Tag: Tom Brake

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Brake on 2016-03-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the Answer of 9 March 2016 to Question 29390, what definition of principle of military necessity his Department uses to assess whether an incident counts as violation of international humanitarian law.

Penny Mordaunt

International Humanitarian Law is founded in customary international law but now extensively codified in international agreements, most notably the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the Additional Protocols. The UK’s interpretation of the principles of proportionality, military necessity, humanity and distinction is set out in the Ministry of Defence’s Joint Service Publication (JSP) 383, the Manual of the Law of Armed Conflict, which is available online (https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/jsp-383).

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Brake on 2016-03-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, if he will estimate the number of UK firms based in the East of England that trade with other EU member states; and how many people are employed by each such firm.

Anna Soubry

HMRC Regional Trade Statistics on the number of firms trading with the EU are publically available through the UKTradeInfo website.

HM Treasury has published estimates of the number of UK jobs linked to EU exports broken down by region. These are available through the GOV.UK website.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Brake on 2016-04-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to provide additional emergency accommodation for homeless people in London.

Mr Marcus Jones

One person without a home is one too many and we are committed to do all we can to prevent homelessness. We recently provided an additional £5 million for local authorities facing the greatest pressures in moving people out of temporary accommodation and into a settled home. 21 local authorities in London received a share of this funding.

We invested in the world’s first homelessness Social Impact Bond in London, which aimed to turn around the lives of 830 entrenched rough sleepers. So far, over half have achieved positive outcomes. We have also supported the roll-out of No Second Night Out through the £20 million Homelessness Transition Fund, which has also helped fund more than 30 London based projects aimed at tackling homelessness. The Greater London Authority No Second Night Out project has helped new rough sleepers in London off the street quickly and prevented them from becoming entrenched.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Brake on 2016-04-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, how many export licence applications made since March 2015 related to the supply of equipment to Saudi Arabia have not been approved due to non-compliance with criterion 2 of the National Arms Export Licensing Criteria.

Anna Soubry

We rigorously assess each application on a case-by-case basis against the Consolidated EU and National Arms Export Licensing Criteria. A licence will not be granted if to do so would breach these Criteria.

Since March 2015 no export licence applications have been refused due to non-compliance with Criterion 2, although seven have been refused under Criterion 7 (risk of diversion to undesirable end users or end use).

Information on military and dual use export licences is published as Official Statistics in the quarterly and annual reports on Strategic Export Controls which are all available to view on GOV.UK. These reports contain detailed information on export licences issued, refused or revoked, by destination, including the overall value, type (e.g. Military, Other) and a summary of the items covered by these licences.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Brake on 2016-04-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what discussions he has had with the Hungarian government about the sale of Hungarian residency bonds through off-shore companies.

Mr David Lidington

Neither I, nor the The Foreign Secretary, my Rt Hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond), have had any discussions with the Hungarian government on this issue.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Brake on 2016-05-04.

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department is taking to provide development assistance to native Tibetans in Tibet.

Mr Desmond Swayne

DFID does not have a bilateral programme in the Tibetan region.

Tibet is included within an Asia Regional programme which helps communities adapt to the effects of climate change and environmental degradation in the Mount Kailash area, the source of South Asia’s largest rivers. This area includes Tibet, India and Nepal. DFID has also funded assessments of glacial melt and rivers in the Himalayas, which contain findings relevant to Tibet.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Brake on 2016-06-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, which sources independent of the Saudi government are assessed by the UK Government regarding the alleged use of cluster munitions by the Saudi led coalition in Yemen.

Mr Tobias Ellwood

The UK Government considers a range of information regarding the conduct of the Saudi Arabian-led Coalition in Yemen. This includes UN sources, INGO reports, open sources such as social media, and our internal government sources which includes UK Defence Intelligence reports. This comes from government sources, foreign governments, the media and international non-governmental organisations. The UK ratified the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 4 May 2010 and, in line with our obligations under the Convention, we have always made it clear to the Saudi Arabians that we cannot support the use of cluster munitions in any circumstances and we continue to encourage Saudi Arabia, as a non-party to the Convention, to accede to it.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Brake on 2016-09-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, pursuant to the Answers of 10 May 2016 to Questions 36574 and 36576, in what way his Department carried out its assessment of the human rights situation in Tibet; and for what reasons the 2015 Foreign and Commonwealth Office Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy contained no relevant information on that situation.

Alok Sharma

Our assessment of the situation of Tibet is based on range of credible sources and information gathered by diplomats and officials. I draw the Hon. Members attention to the most recent version (updated in July 2016) of the Human Rights and Democracy report where we outline a number of concerns relating to Tibet. We raise these concerns regularly, for example I raised two Tibetan cases involving freedom of expression (Tashi Wangchuk and Druklo (Shokjang)) with the Chinese Ambassador on 1 August.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Brake on 2016-09-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policy of the UN Secretary-General’s statement of 11 July 2016 on events in South Sudan; and whether the Government supports calls for an arms embargo to that country and the strengthening of the UN mission in South Sudan in the light of its response to those events.

Mr Tobias Ellwood

We welcomed the statement made by the UN Secretary-General on the situation in South Sudan. Our policy continues to be focussed on helping to protect the people of South Sudan and we are in support of an arms embargo as a means to support this. We lobbied hard to strengthen the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) and supported UN Security Council Resolution 2304, adopted on 12 August, which mandated a regional protection force of up to 4000 additional troops to robustly protect civilians and key humanitarian transit routes in Juba. In addition, the Secretary of State for Defence, Rt Hon the member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon) announced on 8 September that the number of UK troops to be deployed within UNMISS will be increased to close to 400 in order to support the mission’s operations.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Brake on 2016-10-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what discussions he has had with the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions on the demolition of Palestinian homes.

Mr Tobias Ellwood

​We have not had any discussions with the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions.