Sri Lanka

Colleagues, in respectful memory of the 321 people slaughtered in the appalling Easter Sunday terrorist attack in Sri Lanka, including eight British citizens, and of the approximately 500 people wounded in those attacks, I propose that we now hold a one-minute silence.

Colleagues, thank you.

Today, the flags in Downing Street and on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office are flying at half-mast following the horrific Easter day terrorist attack in Sri Lanka. With your permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to update the House on the attack and the UK Government’s response.

On Sunday, multiple terrorist suicide bombings were conducted across Sri Lanka. Six explosions occurred simultaneously—three in churches conducting Easter day services in Colombo, Negombo and Batticaloa, and three more in hotels in Colombo popular with foreign visitors. Information is still coming in, but we know that over 300 people have been killed, and we know that at least eight of those, sadly, are British nationals. They include mother Anita Nicholson with her 14-year-old son Alex and 11-year-old daughter Annabel, teenage brother and sister Amelie and Daniel Linsey, and retired firefighter Bill Harrop with his wife, retired GP Sally Bradley. The whole House will want to pass on our deepest sympathies and condolences, as we digest a truly heartbreaking situation.

I spoke to James Dauris, the British high commissioner in Colombo, earlier this afternoon, and I want to put on record my thanks to him, his team and all the employees of the British Council for their dedication in extremely testing circumstances. One locally employed British Council employee is in hospital with his wife, both with serious injuries, and our thoughts are also with them and their family. Our travel advice has been updated and remains the best source of information for any British nationals or family members who have concerns about the situation.

Yesterday, I spoke to my counterpart, the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister, to express my thanks for the work of the emergency services in Sri Lanka, as well as to pass on our condolences to all the bereaved families. I also discussed what further support the UK might be able to offer. Her Majesty the Queen, the Prince of Wales and other members of the royal family have sent messages of condolence to the President and people of Sri Lanka, and the Prime Minister is expected to speak with Sri Lankan Prime Minister Wickremesinghe later today.

I thank the Foreign Secretary for advance sight of his statement and for the tone of his words, with which I wholeheartedly agree. I join him in commending the work of the British high commission in Colombo. Once again, it has demonstrated that in the very worst of circumstances for British nationals abroad, our consular services offer the very best of support. I am sure the high commission will continue to ensure that the families of the British nationals who have so tragically been killed in the attacks get all the support they need at this time of unbearable shock and sadness.

I have full confidence in what the Foreign Secretary has said about the assistance that the Government are ready to offer to the Sri Lankan authorities, whether in relation to security and intelligence, or in relation to help for the forensic services. He has our support and our thanks for that.

I know that there are many questions to be asked about who was responsible for the attacks and what could have been done to prevent them, but today is not a time for those questions. On this day of national mourning in Sri Lanka, as the first of those who were killed are buried and as the death toll continues to mount, it is simply a time for this House and this country to stand with the people of Sri Lanka, with the British families and with those from around the world who have lost loved ones and to express our shared solidarity and grief at the devastation that they have suffered. It is a time to stand in admiration at the way in which the Sri Lankan people and their Government have responded to this attempt to divide them by instead coming together in peace and calling for the unity of all communities. We in the west must do our part to help Sri Lanka to recover from this horror by continuing to visit that beautiful country and showing the terrorists they will not win.

I thank the shadow Foreign Secretary not just for the tone of her comments but for the very moving way in which she delivered them. I thank her for her support of the work of the British high commission, which is particularly challenging at this time. We are indeed giving help to the Sri Lankan Government in the two areas on which they particularly requested help: counter-terrorism work and countering violent extremism, of which we sadly have a lot of experience in this country.

The right hon. Lady is right to say that at times like this bringing people together with a message of unity and reconciliation is the only approach. I think people on all sides of the House were immensely inspired by the tone taken by the New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, after the horrific attacks in Christchurch. I know the Sri Lankan Government are making every attempt to take the same approach.

I thank the right hon. Lady for talking about the extraordinarily generous response made by Ben Nicholson after losing his wife and two children. I also agree with her that these kinds of attacks, far from being religious, are condemned by people of all faiths and none for their utter depravity.

The final point I want to make is simply that while it is right that, in this House, we think about the eight British people who lost their lives, the vast majority of people who were murdered were Sri Lankans at church on Easter morning, celebrating the resurrection of Christ and life. They did not deserve to suffer this way and it is absolutely right that we remember them as well.

I commend my right hon. Friend for his statement and for raising the reality, which is clear to us all, that these attacks were planned to have the maximum effect on the single biggest day in a Christian calendar, when children are encouraged to be in the church, celebrating what has been the resurrection for Christians of Christ. Therefore, they would have known that the maximum effect would be devastating. Following what the Opposition spokesman, the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) said, does my right hon. Friend agree that the reality is that the one thing that Easter teaches us is that it is about sacrifice for others and the forgiveness that follows? I wonder whether he will therefore ensure that no matter what else happens, we give our greatest support to the Sri Lankan Government in pursuing those who conducted this terrible attack but, at the same time, recognising that the Christian faith is about forgiveness.

I thank my right hon. Friend for saying those brave words. It is very difficult for many people to think about forgiveness after what happened, but that is indeed an appropriate thing for Christians to think about, particularly at Easter. But forgiveness does not mean the absence of justice, and that is why it is absolutely essential that we support the Sri Lankan authorities in their determination to track down everyone responsible. We know that they have identified other people who have not yet been arrested, who they are looking for at the moment. Obviously, for the safety and security of everyone in Sri Lanka, it is vital that they are found, but I thank him for the generosity of his comments.

I thank the Foreign Secretary for his statement and join him in thanking the high commissioner, everybody at the high commission in Colombo and the rest of the Foreign Office officials, who must have worked in the most difficult and distressing circumstances over the weekend. I extend our thanks to the Sri Lankan emergency services as well for their efforts and work. At this time, our thoughts are obviously with all those who are affected, and we send our condolences to the families who have had their loved ones taken away in the cruellest of circumstances. That loss of life is always sad, but I have to say, I find it particularly heartbreaking how many children were killed in this attack, and the brave and touching statement from Mr Nicholson is a lesson for each and every one of us.

Savage acts of terrorism do not discriminate by age, but they do not discriminate by faith either. These attempts to sow division through violence at Easter, of all times, should be met with a response of peace and solidarity. Our message is that barbarism strengthens our belief in our common humanity, regardless of faith, background or ethnicity. I thank the Foreign Secretary for the work that is ongoing with the Sri Lankan authorities. I am glad that that assistance will be ongoing, but at the moment, our prayers and thoughts are with all those affected. The message from this place has to be that hate and violence will not win out.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments, with which I wholeheartedly agree. The number of child victims, of many, many nationalities, is one of the most heartbreaking things to have occurred. What this event also reminds us is that when we talk about Christians suffering around the world, we are talking not about wealthy westerners, but about some of the poorest people in the world—it is only 8% of the population in Sri Lanka—and sometimes that fact has been obscured in terms of the priorities that we set ourselves as a country. That is what we are hoping to put right with the review that is being done by the Bishop of Truro.

I thank the Foreign Secretary and the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) for the tone of their statements today. Through the Foreign Secretary and from experience, I express my thanks to Foreign Office and other UK Government personnel who will be involved in dealing with the aftermath of the incident. I thank the Foreign Secretary particularly for expressing so clearly the indiscriminate nature of terrorist violence. Does he agree that the best way to protect the Christian community, or any community in the future, is to ensure that the rule of law is everywhere, that the best of intelligence is shared around the world, and that the understanding that an attack on one is an attack on all becomes universal, for there is no hierarchy in terms of victimhood?

Those are the kind of wise words that I would expect from my right hon. Friend, with whom I was privileged to work; he spent many years in the FCO. He is right to say that if we are going to prevent this kind of horrific massacre from happening in future, it is really a combination of the hard and the soft. The hard side, of course, is making sure that the security is there and that the security services are able to do their job to track down perpetrators and potential perpetrators. The soft side is what he and the shadow Foreign Secretary so movingly talked about, which is the message of reconciliation, because trying to set faith against faith is one of the oldest tricks in the book in human history. It is a great measure of human progress that in the last 100 years, we have massively increased across the world the amount of religious tolerance, but I am afraid that these events show that we can never be complacent.

I thank the Foreign Secretary for his words, his statement and for all that his Department is doing, and I thank the shadow Foreign Secretary for her moving words. This was a heartbreaking attack on Sri Lanka, Christians and peace-loving people everywhere, and we stand with Sri Lanka. Does the Foreign Secretary agree that we face a real threat from those who seek to divide us and to drive our world towards conflict, where far right nationalism and pseudo-religious extremism feed off each other in a dependent, destructive cycle? We need to stand up and challenge that hate and the best way to do that is to stand together with love.

I agree. That is the fundamental challenge. When we are trying to answer the important question of how we prevent this kind of thing from happening, the most important first step is to properly understand the motives of the people who try to perpetrate these attacks. We do not know that at this stage, but it seems clear that one was a religious motive to try and set faith against faith, and one was a cultural motive to try and target western tourists who are visiting Sri Lanka. We have to be alive to both of those, but the shadow Foreign Secretary was absolutely right in saying that one of the things that we can do to support Sri Lanka is—obviously subject to travel advice, which is very carefully kept under review—to continue to visit a country that depends on tourism to show our support and to show that we are not going to be put off by this kind of terrorism.

Whoever perpetrated these hideous crimes and whatever their warped ideology, they are murderers, and cowardly murderers at that. Will my right hon. Friend therefore convey to the high commissioner James Dauris, his staff and to the Government of President Sirisena and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe that we want to show our solidarity and sympathy with our Commonwealth cousins at this extraordinarily difficult time? Will he confirm—it may be premature to do so—that many of those arrested to date appear to have connections of one sort or another with Syria? And if that is the case, will he look very carefully at extending whatever assistance he is giving to the Government of Sri Lanka to include offering similar assistance to the Government of the neighbouring Maldives, where there is also a problem with returning foreign fighters from Syria and where we have many British tourists on holiday at any given time of the year?