Catherine West

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Dr Huq; I acknowledge your interest in matters relating to human rights, humanitarian aid and Africa. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Harpreet Uppal) for securing this debate; I am sure that many of her diaspora in Huddersfield are listening carefully to the arguments she has made. Indeed, we have a number of active MPs who mentioned the diaspora today, including my hon. Friends the Members for Aylesbury (Laura Kyrke-Smith), for York Central (Rachael Maskell) and for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee). Our constituents care deeply about the welfare of Sudanese civilians. That is why it is so important that we have these debates and discussions. I will try to answer Members’ points, but I specifically wanted to come to the question of our constituents to say that the Foreign Secretary has made a commitment—as part of our strategic diaspora engagement on Sudan—that the UK engages with civil society and diaspora at ministerial and official level. In December, the Minister for Africa, Lord Collins, attended a roundtable alongside representatives of the Sudanese diaspora and civil society, hosted by Dr Zeinab Badawi, president of SOAS University of London. In the run-up to the London Sudan conference in April, we had an extensive engagement with civil society and NGOs, including at ministerial level, which provided valuable insights into Sudanese views on how to end this dreadful crisis. We complement that work with significant engagement with civilian groups inside and outside Sudan, and have supported civilian activists briefing the UN Security Council. As for any diaspora strategy, we are seeing it today in person through all the hon. Members from across the UK who have come to give voice to the concerns of their own constituents. We know that Sudan is enduring the most severe humanitarian crisis on record. As I outlined on 16 July in response to the urgent question, the situation is nothing short of catastrophic and the consequences of this brutal conflict are being felt. In terms of the numbers, my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) said they were equivalent to half the population of Australia. To put it another way, more Sudanese are affected by this crisis than the number of people in Afghanistan, Gaza, Mali and Bangladesh combined. With the rainy season approaching, the threat of famine and cholera will only grow, putting even more lives at risk. That is why I was so pleased to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Dr Sullivan) mention the neglected tropical disease mycetoma, and the rather more common disease malaria, which will flourish in those conditions. It is clear that the humanitarian situation is being exacerbated by how the war is being fought, with both sides showing complete disregard for human life. Reports of appalling atrocities are widespread, civilians are targeted on the basis of ethnicity, sexual violence is rampant, and aid is being weaponised as both sides continue to seek a military solution. As with many other conflicts—and as my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Alice Macdonald) so eloquently pointed out—it is women and children who are bearing the brunt. A shocking 25% of the population or 12 million people are estimated to be at risk of sexual and gender-based violence in Sudan—as was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi). Only last week in Sudan’s Kordofan region, more than 450 civilians were killed in brutal attacks, including pregnant women and at least 35 children. Over 3,000 people are reported to have fled recent fighting. The Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC—which was mentioned by several hon. Members this afternoon—stated that it has, “reasonable grounds to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity have been and are continuing to be committed in Darfur”. That is why it is so important that we deal with the issue of displacement—which was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Steve Race) and the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Monica Harding). In May, during her visit to the Sudan-Chad border, Minister Chapman announced that the UK would provide £36 million in funding for the financial year 2025-26 for Sudanese refugees in eastern Chad. The collapsing economy and acute food insecurity will hopefully be addressed by some of those funds. The Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC recently stated that it has reasonable grounds to believe that war crimes are being committed. We call on all parties to the conflict to comply with their obligations under international law. I include any external partners—as was raised by the hon. Member for Esher and Walton—regardless of which country they come from and their role, and ask that they put down their weapons and work together to find a peace process. That is why the Foreign Secretary led at the London Sudan conference this Easter. As the humanitarian situation worsens, the very people trying to deliver aid to those most in need across Sudan have been continuously obstructed from conducting lifesaving work. More than 120 humanitarian workers have been killed since the beginning of the conflict. Just last month, the UNICEF-WFP convoy waiting to deliver lifesaving aid to those fleeing violence in El Fasher was attacked and five aid workers lost their lives, as was highlighted in the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for York Central, who chairs the all-party parliamentary group for Sudan and South Sudan. Let me be clear: all parties must allow aid to reach those who need it most, and humanitarian workers must never be a target. I was very impressed by the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford and Bow (Uma Kumaran) and other colleagues from the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs in listening first hand to the accounts by doctors who have delivered medical aid in Sudan and the horrors of what they saw there. The UK can, however, be proud of the fact that we are playing our part in addressing the worst consequences of this wholly unjustified war. Sudan has been a top priority for the UK Government since taking office, and indeed a personal priority for the Foreign Secretary, who in January became the first UK Foreign Secretary to visit Chad, when he saw first hand the devastating effect of war on refugee communities. Our goals are clear: to secure more humanitarian aid, to ensure that it reaches those in need, to protect civilians and to stop the fighting and work with the Sudanese people to deliver long-term peace. The hon. Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell), speaking from the Conservative Front Bench, asked how exactly the funding would be spent. I can reassure him that the £120 million for this year will be spent on lifesaving aid, given the nutritional deficit there. The Mercy Corps-led cash consortium for Sudan, which is a multilateral group, will also receive UK funding to provide direct cash assistance to mutual aid groups on the ground, because we are aware that, with the banking situation in crisis, some multilateral organisations simply cannot provide the usual sorts of aid.