Rushanara Ali

Bethnal Green and Bow MP and Chair of the Save Remittance Giving Campaign, Rushanara Ali, has today called on the UK government and Barclays Bank to take urgent action to address the immediate threat that now faces a lifeline worth billions to the developing world, as Barclays intends to close down the remittance accounts it holds with money transfer operators in a matter of days.

Rushanara Ali MP, Shadow International Development Minister and Chair of the Save Remittance Giving Campaign, has welcomed Olympic champion Mo Farah’s latest plea to Barclays not to close the bank accounts it offers small and medium sized money transfer companies. The Save Remittance Giving Campaign’s petition, which Rushanara Ali delivered to 10 Downing Street last month, now stands at 122,661 signatories, all of whom have called on Barclays and the government to reconsider. With this number of backers, and with only days left until the bank accounts close, Mo Farah has again called on both Barclays and the UK government to reconsider the decision.

Following Barclays Bank’s decision to terminate its banking facilities for UK money transfer agencies, Rushanara Ali MP, Shadow Minister for International Development, will today deliver a petition to Number 10 Downing Street signed by some 25,500 people calling on the UK Government, Barclays Bank and regulators to take urgent action to save money transfer businesses from going bust.

As President Thein Sein of Burma prepares for his upcoming visit to London, Rushanara Ali MP, Shadow Minister for International Development, has called on the UK Government to exert pressure on the Burmese authorities to address the humanitarian crisis in Burma and put human rights at the heart of their reform process.

Following her recent visit to Rakhine State with Refugees International, Rushanara Ali MP, Shadow Minister for International Development, spoke in a Westminster Hall debate to call for an end to the discrimination against the Rohingya community in Burma and an urgent resolution to their citizenship status.

According to recent figures, more than 1.6 million Syrian refugees are hosted in foreign countries. The conflict in Syria is placing unprecedented strain on communities, infrastructure and services in these host countries. In Lebanon, the number of refugees has now reached half a million with thousands more Syrians arriving each week, risking destabilising the country. With no official refugee camps for the Syrian refugees, Lebanese host communities are bearing a large share of the burden in the country. Their generosity and the pressures they face have been largely ignored by the media. Rushanara therefore decided to visit Lebanon with World Vision to see for herself the plight of refugees and the impact of the continued outpouring of Syrians on Lebanese host communities.

Following the violence that erupted between Muslim and Buddhist communities in Rakhine State in June and October 2012, Shadow Minister for International Development, Rushanara Ali MP, reported back from a trip to Burma where she visited Rohingya, Kaman and Rakhine camps in Rakhine State and met with NGOs, UN agencies and Rohingya activists.

Last week, a report released by the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation and the Famine Early Warning Systems Network estimated that the number of people who died during the 2011 Somalia famine was much higher than initially anticipated at almost 260,000. Shadow Minister for International Development, Rushanara Ali, has urged the need for the UK Government to ensure that warnings for similar humanitarian crises are responded to much earlier and faster in order to avert the huge loss of life witnessed during the recent East Africa famine.

Rushanara Ali MP, Shadow Minister for International Development, today called on companies such as Primark to take urgent action to address workers’ conditions and take responsibility for safety standards following the collapse of an eight storey building on the outskirts of Dakha, Bangladesh, in which over 200 hundred garment workers employed in factories that supplied high street shops to the West have been killed.

Following the news that Prime Minister David Cameron is considering diverting money from the UK's aid budget to defence-related projects, Rushanara Ali MP, Shadow Minister for International Development, spoke out in Parliament.