Dominic Raab urges world not to “turn away from Rohingya’s suffering” as the UK pledges life-saving support

• Foreign Secretary announces £47.5million new UK aid to support 860,000 Rohingya refugees and help Bangladesh deal with coronavirus and natural disasters
• This extra support comes ahead of a pledging conference co-hosted by the UK, US, EU and UNCHR today and follows UK sanctions on perpetrators of violence against the Rohingya people
• Dominic Raab calls on the world not to “turn away from the Rohingya’s suffering”

The UK will today pledge £47.5 million to provide life-saving support for Rohingya refugees and to help Bangladesh with its response to the coronavirus pandemic and natural disasters.

This announcement comes as the UK co-hosts a major international summit on the Rohingya crisis, along with the US, EU and UNHCR, to bring together the international community to raise much-needed funds for the humanitarian response.

Some 860,000 Rohingya live in overcrowded camps in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, without formal education or work opportunities. Coronavirus has made the situation in the packed and unsanitary camps even more desperate.

This new funding announced by the Foreign Secretary will provide hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people with food, healthcare, water and sanitation, as well as care and counselling for those traumatised by the violence they have experienced. It will also improve access to education for 50,000 young people, as well as create isolation and treatment centres for people suffering from coronavirus.

Alongside this, the UK aid package will support communities in Bangladesh, as the country hosting the highest number of Rohingya refugees. It will strengthen its health system to respond to COVID-19 and continue the UK’s support to help Bangladesh become more resilient to natural disasters such as flooding.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said:

The people living in Cox’s Bazar face unimaginable hardship and many have been victims of violence. We have imposed sanctions on the perpetrators of this brutality, and this new funding will save lives in the camp and help Bangladesh become more resilient to disasters such as coronavirus.

Today I urge the world not to turn away from the Rohingya’s suffering and to take the action necessary to allow them to safely return to the homes they fled in terror.

Today’s summit will bring countries together to show solidarity for the Rohingya people, express support for nations hosting them as refugees and urge countries to pledge funds to the humanitarian crisis which this year is critically underfunded. The UN has estimated it needs $1billion this year to help Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh but so far less than half of that has been raised.

At the conference, FCDO Minister for South Asia and the Commonwealth Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon will reiterate that steps must be taken to work towards the voluntary, safe and dignified return of the Rohingya to their homes in Myanmar. In August 2017, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya left the country to escape brutal and systematic violence. Since then, the UK has sanctioned two generals in the Myanmar military, as recommended by a UN independent investigation, which found them responsible for atrocities which amount to ethnic cleansing.

In addition to the Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh, up to 150,000 are living in other countries in the region and an estimated 600,000 live in Myanmar’s Rakhine State.

Notes to editors

• Today’s announcement brings the total UK aid commitment to the Rohingya crisis in Bangladesh, which began in 2017, to close to £300 million. It includes £37.5million to provide humanitarian assistance in Cox’s Bazar and £10million in support for Bangladesh to help the country respond to coronavirus and natural disasters like flooding.

• This new funding will provide food, shelter, health, protection, water and sanitation, and support for traumatised and vulnerable women and girls. Including:

  • food for over 290,000 Rohingya refugees for four months

  • support for isolation and treatment centres for severe COVID-19 cases

  • support, especially for Rohingya women and girls, against violence, exploitation and abuse. This includes for child survivors of trafficking.

  • improved education for over 50,000 children and adolescents from the refugee and surrounding host community.

  • cooking gas for over 40,000 families for five months, helping prevent further deforestation.

  • The conference will run from 1:00 p.m. to 3:30 pm (London time) on October 22, 2020 and will be live-streamed here

  • Funds raised at the conference will go to international organisations and non-governmental organisations working to alleviate the crisis on the ground in Myanmar, throughout the region, and as specified by the UN-led Joint Response Plan (JRP) in Bangladesh.

Local Government Secretary Robert Jenrick has today (22 October 2020) confirmed allocations for individual councils from the £1 billion of additional support announced by the Prime Minister earlier this month.

Over £900 million of this funding will be provided to councils for their ongoing work to support communities during the pandemic. It brings the total funding given to councils since the start of the pandemic, to help with spending pressures, to £5.7 billion including a £1.1 billion Infection Control Fund.

To address the ongoing challenges local authority leisure centres are facing, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has also confirmed today £100 million will be used to introduce a new fund which will support council leisure centres most in need. Further details on the scheme will be set out shortly.

These funds are part of an unprecedented package of support for councils, which also includes up to £465 million through the new Local Alert Level system, £300 million to support Test and Trace and £30 million for enforcement and compliance. Councils can also claim funding through a compensation scheme for lost income from sales, fees and charges.

Local Government Secretary Rt Hon Robert Jenrick MP said:

Since the start of the pandemic, we have backed local councils with the funding they need to support their communities, protect vital services and recover lost income.

This extra £1 billion funding will ensure that councils have the resources that they need over the winter and continue to play an essential role on the front line of our response to the virus while protecting the most vulnerable and supporting local businesses.

Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden said:

It’s vital that we keep ourselves fighting fit through the winter months and local authority leisure centres are crucial to this. This £100 million fund will help keep leisure centres across the country open. I urge leisure centres to bid for the money and people to make the most of these precious local facilities.

Spending pressure funding has been allocated based on levels of population and deprivation, whilst also considering the amount of funding each council has received from the government so far. All councils will receive a minimum of £100,000.

Recognising that councils are best placed to decide how to meet pressures in their local area, this funding has not been ringfenced. The government has asked councils use this funding to prioritise the running of vital services and protecting the most vulnerable and public health.

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is working closely with Sport England and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government on the design of the £100 million scheme for local authority leisure centres. Further details will be released shortly.

Over £900 million will be provided to councils for spending pressures. View the allocations of this funding on GOV.UK.

In July we announced an unprecedented guarantee that the devolved administrations would receive at least £12.7 billion in additional resource funding this year to help them respond to Covid-19.

We have now uplifted that by £1.3 billion, to at least £14 billion. This means a total increase this year of at least £7.2 billion for the Scottish Government, £4.4 billion for the Welsh Government and £2.4 billion for the Northern Ireland Executive, on top of their Spring Budget 2020 funding.

It is for the devolved administrations to decide how to use this funding irrespective of how UK Government provides support in England.

The Home Office has today (22 October 2020) confirmed that EU criminals could be barred from entering the UK under tougher border rules designed to make the country safer.

The rules for EU criminals will come into force from 1 January 2021 when free movement ends and are part of the firmer and fairer approach the government is taking to the immigration system where people from across the world will be treated equally.

Currently, under EU law, the UK has to allow some EU criminals into the country who would otherwise have been stopped and turned away. Under the changes, foreign criminals sentenced to more than a year in jail will be banned from entering the UK.

Home Secretary Priti Patel said:

For too long, EU rules have forced us to allow dangerous foreign criminals, who abuse our values and threaten our way of life, onto our streets.

The UK will be safer thanks to firmer and fairer border controls where foreign criminals regardless of nationality will be subject to the same criminality rules.

EU rules currently require the Home Office to demonstrate that EU criminals present a genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat affecting one of the fundamental interests of society in order to restrict their free movement rights. This decision cannot be based solely on the criminal conviction, even if it was for murder or rape.

Under changes laid in Parliament today, from 1st January 2021, EU citizens will be subject to the same firmer and fairer criminality rules that apply to non-EU citizens. This means that:

• Foreign criminals sentenced to at least a year in jail will be banned from entering the UK,
• Foreign criminals sentenced to less than a year in jail could still be banned, with the Home Office considering on a case-by-case basis their full criminal history and whether they have ties to the UK such as family members,
• Foreign criminals who haven’t received a prison sentence could also be banned from entering the UK, for example:
  • if the offending is persistent or causes serious harm (such as sexual offences),
  • if it is decided that their presence in UK is not conducive to the public good, or
  • if they have a criminal conviction of any kind in the past 12 months and are seeking to enter the UK for the first time.

All offences will be considered, whether committed in the UK or overseas.

These changes do not apply to EU citizens protected by the Withdrawal Agreement, such as those with status under the EU Settlement Scheme. However, if an individual who is protected by the Withdrawal Agreement commits crimes from 1 January 2021, in the UK or overseas, their status could be revoked, for example if that crime resulted in a prison sentence of at least a year.

Not only is the government making the UK border safer and more secure, it is providing the police with more powers to protect the public.

The Extradition Bill is expected to receive Royal Assent today and will give the police the power to immediately detain internationally wanted criminals without having to apply for a UK arrest warrant first.

This will apply where an international arrest alert has been issued by a country we have specified in connection with a serious offence, such as an Interpol alert. The individual would then be brought before a court to decide whether to start extradition proceedings.

Published 21 October 2020

Last updated 13 November 2020
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Thank you, Mr President. I would like to begin by thanking the Special Representative and his team for their continued commitment to Kosovo, as laid out in the comprehensive report on the activities of the UN’s Mission in Kosovo. I would also like to extend my thanks to His Excellency the Foreign Minister of Serbia and Her Excellency the Foreign Minister of Kosovo for their statements this morning.

Over the past 20 years, UNMiK has played a key role in Kosovo’s transformation into a multi-ethnic, stable and inclusive democracy. However, the situation in Kosovo today is very different from that of 1999, when UNMiK started its work. We therefore continue to support a review of UNMiK to ensure it is able to meet Kosovo’s current needs and challenges effectively.

Dealing with the health and socio-economic challenges of Covid-19 must remain the Government of Kosovo’s top priority, as it is for governments across the world. We welcome the support in managing the effects of the virus that UNMiK together with UN Kosovo Team has provided during this reporting period. I am proud the UK has been able to provide nearly £2m through UN agencies to support this response. However, I echo the Secretary-General’s concerns that political infighting has delayed legislation needed to manage the pandemic and mitigate its economic impact. We urge all political parties in Kosovo to focus on building consensus in the public interest.

Mr President, the normalisation of relations between Kosovo and Serbia remains crucial for regional stability and prosperity and is in the interests of both countries. We welcome the resumption of the EU-led Dialogue facilitated by EU Special Representative Miroslav Lajcak. We also welcome progress towards greater economic cooperation between Kosovo and Serbia recently achieved in Washington. The UK stands ready to support a comprehensive, conclusive, legally binding normalisation agreement that respects territorial integrity, is acceptable to the citizens of both countries, and delivers long-term benefits to them and the whole region.

To that end, we welcome the joint statement made by President Vucic of Serbia and PM Hoti of Kosovo on 7 September, affirming their commitment to the EU-facilitated Dialogue. Progress in the Dialogue and wider reconciliation between Kosovo and Serbia will require both parties to implement all outstanding agreements, and establish and protect a rational, calm atmosphere to allow cooperation. We look to the leaders of both countries to take a constructive and inclusive approach, working in good faith to overcome differences.

Mr President, the UK wants to see justice for war crimes committed during the conflict in 1999. We cannot allow impunity. We regret the continuing slow progress in domestic prosecutions for war crimes, and urge Kosovan and Serbian authorities to work together in dealing with these historic crimes.

In that context, the UK supports the work of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers and Specialist Prosecutor’s Office. It is vital that these institutions are able to continue their work without interference. We urge the Governments of Kosovo and Serbia and the members of this Council to cooperate fully with them.

We commend the technical support that UNMiK has provided to the Belgrade-Pristina Working Group on Missing Persons. The UK is committed to supporting all efforts to resolve Missing Persons cases from the conflicts of the 1990s. We have been supporting several projects through the International Commission on Missing Persons and the Missing Persons Resource Centre. It was disturbing to hear harmful and provocative comments by senior Ministers recently on this topic. The UK is clear that all, but particularly those in positions of power and authority, have a responsibility to refrain from such rhetoric, which is disrespectful to victims and families. As the Secretary-General notes in his report, 1643 persons remain unaccounted for from the conflict in Kosovo. We urge all parties to redouble their efforts, and foster the cooperation needed to bring closure to all outstanding cases.

Mr President, Kosovo’s interests and those of its people, are best served by the rule of law and tackling corruption. We welcome the support UNMiK and others have given to build the capacity of institutions to conduct financial investigations, and build an inclusive justice system. There is still considerable work to be done in this area, and we continue to call on Kosovo to implement the reforms necessary, to strengthen further the rule of law, good governance and security.

In closing, I would like to reiterate my thanks to the Special Representative and his team. We look forward to continuing to support them in their important work.