Global Human Security

I beg to move,

That this House has considered global human security.

It is a pleasure to serve under you in the Chair, Sir Christopher. First, I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting me this debate. The extraordinary experience of the pandemic that we have just lived through has shown us, if anything, that we need an honest discussion about the threats that put all our lives at risk. For years, we have thought that security is about the risks to our nation from hostile actors. It is, of course, important that we are properly aware of and knowledgeable about those risks and equipped to tackle them, but as long as we continue to define security in those narrow terms, we risk neglecting our duty to our constituents to keep them safe now and for generations to come. The world around us is changing, and we must scrutinise our core conventional security assumptions. Ranging from emerging artificial intelligence, cyberwar and organised crime to pandemics and the climate emergency, threats to our security are becoming more complex and more diverse.

The term “human security” was first championed by the United Nations Development Programme in its annual report on human development. It is about security for people: it covers economic, food, health, environmental, personal, community and political security; it puts the experience and wellbeing of the individual at the centre of security policy. Because the challenges that we face are increasingly transnational, human security prioritises international co-operation over competitive national strategies and emphasises the shared security of all humanity.

We cannot continue to seek 20th-century solutions for 21st-century problems. There is no starker reminder than the past year of the impact of the growing range of security threats on people’s lives. It was a virus, not a hostile actor, that brought our lives to a standstill overnight. It was a virus, not a hostile actor, that threatened businesses, jobs and livelihoods. It was a virus, not a hostile actor, that killed more than 120,000 British civilians in the space of a year. With more than 134 million cases worldwide, the truth is that many countries were simply not prepared for the covid pandemic. Our Governments, institutions, policy making and planning need to focus on how we become a lot better at detecting and responding to pandemic threats.

Conflict and crisis prevention are even more important than crisis management. Scientists are already warning that we face an increased threat from pandemics, in terms of both their size and their frequency. Many agree that our behaviour—from deforestation to our encroachment on wildlife habitats—is helping to spread diseases from animals to humans more frequently. In the past 20 years alone, there have been no fewer than six significant threats: SARS, MERS, Ebola, avian influenza, swine flu and covid-19. In the words of Professor Matthew Baylis,

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher.

I start by congratulating the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) on securing this debate. We could not be further apart politically speaking, but she is right to raise this issue in a Westminster Hall debate, so that we can discuss how we can go forward in creating new ways to tackle this matter and to deliver on behalf of not only our own citizens but citizens around the world.

It is interesting to read United Nations resolution 66/290 from 25 October 2012, in which the UN outlines human security as something that tackles “survival, livelihood and dignity”, with an interest in restoring communities. I want to talk about dignity because, free from poverty and despair, having a people-centred approach and ensuring that we can provide peace, prosperity and development around the world is an important issue and one that I think the United Kingdom has been a global leader on.

Of course, that is somewhat in contention at the moment, because of some of the other issues that have been raised over the course of this pandemic, most specifically that of gender-based violence. I apologise to the Minister, because I think that every time we have come across each other in a Westminster Hall debate, I have raised this issue. However, what we have seen in the course of the past 13 months is a systematic rise of gender-based violence—the persecution of women, of men, of boys and of girls across the world. It is a pandemic that was here before the current Covid pandemic and it will be here long afterwards. Gender-based violence is an issue that is not just dealt with by or due to the nation state; it is a crisis that impacts humanity across the world and it must be addressed.

I make the point that the United Kingdom has shown global leadership on this issue, because we helped to pass the UN Security Council resolution 1325 on women, peace and security. However, in recent years we have seen the systematic increase of gender-based violence becoming all the more pronounced. In 2017, 87,000 women were killed, which equates to 137 a day, and the UN has suggested that last year alone about 242 million women and girls would be victims of sexual abuse. Of course, at the moment there is no remit to bring perpetrators to justice. We rightly talk about dignity and about the ability to help those most in need across the world, but where is the dignity if we stay silent on this issue? Where is the dignity in our responses and our ambitions if we fail to tackle this pervasive and increasing horror, which is a gross human rights violation?

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, given the current signals from the Government, we are setting ourselves up against other nations rather than wanting to work with them? That is not a good way of seeking co-operation across the board on such important issues as women and violence.

The hon. Lady makes an incredibly important point. I think we are stepping back where we should step forward. The UK has form in leadership, but we are not doing that. The Minister can shake his head—I am sorry to be against him on this issue—but when it comes to sexual and gender-based violence and aid, we are expected to play a part. Nations do not accept that we are doing that at present, so we must take a step forward.

I know many Members wish to speak in this debate. We have a duty to the world’s poorest, a duty to those in despair, and a duty to those who are suffering. As conflicts and crises rage around the world, we are seen to be mute. I hope the Minister can correct me on where I am wrong and can tell me that our units are going out to Ethiopia to help victims of gender-based and sexual violence, but nothing has shown me anything different from what has been suggested already. We often confuse movement for action. Following this debate and many others that we will have in this Chamber, I hope we will be able to address this issue and recognise that it is not just about the nation state, but about how we respond to human crises around the world in a way that we can rightly be proud of.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. My heartiest congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) on securing this debate. As is typical, she has covered most of the points that I intended to make, including the one about the number of nuclear weapons that this country proposes to have in future.

My hon. Friend made the point that human security is not just about armed forces, but about what has happened recently. She pointed out that the huge number of deaths in this country has been due to the virus, and that has led, we think, to a 20% drop in our GDP. As my party’s defence spokesman, I want to pay real tribute to our armed forces and the role that they have played in recent times. I have on several occasions pressed the Secretary of State for Defence on their deployment in terms of testing and the roll-out of the vaccine, and I give credit where it is due. I have had straight answers from him and have seen with my own eyes the good work that has been done.

Having served, not with any particular honour, as a private soldier in the Territorial Army, I know that the armed forces, once they have been trained and are ready, spend a lot of time waiting when nothing much happens. From the conversations that I have had, I know that the armed forces personnel who took part in testing the vaccination actually enjoyed the work. They saw it as something different and felt proud that they were playing a role in defeating the deadly virus.

As I represent a constituency that is subject to more extreme weather than many other parts of the United Kingdom, I know all about global warming, which has already been mentioned. The armed forces also have a big role to play when we have a landslip. God forbid that we do, but, alas, when we do and something goes wrong—when a railway line is blocked or a road goes over the edge—they too can help out, and indeed they do. Again, as in fighting the deadly virus, they actually enjoy the work, and it gives them experience of using their machinery to see what they can do with it.

This debate is very valuable and important. It should have been held before the Government launched their review of this country’s security arrangements and before their statements about future levels of expenditure on overseas aid and defence. We put defence expenditure up by £24 billion and cut overseas aid expenditure, which surely gives a very bad message to the rest of the world.

Issues of real security need to be addressed in a fundamental way. What is security? Security for a human being is the ability to be able to live peacefully, to eat, to be educated, to have health care for them and their children, and to live a full and fulfilling life. That is surely something that we all want for ourselves. The UN recognises it is an important benchmark for human development. Indeed, our Ministry of Defence recognises that as well, because it has a department dealing with issues surrounding human security.

However, we then have to look at the reality of the world as it is at the present time. Broadly speaking, western countries have a fairly high standard of living, albeit with massive inconsistencies and inequalities, but other countries, mainly in the global south, have less access to health care, almost no access in some cases to free education and shorter life expectancy. Surely those factors are major drivers of world insecurity and the conflicts we presently have. We should be looking at human development in the future and how our overseas aid expenditure can help that; how a fairer trading system could reduce tensions around the world and raise living standards; and how we can deal with the food distribution crisis around the world that results in so many people living in hunger.

We must also look at the human rights crisis in many parts of the world in which women’s rights, children’s rights and the rights to free speech and assembly are denied. Those, too, are drivers of injustice and inequality.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I very much welcome today’s debate and pay tribute to the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) for tabling this discussion, in which I want to raise a number of key points.

Fundamentally, this is about a reconceptualisation of security, away from essentially—in some respects, almost purely—national security towards human security. Historically, international law and security have largely been framed through the lens of the nation state. Threats have been considered in terms of the effect of aggression, or things such as economic warfare, on the autonomy of states. Obviously those are still realities in many respects, both for the UK and other states around the world. None the less, it is important that we change our assessment of threats and do so in a way that reflects our changing values.

Many speakers have referred to the importance of human rights. If we are to conceive human rights as genuinely universal, that cannot be just a theory. We must try to live that out in practice, and that means having a serious conversation about what it means to be secure. There are multiple dimensions to that, including someone’s personal autonomy and dignity, their economic prospects and prosperity, the most fundamental of which is their food security, and their opportunities, not least in education—educational opportunity for girls is a theme that many Members have been keen to stress—as well as basic freedoms and rights, and also more recently, with the realities of climate change, environmental security.

But this is not simply a question of altruism. We have to recognise our interdependence with what happens in the rest of the world—with our closest neighbours, but also with those much further afield. There are three major interlinking themes, which we are all very conscious of at present. One is the looming climate change and the climate emergency, and what we need to do by 2050 to ensure carbon neutrality. We cannot simply view that through the lens of the UK alone; we have to ensure that the world is moving at the same pace. The UK has a particular responsibility, as one of the states that industrialised first and that has historically been one of the greater polluters, to show leadership and bring others with us. We also have issues with migration flows and how destabilising they can be, so we must understand the reasons why people are often pushed to flee from their own societies.

Then we have the issue of pandemics. We do not know what lies in the future, even whenever we think beyond covid, but that reinforces the importance of seeing health security in a global sense, because the UK can never be fully safe unless the rest of the world is properly vaccinated. It is therefore important that the UK builds upon what I acknowledge to be strong leadership through COVAX and does more to try to ensure that the rest of the world is keeping pace with the UK.

I apologise for not being here on time, Sir Christopher. I am dependent on the flight from Belfast. We had to de-ice and as a result we did not get away from Belfast in time. I have let the Speaker’s office know and I apologised to the Minister in advance as well.

I am very happy to speak in this debate and I thank the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) for setting the scene. I am sorry I was not here for it, but I am quite sure that I would endorse her comments as I am very interested in this subject.

We do not know what future threats to human security will look like. It might be another pandemic or something completely different. However, the good news is that if we know what many of the most extreme risks are, then we know how to best prepare for them—I am the eternal optimist and believe in the glass half-full. That is why I am looking forward to the Minister’s response and—putting no pressure on him—I am seeking some assurances, which I understand other speakers have asked for as well.

One thing that I would underline immediately is that people need each other. We have to realise that and that is where I come from. Nations need nations. We all depend and can support each other, and with that being the premise for where we are, we can start from that. Human progress does not go in straight lines, instead there are rare moments in which decades worth of progress can be achieved in a matter of months. The supreme example of that is one we have lived through in the last year—the covid vaccine. Our scientists and those with expertise and knowledge were able to come up with the vaccine to save lives and preserve lives. That has been a marvellous achievement within how we have dealt—and how the Government have dealt—with covid-19.

Technological progress since the industrial revolution has ultimately increased the risk of the most extreme events occurring, putting humanity’s future at stake through nuclear war, climate breakdown and other events. We cannot survive many centuries without transforming our resilience. We cannot ignore—I will not, and I hope that neither the Government nor anyone else would—the issues of the environment, climate change and all those things that are real to the people in my constituency who contact me on a regular basis.

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that so many of the issues that he describes are linked to our short-termism? Will he therefore consider the Bill on wellbeing for future generations, which I am supporting, as something he would support, so that we can ensure that Governments look to the long term and get away from short-termism?

I thank the hon. Lady for her wisdom and for her intervention. She makes a valid point, which I would endorse. Of course, I would need to go over the Bill, and I serve under a Whip, as the hon. Lady does, and I must follow that whatever my own inclinations may be. However, I have every sympathy on the matter that she has mentioned. If it was up to me, then yes, but we have to discuss these matters, as we always do.

We need the new global framework to identify the risks. We know that this is not a challenge that can be left to a specialist institution or a body of experts, and international diplomacy and domestic politics must be engaged at the highest level.

I say to the Minister that these are not things to do on our own. We cannot do them on our own; we need to do them with others. That is why I said earlier that this is about nations working with nations; it is people working with people. Those might be people who have very diverse politics and diverse cultural and historical views, but who are working together to the greater good of everyone. I would like to hear what we are able to do on that, and I recognise that the Government, and the Minister in particular, have made a commitment to it.

Global Britain also has a diplomatic ability to make this happen. We are held in high esteem across the world and, with that in mind, our position, our role and our influence will be important. Such a treaty would provide a framework for identifying and addressing such risks, and international diplomacy on domestic policies must be engaged at the highest level to achieve that. How do we do it? Perhaps the Minister can tell us.

A new treaty should be linked to UN Security Council resolutions to place this new framework on the strongest legal footing, so it is not just words, but actions—a legal framework that can actually make changes for everyone, for their betterment, with penalties for those who choose to remain outside the new legal regime or to flout it, so that the legislation has teeth.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee and the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) for enabling this timely and hugely important debate.

As many have noted in the debate, the way in which our lives, and the lives of everyone across the world, have been turned upside down over the past year has brought the need for global human security into sharp focus. However, it should not have taken a virus that, worldwide, has resulted in nearly 3 million deaths and counting, inflicted vast economic damage at home and abroad, and exacerbated inequality globally to force us to take more seriously the challenges and threats the world faces.

Furthermore, our renewed attention on health security and the necessity for pandemic preparedness, having been caught off guard this time around, cannot mean that we take our eye off the ball in the other dimensions of human security. If there is one lesson to learn, it is that the pandemic illustrates the interconnectedness of the modern world and the interdependence of health, environmental, economic, food, political, community and personal security.

What began as a health crisis in China has had previously unimaginable impact on the livelihoods of each of our constituents and on the wider world. Surely we must now know that we cannot pick and choose which threats to take seriously, prepare for and attempt to prevent. A holistic approach, based on the UN sustainable development goals, a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people on the planet, now and in the future, is the only way forward, building back better from the pandemic and ensuring that, truly, we are leaving no one behind.

For too long, security has been seen through the lens of traditional models of defence and military strength. That led to decades of prioritising a narrow concept of security over a whole-of-society approach. Defence is a vital component of our national security, but it forms only one part of this. We must look to re-evaluate what security means.