13:30 Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)

Similarly, we have worked with older young people. In October, we had a 24-hour global conference—a virtual conference—which young people across the world could join using open space technology. They came from countries where there was persecution and where they wanted to work on the issue. More than 500 young people from more than 70 countries across six continents joined the conference. If we could inspire young people to be global ambassadors for FORB in the same way as they have been global ambassadors for climate change, we could really see change in the next generation. That is what I call the ultimate upstream prevention work, but most of that work is being done by the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance. Let us look at how we can ensure there is some real support from the FCDO for that work with young people.

I thank the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield, for listening to my team’s concerns and including the plight of religious minorities in the recent White Paper. When people are discriminated against because of their beliefs—perhaps they cannot get a job, education or healthcare—they will be poorer. That needs to be recognised and addressed, but it has not been to date. It is excellent that religious minorities are mentioned in no fewer than six places in the “International development in a contested world: ending extreme poverty and tackling climate change” White Paper. We need to make that a reality to help the millions across the world who are affected by integrating FORB into UK aid thinking; the Department for International Development did not do that in the past.

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14:36 Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)

Climate change is eating away at arable land, making conflict over resources near-inevitable. To reduce religious tensions, which is something we all want, we need a holistic approach. We need to work to mitigate the economic and climate-linked harms that can so easily deepen divisions and spark conflagrations of intercommunal violence. There are actions that we can take within our partnership with the Government of Nigeria to support that holistic approach. While I am talking about Nigeria, we are all aware that Mubarak Bala, the president of the Humanist Association of Nigeria, is still in prison. It has been almost two years since he was sentenced to 24 years’ imprisonment for allegedly blasphemous Facebook posts. That is something that we should continually raise with our Nigerian partners.

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