Britain in the World — House of Commons, 2015-06-01
Topic: Civil Rights
Hilary James Benn (Labour, Centre-left): I am happy to give my right hon. Friend that assurance Each of these conflicts has its own causes but, as well as being about who has power in a country, one of the threads that runs through many of the conflicts is the uneasy relationship between the secular and the religious. We should understand that all too well in this country, given our history of power struggles, religious intolerance and persecution, but we have now reached a state in which we have shown that it is possible both to uphold universal human rights and to enable people to be absolutely free to practise their religion. That is one of the reasons why Britain is admired by many countries across the world for its genuine freedom, but we cannot be complacent here and we have to be on our guard against the rise of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia as we stand up against religious and other persecution across the world, whether it be of Christians, of those who are lesbian, gay, transgender or bisexual, or of the Rohingya who have been affected by the recent crisis in Burma I welcome the work that Ministers have done to highlight the terrible effects of sexual violence on girls and women in armed conflict. Anyone who has visited the Panzi hospital in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as I had the privilege of doing when I was International Development Secretary, will have been deeply moved by the stories told of rape, sometimes by children too young to understand what had really happened to them, and inspired by the work of Dr Denis Mukwege and his team as they provide care and treatment with the utmost compassion The most important human right is the right to life, and this year marks the 50th anniversary of the suspension of capital punishment in Britain, which was followed by its abolition four years later. I hope that, as we oppose the use of the death penalty in all circumstances, as do the Government, the number of people on death row should lead us further to strengthen our efforts around the world to abolish the death penalty No debate about Britain and the world can ignore the threat of climate change. As the impact of floods in Britain has shown, climate change is now an issue of national, as well as global, security. We have seen drought in California, floods in Texas and typhoons in the Philippines—these are things the world thought would be experienced only by our children and our grandchildren. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is clear that, if we are to hold global warming below 2°, emissions need to peak in 2020 and then rapidly decline. That is why we need a strong agreement at the United Nations framework convention on climate change conference in Paris in December that sets ambitious targets; has a goal of net zero global emissions in the second half of this century; has common rules for measuring and verifying; and has a fair deal in which richer countries help to support poorer nations to combat climate change. Britain’s development and climate change assistance will help Britain’s record on development assistance and the passing into law of the 0.7% target are shining examples of the power of political movements to change things, just as those who advocate slashing our aid budget are narrow-minded, selfish and wrong. The work we do as a nation to help to send children to school and to vaccinate kids against diseases that our children do not die of, and the help we give to fragile and conflict-affected states, are powerful examples of what being a good neighbour means in this century. The sustainable development goals summit later this year will be a chance, after seven years in which the world has faced inwards because of the global economic crash, to turn our face back outwards and renew our commitment to our fellow citizens Ultimately, this is about political will. Progress will depend on our ability as a world to come together and co-operate in tackling poverty and conflict—the two great engines of the movement of people around the globe. We know that civil wars result, on average, in 20 years of lost development. It is no accident that Afghanistan has the highest rate of infant mortality in the world and that many of the Earth’s poorest people live in countries at risk of, or recovering from, war. In the years to come, we may well see people fighting each other not about their politics and their religion, but about water, energy and land. Whatever their character, what these conflicts have in common is that the countries in which they are happening have been unable or unwilling to secure the lives of their citizens. The way forward is clear: replace violence with good politics—its your choice; compromise; build good governance, security and the rule of law; promote economic opportunity, land rights, and trade; improve transport and telecommunications; and encourage openness to the world Those are the characteristics of successful states, and the responsibility of the rest of the world is to help this happen. That does not mean the United Kingdom has to do everything—we should not and we cannot—but we should seek to build the world’s capacity to do so. Nor does it mean that, if we propose to act somewhere, we should feel reticent for fear of being accused of inconsistency. Not doing the right thing somewhere because you cannot do the right thing everywhere has never struck me as a compelling reason for inaction Martin Luther King put it like this: "On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life’s roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway." That is why we should stand by the United Nations, despite the fact that it too often lacks the will of its member states and the means to act, because it remains the best hope of a new world order. We face a very simple choice as a world. We cannot shut the door, close the curtains and hope that the rest of the world will go away, because it will not and we will feel the consequences anyway. What we should do is seize the opportunities that our increasingly interdependent and interconnected world offers Britain: new export markets, investment, jobs and a voice. That is why an outward-facing country is what we must continue to be.