Speeches by Harding.

“You speak about two incidents. One was in May 2024 and the next was in October 2024. During that time, there was a change of Government. Is it your understanding that that attitude towards the UAE, or the pressure that was being put on the Government, was the same and that Ministers were acting in the same way despite …”

“Does that give you confidence that you can take more preventative action for El Obeid than happened for El Fasher?”

“Has there been an internal review process since the fall of El Fasher on what the FCDO’s response to it was?”

“Yes.”

“I am very keen to hear about the ISF too. Minister, I was in Adré, as I know you have been. I was told there that they expected after the fall of El Fasher, 90,000 people to cross the border and only 45,000 arrived. There are many missing and the estimates put the number who were killed in the fall of El Fasher at 60,0…”

“Do you have any evidence, or can you give us any understanding, of the pressure that the UAE was putting on the UK Government?”

“Can I return to your comments on Foreign Secretary Lammy during the Zamzam camp attack? What should have happened, in your opinion, at that point? What statement should the UK have made?”

“Looking at Sudan today and what seems to be a threat in El Obeid happening right now, what would be your advice now to the Foreign Secretary?”

“I want to come back to the gap. I think we can accept, while we do not approve, that the gap between general elections may structurally produce the results that you have talked about. It is still true to say that at the point at which the new Government came in, atrocity prevention was not a priority. Push back at me i…”

“Do you have any evidence, or can you give us any understanding, of the pressure that the UAE was putting on the UK Government?”

“Can I return to your comments on Foreign Secretary Lammy during the Zamzam camp attack? What should have happened, in your opinion, at that point? What statement should the UK have made?”

“I understand that it is not straightforward, but we have heard evidence in the session before this that the British UK Government’s reluctance to name and shame led to a loss of lives in El Fasher. How do we make sure that that is not the case now, when it is looming in El Obeid?”

“Just to be clear, had the UK Government called out the UAE, there would have been lives saved?”

“We have been waiting for the UK-EU reset for two years, and today we have just more warm words after the UK-EU reset summit was postponed because the Labour party has decided to change its leader. On the anniversary of the Brexit referendum, when we are all poorer and our economy has taken a 6% to 8% hit because of it,…”

“The Bill’s offences are broad enough to inadvertently criminalise routine humanitarian operations, which could pose a significant problem for non-governmental organisations operating in countries where state institutions or public bodies could become designated bodies. Although safeguards for humanitarian operations ar…”

“The world has failed Sudan. We know that the international fact-finding mission has noted evidence of a genocide following the fall of El Fasher. What is the UK doing as penholder at the UN to ensure that the belligerents responsible are being held to account, as well as the state actors aiding and abetting them?”

“My constituents are facing an average water bill of £658 a year, yet Thames Water continues to fail them. Sewage has poured into the River Mole, which runs through my constituency. The rec next to the Esher treatment works, where children play, has had sewage in it. I told the House last week that there was sewage outs…”

“I welcome the ban, and I know that thousands of other parents of the frontier generation—the children who were born after the advent of Facebook in 2004—will be welcoming it too. However, as the Secretary of State has said, children get around bans, and there are also children over the age of 16 who will be vulnerable.…”

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“My brother-in-law Pip Harding, who is with us in the Public Gallery today, was diagnosed with a glioblastoma in March 2024 and given nine months to live. He is still here today, thank God—looking amazing—because he received treatment that cost a huge amount of money, which was crowdfunded. That highlights a very uncomf…”