Kirsty McNeill

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Allin-Khan. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Naushabah Khan) for securing this important debate, and for her recent visit to Egypt, alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Gordon McKee). As they will have both heard, the conflict in Sudan is one of the most devastating and—I would argue—defining conflicts of the 21st century. For the millions of people living through it, the word “crisis” just does not do it justice. That is why I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham and others in the Chamber today for continuing to shine a light on this conflict, and I ask them to please pass on my sincere gratitude to all their constituents who have been in touch on this issue. It is incredibly inspiring to see their solidarity with people who they may never meet. I also want to pay tribute to my predecessors, my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) and Baroness Chapman of Darlington, and the former Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley (Yvette Cooper), for their tireless efforts to strengthen the world’s response. My message today is simple: the UK stands with the people of Sudan, and this Government, the Foreign Secretary and I stand with them too. We have heard powerfully from all the speakers today about the current situation, not least from the shadow Minister, the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton). I will not rehearse all the statistics, but I would like to add two of my own: Sudan is now the deadliest place on earth to be a health worker, and it is the second deadliest place on earth to be an aid worker. There can be no justification, in any circumstance, for attacks on those who simply seek to serve humanity. When faced with suffering on this scale, our compassion is not enough, and our outrage is not enough. I know that Members want to hear about our action, so let me go through the points that have been raised in turn. This year, the UK has committed £146 million in support for Sudan, which will reach over 1.8 million people. Having been asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Nesil Caliskan), I am pleased to confirm that, as part of that work, we have launched a £20 million programme to support survivors of sexual and gender-based violence with medical and psychological care. To ensure that those closest to the crisis can deliver aid to the hardest-to-reach areas, we have more than doubled our support to local Sudanese responders, including to local emergency response rooms. I am proud of what we are doing on aid, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham pointed out, aid alone is not enough, which is why she sought reassurance on arms sales.