Speeches by Ballinger.

“You said earlier that humanitarian aid could be delivered now and should be delivered urgently, and now you are saying that it should be part of the next phase.”

“We are embedded in the CMCC, and you have said that the humanitarian situation leaves a lot to be desired, what with the number of people who have died due to flooding, the huge restriction in tents, the small numbers of additional trucks that the UN is being allowed to deliver through, and Rafah crossing still being c…”

“Brilliant. Thank you, Foreign Secretary. I am glad that you mentioned working with the Syrian Government on normalising the situation there and building a more inclusive and representative country. I have one final question on this issue. Could you say a bit more about our work on the issues around governance and suppo…”

“There have been a number of appalling ISIS-linked attacks in recent days, including the devastating antisemitic attack in Australia. We are also seeing an uptick in ISIS-linked violence in Syria, where a number of American servicemen were killed over the weekend. What can you tell us about our response to ISIS in Syria…”

“Yes. The peacebuilding work and the on-the-ground, grassroots efforts are not quite as high profile as the conflicts in Ukraine and Sudan.”

“Absolutely. Finally, on the prioritisation of the development budgets—this may just be a quirk of the way things are calculated—I was a bit surprised that, while we are seeing reductions in eastern Europe and the middle east, there has been an increase in the Americas and the Indo-Pacific region, with a large increase …”

“In our part of the country, in Halesowen and the Black Country, we have a long history of building trains and railways. Indeed, in Stourbridge—just one stop down the line—Foster, Rastrick & Co. built the Stourbridge Lion, the very first steam locomotive to be exported to the Americas in 1829. However, since the clo…”

“Is there a reduction across the board in FCDO funding in the eastern European neighbourhood, if you include the ISF and other programmes?”

“I have a couple of other security-related questions on ODA prioritisation. We heard earlier about the movement of the migration and conflict directorates into separate areas. I have heard anecdotally that the conflict part, despite moving to the humanitarian department, will be reducing in number, and some of the NGO p…”

“So climate spending is increasing, while other areas are reducing. Is that the summary?”

“Thank you, Nick. The diplomatic network, and the work that officers in the FCDO are doing around this, is very good. I think there is a particular concern about civilian peacebuilding organisations that are working in areas that are maybe not the top priorities that you talked about, to prevent conflicts that might hap…”

“I have questions on migration, but does anyone want to ask about ODA?”

“The Committee has been running an inquiry into disinformation, and over the past couple of months, we have visited a lot of countries in Eastern Europe and seen with our own eyes the scale of Russian influence, something that the Department knows well. We were a bit surprised to see the reduction in spending in the eas…”

“It is an ODA question as well, but I am happy to come back to it later.”

“Coming back to Russian influence and disinformation in eastern Europe, considering the FCDO’s commitment to confronting national security threats while supporting Ukraine and deepening security partnerships in eastern Europe, I was surprised to see a reduction in the support for the eastern European neighbourhood from …”

“On the increase in funding for the Americas, is that for disaster response? What is the rationale for that?”

“The Ajax vehicle was ordered in 2014, and was due to be delivered in 2017. It has now been delivered eight years late, in a state of service that is completely unusable by our personnel. This is a catastrophic failure by MOD procurement. As we increase spending as we respond to the war in Ukraine, how is the Minister e…”

“Last week, I had the privilege of meeting a number of schools during UK Parliament Week, including Tenterfields academy, the Impact independent school and Leasowes high school in my constituency. I had some fantastic questions and really intelligent insights into democracy from those students. Leasowes high school had …”

“Thank you. Amanda, it was mentioned there that the legal services were a big missed opportunity. How has the agreement affected your sector, if at all?”

“Thank you and good afternoon. We have had an excellent panel looking at goods just now, but of course services trade with India is larger than goods and has been growing more quickly. The first question is: how does this trade agreement that we have affect services trade and which sectors stand to gain or lose the most…”