Alicia Kearns: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to support the High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Alicia Kearns: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether it remains his policy to support the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Alicia Kearns: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether he plans that the UK will re-join the EUFOR peacekeeping force in Bosnia and Herzegovina if its mandate is extended by the UN in November.
Alicia Kearns: Let me start by putting on record my thanks to you, Mr Speaker, and the parliamentary security and intelligence services for your personal support over the last few months. Here today, we know that across this House a real priority for Members is the safety of British nationals arbitrarily detained abroad. The Foreign Affairs Committee has recently released a report on that matter. It cannot...
Alicia Kearns: I know the Minister has historically been very strong on this point. I am interested in the fact that the Government have raised that point about sanctions and the possibility of sanctions, because we have not heard that before. Both the US and EU have sanctioned those who use slave labour within their supply chains. If the Government—I hope they are saying this today; I know they cannot...
Alicia Kearns: A core pillar of this Bill is the delivery of a safe, secure and resilient UK energy system, but no energy system can be safe and secure when it risks undermining our food security and contravenes our values by using forced labour throughout its supply chains. We live in a contested world, and there is no doubt that energy security is one of the greatest challenges of our time, but we can...
Alicia Kearns: I thank my right hon. Friend, who as always makes very valid points. In my own constituency, one village will be 95% encircled by solar that will be 13 feet high, in one of the areas that produces the greatest food in our country.
Alicia Kearns: My hon. Friend is absolutely right: farmers want to conserve and to grow the food of this nation. They do not want to turn to solar, which landowners are often doing.
Alicia Kearns: I absolutely agree. That is why I still urge the Government to bring forward a strategy on rooftop solar—they can do so. Turning to new clause 47, the UK has tough modern slavery laws. It is evident that we want to do something about that issue, but we cannot outsource the protection of human rights. There are developers who utilise forced labour in their supply chains—who not only...
Alicia Kearns: I could not agree more with the right hon. Gentleman. That is the exactly the point I would make. The new clause speaks for itself: this is about transparency and finally dealing with the forced labour being imposed on our countryside. The path we choose today will define not just define our values but the legacy that we leave for future generations and for our children. I hope the House will...
Alicia Kearns: Will the Minister give way on that point?
Alicia Kearns: As my hon. Friend knows, I raised this issue at Prime Minister’s questions only yesterday. I have to admit that, to my great frustration, I was not particularly delighted by the Prime Minister’s answer. On 19 January on the Floor of this House, at the Dispatch Box, and again in a written ministerial statement, the Secretary of State confirmed that pre-legislative scrutiny would be...
Alicia Kearns: As we all do today, I rise with Sir David Amess in my heart and in my thoughts. He was a great friend—a cheeky friend—and mentor to so many of us. I am very fortunate to represent the amazing communities of Rutland and Melton, the Vale and Harborough villages, which cover 187 villages, three towns and 431 square miles. Within my constituency, we have the Hallaton hoard of Roman gold and...
Alicia Kearns: A number of us in the House speak regularly on this issue, and I fear that sometimes colleagues feel that it is a repeated mantra and we are just fearful for no reason or there is not an escalation. My right hon. Friend mentioned Dodik’s secessionist policies; Dodik has now introduced a new law that disapplies to Republika Srpska the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s...
Alicia Kearns: Does my hon. Friend agree with me that academics need to recognise that they do not live in a status free of geopolitics and national security? We need to see prosecutions brought against some of those academics because they broke sanctions legislation, evaded sanctions and helped undermine sanctions. If we see that, we may finally see academia recognise that it cannot continue to partner...
Alicia Kearns: My hon. Friend the Minister has just made the point that 23 planning applications are currently in the NSIP process. As far as I understand it, not a single proposal has been turned down yet by the Government. Does that mean that, no matter what, NSIP projects will be given the green light to go ahead, even if the Planning Inspectorate blacks out MPs’ responses and all sorts of other...
Alicia Kearns: I am slightly surprised that the hon. Gentleman has not mentioned human rights. He has dashed my hopes of the Labour party’s support for my new clause to the Energy Bill—although I will come back to him for a flip on that in a few weeks’ time—but what about the amendment that recognises that we should not be importing Uyghur-produced slave labour solar panels?
Alicia Kearns: No, please do! You speak on behalf of your party.
Alicia Kearns: On exactly that point, Canadian Solar, the company that I mentioned earlier—I am sure that the Foreign Office Parliamentary Private Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra), will report back, now that he is here—needs to be sanctioned urgently. It is not Canadian. In fact, it is a Chinese company—Chinese run and based in China—pretending to be...
Alicia Kearns: It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Nokes. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson) for securing this important debate. It is no coincidence, as I said earlier, that many of us speaking in this Chamber today represent Rutland, Leicestershire or Lincolnshire, which have historically been known as the breadbasket of England. They have fed...