The Coalition government’s cuts will be the dominant political focus for the next 4-5 years and will impact across all areas including foreign affairs and human rights, an area of recent controversy.
This is of particular interest to me given my service in the previous parliament on the Joint Committee for Human Rights and the large number of constituents who originate from countries across the world and frequently contact me on these matters.
The Prime Minister has signalled very clearly that under this government there will need to be “a big step change in our approach to foreign and diplomatic relations massively upgrading the importance of trade in terms of the contacts we have with other countries.” Obviously in the tough economic conditions we are in Britain needs to be working hard to maximise trade and investment but this should not be at the expense of global efforts to tackle human rights abuses by rogue regimes.
Despite rhetoric to the contrary this is what is happening as a result of Foreign Office cuts that will be fully announced in the autumn spending review. When Robin Cook was Labour Foreign Secretary in 1997 he introduced the annual Foreign Office Human Rights Report that tracked human rights abuses across the world by some of the worst regimes.
The coalition government are now reviewing the production of this report and planning cuts of £560,000 from the human rights and democracy fund. Shadow Foreign Secretary David Miliband has said the report was a "crucial tool in ensuring that there is accountability and oversight at a time when human rights abuses require Britain to show leadership rather than to walk away." He added: "Britain has led the world in standing up for human rights and the coalition's actions did not back up its words."
There are also media reports that the BBC world service to Burma – a regime with terrible track record on human rights – is under threat.
The Africa Minister Henry Bellingham has made worrying remarks on a recent trip to Sudan where human rights abuses against civilians in Darfur have resulted in Sudan being referred to the International Criminal Court and the President being served with an arrest warrant. Bellingham said “We feel the government of Sudan should co-operate with the court on the existing arrest warrants. But on the other hand we don't have an argument with the Sudanese people and it would be quite perverse and wrong for us to not encourage trade because trade equals wealth."
By prioritising trade over human rights the coalition is rewarding regimes that abuse their own people. Cutting back on human rights monitoring will cost lives. It can not be right to have unfettered trade with countries that have war crimes and human rights abuses to their name. I have listened to the harrowing stories from constituents about their families in Sri Lanka, Palestine, Burma and elsewhere who have suffered terribly and know that we must not abandon them in their hour of need no matter how tough the economic climate.
