves, and there are others who want to see human rights throughout Iran. The British Government are also supporting people such as Mehran Raoof, who is a workers’ rights representative. We have to keep on demanding their release.

    Nazanin’s release was excellent news, but she was sadly one of a number. Human rights have to be universal. They do not mean going to war with somebody. They do mean engagement to try to achieve better human rights. The case of Alaa Abd El-Fattah, who is still in prison in Egypt, was taken up during COP27. COP27 is over, the greenwashing is finished, they have all left town and people have stopped talking about his case. He has family in this country. He deserves to be freed, and we should support his release.

    I have a very multicultural constituency, which I am very proud to represent in Parliament. It includes many people who come from all parts of Kurdistan—from Syria, Iran, Iraq and Turkey. The conditions facing Kurdish people in northern Syria are appalling, and the bombing that is now taking place against the Kurdistan Democratic party forces in Iran and Iraq and the problems that are going on in Turkey have to be recognised. Surely at the centre of all this is a failure to recognise the rights of people to their own self-determination and self-expression. The Kurdish people demand and deserve those rights. It is not good enough for us all just to go to Nowruz celebrations in March. We have to act all year round to ensure the Kurdish people get their place of safety.

    Rights are universal. Rights of workers are universal. The International Labour Organisation confirms that. I hope the Minister will be able to tell us that Britain is no longer going ahead with legislation that will be inimical to the International Labour Organisation and the various pieces of human rights legislation we have around the world that we should abide by. Workers’ rights are human rights, just as much as anybody else’s.

    We need to educate our young people not to see the Human Rights Act as a problem or something to make a light-hearted joke about on the radio or television or in newspaper attacks—“Somebody’s abusing the Human Rights Act”. It is there only because of the bravery of human rights defenders in this country and around the world. If we walk away from the European convention and human rights legislation, we will leave a terrible legacy for future generations. The hon. Member for Rhondda is right when he says that there has been a pushback against human rights around the world. Let us not be part of it; let us go in the opposite direction by defending and extending human rights. The next generation will thank us for that and benefit from it.

  • Alistair Carmichael – 2022 Speech on International Human Rights Day

    Alistair Carmichael – 2022 Speech on International Human Rights Day

    The speech made by Alistair Carmichael, the Liberal Democrat MP for Orkney and Shetland, in Westminster Hall, the House of Commons, on 8 December 2022.

    It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dame Maria. I congratulate the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) most warmly on her success in obtaining the debate, which is timely in so many different ways. Sadly, of course, debates that expose human rights abuses around the world always seem to be timely; there always seems to be something we need to say about what is happening in some part of the world.

    I pay warm tribute to the variety of non-governmental organisations and campaign groups that operate in this area. I am privileged to have worked with many over the years; Amnesty International and Reprieve would be the most obvious. I have been privileged to work recently with the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy, and with B’Tselem and Breaking the Silence in relation to activities in Palestine. I have also worked with the World Uyghur Congress and Hong Kong Watch, of which I am a patron.

    I will highlight concerns about just a few areas, because we have a good range of interests and I do not want to take up too much time. The hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West spoke about her concerns with Bahrain; I will not repeat them, but I very much share them. I was present recently when BIRD and Human Rights Watch published a joint report on the use of the death penalty in Bahrain. Since the end of the moratorium in Bahrain there have been six executions, and there are a further 26 men on death row who could be executed at any time. It is particularly relevant for us to speak about what is going on in Bahrain, because we are, of course, significant funders of the Gulf strategy fund—in fact, we have the Gulf strategy fund, which goes significantly to Bahrain. I wonder how many of our constituents would be content to know that we as a country—our taxpayers—are funding a situation in a place where the human rights of its people only get worse?

    Like the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West, I am always happy to engage in and encourage progress but, where we see no progress coming—as seems to be the case with Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and others, sadly—it is difficult to see the justification for continuing the supply of taxpayers’ money to a country such as Bahrain, which is not exactly on the world’s poor list in the first place. It begins to look pretty much like rewarding bad behaviour. I would like to tell hon. Members the comparable figure for the uses of the death penalty in China, but unfortunately none of us knows. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said earlier from a sedentary position that it topped the league. I do not think that there is any doubt on the part of any of us about that; the difficulty we all face is that we do not know just how high above the rest of the players in that league it happens to be.

    In particular, I have had concerns in recent years about the position of people in Hong Kong, but I will focus on the position of those who live under what has now been determined by an independent tribunal to be a genocide, featuring crimes against humanity, in Xinjiang province. Yesterday, I was privileged to meet the Government in exile of East Turkestan with Rodney Dixon KC, who is working very creatively to bring a case to the International Criminal Court. There are different ways in which cases can be brought. The first is by reference from the Security Council. Well, for as long as China is a member of the Security Council, we know there will not be a case brought against China through that route for what is happening in Xinjiang province. The second way is the route that Ukraine is taking against Russia, through a state reference. Again, that will not happen.

    Rodney Dixon KC is pursuing a line of argument regarding cross-border international crimes that would be sufficient to fall within the jurisdiction of the ICC. It is essentially a question for the chief prosecutor Karim Khan KC—also a distinguished British legal practitioner —as to whether the jurisdiction will be accepted. The ICC is an independent body, and, like all courts, we must respect its judicial independence, as we would anywhere else in our domestic system. Of course, the prosecution brings with it quasi-political aspects and functions.

    My ask of the Minister is that our Government do everything they can to support the case being brought by Rodney Dixon KC, but also to offer every support to the chief prosecutor. In the event that he is persuaded on the grounds of the evidence made available to him to accept jurisdiction and pursue the case, our Government, as a party to the ICC, should be prepared to put some money where their mouth is and ensure that a well-funded and properly resourced case is brought to the ICC with regard to what is going on in Xinjiang.

    We have to be realistic about what we can achieve, even through the ICC. The refusal of the Chinese Government to allow any outside observers from the United Nations or anywhere else into the region surely makes it clear that there will not be a great deal of co-operation and, ultimately, it is difficult to see where a case might go. But it is like water on a stone: we have to take every opportunity to bring the world’s attention to what is happening there.

    Sir Geoffrey Nice KC in his independent—albeit essentially self-constituted—tribunal concluded that the evidence exists that there have been crimes against humanity and that a systematic genocide is being perpetrated against the Uyghur population. There is already substantial evidence, but we have to get it into every legal forum possible. With that in mind, I ask the Minister to look at the case being brought by Rodney Dixon KC and, with her officials, to explore every way we can possibly support it, if it is something that sits entirely comfortably with the stated policy of His Majesty’s Government at the present time.

    My final point on Xinjiang and what we can do with regard to it relates to the continuation of doing business with those companies that have been responsible for the infrastructure around which the genocide has been perpetrated. The hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) spoke about that in relation to the noble Lord Alton’s Bill in the other place, but there is so much we could do without necessarily having the compulsitor of Lord Alton’s Bill in legislation.

    Hikvision built the most incredibly intrusive infrastructure that was used to oppress the Uyghur population, and the company now operates widely in this country. Earlier this year I spent a day on Papa Westray in the Orkneys doing my constituency rounds. I held a surgery and went into the shop and post office. I still had some time at the end of the day, so I popped in, as is occasionally my wont, to spend a little bit of time in St Boniface Kirk, an ancient church in Papa Westray, where I was horrified to find a Hikvision CCTV camera. I can say to the Minister that, beyond any shadow of a doubt, if Hikvision has now got to St Boniface Kirk in Papa Westray, it is pretty well everywhere, and that is something to which we need to attend, because, as with so many other technological developments, we have no idea where the data could get to through the back door.

  • Chris Bryant – 2022 Speech on International Human Rights Day

    Chris Bryant – 2022 Speech on International Human Rights Day

    The speech made by Chris Bryant, the Labour MP for Rhondda, in Westminster Hall, the House of Commons, on 8 December 2022.

    It is a delight to take part in this debate, not least because my biggest anxiety about the world is that it is becoming more, not less, authoritarian. More Governments have given up on democracy and moved towards dictatorship than we thought possible. We always thought that progress would mean people enjoying greater freedoms as the world moved forward. Unfortunately, that is not the case for many people around the world.

    I am struck by the number of countries that retain the death penalty. It is obviously shocking that so many states in the United States of America retain it. I am conscious that there are many countries in the world where people can be executed solely for their sexuality, including Afghanistan, Brunei, Iran, Mauritania, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen. Many of those countries would say that they do not use the death penalty as there have been no executions. None the less, people are sentenced to death and then have to live in a sort of limbo land, thinking that they may be executed at any point.

    On Saudi Arabia, I will simply say that it was quite shocking earlier in the year when the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) came to the Foreign Affairs Committee as Foreign Secretary. I asked her about when she had raised human rights concerns with Gulf states. There was just silence in the room. She tried to suggest that she had done it several times—or it had been done several times—but she could not come up with a single occasion on which the British Government had raised human rights abuses with Saudi Arabia.

    I understand why the Government want to turn away from relying on gas and oil from authoritarian states such as Russia, but it is not much good if we then just simply turn to another set of authoritarian states in the middle east, and are not prepared to ask the questions that we now feel able to ask of Russia. For instance, it is truly shocking that the British Government have still not said that Jamal Khashoggi was murdered at the deliberate instigation of the Saudi Government, and dismembered on Saudi territory. That does not do anybody any favours. It is shocking that the British Government do not seem to have complained to Saudi Arabia about the 81 executions that happened on a single day earlier this year, or that there are now more than 100 people on death row, potentially awaiting execution at any point.

    We have to continue to ask those questions. I do not think that anybody respects us when they know what we think, but we refuse to say it. It just means that we are weak, and people rely on our weakness. I find it shocking, too, that a country such as Indonesia has just introduced a new law that outlaws sexual activity of any kind outside marriage. I am not sure how that will aid the tourism trade in Indonesia. The country is only just getting back on its feet. Those kinds of repressive measures are simply backward, and do nobody any favours.

    I worry about our Government for two reasons. First, as mentioned by the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier), we have not had an annual report on human rights since 8 July 2021. That is a long time ago. We have been doing it since 2003. It has become standard, and all the human rights organisations in the UK look to the process and love to feed into it. Other countries around the world look to the UK’s leadership in this space, and it feels as if the Government have simply surrendered that space.

    Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)

    The hon. Member must also be aware that it seems to have been a consistent Foreign Office policy for about 10 years now to reduce the number of human rights advisers in our embassies around the world.

    Chris Bryant

    I was going to come to that point. The right hon. Gentleman has made it for me, which is great. Another point is that the European convention on human rights was written by a Conservative Member of Parliament. It was drafted, on the back of the second world war, to say that we did not want the human rights abuses that happened in Italy and Germany to happen on our continent again. Yes, there are all sorts of complications with the way that the Court operates, but if the British Government keep on rattling the cage about leaving the European Court of Human Rights and the European convention, we would automatically no longer be a member of the Council of Europe. We would join Belarus and Russia as the countries in Europe that no longer subscribe, which would be a terrible shame.

    One of the things that we have got terribly wrong over the last 12 years in our foreign policy is that we have kept trying to appease authoritarian dictatorships around the world rather than stand up for what we genuinely believe. Sometimes we have relied too much on the United States, which is sometimes a wonderful ally and sometimes not very reliable, depending on who the President is. Who knows what may happen in two or three years? If Donald Trump were in the White House now, what would we be saying in relation to Ukraine? Far too often we vacillate on China. The hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) was right to refer to the situation facing the Uyghurs in China. Our Government have flip-flopped endlessly on whether to be robust on that policy, which is a terrible shame.

    My hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) spoke about the Minister withdrawing his comment. He was not correcting the record; he was withdrawing his comment on Saudi Arabia and whether the gentleman concerned had been tortured, which all the evidence shows he was. All that points to a Government who are uncertain about whether human rights really matter in the way in which we define ourselves as a country around the world. That will pay poor dividends in the long term for the UK and the values we believe in.

    Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)

    The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point on the supposed correction of the record. Surely if the Foreign Office now has evidence that shows that what the Minister said then is incorrect, there is a mechanism for him to come to the House and explain why the mistake was made. Surely that would be a more appropriate way to proceed.

    Chris Bryant

    If the Minister wanted to, he could publish a written ministerial statement that made the whole situation clearer, but I fear that basically the Government have been told off by the Saudi Government, and have decided that the Saudi Government have more say in the matter than we do. I guess the Saudis must be laughing their way to the end of the week.

    In some countries, there are phenomenal people with bravery we do not even dream of in British politics, where we rely on the democratic system. I will talk first about Colombia, which I know my friends, the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) and the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady), know quite a lot about. It has one of the largest numbers of displaced people anywhere in the world, and the longest sustained internal warfare or civil war—however we want to determine it. Many of us have been desperate for the peace accord to be properly instituted, which would mean that people would have the land that was stolen from them restored.

    Last year, there were another 52,880 forced displacements in Colombia. The war is still ongoing. Repeated Governments have failed to deal with it; let us hope that the new Government will be able to make advances. This year, 169 human rights defenders have been killed, often by paramilitaries and people acting on behalf of hard-right organisations, and there have been 92 massacres. Lots of children aged between 10 and 17 have been forcibly recruited to carry guns. That is just wrong, and I hope the British Government will do literally everything they can to help bring about a proper peace accord with the restitution of stolen land. There are six armed conflicts still ongoing in Colombia.

    I want to refer to a few individuals I think are absolutely magnificent. Sasha Skochilenko, who is in Russia, fills her life with art and music. She plays all sorts of musical instruments. On 31 March, she peacefully protested against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by replacing price tags in a local supermarket in St Petersburg with small paper labels containing facts about the invasion. She was arrested and charged for her peaceful action, and has been held in detention ever since in appalling conditions. I have mentioned many others in Russia who have been arrested this year. It is absolutely shocking, and I feel that our refusal to deal robustly with the first annexation of Crimea in 2014 is part of what emboldened Putin. We must learn from that as we face the rest of the world.

    Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara is a self-taught black Cuban artist. He loves to paint, dance and wear the colour pink—it doesn’t do any good for me. On 11 July 2021, he posted a video online saying he would be joining one of the largest demonstrations that Cuba has seen in decades. He was arrested and taken to Guanajay maximum security prison, where he remains to this day. His health is declining and he needs proper care. Would we have that courage in this country? Would anyone in this Parliament have that courage if we thought we would be arrested and sent to a foul, dirty prison with no proper healthcare, food and warmth?

    Let me turn to the Magnitsky sanctions. As the Minister knows—I think she is wearing a jacket from my family clan, the MacLeods; I am not sure whether she has the right to wear it, but it is a human right that is extended now to all. [Interruption.] But not MacLeod.

    Dame Maria Miller (in the Chair)

    Order. Stick to the subject.

    Chris Bryant

    I care passionately that one of the things that the Government have done that is good in the past few years is to introduce the Magnitsky sanctions, after a lot of brow-beating by some Conservative and Labour colleagues. The former leader of the Conservative party, the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), and I chair the all-party parliamentary group on Magnitsky sanctions. To date, the UK has made only 108 designations under the Magnitsky sanction regime, accounting for 14% of all Magnitsky sanctions imposed globally. Some 69% of sanctions imposed by our allies in the United States of America, the European Union and Canada have not been replicated by the UK, and I simply do not understand why there is such an enormous lacuna. Only 2% of UK sanctions target perpetrators in states considered to be allies of the UK, all of which relate to Pakistan. Is that just because we have decided that if a Government are an ally, we will not impose any sanctions, even on individuals who are manifestly abusing human rights? If so, that is a problem.

    The potential consequences of the UK’s failure to co-ordinate with its allies has been exposed this week. Al-Jazeera has reported that, last Human Rights Day, the UK decided at the last minute not to join the US in imposing sanctions on the Rapid Action Battalion in Bangladesh, which is the security force responsible for thousands of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances. It is often referred to as the death squad.

    It has also been reported that last year, after the US had imposed sanctions, high-ranking members of the Rapid Action Battalion travelled to the UK to receive training on, among other things, mass surveillance technology. The UK should not be involved in that. I hope that the Minister will be able to say that this is categorically untrue, and that she looks to her notes to reply on that matter later. This case demonstrates the significant consequences of the UK failing to act in response to such egregious human rights abuses, and failing to co-ordinate or multilateralise its sanctions. It has not only undermined the potential effectiveness of the US sanctions, but led to the UK potentially being complicit in the human rights abuses taking place.

    Finally, I pay phenomenal tribute to the women of Iran. There is no greater courage to be seen in the world today—and people have been killed today in Iran—than that which we have seen from the women there. Women lead where often men need to follow.

  • Fiona Bruce – 2022 Speech on International Human Rights Day

    Fiona Bruce – 2022 Speech on International Human Rights Day

    The speech made by Fiona Bruce, the Conservative MP for Congleton, in Westminster Hall, the House of Commons, on 8 December 2022.

    It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Maria. Today, as we mark Human Rights Day, I want to focus initially on article 18 of the universal declaration of human rights, which states that everyone should have the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief.

    Right across the world, people are losing their jobs, education, homes, livelihoods, land, families, freedom, access to justice and even life itself simply on account of what they believe. People are being discriminated against, threatened, marginalised, beaten, tortured and killed, too often by their own Governments—the very Governments who have a duty to protect people’s freedom of religion or belief. That freedom is important, not least because it is so closely connected to other rights such as the right to life, assembly and expression as well as other social, economic and cultural rights.

    No one should face discrimination, hatred or violence simply because of what they believe, yet, in the 21st century, millions do. They include Zhang Zhan, a young woman and Christian citizen journalist from China. She is a human rights defender who in 2019 bravely attempted to report the truth during the early days of the covid-19 pandemic. She travelled to Wuhan while everyone else fled, and posted articles on social media. She spoke up against the authorities’ abuse of human rights and was arrested in May 2020. Prior to her court hearing in December of that year, she was reportedly force-fed, tortured and put in a tiger chair, and her health dramatically deteriorated. She was sentenced to four years in prison, having been charged with picking quarrels and provoking trouble—a charge regularly levelled at Chinese lawyers, activists and journalists.

    Zhang’s lawyer visited her and recounted her words at the time of her trial. She said:

    “I want to stand firm in my faith and do what I believe to be right before God. I cannot accept lies nor deceit and I’m even more unwilling to coexist with darkness.”

    I often think about Zhang Zhan’s suffering in a Chinese prison, because she was sentenced in the same week that I was appointed by the Prime Minister as the special envoy for freedom of religion or belief.

    Another prisoner, who has suffered for years, is Shamil Khakimov. He is at the other end of his life, at 71. He is a Jehovah’s Witness in Tajikistan. In 2019, as a result of the peaceful exercise of his religious beliefs, he was convicted of inciting religious hatred and sentenced to seven and a half years in a strict regime prison. He was ill when he entered prison. He now suffers from heart and eye problems, and has gangrene in his leg and other health problems. There is a real danger that his term of imprisonment will effectively become a death sentence.

    Last year, Mr Khakimov was adopted as a religious prisoner of conscience by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, and the UN Human Rights Committee also requested that Tajikistan

    “ensure, without delay, that Mr. Khakimov receives adequate medical treatment”.

    This November, the 42 countries that form the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance, which I have the privilege of chairing, took up his case. I am very pleased to say that he has now been given three hearings, including one in which the prisoner doctor testified that the prison cannot give him the care that he needs. Let us hope that that joint advocacy secures for him the treatment he needs, and that he will be moved before it is too late. It is joint advocacy that is so effective in such cases.

    Another concerning case is that of a 24-year-old young woman, Hanna Abdirahman Abdimalik. She was sentenced in August this year to five years’ imprisonment simply for becoming a Christian and was reported to the authorities by her own family. The specific charges were insulting Islam, disturbing religious functions and public incitement. Her lawyer was not even informed of when the verdict would be issued, and therefore was not present in court. Once again the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance, alongside other multilateral organisations, has taken up her case, and I am pleased to say that an appeal against her sentence was heard just last week, on 27 November. The outcome is now awaited and I hope that she will be released.

    Where they still exist, offences related to blasphemy or apostasy can result in significant prosecution, either by states or communities. Concerted advocacy across the human rights family is needed to change that. In 2022, there are still 12 countries with criminal blasphemy laws for which a person can be sentenced to death. Countries including Nigeria, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, Brunei, Mauritania and Saudi Arabia have the death penalty for blasphemy—individuals defying or simply criticising the prevailing religion of their country. Our alliance has been supporting the efforts at the UN General Assembly of two of our member countries, Australia and Costa Rica, to call for a moratorium on the use of the death penalty for these offences. It is hoped that that may pave the way for global abolition. I urge all those listening to support those endeavours, and I trust that the UK Government will do all they can to support the relevant resolutions at the forthcoming UNGA plenary session.

    Tragic cases such as the following should not occur in the 21st century. Mubarak Bala, about whom we have spoken in this Chamber before, is an atheist and president of the Nigerian Humanist Association. This year, he was imprisoned for 24 years for charges in relation to blaspheming Islam. Let us hope his appeal succeeds. The couple Shagufta Kausar and Shafqat Emmanuel were kept on death row in Pakistan for six years until this year. They were accused of sending blasphemous texts via a SIM card that had been obtained by someone using a duplicate of Kausar’s national identity card. Thanks to international advocacy, they were ultimately released, but only because the courts finally accepted that they could not possibly have sent the text messages because neither of them can read or write.

    Consider the situation of Yahaya Sharif-Aminu. He is a young Nigerian Sufi musician—a singer. He was imprisoned in northern Nigeria under Kano state’s blasphemy law, the penalty for which is death by hanging. He is appealing his criminal case to the Supreme Court of Nigeria. I will go into a little more detail about his situation because I am urging all who can to join our international alliance and other advocates to urge the Kano state government to drop this unjust prosecution, for the international human rights community to speak out on behalf of Sharif-Aminu and for Nigeria to repeal its blasphemy laws.

    The case is very important. The Supreme Court issued a filing number this week, so we await the hearing date. Sharif-Aminu was first arrested and charged with blasphemy in March 2020. He was convicted in an upper sharia court, despite not having legal representation at the time of his trial. He had shared audio messages on WhatsApp that some people thought were blasphemous to the Prophet Mohammed because they elevated another person above the Prophet. As I said, the Kano state sharia penal code codifies blasphemy, which in this case is defined as insulting the Koran or any Muslim prophet, as an offence with the penalty of death.

    Sharif-Aminu is arguing that his case should be dismissed because the blasphemy law is unconstitutional. In August this year, the Court of Appeal upheld the constitutionality of the blasphemy law. That is why he has appealed to the Supreme Court. He argues that his situation and the Kano state law violate not only international law in terms of freedom of religion or belief and freedom of expression but the Nigerian constitution, which on paper protects both of those rights. He would welcome international advocacy highlighting his case, which is a very important one. It is the first time the Nigerian Supreme Court will hear a constitutional challenge to the northern states’ laws on death penalties for blasphemy. A positive ruling in such a case offers the possibility of abolishing them.

    I turn now to persecution in the most egregious form: genocide, the crime of crimes. In 2016, I tabled a motion on genocide against the Yazidis, Christians and other religious groups at the hands of Daesh in Iraq and Syria. Some in the Chamber today will recall that there was a passionate debate in the House. The House spoke with one voice and voted unanimously to recognise these atrocities as genocide. Over the following years, we have seen more cases where the elements of the definition of genocide have been there, including the atrocities specifically targeting religious groups: the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, the Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, Christians in Nigeria and Hazaras in Afghanistan.

    In the case of the Uyghur Muslims, the House made the determination that the atrocities against them constituted genocide. One million Uyghurs, some estimate many more, are detained in concentration camps in Xinjiang. An independent tribunal has found that to be genocide. I join colleagues from both Houses in calling it that. I know that we must be careful about the words that we use, but where the elements are there, we should call out atrocities for what they are. It is time that our Government found ways to engage effectively on the issue of genocide.

    In 2019, the Bishop of Truro published the Truro review, which I have the responsibility for taking forward to implementation as the Prime Minister’s special envoy for freedom of religion or belief. In recommendation 7, the bishop called upon the UK Government to ensure that,

    “there are mechanisms in place to facilitate an immediate response to atrocity crimes, including genocide through activities such as setting up early warning mechanisms to identify countries at risk of atrocities, diplomacy to help de-escalate tensions and resolve disputes, and developing support to help with upstream prevention work.”

    We must ask ourselves what else we can do to ensure that we implement that recommendation fully and meaningfully. In April this year, the independent expert review of progress on the Truro review found that recommendation 7 has not yet been delivered.

    On 28 October this year, in the other place, Lord Alton of Liverpool introduced the Genocide Determination Bill. It had its Second Reading then, on the day after International Religious Freedom Day. The Bill provides for important mechanisms, including one that empowers victims to have a court determination of atrocities as genocide or as a situation at serious risk of genocide. I ask the Minister to ensure that time is given for that Bill to be considered. We know that our responses to genocide are not perfect. Genocides continue to occur and change is required. The Genocide Determination Bill is a step in that direction. For those who are undecided about whether we need change, I recommend a book written by Lord Alton and Dr Ewelina Ochab, “State Responses to Crimes of Genocide: What Went Wrong and How to Change It”.

    At this time of profound global uncertainty and insecurity, we must be more vigilant than ever to shine a light on human rights abuses. In particular, we must be alert to early warning signs of atrocities. We must work together. I hope I have shown in some of my examples that together we can make a difference to promote and protect fundamental human rights for the vulnerable and the exploited, and for the good of us all.

  • Margaret Ferrier – 2022 Speech on International Human Rights Day

    Margaret Ferrier – 2022 Speech on International Human Rights Day

    The speech made by Margaret Ferrier, the Independent MP for Rutherglen and Hamilton West, in Westminster Hall, the House of Commons, on 8 December 2022.

    I beg to move,

    That this House has considered International Human Rights Day 2022.

    I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting today’s debate to mark International Human Rights Day, which this year falls on Saturday 10 December, and I thank my parliamentary colleagues who supported the application, as well as those here to participate. As co-chair of the all-party parliamentary human rights group—PHRG—it is a great honour to open the debate. The APPG works cross-party to raise greater awareness, both in Parliament and more widely, of serious human rights violations taking place across the world; to press for reform and redress; and to amplify the voices of those at the grassroots, including victims—or, as many prefer to be called, survivors—and human rights defenders working on behalf of affected communities. I strongly believe in the importance of an annual international human rights day.

    Given the continued prevalence of authoritarian regimes and Governments who commit, facilitate or turn a blind eye to serious human rights violations, and of abuses committed by non-state actors such as terrorist entities and criminal groups, it remains as necessary as ever to highlight the universal applicability of fundamental rights—political, civil, economic, social and cultural—to everyone everywhere in the world.

    We can sometimes take our rights for granted, or underestimate the impact of human rights abuses on communities, families and individuals, the vast majority of whom are peaceful and simply wish to live a life free from fear. When I hear about people arbitrarily detained, harassed, persecuted, brutally tortured or disappeared for trying to exercise their right to free speech, to protest or to join a trade union, or who are being discriminated against because of their ethnicity or religion, I wonder: what if that had been me, a member of my family, a colleague or a friend?

    Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)

    I want to support this debate, although I have a British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly meeting that will prevent me from contributing further. May I, through the hon. Lady, recommend that people go to the Upper Waiting Hall to see the display by PEN and Amnesty, and to learn about the journalists who were arrested and herded up 21 years ago in Eritrea? There, Members can see an illustration of how we cannot know what is going on in some countries, because those who could tell us—trade unionists, journalists, people in opposition and people in the Government who object to what is going on—cannot have a voice. We have to be a voice for them and watch out for them.

    Margaret Ferrier

    I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I will mention that display later.

    There are those languishing in a crowded, filthy prison after an unfair trial, those being prosecuted simply for peacefully protesting about Government policy, and those who have had someone close to them killed for their political or social activism. I want them to be offered the same help, support and solidarity that I would fight to have provided to someone close to me. Today, I hope that we can, using the parliamentary platform that we are privileged to have, provide some support to victims, and to human rights defenders across the world, who often risk their personal safety to champion the rights of their community. I want to take this opportunity to express my concern about the human rights situation in a number of countries on which I have been focused for some time—countries in the middle east and north Africa, as well as Zimbabwe.

    The situation in a number of Gulf Co-operation Council member states and Iran remains challenging. As I am sure colleagues are aware, I remain very concerned about serious human rights violations in Saudi Arabia by the state, which, according to the latest annual report from Human Rights Watch,

    “relies on pervasive surveillance, the criminalization of dissent, appeals to sectarianism and ethnicity, and public spending supported by oil revenues to maintain power.”

    I remain unconvinced by Saudi Arabia’s recent attempts to project a more modern and progressive image, including through glossy advertisements that try to entice tourists to holiday there. Most recently, since 10 November, while the Saudi regime thought that the world’s attention was elsewhere because of the World cup, the execution of those sentenced to death has resumed. Many of those killed were convicted of non-violent drugs offences, for which the Saudi Government had committed not to execute people. Some were Saudi nationals, but others were foreign nationals from Pakistan, Syria and Jordan. This latest wave of executions follows the execution of 81 people in a single day on 12 March 2022.

    Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)

    I am glad that the hon. Lady mentioned Saudi so early in her speech. Would she agree that one of the problems with taking action on Saudi is that the Government adopt double standards here? There was a perfect example of that last week. Responding to the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) on the case of Hussein Abo al-Kheir, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, the hon. Member for Macclesfield (David Rutley), said:

    “clearly torture was used. We find that abhorrent.”—[Official Report, 28 November 2022; Vol. 723, c. 673.]

    He then made a ministerial correction to Hansard, in which he changed that to:

    “in which torture has been alleged.”—[Official Report, 2 December 2023; Vol. 723, c. 12MC.]

    That is not a ministerial correction; that is tailoring one’s words to suit a barbaric regime.

    Margaret Ferrier

    I thank the hon. Gentleman for the intervention. We have to be strong when we speak out against human rights abuses; there is no doubt about it. The Government say that they speak privately with nations all over the world.

    Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)

    Before we move off this point, the worst of it is that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has now admitted that it made the ministerial correction because Saudi Arabia asked it to. We cannot have Saudi Arabia telling Parliament what to do about human rights, surely.

    Margaret Ferrier

    I could not have put it better. The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. We should not allow Governments other than the UK Government to say what the right response is. I thank him for the intervention.

    Over 50% of those executed were convicted on the basis of their participation in pro-democracy demonstrations back in March. As executions are confirmed only once the death sentence has been carried out, we do not know how many people are on death row in Saudi Arabia. That is also the case in China, North Korea, Vietnam, Egypt and Iran. I will speak about the latter two shortly.

    Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)

    I understand that between 500 and 600 people have been executed in Iran in the past year, so if there is a country that is top of the league, and really has to be brought to book, Iran is that country.

    Margaret Ferrier

    I will come on to speak about Iran; the figures that we hear are shocking.

    I say this to the Saudi regime: the world is watching, and will continue to call it out on these executions, particularly when the offences are considered not to be the most serious, or are non-violent or involve juveniles, and when the sentence follows a manifestly unfair prosecution. This is, of course, a violation of the most fundamental right: the right to life.

    That brings me to the Saudi criminal justice system, which remains opaque. We know that international fair trial standards are not generally upheld there, and there are credible allegations that some of the accused are tortured to make them sign confessions. Of course, we must not forget the brutal and brazen killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018, which US intelligence concluded, with a medium to high degree of certainty, had been carried out on the orders of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. I truly hope that one day, there will be real accountability for that heinous murder.

    Lastly on Saudi Arabia, I highlight the case of imprisoned human rights defender Mohammed al-Qahtani, who is reportedly being kept incommunicado after his family filed a complaint about attacks on him by inmates. Al-Qahtani is a founding member of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association, which was dissolved in 2013. That year, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for allegedly providing false information to outside sources, including UN human rights mechanisms.

    Like Saudi Arabia, Iran continues to be one of the world’s leading implementers of the death penalty, as we heard from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). The death penalty is used for such acts as insulting the Prophet, apostasy, same-sex relations, adultery, drinking alcohol and certain non-violent drug-related offences, although some drug-related offences are now meant to be exempt. Iranian courts, particularly revolutionary courts, regularly fall far short of providing fair trials, and use confessions likely obtained under torture as evidence in court.

    I am sure other colleagues will speak to my next point, so I will limit my remarks about the widespread protests in Iran, following the death in September of Jina Mahsa Amini in detention. She was arrested by Iran’s so-called morality police for not wearing her hijab properly. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights highlighted that Iranian security forces,

    “notably the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Basij forces have used live ammunition, birdshot and other metal pellets, teargas and batons”

    against protesters. An estimated 300 people were killed and 15,000 arrested.

    Turning to human rights defenders at risk, imprisoned human rights defender Arash Sadeghi has been jailed on multiple occasions for his activities in defence of human rights, and was arrested again on 20 October 2022 for unknown reasons. He has been placed in indefinite detention, and his health is deteriorating. I echo the calls for his immediate release. One of the cases featured in Amnesty International’s “Write for Rights” 2022 campaign is that of Vahid Afkari, who remains in solitary confinement following unsafe and highly questionable convictions. His brother Navid was sentenced to death on similar charges and secretly executed in September 2020, sparking international outrage.

    I will continue with this focus on the middle east, but move on to Bahrain. In common with many others, I remain open to constructive engagement with the relevant Bahraini authorities and those in Bahraini civil society, who work under very difficult conditions. However, I am worried that in the longer term, the country’s stability will be undermined by increasing polarisation, due at least in part to multiple allegations of human rights violations, including against those widely deemed to be political prisoners. I remain concerned that despite some welcome releases under the alternative sentences law, a number of political prisoners, such as Hassan Mushaima, Dr Abduljalil al-Singace and Sheikh Ali Salman, remain in Jau prison. Quite simply, they should not be in jail, and I join calls for their immediate release.

    I urge the UK Government to play a more positive role that is not limited to giving support to oversight bodies in Bahrain, but that instead extends to encouraging and assisting the Bahraini Government in taking such confidence-building measures as, in particular, the release of political prisoners and the initiation of meaningful political dialogue.

    I also highlight the exploitative practices against migrant workers, which has come under the spotlight with the building of infrastructure for the World cup in Qatar. The kafala system is the framework that defines the legal status of most migrant workers in the Gulf region, Jordan and Lebanon. Workers are often recruited on time-limited contracts to work for a specific employer. Although there have been welcome changes to the conditions applicable to migrant workers in most Gulf Co-operation Council countries, such as a move to allowing workers to change employers more easily, these reforms can be hard to enforce, and worker protests may result in deportation.

    Workers also often still face poor working and living conditions, overt racism and debt bondage. Difficulties continue to beset many migrant domestic workers, who may not benefit from labour laws, including in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Lebanon. They can reportedly face the most abuse, and can be victims of sexual violence. Many women choose not to report these serious violations for fear of losing their job or even being charged with a crime; some women have been prosecuted for having extramarital sex, even in cases of alleged rape.

    I am aware that my time is limited, so although I could speak about the middle east all afternoon, I will now briefly highlight concerns in north Africa, particularly in Egypt and Tunisia. Egypt is sadly yet another country where the death penalty is carried out, often after manifestly unfair trials, and many people are arbitrarily detained, often in very poor conditions. There was some media coverage of that in the run-up to COP27.

    I make a special plea to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to do all it can to secure the release of British-Egyptian dual national, Alaa Abd el-Fattah, as well as his lawyer, Mohamed el-Baqer, who are among thousands unjustly imprisoned in that country. I can only agree with Amnesty International that Egypt’s adoption of a national human rights strategy is completely disconnected from the reality on the ground. I trust that no one will be taken in by that cynical propaganda exercise.

    Turning to the country that was pivotal to what, at the time, was referred to as the Arab spring, it is very sad to see the democratic backsliding that we have witnessed in Tunisia in the last 18 months. It follows what was effectively a coup by President Saied, who suspended Parliament, removed the immunity of parliamentarians, dismissed the Prime Minister, removed other high-level officials from their positions and assumed oversight of the office of the public prosecutor.

    Although there had been political deadlock in Parliament and a deteriorating economic situation, which has not since improved, the way forward for Tunisia cannot be a return to authoritarianism, and President Saied cannot be viewed as the country’s saviour. According to the presidential road map, there are to be parliamentary elections next week, but they are very unlikely to be free and fair, the President having been given wide-ranging powers before, during and after the vote. It is feared that Parliament will be reduced to a consultative body at best, and will be there to effectively rubber-stamp decisions by the Executive.

    In addition, the Tunisian Parliament is going backwards when it comes to female representation. Whereas it had been a beacon for gender equity in the region, a new law introduced in September strips gender parity provisions from a previous electoral law aimed at ensuring more gender equality in elected assemblies.

    Finally, I come to the situation in Zimbabwe. I ask that the UK Government pay special attention to it in the run-up and aftermath of the elections that are due to be held next year, given that past elections have been the catalyst for violence and serious abuses. I continue to urge accountability for the assaults, mistreatment and ongoing persecution of three Opposition politicians from the Movement for Democratic Change Alliance: Cecilia Chimbiri, Netsai Marova, and Member of Parliament Joana Mamombe. They were abducted from police custody by suspected state agents for taking part in a protest in Harare, and are being prosecuted, unbelievably, for making false reports about their abduction. That is another case featured in Amnesty’s “Write for Rights” campaign 2022. Joana’s case has been taken up by the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s committee on the human rights of parliamentarians, which in 2021 dealt with the cases of more than 600 MPs from 44 countries whose rights had been violated.

    Though I have focused on the challenges we continue to face in ensuring respect for human rights globally, I would also like to take the time to highlight the positive impact on the ground of human rights defenders, whom the PHRG is privileged to meet regularly, and organisations such as the UN. Recently, we have been delighted to host the UN special rapporteur on human rights defenders, Mary Lawlor; the Council of Europe; Amnesty International; Human Rights Watch; Peace Brigades International; Reprieve; and Redress, among many others. Their work, and our work here, truly does make a difference. The arbitrarily detained, such as Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, Anoosheh Ashoori and other dual nationals in Iran, are released; those at risk are better protected; and miscarriages of justice are overturned.

    One of my small victories this year was the release on humanitarian grounds of a British national in a United Arab Emirates prison. He remained in detention even though he had received a pardon from the King and had served his original sentence. The resilience of this man is unparalleled, and his ability to remain optimistic despite all he went through during his detention is inspiring. I was delighted to finally meet him in person here in London following his release. It was a real reminder of why continued work in this space is so essential, and of the impact that can be had. That work would not have been possible without the help and support of Nicole Piché, secretariat for the PHRG, and the FCDO. That man is now fighting for better medical care for other foreign prisoners in the UAE, to give those he had to leave behind much support that is not otherwise available. I follow his work as he continues with this fight, and feel immensely grateful for the fact that, owing to his release, he is now able to lend his voice to the voiceless.

    I want to close by thanking both former and present FCDO Ministers and officials for their positive engagement with the PHRG, and their representations and action on human rights cases. They will be all too familiar with our regular correspondence on various cases, but there is always more that can be done, including on the many issues that I have raised today. I ask the Government to resume publishing their annual human rights report and releasing their human rights updates, as the last one appears to have been published in July last year. The reports provide a useful summary of the action undertaken by the FCDO and are a demonstration of the UK Government’s ongoing commitment to the international human rights framework.

    I have only spoken about a small number of countries with worrying human rights records. So many people across the globe—both those whose names we know, and those whose names we do not yet know—are relying on the support of those of us who have the freedom to speak out on their behalf.

    Andy Slaughter

    I want to add one further example, although we could add many: human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, which are getting worse every year, particularly through state-sanctioned settler violence. I pay tribute to Yachad and B’Tselem, which brought an exhibition on that issue to Parliament this week. Occupation adds another level of illegality and abuse to human rights, and it is right that it be called out. I entirely agree with the hon. Lady that the Government have to publish their findings more regularly if people are to be held to account.

    Margaret Ferrier

    I attended that drop-in, and it was shocking. I advise all Members to look at the report.

    Every person, Member of Parliament, Government Minister and member of the public alike can take some form of action, be it by writing letters for campaigns such as Amnesty International’s “Write for Rights”, or just by raising awareness within our own social circles. I strongly encourage every person listening today to use their voice, so that those without can be heard.

  • Michael Gove – 2022 Statement on English Devolution

    Michael Gove – 2022 Statement on English Devolution

    The statement made by Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, in the House of Commons on 8 December 2022.

    The levelling-up White Paper set out the Government’s ambition that, by 2030, every part of England that wants one will have a devolution deal with powers at or approaching the highest level of devolution and a simplified, long-term funding settlement. Stronger, more empowered, and more accountable local leadership is core to our levelling-up mission, to delivering on the ground, to growing our local economies and to improving public services.

    In summer 2022, the Government concluded devolution deals with York and North Yorkshire, and that part of the east midlands which includes Derby, Derbyshire, Nottingham, and Nottinghamshire. Subject to the ongoing local consultations and satisfactory completion of the statutory processes, including local consent by the councils and parliamentary approval of the secondary legislation to implement the deals, the inaugural mayoral elections are planned for May 2024. The east midlands deal is also dependent on the enactment of provisions in the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill necessary for the establishment of the proposed East Midlands mayoral combined county authority.

    The Government have now concluded three more devolution deals with Cornwall, Norfolk and Suffolk. These are the first set of the new county deals that extend devolution to more of England. Each deal will result in the election of a Mayor or directly elected leader to champion the area with Government and business. These deals are subject to locally run consultations, resolution by each of Cornwall Council, Suffolk County Council and Norfolk County Council to change their governance models so that electors directly elect the council leader, and to the satisfactory conclusion of the statutory processes, including local consent from the councils and parliamentary approval to the secondary legislation to implement the deals. Inaugural elections for a Mayor or directly elected leader in each of the areas are planned for May 2024. They will have the choice of alternative titles to “Mayor” for these elections, subject to provisions in the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill being enacted.

    These five new devolution deals will drive forward improved outcomes for the 5 million people that live in those areas. Taken together, they take the proportion of England now covered by a devolution deal to above 50% for the first time. They will deliver new funding including long-term investment funds to invest in local priorities that drive growth and levelling up, totalling over £3 billion over 30 years.

    The Government are also in advanced negotiations on a north east devolution deal that will supersede the current North of Tyne combined authority that covers only Newcastle, North Tyneside and Northumberland. A deal is expected to be concluded shortly and further details will be announced.

    Negotiations on trailblazer deeper devolution deals with the west midlands and Greater Manchester combined authorities are progressing well and expected to conclude early in 2023. These deals seek to devolve further powers in areas such as skills, transport, housing and net zero, alongside potential department-style single funding settlements and stronger accountability focused on outcomes. They will act as a blueprint for other areas to follow. We are interested in other MCAs coming forward with ideas for new functions. We will begin talks with other MCAs on deeper devolution from next year. The Government will set out more on plans for those talks soon.

    Effective devolution requires local leaders and institutions that are transparent and accountable. This is why the Government will be publishing the devolution accountability framework in early 2023, alongside a funding simplification plan, setting out the accountability mechanisms for MCAs, the Greater London Authority and other institutions that have agreed a devolution deal. It will set out how they are scrutinised and held to account by the UK Government, local politicians and business leaders and above all by the residents and voters of their area. This work will be supported by planned improvements to the broader local government accountability framework including the establishment of the office for local government.

    The Government will step ahead in extending devolution in England further. We will continue to work with local government in England to roll out further mayoral combined authorities, combined county authorities, and county deals. Discussions with places to identify potential candidates for the next set of new devolution deals will start in early 2023. The Government are particularly interested in exploring opportunities for devolution deals that will empower local leaders and communities where places want a directly elected leader, in line with the devolution framework published in the levelling-up White Paper.

    The above demonstrates strong progress towards achieving the 2030 local leadership mission, which is essential to levelling up. In these areas across England, more of the decisions which matter to people—on transport, housing, and skills—will be taken by locally elected, democratically accountable leaders rooted in their place and empowered to level up.

  • Julia Lopez – 2022 Statement on Telecoms Diversification

    Julia Lopez – 2022 Statement on Telecoms Diversification

    The statement made by Julia Lopez, the Minister of State at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, in the House of Commons on 8 December 2022.

    I would like to inform the House that today the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is announcing a joint statement on telecoms diversification alongside the Governments of Australia, Canada and the United States of America. This further progresses His Majesty’s Government’s efforts to build global support for our approach to telecoms diversification and identify tangible opportunities for collaboration with a range of international partners as set out in the 5G supply chain diversification strategy in 2020, and following the recommendations of the telecoms diversification taskforce in 2021.

    The joint statement marks the one-year anniversary of the 2021 Prague proposals on telecommunications supplier diversity, to which our four Governments have reaffirmed our commitment. It also announces the endorsement of the UK’s open RAN principles by the Governments of Australia, Canada and the United States of America, which I would like to welcome.

    Collectively, these Governments hold a shared view that open and interoperable solutions could help to create a more diverse, competitive and innovative telecoms supply market. To support this we intend to work together across a number of areas ranging from sharing information on our respective policy approaches to supporting greater transparency in industry-led standard-setting processes. We also intend to seek ongoing support from other likeminded countries truly to realise the benefits of a diverse telecoms supply chain on a global scale.

    This announcement builds on the strong progress we have made to increase the resilience and security of the UK’s telecoms critical national infrastructure since the publication of the 5G supply chain diversification strategy, which is backed by the £250 million open networks fund committed at the 2021 spending review. The fund aims to accelerate the adoption of open RAN solutions as a means to diversify the market. It includes research and development interventions of up to £36 million for the Future RAN Competition, up to £25 million for the Future Open Networks Research Challenge, as well as funding for testing facilities such as the SmartRAN Open Networks Interoperability Centre, and the UK Telecoms Lab. HM Government has also previously announced a joint ambition with UK mobile network operators to increase the share of open and interoperable equipment in UK networks by 2030. Indeed, we are also seeing positive progress from industry, for example, Vodafone and Telefonica have now deployed their first live open RAN sites, with both using new market entrants.

    While there is still more to do, today represents a significant milestone in the Government’s efforts to grow international consensus on telecoms diversification. In order to support a lasting and meaningful change it will be crucial for the global community to work together. I am grateful to the Governments of Australia, Canada and the United States of America and look forward to working with them, along with partners around the world, to achieve our vision of a more innovative, competitive and diverse telecoms supply market. Full details of the announcement will be published on www.gov.uk today.

  • Jesse Norman – 2022 Speech on the Antisocial Use of E-scooters

    Jesse Norman – 2022 Speech on the Antisocial Use of E-scooters

    The speech made by Jesse Norman, the Minister of State at the Department for Transport, in the House of Commons on 8 December 2022.

    I thank the hon. Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) for her speech, and for the resolute campaigning and interrogation that she has devoted to this issue for a considerable time. As she and the House will know, this country’s transport system is intrinsically a highly complex and evolving network. There is a constant stream of new vehicles and other technological transport innovations, and dealing with them is one of the continuing challenges for any Government, including this one. It is, however, clear—as the hon. Lady said—that the Government have a responsibility to ensure the safe use of new transport technologies, especially for the most vulnerable users. If those problems are not tackled head-on, and if antisocial and unsafe use is not addressed, the economic and social opportunities that everyone recognises derive from a properly functioning transport system may be lost.

    It is also essential, for reasons of public consent, to bring the public along with the policy so they understand that they are being kept safe, as well as being supported, by transport, and to reassure them as the pace and scale of these transport changes, which amount to something of a revolution in electrification and miniaturisation, accelerate. We recognise that the current lack of regulation is at odds with the increasing use of e-scooters. It is essential to ensure that the right regulation, designed to create proper accountability and responsibility, is in place. Regulation, as well as ensuring safety, should minimise burdens on the development of new innovations and new technologies wherever possible.

    There was a vivid demonstration of this when the pandemic struck, because there was a clear need to mitigate the impact of reduced shared public transport capacity and to provide a convenient, clean transport option that allows for social distancing. As a result, the Department for Transport accelerated and expanded plans for four e-scooter trials in 2021, in order to go further and faster in that direction. It fast-tracked the trials, launching them in July 2020, following a public consultation with more than 2,000 responses showing strong support for running trials to gather evidence. There were 17 trials in operation by October 2020, and today there are 27.

    Alongside this, the Government introduced clear rules from the start, stating in part that e-scooters must not be ridden on pavements, that e-scooters must be speed restricted to 15.5 mph, or lower where the local authority requires, and that users must have a full or provisional driving licence, and therefore that a minimum age of 16 applies. These rules are required to be communicated to users through an app before they use an e-scooter.

    From the start, it was also clear that discarded rental e-scooters would be a hazard to pedestrians, particularly those with visual impairments. The Department therefore empowered local authorities to encourage the responsible parking of rental e-scooters. It is fair to say that we have very successful working between operators and cities, which has helped to reduce the nuisance and obstruction that e-scooters can cause.

    Like the hon. Member for Newport East, I am grateful to organisations such as Guide Dogs UK, the Royal National Institute of Blind People and Sight Loss Councils, among others, for collaborating with operators and local authorities, and for the insights they have shared with the Department for Transport.

    The Government have extended the trials until May 2024 to ensure they can continue to gather evidence on what does and does not work, which is the reason for having such a wide range of trials and such a wide range of scope for regulatory and other innovations. The evidence and learning from these trials will be published shortly.

    I am mindful that technology and incentives alone cannot tackle antisocial use. There will always be some antisocial use of any mode of transport, which comes with the turf. As the hon. Lady knows, Wales chose not to participate in the trials, and so by default any e-scooter ridden on public roads in her constituency is illegal. Most micro-mobility vehicles, including e-scooters, are currently classed as motor vehicles and must meet the wide range of requirements built into the current legislation.

    The hon. Lady asked about the joining up of enforcement, and my Department is in regular contact with the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the Home Office to ensure a consistent approach to tackling this issue. We continue to support the police to ensure they have the tools they need. The House will recall that a full suite of offences can apply to e-scooters relating to speeding, dangerous driving and drink and drug driving, as well as to licensing and insurance. Users have been fined up to £300, had their vehicle impounded and had up to six points put on their driving licence, so a driver who recently passed their test could lose their licence if caught riding a private e-scooter.

    Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)

    The Minister refers to the powers that the police have. Does he have any statistics available to show how many offences have been recorded and what punishment has been handed out? It is probably fair to say that that is rather limited.

    Jesse Norman

    As my hon. Friend will be aware, the police publish statistics on crimes and offences. It is important to say that this will differ by region and by the priorities for the police forces in question. We have devolved police forces and they are not accountable directly to Government; they set their own priorities. In Wales, they may choose to set priorities that decide that any e-scooter ridden on roads there is illegal and then fine people and take appropriate enforcement action on that basis. The same will be true in other parts of the country, depending on the specifics of the police force’s own priorities. The key point is that when they reach for those enforcement mechanisms, they will find one of most established and strictest regulatory suites of enforcement rules and requirements anywhere in the world.

    There is not a great deal of time left in this debate, so let me say that our current regulatory regime on micro-mobility is a symptom of the rapid evolution of the market. It is important to recognise that UK retailers also have a duty to advise their customers of the law and to ensure that those customers do not unknowingly take the law into their own hands. The hon. Lady gave the example of one particular online retailer, but this week I have written to retailers reminding them of the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency’s continuing market surveillance work in this area, specifically in relation to the marketing that the retailers have put online, and their duties on advertising and the accurate provision of information. That, too, is an important way of assisting a crackdown on illegal and irresponsible use.

    Since setting up the trials, we have had 31 million journeys on e- scooters, with the vast majority being completed safely. It is important to see these in some form of context. Nevertheless, there have sadly been four deaths in the trials, the most recent of which was the tragic death in Birmingham on Tuesday morning. I am following the detail of that case closely and will be ensuring that we learn lessons from this terrible incident. I extend my condolences and those of the Department to the family of the person involved. I am sure that the House will understand that it would be inappropriate for me to comment further while the police investigation is under way.

    We have also already implemented some early learning from the trials. In February, the Government set out further guidance for the rental trials on minimum training, further encouragement of helmet use, mandating unique identification numbers and reducing illegal behaviour. Following that, the private sector trial operators have risen to the challenge and started to provide innovative solutions. They include things such as credits for ‘helmet selfies’, app-based safety quizzes or compulsory reaction tests after 10pm in an attempt to cut down on drink-riding. Outside the trials, we know that there are safety concerns surrounding the illegal use of private e-scooters on our roads too. Between July 2021 and June 2022, there were 1,437 casualties recorded in collisions on the public highway involving both rental and illegal private e-scooters, with 12 killed. That goes to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers). We also know that it is not just e-scooter riders getting hurt; of those 1,437 casualties, 342 were other road users, and of the 12 fatalities one was a pedestrian. So the clear need for enforcement activity is evident.

    Let me wind up quickly. We need to find a balance between the conflicting requirements. No one wants an unregulated free-for-all, as that would be unsafe for our communities.

    Jessica Morden rose—

    Jesse Norman

    I just do not have any time. I cannot respond to the hon. Lady’s speech if I do not—

    Jessica Morden

    You have 12 minutes.

    Jesse Norman

    In that case, I am happy to take the intervention, of course.

    Jessica Morden

    I would be grateful if the Minister just addressed the issue of the transport Bill and any secondary legislation that is planned by the Government. Will he give us an idea of what is planned in a transport Bill and when we might see it, and of any secondary legislation relating to some of the things we have learnt from the trials?

    Jesse Norman

    I thank the hon. Lady for her question, but I do not think that I can do better than my colleague, the Secretary of State, in his comments to the Transport Committee, and I do not think that this would be an appropriate place for an impromptu announcement, even if I had one, in this area. I understand her concern and I share it. We, too, want to take vigorous action not just in this area, but in several other areas of transport. We recognise the public concern, and we also recognise the economic and business benefits from effective, early legislation.

    As I was saying, Mr Deputy Speaker, the point here is that we need to find a balance in the way that we regulate. An unregulated free-for-all is unsafe for communities, and, in the long run, bad for businesses, as public policy follows, potentially, a cycle of reactions to faltering consumer confidence and real-world safety impacts. We do not want to be in a position where laws trail behind, to the extent that UK businesses are forced to launch innovations abroad and our transport users’ needs and wants are unmet.

    Jessica Morden

    Does the Minister accept that other European countries are much further ahead than us in looking at what regulations we might need with e-scooters in a whole range of specifications, such as speed and so on? Does he accept that we are far behind them and therefore there is a need to legislate quickly, or to look at this quickly, rather than to leave it to drag on if there is no transport Bill?

    Jesse Norman

    I am afraid that I do not accept that, no. The facts of the matter are that some other countries have decided to change their regulations because they had launched the wrong set. They have re-regulated in certain cities, and some countries have not even permitted any trials of e-scooters, so I do not accept that. Indeed, in general in this country, we have a remarkably flexible, open and innovative transport sector. One can see that in the use and trial of autonomous vehicle technologies, in the use of zero emission vehicles, in the ways that electric vehicles are being brought into the market in the UK, and in the speed and development of that market. Therefore, I do not accept that point.

    However, we do need a flexible and fully enforceable regulatory framework that allows Government and agencies of Government to manage the balance that I have described and to handle the different challenges faced by cycles and motor vehicles. That is why we announced at the Queen’s Speech our intention to bring forward primary powers, as the hon. Lady has mentioned. However, this is a complex area, and the Government are still developing requirements for e-scooter use and are continuing to gather the evidence. There is an enormous amount of evidence being brought forward from the trials. The trials are diverse in the way that they address these issues. That is deliberate and it allows more testing of different contexts, different outcomes and different technological and behavioural responses, and that is a valuable thing.

    The goal throughout is to ensure that we tackle anti- social behaviour, learn from the trials, encourage take-up and also support the active travel and decarbonisation agendas. If we are properly able to manage that, e-scooters may well be able to take their place alongside the other technologies that are in place, but it is not appropriate to pre-judge the results of the consultation that we will be launching in due course.

  • Jessica Morden – 2022 Speech on the Antisocial Use of E-scooters

    Jessica Morden – 2022 Speech on the Antisocial Use of E-scooters

    The speech made by Jessica Morden, the Labour MP for Newport East, in the House of Commons on 8 December 2022.

    Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to have this debate today. I understand it may be the first parliamentary debate on e-scooters in this place. I understand from friends in the other place that there have been a number of references down there. The rise of the e-scooter has been a worldwide phenomenon. The global market for the product has been valued at more than £15 billion a year and it has made its mark in the UK in recent years. It is estimated that there are now 750,000 private e-scooters in use in the UK, with the majority being used illegally. The Bicycle Association suggests that as many as 360,000 were purchased in 2020 alone, and we can expect further growth in their use and sales in the UK in the years to come.

    Today, I speak to draw attention to an issue that is a cause of much frustration to my constituents: the antisocial and illegal use of e-scooters. While not necessarily isolated to individual areas, Lliswerry, Ringland, Alway and St Julians in my constituency have been flashpoints for this activity. My thanks go to the councillors, residents and even a scout group who have discussed the matter with me. Groups of e-scooter and e-bike riders are careering between pavements and the road, breaking speed limits—I have witnessed that—running red lights, weaving in and out of traffic and causing other vehicles and pedestrians to take avoiding action. As one constituent put it to me,

    “the culprits are usually…clothed in black without any reflective items, and have total disregard for the Highway Code and pedestrians.”

    In the dark winter months, that is obviously even more of a hazard for other road users.

    Ahead of the debate, I received a lot of feedback from constituents sharing their experiences of e-scooters. I want to quote just a few examples. One constituent says:

    “They are dangerous, they are on the pavements, and as someone who has a mobility problem I have a problem getting out of there way quickly enough. I am worried that I will get knocked down.”

    Another resident said:

    “They weave in and out of traffic and scare me to death as they just suddenly appear!”

    Another said:

    “As someone who is hard of hearing and with no directional hearing, I don’t hear them…they are a menace when ridden on pavements.”

    Local residents feel intimidated, unsafe and annoyed, not least because the use of e-scooters on roads, pavements and cycle lanes is illegal everywhere in Wales, and there are no designated Welsh e-scooter trial areas. As a Welsh MP, I note that there is some crossover with devolved policy making. For example, any move to extend the UK Government trials to Wales would depend on working with the Welsh Government and Welsh councils and would require the Senedd to amend the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2016. However, it is important to point out that road traffic offences, driver licensing, vehicle insurance and vehicle registration are all reserved issues for the UK Government to address.

    E-scooters are rightly classed as motor vehicles when they are legally used in trial areas, which means that the rules that apply to motor vehicles also apply to e-scooters, including the need to have a licence, insurance and tax. At the moment, you cannot get insurance for privately owned e-scooters and as such you would not be eligible to make an accident or injury claim if you were involved in an incident while riding unlawfully on public roads. The Association of British Insurers has highlighted that, if uninsured e-scooter users cause collisions or injury, the Motor Insurers’ Bureau must pick up the liability for these claims. The MIB reports that it is already seeing a growing number of claims from the illegal use of e-scooters and there is the potential to incur significant costs, which ultimately may lead to increases in motor insurance premiums for other motorists, which is a really unfair situation. In short, unless they are on private land, no one in Wales should be using an e-scooter, nor should anyone in the rest of the UK unless they are renting an approved e-scooter in one of the 30 designated trial areas. To add to some of the confusion around the law as it stands, several of the trial areas are just over the other side of the Severn bridge from my constituency, in Bristol, Gloucester, Cheltenham and Bath.

    Gwent police are doing what they can to crack down on this and have had success in seizing a number of e-scooters engaged in antisocial and illegal activity around Newport. That includes e-scooters, and, indeed, e-bikes and e-motorcycles, being used in drug dealing, which is an alarming trend locally and across the UK. We know that the police cannot be everywhere and that resources are still stretched after 12 years of Tory cuts. Let us not forget that Gwent police saw their budget cut by 40% in the last decade and have been able to maintain a high level of service only by increasing the precept.

    From speaking to the police and other stakeholders, there is a real sense that the problem is not a lack of provision for enforcement action, but a widespread and dangerous lack of knowledge about what the law is, particularly among young people. The waters have been muddied further by leading retailers. This week, The Guardian reported that Amazon was advertising a new e-scooter model last week as a “commuter companion”. The promotion warned users not to travel on the scooter during thunderstorms, but failed to point out that its use on any British road would be illegal. Retailers need to behave more responsibly. Road Safety Wales and Gwent police have campaigned on that, and I totally agree with them that retailers should do more to ensure that potential customers are fully aware that illegal e-scooter use carries with it the risk of a £300 fine, six penalty points on their driving licence and the potential seizure of the scooter.

    The Home Office and the Department for Transport need to do more on awareness, too. It should not be left to individual police forces, whose resources are already stretched, to educate the public. That is one of my main challenges to Ministers: what are they doing to ensure that everyone living outside of a designated trial area knows that they should not be using an e-scooter on a road, cycle path or pavement?

    The use of e-scooters on pavements is also a particular concern for those with hearing loss and the visually impaired, who rely on clear, safe routes to travel independently. Research carried out on behalf of Guide Dogs earlier this year showed that 78% of people with sight loss had had a negative experience with an e-scooter, and that more than 50% had reported changing their behaviour due to e-scooters, including not going into some parts of town, changing their regular routes and doing what they can to reduce their risk of encountering e-scooters.

    Guide Dogs also reported that 12% of people with sight loss have had their mobility aid or cane hit by an e-scooter, 10% had been hit but not injured and 2% had been hit and injured by one. The virtually silent nature of e-scooters is undoubtedly a contributing factor. Guide Dogs and the Royal National Institute of Blind People are supportive of the introduction of an e-scooter equivalent to the acoustic vehicle alerting system on quiet hybrid and electric vehicles. This week, BBC News reported that the University of Salford is developing new technologies that might help with that, working closely with the RNIB and the micro-mobility company, Dott. I trust that the Government will monitor that closely and continue to consider options for the sound-related regulation of e-scooters in future.

    Sound is not the only problem. As private e-scooters are unregulated, there are no restrictions on their power, weight or speed. Indeed, the maximum speed for private e-scooters far exceeds the capped limit for trial e-scooters. Many privately purchased e-scooters are capable of travelling at 30 mph. Some models, such as one of the models highlighted as a cause for concern by Guide Dogs and which is currently sold out on the manufacturer’s UK website, can reach speeds as high as 68 mph. A report by Margaret Winchcomb of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety notes that even private scooters capped at 30 mph can be modified to reach speeds of up to 60 mph.

    Even the rental e-scooters used in the trial areas have a maximum power that is double that of e-bikes and a maximum weight of 55 kg that is roughly three times the average weight of a standard e-bike. The speed, weight and power requirements for e-scooters in trial areas in the UK are also much more lenient than those in place in equivalent schemes in other European countries.

    The combined effect of higher e-scooter speed, power and weight in the UK means that these vehicles are significantly more dangerous in a collision, so it is little wonder that there has been a marked increase in crashes involving e-scooters. There were 460 reported collisions involving e-scooters in 2020; DFT figures covering the year from June 2021 to June 2022 show that the number had risen to 1,349. Over the past year alone, the number of people seriously injured in a collision with an e-scooter has risen to 429, with 12 deaths, so there are issues that the Government need to look at now. There is a real need to improve awareness of existing laws among the public.

    Gwent police and other forces have taken a lead with social media campaigns, particularly around Christmas, making the public aware of the rules for e-scooters before they are purchased as Christmas presents. However, there seems to be little national steer from either the Home Office or the DFT to educate the general population.

    I also want to ask what the Government are doing to ensure that our police forces have all the resources they need to tackle antisocial e-scooter use. When I raised the subject in September with the then Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), she told me that her colleagues in the Department for Transport were liaising with the College of Policing and the National Police Chiefs’ Council on the issue. It would be interesting to know whether there are any updates and whether there is a joined-up approach to enforcement action across the UK.

    On a related note, it is also worth asking what steps will be taken to ensure that efficient mechanisms are in place to report e-scooters that are being used dangerously or illegally. RNIB Cymru is just one of the organisations that have highlighted that as a nationwide issue.

    I recently tabled a written question on e-scooter specifications. The response from the Department for Transport stated:

    “The Department is currently considering options for construction and use regulations for e-scooters, which will likely include requirements for details such as power, weight and maximum design speed.”

    I understand that the Minister may not be able to provide a comprehensive answer today about specification regulations, but any updates on the timeframe within which we can expect an announcement or a consultation would be welcome.

    The lack of regulation and control over the sale of untested and potentially unsafe privately owned e-scooters is a real problem. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) highlighted this week at the Select Committee on Transport, the UK is “falling years behind” other countries because of its lack of regulation on e-scooters, as well as on issues such as pavement parking.

    There is also an ongoing issue with transparency and data reporting from the trial areas in England. It needs to be addressed quickly, because the Government have already announced that the trials can be extended until May 2024. After all, these trials are just that: they are tests. At the moment, it is hard to work out what metric the Government are using to decide whether the trials have been successful. It would be wrong for Ministers to press ahead towards legislation across the UK on the basis of scarce evidence from selected areas in England.

    As just one example, in its 2020 report on e-scooters, the Transport Committee called on the Department to

    “clarify how it intends to monitor whether e-scooters during the rental trials are being ridden on pavements and the number of users penalised for this offence, and that it has evaluated and identified effective measures to eliminate such antisocial behaviour.”

    Although the Government said at the time that they agreed with the Select Committee’s recommendation, there has been no meaningful update on how those issues are being monitored or whether the trials are working.

    It is also worth pointing out that several major European cities that initially embraced different forms of e-scooter trials—notably Paris, Stockholm and Copenhagen—have since partially reversed course and introduced more stringent regulation on their use. E-scooter schemes in Europe are generally far better regulated than the English trials, too: in Germany, for example, all e-scooter users need to be insured, display insurance stickers and use appropriate lights, brakes, reflectors and bells. In countries such as France, Austria, Belgium, Finland and Portugal, rules of the road for e-scooter users replicate those in place for cyclists.

    When I spoke about some of the antisocial behaviour that we have seen in Newport East, I also referred to e-bikes, which many of my constituents see as part of the same problem. Many complaints relate to what appear to be electric bikes, but are technically electric motorcycles—mechanically propelled vehicles with no pedals. It is possible to purchase legal electric bikes, but over the past two years Gwent police have come across only one in the region. The vast majority being used in residential areas cannot be used legally on the roads without a licence, tax, insurance and an MOT. As a result they can be seized under section 165 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, and the police can deal with the rider in relation to any offences found.

    Gwent police has had some success in seizing offending vehicles over recent months, but enforcement comes with challenges. For example, local residents have reported that it is difficult to build up an intel picture of those engaged in dangerous driving or criminal activity, given that culprits often wear similar dark clothing, wear face coverings and use bikes that look incredibly similar. All those factors make it much harder for the police to identify the offenders, let alone justify high-speed pursuits. Those are further issues for the Government to look at.

    I appreciate that there are other sides to this debate, and there will of course be advocates for e-scooters, especially at a time when we want to shift people from car use. One constituent said to me:

    “I do agree they provide very cheap & convenient forms of transport and as usual, it is the inconsiderate riders who spoil it for the genuine ones.”

    Another said:

    “I think e-scooters and e-bikes are great modes of transport and with zero emissions they are a step in the right direction. However, the way they are used at the moment is dangerous and there should be clear rules regarding whether they are for road use or not and make the users have proper lights and wear reflective clothing.”

    What is clear is that we are seeing a modal shift away from cars, a shift that we need to see, and I accept that there is a legitimate case for e-scooters to form part of that mix in the future. However, before pushing ahead with the expansion of their legal use, the Government should be aware of the strength of feeling that exists in communities such as the one that I represent: a view that is shaped by residents’ lived experiences of e-scooters as a nuisance closely linked to antisocial behaviour. Their stance—and that of charities such as Guide Dogs and the Royal National Institute of Blind People which represent the concerns of some of the most vulnerable people in our communities—is that the Government should not proceed with the legalisation of privately owned e-scooters on the basis of the limited evidence available from the designated rental areas alone. Instead, they should look at strengthening regulation, and put public safety first in all their decisions.

    Earlier this year the former Transport Secretary, the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps), said that the Government planned to introduce measures concerning e-scooters in the Queen’s Speech. Those measures never came. A wider transport Bill was also promised, but we learned this week from the new Transport Secretary that it was unlikely to see the light of day in this Parliament. That sheds further light on the recent response to a written question from my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) on e-scooter regulation, in which the Minister of State, Department for Transport, the right hon. and learned Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer) said that the Government would legislate on micro-mobility “when parliamentary time allows”.

    The Transport Secretary at least acknowledged this week that the merry-go-round of Ministers in the Department had contributed to legislative gridlock, but whichever way we look at it, it is not good enough. I should therefore be grateful if, in his response, the Minister could provide a more substantive update on the overdue transport Bill, as well as any necessary secondary legislation to introduce regulations on electric scooters as a defined form of micro-mobility.

    In its 2020 report, the Transport Committee said that the Government should be

    “developing and implementing a sensible and proportionate regulatory framework for legal e-scooter use, drawing on lessons from other countries, which ensures that potential negative impacts on pedestrians and disabled people are avoided.”

    That still has not happened, and it needs to happen now.

  • PRESS RELEASE : United Kingdom calls for global community to continue fight against corruption [December 2022]

    PRESS RELEASE : United Kingdom calls for global community to continue fight against corruption [December 2022]

    The press release issued by the Foreign Office on 9 December 2022.

    At the International Anti-Corruption Conference in Washington DC, the United Kingdom delegation emphasised the need for the global community to continue fighting illicit finance and corruption.

    Senior representatives from international governments joined key business leaders on 6 December 2022 to discuss recently taken action and the need to continue to take a robust stance.

    Speakers included Jake Sullivan, the US National Security Advisor, Maia Sandu, the President of Moldova and David Malpass, the President of the World Bank.

    His Majesty’s Ambassador to the US, Karen Pierce, represented the UK and spoke at the event. She said:

    Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shown that corruption is a threat to global stability, to our democratic societies, and to our collective security.

    Illicit finance and corruption have been used deliberately to gain access and influence in the UK and countries across the globe, threatening our democratic institutions, our politics, and our polices.

    We need to redouble our efforts to counter these threats.  We must advocate for stronger transparency in our financial systems, investment in law enforcement capability, and cooperation internationally.

    We should also be honest that we have been complacent in the past. Our priority is to take further domestic action to tackle corruption and illicit finance in all its forms.

    Minister for Security, Tom Tugendhat, is overseeing the UK’s comprehensive response to the threat posed by illicit finance and corruption.

    This response includes the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act which is going through the Parliamentary process.

    It will build on the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act, introduced in March 2022, to further bear down kleptocrats, criminals and terrorists the UK’s financial system.

    The new bill also includes a reform of Companies House, which will prevent the abuse of limited partnerships. It will additionally provide powers to seize crypto assets more quickly and introduce to tackle money laundering.

    The Security Minister said:

    Illicit finance and corruption are a serious threat to global stability and our national security depends on taking decisive action.

    This starts at home. The UK has put the strongest sanctions of any G20 country against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

    Our new legislation, and the upcoming publication of our Anti-Corruption Strategy and UK Economic Crime Plan, means we will continue to take tough action against those who seek to threaten our way of life.

    The threat posed by transnational corruption, however, requires a global response. The US National Security Advisor’s commitment at the conference to support important legislative change will strengthen anti-money laundering regulation in the US.

    We need to continue to work on a bilateral and multilateral basis to protect our way of life.