Speeches by Harding.

“Foreign Secretary, further to what you just said, ICAI has pointed out that the commitment by the British Government to ODA spent overseas in ’27-28, is 0.24%, not 0.3%. That is the projection.”

“I have already laid out what we could do in Israel, but my question is to you, Foreign Secretary. What do you think we should do? Otherwise, as you said, it is a race to the bottom.”

“Can I just finish? I just have one last point. This comes back to your point about recognition of a Palestinian state. You talked about other countries doing so and nothing happening. Britain is not other countries. As you know—as you have been proud of and said in the past—we have a key role on the world stage in our …”

“Foreign Secretary, you talked about core funding going to organisations on the ground that are trying to help with the upholding of international humanitarian law. The UK gives money to the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission, which Poland asked to look at the attacks on World Central Kitchen, but Britai…”

“Foreign Secretary, you made the point that I was going to make: the public are watching, and they want the British Government to do something. I appreciate what has been done already, but they want you to do more. There are things you could do. You have sanctioned Ben-Gvir and Smotrich. You could sanction Katz; he has …”

“Since the conference?”

“Have you been able to speak to the UAE, Egypt and the Saudis on this particular issue?”

“Finally, Foreign Secretary, can you tell me about the conversations you have been having with other regional actors, since the conference, on driving the diplomacy forwards so that we can see an end to the war?”

“The humanitarian efforts and the emergency response rooms in Sudan have been very effective. Can you talk me through how the FCDO works to support them at the same time as multilateral agencies that are working in the field?”

“Do you believe that the trade agreement with the GCC should have a human rights chapter attached to it? If so, where is the human rights chapter in trade agreements driven from? Is that from the Department for Business and Trade or the FCDO?”

“Do the reports trouble you? At the moment, the Government are negotiating a trade agreement—”

“At last week’s Business and Trade Sub-Committee meeting I had an exchange with the Minister for Trade Policy about export licences and arms licences, particularly with regard to the UAE. Since Sudan’s war broke out in 2023, The New York Times has repeatedly reported on the UAE arming the RSF, including by funnelling ar…”

“Thank you for your efforts, Foreign Secretary. What momentum has there been since the London conference? Its results were disappointing.”

“Foreign Secretary, of course I do not need to remind you that Sudan is suffering the worst humanitarian crisis since aid began, and there are war crimes being committed, it seems, on almost a daily basis. There has been one statement from you on Sudan in seven months; are the Government treating it as a priority?”

“Foreign Secretary, you say you are absolutely committed to development, and that the poorest people in the world should not be at the mercy of political decisions, yet your Government have cut the aid budget by 40%—much further than any other Government—to the lowest level for 50 years. Can you see how those two things…”

“The ongoing war in Sudan is the world’s largest humanitarian catastrophe and the biggest since aid began. I thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question, but I regret that in the past seven months there has been only one statement on Sudan from the Government. Local and community-led emergency response room…”

“Strengthen surveillance systems, which you say will be replicated by a new fund, but how would that intersect also with the surveillance that is diminished as a result of the WHO cuts to funding? While I understand that there are preventative measures here, what about the surveillance systems that the Fleming Fund was …”

“I want to come back to the point you made, which is the partnership and reimagining aid in that event. The head of the Wellcome Charitable Foundation pointed out—I am sure you read the article in the FT—that aid cuts will have a bigger impact than the covid pandemic on health in the Global South. While I understand tha…”

“Back to the Fleming Fund.”

“Will there be a situation where the UK would increase funding, obviously not to completely fill that gap but to go some way, with a coalition of other countries?”