House of Commons

Monday 28th November 2011 Commons Chamber

Monday 28 November 2011

The House met at half-past Two o’clock

Prayers

Monday 28th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions

Monday 28th November 2011 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)]

1. What steps he is taking to tackle benefit fraud in areas where its prevalence is high.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

15. What steps he is taking to tackle benefit fraud in areas where its prevalence is high.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

I remind my hon. Friends of our inheritance from the previous Government: fraud and error in the benefit system were at £3.1 billion and progress had plateaued since 2005. The joint strategy with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs started in 2010 and included mobile regional taskforces to look at different areas. We are targeting claimants in high fraud areas with visits, phone calls and letters. One pilot has been completed in Birmingham and we have two more in Cardiff and Croydon. We will carry out evaluation once all three are completed. So far, since October, from case cleansing alone we have saved more than £100 million.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I thank my right hon. Friend. Will he share with the House how many benefit fraudsters were actually prosecuted last year?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

We prosecuted almost 10,000 benefit fraudsters in 2010-11, up from 8,200 the year before. Of those, 86% were successfully convicted—[Interruption.] I would have thought that the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) would like to keep quiet, because he has made one mistake already and is bound to put his foot in it again. We will push for the strongest possible sentences. In all cases, benefit fraudsters are required to pay back the money they have stolen.

[Stephen Mosley]

Benefit fraud is not just stealing from the taxpayer; it also leads to less money being available to those who are most in need. One measure that should deter benefit cheats is the one, two and three strikes rules. How successful does my right hon. Friend think that those rules will be in reducing benefit fraud?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

When the Welfare Reform Bill has passed through the other place, that process will begin and I think it will be very successful. Another important thing that we will do is bring together all the disparate benefit groups chasing fraud so that we have a much more cohesive strategy. Under the previous Government data were collected so shoddily that it is difficult to get to the absolute truth about the figures, so finally and importantly, we intend to change that.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to tackle benefit fraud, and he mentioned the scheme in Cardiff. Is he being equally assiduous in tackling a lack of benefit take-up among people who should be entitled to benefits?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

That is exactly what universal credit will help to change. The most important point is that its automatic nature will mean far fewer cases of people not receiving in the first place what they are entitled to. One good example is child care: many women, in particular, who are responsible for looking after children do not get the child care that they need, and under the universal credit that should change.

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

Universal credit is supposed to be much simpler than the current system. Why, according to the Government’s own impact assessment, will 380,000 people receive penalties for mistakes on their application and when will negligence be defined?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The point about universal credit is that it gets rid of quite a lot of the complexity in the system. That complexity has led to so many mistakes by individuals claiming and by the officials who are meant to be settling those claims. The hon. Lady, and her party, should welcome the arrival of universal credit at the earliest opportunity.

[Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)]

2. What support is available through Jobcentre Plus for people who wish to start their own business.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)]

I am pleased to refer my hon. Friend to the announcement we made a couple of weeks ago that our new enterprise allowance is now available nationwide for people who are looking to move from unemployment to self-employment. The early indications from Merseyside, where the scheme started back in the spring, are that a significant number of people have moved into self-employment. Those to whom I have spoken regard it as a really positive experience and are doing well as a result.

[Laura Sandys]

I thank the Minister for that answer. One resource that we do not necessarily use effectively is the help of retired business men and women who are interested in mentoring new start-ups. Would Jobcentre Plus consider recruiting them across the country to ensure that such start-ups have a much greater likelihood of success?

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the importance of mentoring. The difference between the new enterprise allowance and previous schemes is that it involves mentoring, which is often, as she says, provided by retired business people. We are looking to recruit as many mentors as possible through the Jobcentre Plus network and the organisations supporting enterprise allowance participants. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have an important role to play in helping to encourage people whom they come across in their constituency work to put themselves forward as mentors.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

What advice is available now through Jobcentre Plus? I am sure the Minister agrees that we do not want people to end up back on benefits having started businesses which failed only a few weeks or months later because they did not know how to run them effectively.

[Chris Grayling]

That is absolutely the reason we have put mentoring at the heart of the new enterprise allowance—so that participants have a mentor who will work alongside them, not simply to prepare a business plan but to ensure in the first few months of trading that they do not make the kind of mistake that can cause the business to fail immediately.

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

I am greatly encouraged by the efforts of the Minister and the Department for Work and Pensions to encourage entrepreneurship among the unemployed. The plan currently includes the provision of low-interest loans of up to £1,000, but sadly that amount does not go an awfully long way these days. I would welcome hearing from the Minister that the Department might consider, down the line, providing low-interest loans of up to £2,000, as that would make a significant difference.

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. There are several aspects to the scheme that we intend to review and consider as time goes by to see whether changes can be made to make the scheme even more effective. I will happily give serious consideration to the point he raises.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

The Low Incomes Tax Reform Group points out that tax credits today support self-employment much better than the proposals for universal credit will in future because universal credit will assume that people are earning at least the minimum wage, which is completely unrealistic in the early years of self-employment. Will the Minister look again at that particular problem with universal credit at least for people in the first year or two of self-employment?

[Chris Grayling]

We will monitor carefully how the decisions we have taken on universal credit work. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, we want to encourage and support self-employment, and we cannot allow people to shelter themselves on benefits under the false excuse that they are self-employed. In order to encourage people and to make sure that claimants are genuine, we are putting in place new rules. However, as I have said to him in Committee, every individual will have the right to self-assess or self-refer each month, so that we always get amounts right and do not penalise people who are trying to do the right thing.

[Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)]

3. What steps he is taking to improve public understanding of benefits available for people with (a) a hidden disability and (b) other forms of disability.

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

5. What steps he has taken to improve public understanding of benefits available for people with (a) a hidden disability and (b) other forms of disability.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Maria Miller)]

As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said earlier, the Government’s welfare reform programme will help to make our benefits system more understandable, less complex and better focused on those who really need help to live an independent life, so restoring trust in benefit provision, which has been so badly eroded in recent years. The Government also provide support for better understanding through Jobcentre Plus and work to support user-led organisations.

[Greg Mulholland]

I thank the Minister for that answer. The Government are right to tackle benefit fraud, but is she aware of the “Bad News for Disabled People” report by the university of Glasgow, which showed that the public dramatically overestimate the level of fraud in disability benefits by as much as 70%, based on inaccurate media reporting? What can the Government do to challenge that?

[Maria Miller]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question on an issue of which many hon. Members are aware. We are very conscious of the language we use when we talk about these issues, because we are clear that it is the system that has trapped people in a spiral of welfare dependency and that there has been a failure to reform benefits such as disability living allowance and to build any sense of reassessment into them. Those are the sorts of things that can create such problems and the Government are tackling them.

[Jo Swinson]

Despite the public’s overestimation of benefit fraud, in our constituency surgeries we see cases of the exact opposite—people who have a severe disability that affects their ability to work but who are found by the initial Atos assessment to be fit for work. Appeals can be stressful and costly, so will the Department implement Professor Harrington’s recommendation and publish data on the quality of Atos assessments and the percentage of successful appeals, so that we can judge for ourselves whether improvements are being made?

[Maria Miller]

We have accepted all of Professor Harrington’s proposals. Let me draw to my hon. Friend’s attention the fact that the number of successful appeals against the work capability assessment are substantially lower than for its predecessor, the personal capability assessment.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

What work have the Minister and her Department undertaken with employers to make them more aware of hidden disabilities and the adaptations that they may need to make in the workplace to enable disabled people to keep or obtain a job?

[Maria Miller]

As the hon. Lady knows, we work on an ongoing basis with employers through a number of forums. In particular, I am aware of the work that an organisation such as BT does to support its employees in such matters. It is by showcasing that sort of good practice that we will get a better understanding more broadly among employers.

[Mrs Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)]

Given that evidence of public understanding of disability benefits is often hazy, does the Minister with responsibility for disabled people agree with the Secretary of State when he said earlier this month in a comment in a daily newspaper:

“At the moment . . . millions of pounds are paid out in . . . benefits to people who have simply filled out a form”,

thereby giving credence to yet another negative and erroneous story about disabled people? If she does not, what efforts has she made personally to discover who briefed the story, and what action has she or her Secretary of State taken to correct the facts in this instance and to challenge future stories of a similar ilk?

[Maria Miller]

The right hon. Lady will know, from her time working in the Department for Work and Pensions, that there are indeed many people who simply fill in a form and receive a benefit, and that we are not making the right sort of assessment to ensure that that is correct in future. She may also be aware that £600 million is given out each year for disability living allowance, which is an over-assessment of people’s needs.

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

4. What steps he has taken to ensure that work contracted by his Department will not be moved offshore.

[Karen Lumley (Redditch) (Con)]

16. What steps he has taken to ensure that work contracted by his Department will not be moved offshore.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)]

We have a policy to control contracted work being offshored. Our suppliers are required to seek approval before they offshore any contracted work. Those approvals are predicated on their meeting stringent guidelines. I should also say that, as a team of Ministers, we have indicated very clearly to our suppliers that we will not countenance seeing existing UK employment offshored.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

My right hon. Friend’s comments will be welcome news for many of my constituents, who are employed by his Department in Leeds. Can he tell the House what the future holds for the disabled benefits centre in Leeds?

[Chris Grayling]

As my hon. Friend knows, we are in the process of rationalising our estate, where we have a number of part-empty and under-used buildings. We have not made a formal announcement about the future situation, but I can confirm that it is our intention to continue to process disability benefits in Leeds.

[Karen Lumley]

Following a recent meeting of business leaders in my constituency, we are working hard to try to ensure that contracts stay in Redditch and that we bring new jobs to Redditch. Will the Minister consider Redditch as a serious contender for any new contracts that he wishes to award?

[Chris Grayling]

I commend my hon. Friend for her commitment to her constituency. Clearly, my colleagues and I have listened to the point that she makes, but there is a more important issue behind what she says—that each one of us as Members of Parliament, even including yourself, Mr Speaker, have an important role to play in building links between employers, welfare-to-work organisations and others who can help make sure that the unemployed in this country find an opportunity to get back into work as early as possible.

[Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

Last July, during Department for Work and Pensions questions, the Minister said that in his view,

“British-based staff are the best contact centre staff”.—[Official Report, 18 July 2011; Vol. 531, c. 604.]

Will he therefore acknowledge the role played by MPs, workers and the Public and Commercial Services Union in persuading Hewlett Packard to drop its plans to offshore more than 200 DWP jobs, and will he commit to ensuring that his Government’s procurement policies do not permit contractors to jeopardise UK jobs and sensitive public data in this way in future?

[Chris Grayling]

The hon. Lady is right. I personally intervened as Minister to say that that offshoring should not take place. It is important that we do not see Government-controlled employment move offshore. We have a job to try to maximise employment in this country, and I pay tribute to all those involved in that work force for drawing our attention to the issue and the challenge. It is by far the best option to see people investing in the UK. It is particularly gratifying to see the contact centre industry around the UK increasingly reopening centres, recognising that British workers are far better at delivering good customer service than their counterparts in other parts of the world.

[Matthew Hancock (West Suffolk) (Con)]

6. What assessment he has made of the effect of work experience programmes on employment prospects.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

8. What assessment he has made of the effect of work experience programmes on employment prospects.

[Mr David Amess (Southend West) (Con)]

9. What assessment he has made of the effect of work experience programmes on employment prospects.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

13. What assessment he has made of the effect of work experience programmes on employment prospects.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)]

Early indications show that the work experience programme is proving extremely successful. The first figures we published for the period up to August show that more than half the young people starting a work experience placement under the scheme are off benefits within three months. As the scheme is extremely cost-effective, that is welcome news.

[Matthew Hancock]

Will the Minister visit one such successful work experience programme in Haverhill in my constituency, where youth unemployment has fallen by 15% since the programme started? Some 40% of young unemployed people are on the programme and, as with the national average, half of them are going into full-time jobs, even where there were no vacancies.

[Chris Grayling]

I pay tribute to the staff of Jobcentre Plus in my hon. Friend’s constituency for their part in delivering a successful scheme. I will be delighted, the next time I am in Suffolk, to drop in with him to meet and pay tribute to them for what they have done.

[Robert Halfon]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that work experience schemes need to progress to apprenticeships, and will he support the scheme I am working on with the charity New Deal for the Mind, Harlow college and Essex county council, which aims to employ genuine apprentices in Parliament?

[Chris Grayling]

I am very happy to support and pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s efforts. He is a model example of how an individual Member of Parliament can make a real difference by identifying an area where they can transform people’s prospects. His work on apprenticeships is a credit to him and to the House.

[Mr Amess]

As someone who was involved in recruitment for many years before becoming a Member of Parliament, I know that it is certainly better to have work experience on a CV than a gap, so will my right hon. Friend take this opportunity to condemn those people who have described the scheme as akin to modern-day slavery?

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There are times when I read things and have to step back in amazement and think, “Some people just don’t get it.” The work experience scheme is making a real difference for young people. I pay tribute to the firms taking part in the scheme, particularly, given recent publicity, our supermarkets, which are large and diverse employers with wide-ranging opportunities. They are playing an important role in giving young people a start in their careers. The scheme is working, and that is enormously down to the work of employers in helping to give young people an opportunity.

[Richard Graham]

I believe, like other colleagues, that work experience is beginning to have a real effect on the employment prospects of the young. I also see from the sister programme, the Work programme, a really encouraging drop in long-term unemployment in my constituency of Gloucester. I understand the reasons for waiting a year to analyse the results, but will the Minister consider publishing data, at least on a preliminary basis, after six months to show the results across the country?

[Chris Grayling]

I hear what my hon. Friend is saying. I am not in the business of burying good news. We are hearing encouraging noises from the early stages of the Work programme. Indeed, one of our providers has said on the record that it is going much better for them than the previous Government’s flexible new deal. I will bring forward statistics on the Work programme as soon as it is practical to do so, but I am under obligations from the Office for National Statistics to produce statistics that are valid and appropriate, which is what I will do.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

I had drawn to my attention today the case of a constituent's grandson who has worked at Debenhams on one of these courses for four days a week, then for three, then for two, then for one, and now it is down to four hours only, for £24 with a bus fare for travelling to and from Derby. Surely that is not benefit plus, but benefit minus. Will he ensure that people placed in that predicament do not lose their benefit?

[Chris Grayling]

From what the hon. Gentleman says, I do not think that he is describing our work experience scheme. If he wants to write to me about the individual case, I will look at whether it is due to something that the Government are doing or something else.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

Will the Minister comment on reports that even young people with qualifications are being sent for 13 weeks of shelf stacking? What sort of experience is that giving them?

[Chris Grayling]

I am always very disappointed to hear Members attacking major employers such as our supermarkets. A few months ago I met a man who had been long-term unemployed, who was given a job at one of our major supermarkets and who, within a few months, had graduated to running a department of 20. These are major employers with good opportunities, and we are about giving young people a start in life.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

Youth unemployment in the north, the north-west and my area of north Wales is rising higher and is deeper and longer than in the south. Does the Minister have any assessment of the quality and number of work placements in the north versus those in the south of England?

[Chris Grayling]

I have talked to Jobcentre Plus about the availability of placements, and I am confident that, together with the changes that we announced last Friday, which will double the size of the work experience scheme, we will be able to offer every single young person who needs such a placement the opportunity to embark on one.

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

Youth unemployment has now hit 1 million, and the OECD has forecast today that unemployment is set to climb to 9%, as thousands and thousands more people lose their jobs. The Government scrapped the future jobs fund in their very first month, but the new measures that they have announced do not start until April—two years later. Will this morning’s shocking projections finally wake up the complacent and out-of-touch Ministers before us and persuade them to implement our plan for 100,000 jobs, paid for by a tax on bankers’ bonuses?

[Chris Grayling]

The trouble is that we just cannot take the Opposition seriously when we know that they have already announced 10 different ways of spending that money. We as a Government are delivering real action through real schemes that work and are affordable, and that is something that they failed to do. It is worth saying also that Labour is the party under which, back in 2009, more than 1 million young people were not in education, employment or training—despite the fact that Labour Members tell us otherwise.

[Sajid Javid (Bromsgrove) (Con)]

7. What steps he is taking to ensure that individuals are able to build up pension pots under automatic enrolment.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

10. What steps he is taking to ensure that individuals are able to build up pension pots under automatic enrolment.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)]

I am pleased to confirm that we will go ahead with the introduction of auto-enrolment next year as planned, and I can confirm further that all businesses remain in scope. We have, however, decided to extend the reform’s current five-year implementation, so that small businesses will not have to start enrolling their workers until the start of the next Parliament. The revised plans will, nevertheless, still result in more than half of all workers being enrolled before the end of this Parliament. This is a positive programme, and there will be no exemptions.

[Sajid Javid]

This Government are doing a huge amount to help people deal with the challenges of old age. In that context, does my hon. Friend have any plans to change the rules governing short-service pension refunds?

[Steve Webb]

As my hon. Friend points out, certain pension schemes but not others currently allow people to take money out within the first two years, and that is an anomaly. We need to ensure that money put into pension savings stays there, and that is why short-service refunds for defined contribution schemes will not be part of the long-term landscape under automatic enrolment.

[Harriett Baldwin]

Does the Minister agree that auto-enrolment will bring into pension savings for the first time millions of low-paid workers in the private sector, both men and women, and that they can begin to look forward to the same kind of retirement income that we rightly offer our public sector employees?

[Steve Webb]

As my hon. Friend points out, at the moment not only do literally millions of people in the private sector not have a moderate pension; they have no pension at all. Auto-enrolment remains key to our policy goals, and as I just observed, more than half the work force will have been auto-enrolled by the next election.

[Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)]

I am disappointed to hear that there will be a delay in the roll-out of auto-enrolment, but I appreciate that the Minister was under a lot of pressure from noises off to bring in some exemptions, so I am pleased that that is not to be. What guarantee can he give to businesses, however? They need an absolute guarantee that the scheme will go ahead on time and to a new timetable, and that there will be no stepping back by the Government.

[Steve Webb]

I am grateful to the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee for welcoming our decision to keep everybody in. In terms of certainty, everybody who was due to be enrolled this side of July 2013 will see no change in their dates, and we will publish early in the new year the revised schedule. I entirely agree that certainty is needed, and I can confirm that there will be no further changes to the timetable.

[Gregg McClymont (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (Lab)]

Auto-enrolment is—or should I say, was?—central to the Pensions Minister’s strategy, so his resorting to bureaucratic language, saying that “all businesses remain in scope,” is not going to reassure anyone. The fact is, as I hope he will confirm, that the schedule has been moved back and millions upon millions of the employees whom he was keen to get saving in a pension scheme will not be auto-enrolled until after 2015. Is that correct?

[Steve Webb]

I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman is aware of this, but under his party’s plans the roll-out of employers with one to 50 employees was already scheduled to go into 2016. I can confirm that the majority of the work force will be auto-enrolled during this Parliament. There was already a five-year roll-out for auto-enrolment, so it was already a phased process. Yes, we have changed the schedule, but, as he may be aware, his party changed it twice in a three-month period.

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the difficulties and dilemmas involved in deciding what to do about the pension pot, particularly with regard to small businesses, should send a message out there to all those who can look forward to index-linked public sector pensions that they should be grateful?

[Steve Webb]

My hon. Friend is right that we do not want to see a levelling down in pension provision. We want quality pensions for our public servants, but we want to make sure that many more people in the private sector get quality pension provision as well, and auto-enrolment will help to achieve that.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

11. If he will amend his proposed welfare reforms to minimise the risk of children entering poverty.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

The overhaul of the benefits system through the Welfare Reform Bill will hugely improve the incentives to work. Universal credit will bring in an improvement for children, in that 350,000 children will be lifted out of relative poverty. As the hon. Lady may be aware, we have also made available an extra £300 million for the poorest people who are caring for children.

[Debbie Abrahams]

The Children’s Society’s analysis of the impact of the welfare reforms says that they will push more children into severe poverty and homelessness. Currently, one in four children in my constituency is in severe poverty. Eighteen bishops have called for the Secretary of State to reconsider his position on the reforms—will he listen to them?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I think the hon. Lady is referring to the cap, but I do not agree with her. The cap, which I understand Labour Front Benchers support, is rational and reasonable in that nobody who is out of work should be earning more than average earnings—that is, about £26,000 net. She may deal with constituents who have to travel perhaps an hour into work in the morning and an hour back, who work very hard and who look at those who are out of work and on benefits and find it difficult to accept that they are unable to earn as much.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

With child poverty targets repeatedly missed pre-2010, what role does the Government’s support for child care and the extension of early years provision play in helping families and keeping children out of poverty?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

My hon. Friend has hit the issue right on the head. If we focus narrowly on income, we get a perverse result. Through our early years work, through the support provided by the pupil premium in schools, and through the work that we are doing with universal credit, we have been hugely improving future outcomes for parents and their children who currently languish in poverty.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

As the Secretary of State will know, the Institute for Fiscal Studies predicts that by 2015 there will be 400,000 more children in poverty. Does he agree with us about this, and if so, what is he going to do about it—or does he just accept that it is a necessary evil of the Government’s current policies?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

With respect, we are already doing a lot about it. Of course, people can predict as far ahead as they like, without making big assumptions that nothing ever changes, and they will get the kind of results that they want. The reality for us is that all the work that I described to my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) is vital in changing outcomes for parents and children. Unlike Labour when in government, we do not think that children should be considered separately from their families; we lift families out of poverty and children out of poverty too.

[Jessica Lee (Erewash) (Con)]

A genuine challenge for us is to move into work those young unemployed people who have not had the role model of a parent getting up and going out to work in the morning. Can my right hon. Friend assure us that we are tackling this cycle of dependency to assist children and young people for the future?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I refer my hon. Friend to the answer given earlier by my right hon. Friend the Minister of State. The Work programme is a huge change for people who have been out of work for a long time. If we couple that with work experience and the opportunities for apprenticeships, we can see that this is a big step forward. Together with the introduction of universal credit, which will ensure that someone is always better off in work than out of work, the whole benefit and welfare system should be changed positively to support those sorts of people.

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

12. What plans he has to publish a strategy on disability.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Maria Miller)]

I will publish a discussion document in December to support debate, and a new disability strategy next year. Our vision is to enable disabled people to fulfil their potential. We will co-produce the strategy with disabled people and their organisations, focusing on the themes of realising aspirations, individual control, and changing attitudes and behaviours.

[Iain Stewart]

Has my hon. Friend assessed how many disabled people the Department will be able to support back into work as a result of the Government’s reforms?

[Maria Miller]

I am sure that the strategy we develop will include an action plan and that work will form an important part of it. The Work programme is already providing important support for disabled people to get into work. The further work that is being done with the Sayce review suggests that an additional 35,000 disabled people could be supported into work if we use the money that is there to support specialist disability employment more effectively.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

Will the review look into the impact of the severe cuts in the public sector and in public sector jobs on the availability of jobs for disabled people?

[Maria Miller]

We of course always consider the availability of jobs for all people, and particularly for disabled people. Remploy’s employment services have been particularly successful in securing employment for disabled people, even over the past year in these difficult economic times.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

14. What steps he is taking to tackle youth unemployment.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)]

The measures that we announced on Friday build on the support that we have in place. There will be more intensive support for all 18 to 24-year-olds, including through the doubling of the work experience and sector-based work academy schemes. There will also be a wage incentive for any young person under the age of 24 who is placed in long-term employment, usually in the private sector, through the Work programme.

[Nick Smith]

In Blaenau Gwent, there has been a 70% rise in young people who have been on the dole for more than six months. The Government now acknowledge that high long-term youth unemployment is a slow-burning social disaster. How many of their private sector, subsidised work places for young people will be delivered in Wales next year?

[Chris Grayling]

Let us deal head-on with the issue of an increase in long-term youth unemployment. The only reason that the figures for long-term youth unemployment show an increase is that we no longer hide young unemployed people on Government schemes and training allowances, which created a totally misleading figure. The reality is that long-term youth unemployment on a like-for-like basis is now almost identical to what it was two years ago under the previous Administration. Every single young unemployed person in Blaenau Gwent will have access to a work experience placement through our work experience scheme or to the Work programme, through which they will receive a wage subsidy for any employer who takes them on and gives them a long-term job.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the £25 million that is being made available for 10,000 advanced and higher apprenticeships is welcome not only because it will help to rebalance the economy towards manufacturing, but because it will provide a number of skilled jobs for young people? Is not the challenge now to encourage employers to take up and offer those apprenticeships?

[Chris Grayling]

Absolutely; I completely agree with my hon. Friend. We have regular meetings with employer groups, where I encourage them to take up apprenticeships. I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning has met his target for delivering apprenticeships, unlike the previous Government. The Opposition seldom refer to this point, but the increase in the number of apprenticeships far exceeds the number of places that were available through the future jobs fund.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

What impact does the Minister think the youth contract will have in Hull, where in my constituency 58.2 people go after each vacancy? As I understand it, the youth contract will provide only a third of the jobs that the future jobs fund would have provided.

[Chris Grayling]

Of course, the young people of Hull now have access not simply to the guarantee that we will find them a work experience placement and to intensive, personalised support through the Work programme for those who have not found work, but to far more apprenticeships than was ever the case under the previous Government. That package is designed to create long-term employment and not the short-term, artificial placements that were created by the previous Government.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

17. What steps his Department is taking to ensure the new system of universal credit accommodates changes in personal circumstances.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

The design of universal credit will largely be about improving people’s personal circumstances. It will take account of such changes. That is the point of using the real-time information system. Essentially, such information will flow automatically, thus stopping what happens at present. All too often, there is too much of a delay in changing people’s circumstances, which can damage their outcomes, as was the case for one of my hon. Friend’s constituents. That should be brought to an end. At last, we will have a system that reflects people’s needs.

[Mark Pawsey]

The constituent to whom the Secretary of State refers, whose domestic circumstances changed, immediately notified Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, but she tells me that it took seven weeks to reassess her claim for working tax credit and child tax credit. During that period, payments were suspended and my constituent was placed in some hardship. Can the Secretary of State reassure the House that under the new system of universal benefit, such delays will not occur?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

May I say on behalf of the Government that such a delay is unacceptable? My hon. Friend knows that I have already written to him about that. The current system, much improved though it is, still leads to great difficulty because of the complexity of the benefit system that we have inherited. Universal credit will change that and at last give constituents such as his a chance to take a job, change their circumstances and get the money they should have got in the first place.

[Amber Rudd (Hastings and Rye) (Con)]

Women’s working lives often have much variation in them, as they sometimes take a few years off to have children. What assessment has my right hon. Friend made of the benefits of universal credit in taking account of such changes, specifically for women?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Universal credit is now widely perceived as being very beneficial to women, particularly to lone parents who struggle a lot. They are in and out of work, and often their hours change. That will be reflected almost immediately in universal credit. I know that many who come out of work temporarily lose some of their housing benefit because it takes so long to reorganise it, and thus are worse off. That should all be brought to an end by universal credit, and it will also improve the support for child care.

[John Robertson (Glasgow North West) (Lab)]

18. How much his Department paid in winter fuel allowance in (a) Glasgow North West constituency and (b) Scotland in 2010; and how much it will pay in 2011.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)]

Winter fuel payment expenditure in 2010-11 was £3.6 million for Glasgow North West and just under £240 million for Scotland. If those shares of total Great Britain expenditure in 2010-11 were maintained in 2011-12, the projected figures would be approximately £2.8 million for the hon. Gentleman’s constituency and £185 million for Scotland.

[John Robertson]

This year, 440 fewer households will receive winter fuel payments in my constituency, and 3,560 fewer in Glasgow as a whole. With the elderly population and housing numbers growing, how can that happen?

[Steve Webb]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, it was the policy of the previous Government to link the age of eligibility for the winter fuel payment to the women’s state pension age. As that increases, the number of pensioners within its scope will fall.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

20. What estimate he has made of the potential cost to the public purse of the removal of the habitual residency test.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)]

The initial estimates shared with the European Commission showed that the additional annual costs of awarding benefits to economically inactive EU nationals may be as much as £2.5 billion.

[Mr Hollobone]

Will the Minister confirm that this matter is a red line for Her Majesty’s Government which the European Commission shall not be allowed to cross? Will he undertake to lead a coalition of EU countries against these Commission proposals to interfere in the domestic business of quite a few member states in an area where the Commission should not be going?

[Chris Grayling]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend. We have had a number of robust discussions with the European Commission about this matter, and I can confirm to the House that we are formally rejecting in the strongest possible manner the Commission’s reasoned opinion against the right to reside condition of the habitual residency test. I am in regular discussions with my counterparts in other European countries, many of whom share the same concern. I regard this as a battle that I do not intend us to lose.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

With all due respect, that sounded like ministerial waffle and a refusal to answer the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone). Surely the answer should just have been yes.

[Chris Grayling]

Indeed, I think the answer very clearly is yes.

[Mr Speaker]

We are most grateful to the Minister, who has brought some additional happiness into the life of the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone).

[Mr Bone]

And Mrs Bone.

[Mr Speaker]

And Mrs Bone as well, as he rightly says.

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

I am pleased to announce today the publication of the Löfstedt report on health and safety legislation. We have accepted its findings, including the recommendation to move about 1 million self-employed people out of health and safety regulation altogether where their work activity poses no potential risk or harm to others. I believe that the report is good for everybody and will help us put some much-needed common sense back into health and safety.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

At a recent meeting of the Basildon and Thurrock branch of Epilepsy Action, concerns were expressed that the work capability assessment does not fully take account of the debilitating effect that a condition such as epilepsy can have on a person’s ability to work. Can my right hon. Friend assure the House that those conducting the work capability assessment do understand the complexities and intermittent nature of neurological conditions such as epilepsy, and that those are taken into account when making the assessment?

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)]

I can absolutely give my hon. Friend that assurance. We are expecting further work from Professor Harrington about fluctuating conditions shortly, but I have also extended an invitation to voluntary sector groups that specialise in particular conditions to come into Jobcentre Plus and give briefings and training sessions about those conditions to our decision makers, so that we do everything we can to ensure that we get this right.

[Mr Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

With the OECD forecasting that unemployment is set to spiral to more than 9% in the next year or two, it is clear that the squeeze on working families will only get tighter and tighter. Can the Secretary of State remind the House how much extra it is budgeted will come off tax credits over the next year?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I have to say to the right hon. Gentleman that he needs to wait until the autumn statement to have all those figures set in place—if such a thing does exist.

[Mr Byrne]

I am happy to write to the Secretary of State with his own figures. Budgets laid out by the Chancellor project that more than £3 billion will come off tax credits and child benefit for working people, starting from next April. That squeeze is already serious, and that is why it is unacceptable to propose a further squeeze on tax credits in order to pay for the Secretary of State’s failure to get young people back to work.

On Friday, the Deputy Prime Minister was asked where the money for the new youth contract would come from. He said:

“Well the money clearly comes from the Government”.

He is full of insight. Will the Secretary of State confirm that he has been rolled over by the Deputy Prime Minister and that tax credits will be squeezed to pay for his failure to get young people back to work?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Just in case the right hon. Gentleman has missed the point, I remind him that decisions about tax credits are a matter for the Chancellor. I am surprised that he does not know that, because he was once in the Treasury himself. That reminds me that he is the individual who left a letter saying that there was no money left. Where does he think we were going to get the money from to get our successful programmes under way? The answer is that we have made a great start through the work experience programme, the Work programme and the changes to universal credit. We as a Government are doing more to get people back to work than anything his Government did when they were in power.

[Chris Kelly (Dudley South) (Con)]

T2. What assessment has the Minister made of the potential effect on UK defined benefit pension schemes of the European Union proposal to review the institutions for occupational retirement directive and align it with the solvency II directive? Is not that just a further EU assault on the hard-pressed UK occupational pension sector, and the last thing we need? Will the Minister stand firm against that?

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)]

We are gravely concerned about these proposals. The UK Government do not accept the need for new solvency arrangements for defined benefit schemes based on solvency II, which would have potentially serious effects for UK defined-benefit pension schemes. We are especially concerned about any proposals that would increase costs for employers at a time when we are looking to keep costs down, or that might affect the vital role pension funds play as investors in the UK. We will oppose these proposals.

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

T4. Has the Minister revised his previous estimate that, by 2012, 25,000 single parents will be in work when their income support ends when their youngest child is five years old? Does he not accept that unemployment in my area, Hull, is at a record high, thanks to his Government’s policies?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I am always astonished by the Opposition’s defeatist idea that trying to get single parents back into work to support their children is somehow a bad thing. The reality is that the hon. Gentleman’s Government left this country bust, and without any money to do any of the things that he wants to do. They keep spending the same money again and again in their proposals. It is time that they grew up and got on with the real opposition that we expect.

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

T3. The Secretary of State will be aware that it is still possible to study David Beckham, Harry Potter and surfing as part of degree courses in the UK. Following the Government announcement about the youth contract, can he assure me that he is in touch with the Department for Education to ensure that young people are equipped to deal with jobs in the real world?

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend is right. It is of paramount importance that our higher and further education systems are as focused as possible on delivering the right skills for young people. The partnership that now exists between the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which is responsible for these areas, and ourselves is unprecedented, and it is making a real difference.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

T5. I was appalled to hear the sort of advice that jobcentre staff had given to a Master’s graduate in Liverpool. She was told to stop claiming her jobseeker’s allowance and, instead, to carry out an unpaid internship. Does the Minister of State think that that is morally correct? If he does not, what will he do about it?

[Chris Grayling]

I obviously cannot comment on that specific case, but what I can say is that anyone who is going through a work experience placement can continue to draw their benefits. That is the big difference that we made. Under the previous Government, somebody who was offered a work experience place was forced to lose their benefits.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

T6. Does my right hon. Friend agree that many people of both sexes, in Gloucester and elsewhere, who are currently without a pension will benefit considerably from the on-time and on-budget auto-enrolment that will arrive next summer? Does he also agree that many more people, especially women, would benefit from the current proposal under consideration for a single-tier state pension?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I absolutely agree. Auto-enrolment is not a negative; it is a positive. The fact that the Government are to plough ahead with it, that there will be no exemptions and that all companies will be brought under its scheme is critically important. I support the proposals of the pensions Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Steve Webb). Furthermore, the reason that we were left in such a parlous position, with too many people owing money, was that not enough people in Britain had saved; now is the time to start changing that.

[Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)]

T7. Last week, the Office for National Statistics revealed that the real value of average median wages has declined by 3.5% this year, with an even bigger fall for the lowest paid. Does the Secretary of State recognise the impact that the child tax credit has in improving the living standards of the low paid, and would it simply not be an attack on the poor to refuse to uprate the child tax credit in line with inflation next April?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I need to remind the hon. Gentleman that whatever our opinions on this, it is a matter for the Chancellor and not the Department for Work and Pensions.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

T8. Over the past 12 months, unemployment in my constituency has fallen by 13%. According to the headline on the front page of the Rugby Advertiser, that is the largest fall in the country. In contrast to the picture painted by the Opposition, there are some good news stories. Does the Minister agree that in dealing with unemployment, this Government are taking the right steps?

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I congratulate all of those who are involved in the labour market in his constituency. This is an important point. All we hear from the Opposition is doom and gloom and that inevitably depresses those who are looking for a job. We should start to talk in a more positive way about the real opportunities that are still out there, even in these difficult times.

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

The Department itself recognises that many people will simply flow through the Government’s Work programme without securing a proper job at the end of it. How many people does the Minister estimate will end up on his mandatory workfare placement scheme after the Work programme? Does he have an estimate of the numbers?

[Chris Grayling]

The whole point about the Work programme is that it is uncapped; we have not set specific targets for it. The community action programme, which was announced a couple of weeks ago, is designed to help those who do not find a role through the Work programme. I would be delighted if it achieves 100% outcomes, but it probably will not. We have been determined to ensure that we do not simply send those who do not find a job in the first two years back home so that they end up sitting on benefits doing nothing. They will be asked to take part in a constructive and positive programme of useful work in our community that will, I hope, build their skills and give them a better opportunity to go back into the process, and to get a job the second time around.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

There has been a 42% increase in apprenticeships in Thirsk and Malton. There are currently almost 700 vacancies. How can we marry up the apprentices, when they have finished their apprenticeships, with the local vacancies?

[Chris Grayling]

I hope very much that most employers will view taking on an apprentice as a precursor to giving them a permanent job. Nevertheless, we need to ensure that the support we provide through Jobcentre Plus and Work programme providers, as well as the work that we, as Members of Parliament, can do to support the growth of job clubs and enterprise clubs, will make it much more likely that if something goes wrong and an apprenticeship does not last, the skills built up will still lead to a role elsewhere and a longer-term career.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

There have been several recent cases in Newport in which children with autism have been routinely turned down for the mobility component of disability living allowance only to be successful on appeal—although many are discouraged from appealing. Will the Minister consider this matter, and does she understand that this is precisely the kind of issue that is making many of my constituents extremely fearful of the new assessment for the personal independence payments?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Maria Miller)]

The hon. Lady will be aware that there have been no changes in the assessment or eligibility criteria, so I am not sure why there might be perceived changes in the case she raises. I am obviously happy, however, to pick up on any issues that she wants to raise with me separately.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

Here last month, the Minister with responsibility for disabled people said that she wanted to reflect on the Low review into personal mobility in state-funded residential care before announcing her final decisions. I am glad that the matter has received careful attention since then, but when might she be able to lift this cloud from over disabled care home residents and their families?

[Maria Miller]

I thank my hon. Friend for his assiduous attention to this issue. We are considering very carefully Lord Low’s extremely helpful report and will come forward soon with our final response.

[Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)]

A constituent of mine, Abigail McGhee, was engaged to, and living with, the father of her two young children when he sadly died. Her application for widowed parent’s allowance was declined on that basis. Will the Minister reconsider the application of this benefit for people who find themselves in that sad position?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Yes, I will, and if the hon. Gentleman would like to send me the details of that case, I will pay particular attention to it.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

May I thank my right hon. Friend for his Department’s swift adoption of the Löfstedt review’s recommendations today? Does he agree that when introduced they will have the capacity not only to reduce the burden of red tape on organisations, but to improve their understanding of health and safety and therefore its effectiveness?

[Chris Grayling]

I agree absolutely with my hon. Friend. I pay tribute to him and the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller), who took part in the panel working with the TUC, the British Chambers of Commerce, John Armitt, who runs the Olympic Delivery Authority, and Professor Löfstedt himself, for putting together a report that gives a really good blueprint for the future of health and safety regulation that will ease the burden on business without endangering life and limb in the workplace—the core purpose of health and safety laws.

[Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

Following on from that question, will the Minister confirm that there will be no attempt to remove any necessary protections preventing injuries and the causes of ill health in the workplace? Has he agreed with the Treasury that the necessary resources will be made available to his Department to do the very detailed work that Professor Löfstedt recommends?

[Chris Grayling]

I regard good health and safety as of paramount importance. Britain can be proud of having the best record on health and safety in the workplace in Europe, and nothing that the Government do will undermine that. I can confirm that it is my view and that of the Health and Safety Executive that it has the necessary resources to get the job done and to deliver in reality on this very good report.

[George Hollingbery (Meon Valley) (Con)]

Has the Minister received representations on the Löfstedt review from employers or trade unions?

[Chris Grayling]

I have been very encouraged by the participation of employer groups and the TUC in the Löfstedt proposals. The fact that we had people from both sides of the employment and political spectrums supporting the report at this morning’s launch was a tribute to the work of everybody involved. It is a sign that we now have a cross-party blueprint for the future of health and safety in this country.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

Since last May, an extra 155,000 working households have been forced on to local housing allowance—an increase of 42% on the previous year. Is that because rents have risen or because wages have fallen?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

As the hon. Lady knows, when we entered office we inherited a housing benefits system in a mess and local housing allowance was already spiralling —it has approximately doubled in the last 10 years—so she should look at what happened before as much as at what happens now.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that new policy announcements from his Department should be made to Parliament first?

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. It is unknown for Mr Bone to be unheard. Let us hear him say it again.

[Mr Bone]

Does the Secretary of State agree that new policy announcements from his Department should be made to Parliament first?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The answer to that question is yes.

[Mr Speaker]

I am glad that I asked for the question to be put again—and I am glad I heard the answer. Very satisfying.

[Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)]

I was particularly disappointed to hear the reply that the Minister with responsibility for disabled people gave to my right hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Mrs McGuire). The Minister seemed to imply that the only way one could trust a disabled person to tell the truth was in a face-to-face interview. The Government seem hellbent on making every disabled person go through multiple face-to-face interviews to get any kind of benefit. She was disparaging about filling in a form and getting supporting medical evidence. Dame Carol Black has said in her most recent reports that there should be fewer face-to-face interviews for employment and support allowance. What is the Minister’s response to that?

[Maria Miller]

The problem with disability living allowance is that 70% of those currently in receipt of it have it as a lifetime award, and do not have the necessary updates and reassessments to keep track of whether that assessment is right. Having a face-to-face assessment in the first place means that disabled people get the opportunity to talk to a health care professional about their condition and ensure that they receive the right support.

Points of Order

Monday 28th November 2011 Commons Chamber

15:31

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would like to seek your advice on the Government’s deliberate and selective leaking of tomorrow’s statement, which has now become, in effect, a crisis Budget. So far we have been treated to Government media announcements on youth unemployment, housing, credit easing, infrastructure spending, schools spending, an energy package and a minor adjustment to the Government’s ferocious squeeze on rail commuters. Ministers from the Chancellor on down have made numerous media appearances confirming the leaks. This morning on the “Today” programme the Chief Secretary to the Treasury refused to discuss the bad bits of tomorrow’s statement, and spent the whole time talking about what he thought were the good bits. The ministerial code requires that Parliament should hear important statements first, and there can be few more important than this. Has not the Government’s disgraceful behaviour over the past few days made a laughing stock of the ministerial code, which is now more honoured in the breach than the observance?

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the shadow Leader of the House for that point of order. I have been gravely concerned about these matters, and I can tell the hon. Lady and the House that I have had conversations with senior members of the Government on the subject. I would like at this stage to await events. The House will look forward with interest and respect to hearing the statement by the Chancellor tomorrow, but I remain alert to the concerns that she has raised and shall be looking further into the matter.

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

I do not want to have a lengthy exchange on this subject—I have given a ruling—so I feel sure that the following point of order, from a Member of Parliament who has served in the House for 28 years and five months without interruption, will, in accordance with precedent, be on a completely different subject.

[Mr Leigh]

My point of order is simply this. Having served in this House for 28 years and five months, I would not like you to think, Mr Speaker, that concern about this matter is restricted simply to Opposition Members. Those of us who love Parliament believe that Parliament should come first.

[Mr Speaker]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for what he has said and the terms in which he has said it.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman has served for well over 30 years in total, so I am sure that he will observe the precedent even more closely.

[Mr Winnick]

I note that you did not mention the exact years and months, Mr Speaker, and I am pleased about that. I wonder whether I might make a helpful suggestion, arising from what my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) has said from the Dispatch Box. In order to save parliamentary time on Tuesday, and in view of all the leaks that have occurred, would it not be helpful when the Chancellor stands up to make his autumn statement for him merely to say, “I refer hon. Members to the press releases that have already been issued over the past weekend”?

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I think it would be very sad if we were to reach that situation, but coming from an hon. Member who first came to the House in 1966, I have to say that there is more than a grain of truth and validity in that observation. Members should take account of it.

[Gregg McClymont (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. On the subject of policy being made in the press and with particular regard to the case of auto-enrolment, before the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions left the Dispatch Box, he suggested that policy should be made in the House. Would a written ministerial statement on the changes to the auto-enrolment schedule be in order?

[Mr Speaker]

The decision as to whether a policy announcement should be the subject of a written or an oral ministerial statement is, in the first instance and without exception, a decision for the Minister. It is not a matter on which the Chair would adjudicate—and certainly not in advance of any such matter having to be decided. We ought to leave it there.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

I am sure that Mr Bone’s point of order is on an entirely unrelated subject.

[Mr Bone]

Unfortunately, it will not now be a point of order; I simply wanted to express my concern about this matter.

[Mr Speaker]

Well, there is much meeting of minds—from the Back Benches at any rate—this afternoon. We are grateful to Members for that.

North Africa and the Near and Middle East

Monday 28th November 2011 Commons Chamber

15:36

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of political developments and security in the Middle East, North Africa, the Sahel and the Horn of Africa.

It is a timely moment for this debate. Next month, as hon. Members know, it will be a year since the death of the fruit seller, Mohammed Bouazizi in Tunisia, which heralded the eruption of mass democracy movements across the middle east and north Africa, bringing the potential for significant advances in human rights and freedom, as well as, of course, risk and uncertainty. Supporting positive change and reducing instability in these areas is one of the highest priorities in British foreign policy, and is therefore an important subject for debate.

I wish to record my gratitude to the men and women of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and those who serve in the regions we are debating today or who support our efforts from London and in international institutions such as the United Nations and NATO. Their work over this last year has been outstanding, and we could not have done without them.

Over the last six months, the Foreign Office has been extremely active in rallying international action over Libya. Over the coming months, we will be pushing forward international policy on Somalia with equal energy, starting with a major conference hosted on 23 February in London by the Prime Minister. I want to concentrate my initial remarks on the horn of Africa and the Sahel, before turning to deal with north Africa and the middle east, which we so often debate and on which I have made many statements.

Tens of thousands of Somalis have died in recent months; a million are internally displaced and facing the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. The country is a scene of great human suffering, but it is also a base for piracy and terrorism, which exacerbate the country’s plight and threaten our own security. The transitional federal Government in Mogadishu need to succeed in making the necessary political progress to begin to stabilise the country.

We need a more effective international approach that addresses the root causes of the crisis. In our view, this requires a new inclusive political process; a coherent strategy to undermine al-Shabaab and tackle piracy; and economic support, humanitarian aid and assistance to the African Union Mission in Somalia—AMISOM.

The aim of the February conference in London will be to build agreement on such a reinforced international approach. We have been laying the groundwork for some time. My right hon. Friend the International Development Secretary visited Mogadishu in August—the first British Minister to set foot there since 1992—and on my visit to Ethiopia and to Kenya in July, I met the Somali Prime Minister and, separately, the President of Somaliland.

We are taking increased action on piracy through the use of naval assets as part of the international forces operating in the gulf of Aden, protecting the transit corridors and the wider Indian ocean; we are working with the shipping industry and are allowing armed guards on UK-flagged ships. We are also providing funding to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime to continue developing prisons and prosecution facilities on the ground in Somalia and in the wider horn of Africa, as well as operating bilateral transfer agreements, which will facilitate the transfer of suspected pirates back to Somalia to serve their sentences.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Foreign Secretary said that he had met members of the transitional Government and the leaders of Somaliland separately. Will he clarify the position of our Government in regard to the long-standing aspiration of people in Somaliland towards some form of self-government?

[Mr Hague]

I met those representatives separately for many reasons, including the fact that one set were in Ethiopia and the other set were in Kenya. Although we understand the wishes and desires of Somaliland, its leaders and its people, we have continued, to date, the policy of previous British Governments of not recognising it as a separate country. We think that the emphasis must be on trying to resolve the problems of Somalia as a whole. They are integrated problems, and we need an inclusive political process as well as the strategy to undermine al-Shabaab and effective action to deal with piracy. That must be our priority, and I do not think it right, at this moment, to change our policy on the recognition of Somaliland.

[Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Mr Hague]

I imagine that the right hon. Gentleman, who has a long-standing interest in these matters, wants to ask me a question on the same subject.

[Alun Michael]

I should like to develop the theme. I greatly welcome the approach that the Foreign Secretary is taking, and his engagement and that of his Ministers with the issue. Does he agree that Somaliland has earned respect by the way in which it has developed its own system and democratic structures, and the way in which it has been helping to deal with the problems in the south over recent months? Does he also agree that it is necessary to find a way in which these neighbours can be in the same room, with respect being paid to the democratic achievements of Somaliland, rather than their being virtually told that they cannot play a role in the same debates as the transitional federal Government?

[Mr Hague]

Yes, I broadly agree with that. I think that a great deal of progress has been made. We have increased our contact and engagement with Somaliland, and my meeting with the leaders of Somaliland in Addis Ababa was part of that. We will continue to encourage everyone to move in the co-operative direction that the right hon. Gentleman recommends.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

It is commendable that my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary are organising a conference next year, but can my right hon. Friend confirm that members of a delegation from Hargeisa in Somaliland will be invited in their own right? I think that otherwise the administration in Somaliland will feel that they are in the background, and that all the attention is being focused on the transitional federal Government in Mogadishu.

[Mr Hague]

They have been invited, as I have just been reminded by the Minister for Africa, my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (Mr Bellingham), and their engagement will be very important.

We have committed £128 million in famine relief for Somalia since July, and nearly £4 million this year to support the African Union Mission in Somalia. The United Kingdom already makes a huge contribution to efforts to improve matters there.

[Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

The Foreign Secretary spoke of putting guards on merchant vessels. That was announced at the end of October. Will he tell us what has happened since then, particularly in regard to the establishment of the procedures and protocols and the various rules?

[Mr Hague]

The rules will follow briskly, but of course these things take time to organise. The fact that there has been an announcement does not mean that there will instantly be a guard on every ship; it means that the procedures are in the process of being changed. I have no reason to think that people are dragging their feet, but I will check and write to the right hon. Gentleman, because we will certainly not let them drag their feet.

Successive British Governments have grappled with the problems emanating from Somalia, but we believe that now is the time to seek intensified international action, which I hope the House will welcome.

Regrettably, the situation in Sudan is also deteriorating. I was present when South Sudan became independent in July, when effective international diplomacy helped to ensure a largely peaceful separation from its northern neighbour. Recent events, including the bombing of South Sudan by the Sudanese air force on November 10, have jeopardised the prospect of Sudan and South Sudan co-existing peacefully in a stable region. We urge both sides to exercise restraint and refrain from military activity in each other’s territory, including through support to proxy forces. We are deeply concerned by the lack of humanitarian access in the conflict areas of southern Kordofan and Blue Nile state, and I urge the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement to address this and to negotiate for a lasting peace settlement. The two countries must resolve remaining legacy issues from the comprehensive peace agreement, particularly on oil revenue, citizenship, border demarcation and the status of the disputed region of Abyei.

The House does not often debate the Sahel, but it is a region of growing importance to the UK. I visited Mauritania in October, becoming the first British Minister ever to do so, as a signal that Britain will seek closer engagement with it and the wider region. The Sahel is deeply affected by poverty, insecurity, weak governance and a lack of education and employment opportunities. The revolution in Libya has also had an impact, risking an influx of weaponry from Libya as well as potential new recruits for al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, in the form of former mercenaries.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

During the Foreign Secretary’s visit to Mauritania, did he have any discussions about the Western Sahara and the wish of its people to determine their own future, rather than remain under Moroccan occupation?

[Mr Hague]

I did have discussions on that in Mauritania, as well as on my visits to Morocco and Algeria on the same trip. The hon. Gentleman will be well acquainted with the position of successive British Governments on this matter. We encourage Morocco and the Polisario Front to reach a mutually acceptable and lasting political solution, which provides for the self-determination of the people of the Western Sahara, and we support the work of Ambassador Ross in trying to make progress in that regard. I had plentiful discussions on that long-standing problem with all the Governments in the region.

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

When my right hon. Friend was in Mauritania, I hope he had a chance to listen to its concerns about European Union vessels fishing off the Mauritania coast, raping the sea there, and about the EU not financing some of the projects it promised to fund in Mauritania.

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend was, I think, the first Member of Parliament to visit Mauritania in a long time, and he is right to bring attention to that issue. On my visit, we were discussing regional security issues however, so we did not get into the detail of the fishing arrangements, but of course we want them to be resolved to the satisfaction of the countries in the region.

[Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

On the Western Sahara, are there any developments at all in respect of the referendum? It was a long time ago when I was shadow Foreign Secretary and went to the Western Sahara and the camps in the Algerian desert, but even then the referendum was regarded as the solution. That was a long time ago, so this is a long time to wait for a democratic vote.

[Mr Hague]

Yes, it is a long time. The problem has been almost identical ever since when the right hon. Gentleman was shadow Foreign Secretary, so this certainly counts as a long-standing problem in world affairs, as I said. The sad news is that there has not been progress on this issue, but there are repeated and continued international efforts to make progress. I referred to the diplomatic work that is going on, and there will be further discussions on this matter over the coming months, but I do not have any better news to pass on than the right hon. Gentleman will remember from the time when he was dealing with this issue in more detail.

I was talking about the influence of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb—AQIM. It is increasing its influence throughout the region. Operating largely from northern Mali, it presents an increased threat to our security. Last Friday, a group of visitors to Timbuktu was kidnapped. I want to stress to British nationals that they should carefully note our travel advice, which advises against all travel to most of Niger, Mauritania and Mali, including Timbuktu. AQIM is known to have established contact with Boko Haram, an Islamic terrorist group operating in Nigeria, contributing to the growing strength and ambition of that group in recent months and extending AQIM’s reach into northern Nigeria. We are stepping up our efforts to counter terrorism in the Sahel region and to support economic and political development. We are co-funding a military and police base on the Mali-Algeria border, as well as emergency planning training in Mali and Niger. We are also working closely with Nigeria to combat the threat of terrorism, following the Prime Minister’s visit in July.

We are also working with France and other European allies to develop an effective EU approach to security and development in the Sahel. Plans are at an early stage for a small, focused and carefully calibrated common security and defence policy mission in the region, focusing on policing, security, infrastructure development and regional training. Funding for this mission would come from the common foreign and security policy part of the EU budget. As we already contribute to that budget, this mission will place no additional resource burden upon us, save for minimal costs associated with the deployment of any British personnel. Once we have an agreed outline of this mission, we will submit it to parliamentary scrutiny. The mission is necessary to safeguard our own national security and to help countries in the region.

Instability in the Sahel could have a profoundly destabilising effect on countries in north Africa and the Gulf that are currently engaged in moves to open up their political and economic systems to different degrees. That was particularly apparent on my visit to Algeria in October. Important steps there to lift broadcast media restrictions and reform the electoral system take place against a backdrop of military confrontation with al-Qaeda. As the House understands, the politics and history of each country in the wider middle east are very different. But the contrasting experiences of those Governments beginning peaceful reform now and of regimes such as those in Syria and Iran that have set their face against reform altogether show that moves towards greater political and economic openness are essential for their long-term security and prosperity, as well as being right in themselves. So we welcome the recent elections in Tunisia, and the efforts under way to form a Government who reflect the will of the Tunisian people.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

I am sure that my right hon. Friend is about to discuss last Friday’s general election in Morocco. Will he note that the PJD, a moderate Islamic party—apparently—has emerged as the largest party? Does he share my slight concern at that, because Islamic parties, however moderate they may profess themselves to be, have a tendency to move away from the west, and that would be a great pity in the case of Morocco?

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend invites me neatly on to my next paragraph. As he rightly says, last week voters also went to the polls in Morocco to choose a new Government, following the constitution passed in a referendum in July. That is an important part of Morocco’s progress towards greater democratic accountability. We urge Morocco and Tunisia to turn these democratic gains into real reform that meets the long-term aspirations of their people. That is the answer to my hon. Friend’s question; we have advocated democracy in these countries, and where they have turned to democracy and are holding free, fair and respected elections, we must respect the outcome of democratic votes and not try to second-guess the electorates of those countries. The test for us is not their domestic programmes—that is up to these countries—but whether they are able to continue choosing Governments in the future, having further elections and having alternating Governments in the future. Many African countries, for example, Zambia, have recently set a good example in that regard. That is the test. I do not think that we should couple our support for democracy with regular or constant criticism of parties that engage in the democratic process in these countries.

[Sir Malcolm Rifkind (Kensington) (Con)]

Is it not worth taking into account that although the Moroccan Islamist party may be the largest single party, it obtained only just over a quarter of the vote and, as in Tunisia, non-Islamist parties in both these elections have emerged with a large majority of the popular vote? That indicates that public opinion is not necessarily going to be dominated by the Islamist point of view.

[Mr Hague]

My right hon. and learned Friend makes a very important point and what he has described has indeed been the pattern so far in Tunisia and Morocco. In addition, we must not prejudge how these parties will develop. Understandably, there is some anxiety about that, but they will find in many countries that they are under pressure increasingly to secularise their policies in order to deal with the practical concerns of their people. We will see over time—but only over time—how they develop.

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

On that particular point, does the Foreign Secretary not accept that in Tunisia there were some concerns about whether Ennahda would be able to represent all of Tunisia? In fact, Ennahda was expected not to meet the rule that was brought in requiring 50% women candidates but, in the end, 42 of the 49 women elected to the Tunisian Parliament came from that party.

[Mr Hague]

I absolutely agree. My hon. Friend makes a very important point and that is why we should not dismiss the gains and popularity of such parties or assume that their programmes will necessarily be a retrograde step for those countries. The situation might vary from one country to another and we should avoid generalising.

On the question of people’s long-term aspirations and democratic gains, let me turn at greater length to Bahrain and some of the other countries I have mentioned. Members on both sides will have studied the long-awaited report of the independent commission of inquiry set up by King Hamad of Bahrain. The report confirms shocking and distressing abuses, including the use of excessive and unnecessary force against protestors, deaths in custody as a result of torture, the

“systematic practice of physical and psychological mistreatment”

of detainees, the “deliberate terrorising” of the families of suspects, arbitrary arrests and many other violations of international and Bahraini law. It also points the finger of blame at some protestors who targeted the Bahraini security forces.

The commission has set out clear steps for the Bahraini Government to take, including the establishment of an independent national committee to oversee implementation of its recommendations, an independent committee to hold to account those who broke the law, an independent investigation into deaths caused by the security forces and into allegations of torture and abuse, a permanent new anti-torture organisation that would also oversee human rights training for security forces, the recruitment of Shi’as into the security forces and pardon or acquittal of all those convicted of crimes relating to freedom of expression. The commission called on the Government to publish a timetable for implementation of those and its many other recommendations.

We condemn the behaviour described in the report and call for the implementation of the inquiry’s recommendations in full. We also acknowledge the groundbreaking nature of the commission. This is the first time that any Government in the region have set up an international investigation into allegations of abuse, and we welcome King Hamad’s pledge to use the report as a “catalyst for change” to overcome the country’s divisions. I spoke to the Foreign Minister of Bahrain immediately after the issuing of the report, to urge its implementation and offer British support for that objective. Now is the time for Bahrain’s Government and opposition groups to engage constructively, to promote tolerance and reconciliation and to demonstrate a shared commitment to a peaceful future for Bahrain.

[Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab)]

Given what the Foreign Secretary has just said about Bahrain, is it appropriate—or was it appropriate, as I do not know what the position is now—to continue to train Bahraini military personnel at British establishments, for the Prime Minister to be photographed on the steps of No. 10 shaking the hand of the Bahraini Crown Prince, or to invite the Bahrainis to a British arms fair? Those human rights abuses have been known for many years.

[Mr Hague]

The abuses the commission talks about have taken place in recent months. I think that it is right—we have considered this carefully at every stage—to have maintained a degree of engagement with Bahrain over recent months. The Prime Minister and I have had meetings with the Crown Prince of Bahrain when he has visited London and I have maintained regular telephone contact with the Foreign Minister of Bahrain. Yes, there are links between our armed forces, and the Royal Navy minesweepers that operate in the Gulf are based in Bahrain. I think that it has been right to continue that engagement while making clear public criticism of what has gone wrong—criticism that I have reiterated today.

Bahrain looks to us for advice and we have repeatedly said that the commission is of enormous importance and that its publication would be of enormous importance and we have urged the Bahrainis to follow the path of treating such a commission seriously and using it as a catalyst for change. Such improvements as we might now see might be partly the product, in some ways, of the engagement of some western countries with the rulers of Bahrain, so it is therefore important to keep that up. In all these countries our Government are ready to support projects to achieve greater political participation, tackle corruption and assist employment. Our Arab Partnership fund, which I announced in February this year, is already supporting 47 projects on political and economic reform in nine countries across the region from Morocco to Iraq. During the visit by His Majesty the King of Jordan to London earlier this month, we agreed to increase our economic co-operation and support for reform in Jordan.

In Egypt, unrest is being fuelled by the fact that the democratic transition is proceeding more slowly than many in the country had hoped, as well as by economic hardship. As a result, last week we saw the largest demonstrations at any time since the revolution. More than 40 people died in violent clashes in Cairo and other cities. We have condemned those deaths and the use of excessive force by the Egyptian security forces. I welcome the fact that, despite these events, parliamentary elections are under way today, and I congratulate the people of Egypt as they go to the polls. Free, fair and credible elections are essential to retaining public confidence and keeping Egypt on track for presidential elections by the end of June 2012. The Egyptian authorities must build trust that there will be a full transition to civilian control, with the military stepping back from power, as well as economic recovery. The new Government being formed should be inclusive and enjoy broad support. I spoke to the Egyptian Foreign Minister on Thursday to convey these messages.

We have to do our utmost to help Egypt and the countries of the Arab world to make a success of more open political systems and economies, and it is overwhelmingly in our interests to do so. This is very apparent in Yemen, which has experienced 10 months of acute violence.

[Mr Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)]

May I ask about Egypt before my right hon. Friend moves on? Nobody would wish to offer any succour or comfort to those responsible for the deaths and violence in Tahrir square last week, but is it not a little unwise for some western countries to call for the immediate removal of the military regime at a time when the country is facing economic collapse? Is not the long-term process of democratic elections, which will take three months at least, much more important at the moment?

[Mr Hague]

We have called for power to pass to a civilian Government as rapidly as possible, but also for elections to take place. It is quite right for the presidential election to be brought forward to next June rather than for it to take place in 2013. Those are the sorts of things we have urged on the Egyptian authorities. I have always argued with Egyptian leaders that they need a presidential system with strong democratic accountability, which they did not have before, in a country such as theirs and that they were leaving it too late to elect their President. I think we are giving sensible advice. At the heart of this matter is the fact that the elections should proceed, as my hon. Friend says.

I was just beginning to talk about Yemen. We welcome the fact that on 23 November President Saleh signed the Gulf Co-operation Council agreement at a ceremony attended in Riyadh, which was attended by the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt). This paves the way for the formation of a national unity Government, a Prime Minister nominated by the Opposition, and early presidential elections within 90 days. I congratulate the GCC countries on that agreement. All sides in Yemen must work together to re-establish internal security and tackle its huge economic and humanitarian problems.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Hague]

I give way to a right hon. Gentleman who has a long-standing interest in Yemen.

[Keith Vaz]

May I congratulate and thank the Foreign Secretary and the British Government for the patient diplomatic efforts they have made over the past few months, including the move in the Security Council to try to get the President of Yemen to sign the agreement, which he has now done? Is there absolute confidence that he will stick to that agreement? Given that the Minister of State, Department for International Development, the right hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr Duncan), is present, let me ask whether we can now start to provide the aid that Yemen so desperately needs at this time in its history.

[Mr Hague]

I am very grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s kind remarks. I should particularly like to credit our ambassador in Yemen, John Wilks, who has done fantastic work in very dangerous—literally physically dangerous—circumstances in the past few months. Last year, there were two very serious attempts on the lives of our diplomats in Yemen. They do an extraordinary job in working there and we have kept our embassy functioning at all times. We will now do all we can to support this process and the work of Vice-President Hadi and the transitional Government. I propose to discuss these things with him soon. We have already provided more than £15 million in UK aid this year alone, but DFID has been restricted in what it can do. This is less than the Budget originally provided because of the very difficult security situation on the ground. We can do more in the development sense in Yemen once security has more widely returned.

As to absolute confidence, it would be a very brave Minister—indeed, a foolhardy one—who expressed absolute confidence in what will happen next in Yemen, after what we have been through in recent years. Nevertheless, the signing of the GCC agreement by the President in the presence of so many regional leaders, including His Majesty the King of Saudi Arabia, is a very big step forward. Now we all have to give every assistance to the process being carried out on the timetable that has been set out.

On Libya, the House will welcome the announcement of a transitional Government, headed by Prime Minister al-Kib. The transitional Government will pave the way for elections to a national congress, a new constitution and elections to a Parliament in 18 months’ time. There are positive signs that the Prime Minister seeks a new Libya built on human rights and the rule of law.

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend comment on the report issued by the UN Secretary-General, which says that there are up to 7,000 enemies of the state who have disappeared or are being maltreated and tortured in militia-held prisons? Clearly, we cannot have double standards about this. We went to war to protect human rights. We must go on putting maximum pressure on the new Libyan Government.

[Mr Hague]

Yes, my hon. Friend is absolutely right about that. Members on all sides will be concerned by reports of the abuse of detainees and of other human rights violations. I raised the issue with the new Prime Minister of Libya when I spoke to him 10 days ago. It is important that the Government’s commitment to uphold human rights is translated into visible action, and we look to them to do that. There are positive signs, as I was saying, that the new Government will be built on human rights and the rule of law. The new Government includes five women, two of whom are Ministers heading the Departments for Health and Social Affairs, respectively. Libya has also now resumed its seat on the UN Human Rights Council.

The Government face urgent challenges, in addition to the one that we have just mentioned, to ensure law and order, control weaponry and integrate revolutionary fighters into the security forces or help them to find other employment. The capture of Saif al-Islam was a significant moment which will help to bring the whole Gaddafi era to a close. The Libyan authorities have committed themselves to ensuring that he receives a fair trial and have indicated their preference for a trial in Libya, which is provided for in the Rome statute. We will urge them to co-operate with the International Criminal Court, as indeed they have said they will do.

Libyans are not alone, of course, in wishing to ensure accountability for crimes attributed to the Gaddafi regime. We, too, wish to see the killers of WPC Yvonne Fletcher brought to justice, and the resolution of other issues that have scarred lives and our relations with Libya, including the Lockerbie bombing and Gaddafi’s support for IRA terrorism. There is no expiry date for such crimes, and we will work to support British nationals seeking justice and closure for these terrible episodes.

We will be a strong partner with the new Libya, working to build a better future for Libyans and strong bilateral relations. We will work together in a range of areas including education, migration, trade and investment and security co-operation. It will take time to cement Libya’s transition from 42 years of dictatorial rule, but the House and our country can be proud of Britain’s role in saving lives and helping to bring about this historic change.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

Will my right hon. Friend give me an assurance that his Department is doing everything possible to lobby the Government of Niger to hand over the remaining Gaddafi loyalists who have sought sanctuary in that country?

[Mr Hague]

We have done that. The Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire, in particular has been in direct contact with Ministers in Niger, and we have reminded them and other countries in the region of their international responsibilities, which they have assured us they will live up to.

The progress that Libya is making stands in stark contrast to the repression in Syria. The toll of more than 3,500 lost lives since March this year is truly appalling. The UN commission of inquiry report issued today highlights the shocking actions carried out by the Assad regime against its own civilian population, including summary executions, arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, torture, sexual violence and the violation of children’s rights. I welcome yesterday’s unprecedented decision by the Arab League to impose sanctions on Syria and seek UN support to address the situation. The decision by Russia and China to block Security Council action on 4 October was utterly wrong and, in my view, has been confirmed as misguided by everything that has happened in Syria subsequently.

[Mr Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

What representations are the Foreign Secretary and the Government making to the Chinese and Russian Governments to ensure that they adopt a stronger position on sanctions?

[Mr Hague]

We have discussed that at some length, as the hon. Gentleman can imagine. The Prime Minister and I discussed it with Russian leaders, including President Medvedev, on our visit to Moscow a couple of months ago. We are in constant contact about it at the UN Security Council, as are our representatives there. I continue to believe that it would be right for the Security Council to address the issue and we will make further attempts to do so. Of course, passing any resolution will require a different attitude from Moscow.

[Mike Gapes]

rose—

[Mr Hague]

I had better stop giving way to Members a second time, but I will do so once more.

[Mike Gapes]

The Foreign Secretary referred to the welcome decision by the Arab League, but I understand that at least two important neighbours of Syria— Lebanon and Iraq—have said that they will not impose sanctions. Is that because of the influence of Iran, through Hezbollah, and Iraqi political parties, and does he feel that Iran could play a very negative role in the process?

[Mr Hague]

I will move on to Iran shortly, but I absolutely feel that it plays a negative role in the process and has assisted the Syrian authorities in various ways to try to repress the Syrian population. It would certainly not be surprising if Iran was using its influence on some Arab countries to reduce the impact of any sanctions on Syria. Nevertheless, we should recognise that what the Arab League is doing is unprecedented. The vast majority of its members not only voted for it, but are now preparing to implement meaningful sanctions on a fellow member and colleague. That shows how seriously the Arab world takes the situation in Syria, which will have an impact on the Assad regime. Our Government’s goal is to give maximum support to Arab League efforts to persuade the President of Syria to end the violence while using every lever at our disposal to bring economic and diplomatic pressure to bear. We have supported successive rounds of EU sanctions that have banned the import of Syrian oil and targeted individuals responsible for the violence with asset freezes and travel bans. We are pressing ahead with plans for further sanctions on Syria at the EU Foreign Affairs Council later this week.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

Will the Foreign Secretary give way?

[Mr Hague]

I had better stop giving way so many times, but I will give way to my hon. Friend.

[Rehman Chishti]

The Foreign Secretary will be aware of recent reports in Turkish national newspapers that the Turkish Government are looking at creating a buffer zone within Syria for the protection of civilians. Is that something the United Kingdom will support?

[Mr Hague]

As my hon. Friend can imagine, during the state visit of the President of Turkey last week the Turkish Foreign Minister and I had extensive discussions about Syria. I do not believe that there is any imminent plan to create such a zone or take action within Syrian territory, which would obviously be a major step for any country. I think that the way forward is to intensify international pressure and support the Arab League. We co-sponsored last week’s UN General Assembly resolution condemning Syria’s human rights record, which was passed by a large majority. We will continue to approach the matter in this way.

I have also held talks with representatives of a number of Syria’s opposition groups, including the chairman of the largest body, the Syrian national council. My intention in doing so was to gain further insights into the situation on the ground and to impress upon them how important it is that they unite around a common platform, as called for by the Arab League. At a time of crisis for their country, they should put aside their differences and show the people of Syria that there is a clear alternative to the current regime.

The current lack of a united opposition is one of the many differences between the situation in Syria and that which we faced in Libya. The obstacles to democratic transition are different in each country, and our support for Arab League efforts is the best way forward, but President Assad should not for an instant consider that there is a way back for him and his regime, which has utterly discredited itself in the eyes of most of its people and the vast majority of the world. We will not relent in our efforts to support the right of the Syrian people to choose a different future.

We have long advised against all travel to Syria, and we advise British nationals in Syria to leave by commercial means while such means are still available. Those who choose to remain in Syria or to visit against our advice should be aware that it is highly unlikely that the British embassy would be able to provide a normal consular service in the event of a further breakdown in law and order. Evacuation options would be limited or non-existent, because of likely communication and travel restrictions.

We are also intensifying our efforts to respond to the challenge posed by Iran's nuclear programme. Following the unequivocal report by the International Atomic Energy Agency on 18 November, which pointed to the military dimensions of Iran's nuclear programme, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor instructed the UK financial sector on 21 November to sever all links with Iranian banks. The United States and Canada have taken similar steps. In the coming days, European Union partners will expand sanctions against the nuclear programme. We want Iran to return to the negotiating table, and in the meantime it should be left in no doubt about the resolve of the international community.

Members will be aware that yesterday the Iranian Parliament voted to downgrade relations with the United Kingdom. That is regrettable and unwarranted. It will do nothing to repair Iran’s international reputation, and to respond in that manner to pressure from the international community to engage is entirely counter-productive and yet another sign of Iran’s continued unwillingness to enter into dialogue. If the Iranian Government confirm their intention to act on that vote, we shall respond robustly in consultation with our international partners.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

The action that could be taken against the British ambassador is totally wrong and should indeed be condemned, as it will be, I am sure, by the whole House, but does the Foreign Secretary accept that the concern remains that whatever the justification—and the action being taken against the regime through sanctions and the rest is absolutely right—military action could be encouraged by Israel? I certainly hope that it will be made clear that, whatever the position, military action will not be approved in any way by the United States—and certainly not by this country.

[Mr Hague]

The position is the one that I have made clear many times before: we are not calling for military action. Our approach is a twin-track approach of negotiations and legitimate peaceful pressure on Iran. We have always said, as previous Governments in this country and other Governments throughout Europe have said, that no option is taken off the table for the future, but we are not advocating military action, and, as I say, our approach is the twin-track approach that I have set out.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Foreign Secretary, who is being very generous in giving way. There is no doubt in my mind that the Iranian regime is one of the greatest threats to peace in the middle east, if not the world, but has the Foreign Secretary assessed or considered whether that regime might have drawn the wrong lessons from the change of regime in Libya, whereby the Libyans got rid of some of their weapons of mass destruction and tried to negotiate their way back into the world community? Does he think that Ahmadinejad has drawn the wrong lessons from that?

[Mr Hague]

It is hard to know, of course, what lessons the Iranians have drawn from that, but we certainly have not detected any change in Iranian policy—before or after the events in Libya. As the hon. Gentleman says, however, such a lesson would be the wrong one to draw. The right lesson to draw from Libya is that regimes that oppress their population over a long period eventually find that a vast proportion of that population is against them and wants to change the regime. That is something the Iranians and regimes in several others countries should bear in mind; that is the right lesson to draw.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Will the Foreign Secretary give way?

[Mr Hague]

If the House will forgive me, I will not give way to hon. Members to whom I have given way before, because I will soon have been speaking for three quarters of an hour and more, and I want to deal with one final and very important subject, the subject of my statement on 9 November, which remains a central concern in the middle east, namely the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I repeat today our call for negotiations on a two-state solution, without delay and without preconditions, based on the timetable set out in the Quartet statement of 23 September. In our view, the parameters for a Palestinian state are those affirmed by the European Union as a whole—borders based on 1967 lines, with equivalent land swaps; a just, fair and realistic solution for refugees; and agreement on Jerusalem as the future capital of both states. The Quartet met both parties separately on 14 November and will next meet on 16 December. We urge both parties to engage fully with the Quartet process and to fulfil their commitment to present proposals on borders and security by 26 January.

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Foreign Secretary make it crystal clear that both sides—Israelis and Palestinians—are required to step up to the process? Will he say more about what pressure he is able to put on the Palestinian authorities to come to the table?

[Mr Hague]

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that this requires the involvement of both sides. As I have often argued—I said it in my statement on 9 November—we need to look to Israel to make a more decisive offer than any it has been prepared to make in the recent past. That is an indispensable ingredient of any successful negotiation that could take place. However, it is also important for Palestinians to be ready to engage in the negotiations and not to set preconditions which make such negotiations impossible in the first place. There is a responsibility on both sides. It is a slightly different responsibility in each case, but it amounts to being ready to negotiate a two-state solution, which is otherwise slipping away from us.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Hague]

I will take three more interventions, and then I must conclude my remarks.

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State confirm one thing and give his views on another? In relation to the Quartet’s call for proposals, will he confirm that the Palestinians have put forward proposals but Israel has so far failed to do so? Will he give his views—perhaps he is going to do this in his speech anyway—on the unity talks that are taking place between Mahmoud Abbas and Khaled Mashal? Does he agree that the important thing is to do everything possible to ensure that Hamas is brought into the peace process instead of trying to seek excuses to keep it outside the process?

[Mr Hague]

I am not aware that either side has yet presented proposals that meet the Quartet’s requirements of 26 January on borders and security to that level of detail. We look to Hamas to change its own behaviour; that is the way for it to bring itself into a peace process. We have looked to Palestinian reconciliation before, and we have been on the brink of it before, and now there is new discussion of that. It is important for a Palestinian authority that is the basis of reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah to include independent figures, to be committed to non-violence, to be committed to a two-state solution, and to accept previous agreements of the Palestine Liberation Organisation. That is how we will judge such an authority.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

rose—

[Nick Boles (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Hague]

I will give way twice more, as I said, and then I will conclude my speech.

[Ms Buck]

Of course we all hope that there will be a triumph of hope over experience, with swifter action on this terrible situation. In the meantime, what is the Foreign Secretary’s estimate of the catastrophic situation in Gaza? Is he continuing to press at all times to ensure that Gaza’s civilian population have some relief from the predicament in which they have been trapped for so many years?

[Mr Hague]

Yes, absolutely. As the hon. Lady knows, we have a long-standing position on this. We look to Israel to permit the further opening of Gaza so that all Palestinian people can see a pathway to a better future, living side by side with a secure Israel. It is vital that Israel takes that action. We also call on Israel to reverse its decision to withhold tax revenues from the Palestinian Authority. In addition, we have condemned, and I think the whole House is united in condemning, settlement activity that is wrong, illegal and deeply counter-productive. We are very clear about that.

[Nick Boles]

I apologise in advance if I am becoming somewhat repetitive on this subject, but did the Foreign Secretary see the piece in The Times by Tzipi Livni shortly after his last statement? I believe that most people in this House, of all points of view, would consider her to be a proper partner for peace. She made the point, which I have tried to make, that until we deal with the threat posed by Iran and specifically by the Iranian regime, the chance of much progress in any kind of peace process between Israel and Palestine is very slim.

[Mr Hague]

Apologising for being repetitive is a novel approach in this House which no one has ever adopted before. My hon. Friend need not apologise, because this is an important consideration. I would state the point the other way around. I had a very good discussion with Mrs Livni when she was here in October and we agreed on many points. I think that the multiplicity of threats to Israel and its growing international isolation underline the need for progress on a two-state solution and for it to make a more decisive offer to the Palestinians if negotiations take place. I see it that way around, as I think would most in the House.

In summary, our approach in the coming months will be to continue to expand our diplomatic activity in the middle east, north Africa, the Sahel and the horn of Africa; to show leadership in addressing pervasive challenges, such as the crisis in Somalia and terrorism in the Maghreb; to provide tangible support to the democratic transitions in countries from Tunisia to Yemen; to stand by the people of Syria; to meet the challenge of Iranian proliferation; and to support a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In all those areas, British policy benefits from a great deal of international support, from strong international alliances and from strong bipartisan support in this House for our objectives, which this Government will always seek to strengthen.

16:26

[Mr Douglas Alexander (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (Lab)]

I welcome the opportunity for the House to debate the Arab spring, the horn of Africa and the Sahel this afternoon. I begin by echoing the warm words of the Foreign Secretary for the diplomats and aid workers of the United Kingdom, who do outstanding work for our country. There is complete agreement across the House on efforts to tackle security in the Sahel and, in particular, to address al-Qaeda in the Maghreb. It is right to begin this debate by recognising that, at least in our objectives, there is a measure of cross-party consensus on a number of the points that the Foreign Secretary has addressed.

It is many months since we have had a full debate on the middle east and north Africa, albeit that we have had a number of statements in the intervening months. In that time, there have been many positives and some worrying developments in the region. In Tunisia and Libya, steady progress is being made. In Egypt, historic elections mark a period of great change. The situation in Syria, however, is defined by a dispiriting lack of progress and a continuation, indeed escalation, of violence and oppression. In Yemen, progress remains slow, albeit that agreement has now been reached, as the Foreign Secretary described. In Iran, the situation is evolving rapidly, with developments increasing the already high tensions in the region. Regrettably, progress on the peace process remains sadly stalled.

I will first address the seismic changes that we have witnessed this year, which have come to be known as the Arab spring. We can already see certain patterns emerging. As has been stated, Islamic parties such as the Justice and Development party in Morocco, Ennahda in Tunisia, and the Freedom and Justice party, the party of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, are proving to be politically experienced, well financed, disciplined and well placed for electoral progress. It is also clear that the longer the violence continues in countries from Syria to Egypt, the less chance there is that a stable democratic order will emerge quickly, and the more likely it is, in a country such as Syria, that we could see a descent into civil war. It is hard to overstate, therefore, the perils as well as the possibilities of the current moment.

Egypt is the largest and strategically most significant country that has seen its Government overthrown in recent months. As the historic leader of the Arab world, what happens there, perhaps more than in any other country in the region, will shape future generations’ views of this period of change across the Arab world. Today, as we speak, millions of Egyptian voters are going to the polls after a long and hard-won struggle for democracy, yet the deeply troubling resurgence of violence that we have witnessed in these past days, and indeed the reoccupation of Tahrir square by the protestors, demonstrate the continuing fragility of the gains already made and the continuing anxiety of many about the evidence that the pre-Mubarak power structures have retained their authority in post-Mubarak Egypt.

Civilian control of the military is one of the cornerstones of democracy, and after eight months of military rule the Egyptian military face a fateful choice. The so-called al-Selmy proposal for constitutional reform proposed earlier this month by the Egyptian Deputy Prime Minister, which sought to exempt the Egyptian military from proper civilian scrutiny, has now been vocally and visibly rejected by the millions across Egypt who have taken to the streets in recent days.

In light of those recent developments, will the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), confirm when he winds up the debate that, during the Foreign Secretary’s recent visit to Egypt, the Foreign Secretary was satisfied by the assurances that he received from the Egyptian interim Government on the key issue of civilian control? Did they appreciate fully that attempts to preserve the military’s past privileges and powers would damage the very country that they took an oath to protect? Given the Foreign Secretary’s advocacy this very afternoon of free, fair and credible elections in Egypt, what representations have the British Government made about the United Nations being denied access to election planners in Cairo and about the retention of a system of quotas in Parliament, which has been used to manipulate election results in Egypt since the presidency of Colonel Nasser? Of course, I welcome the fact that so far, the ceasefire between protestors and the police brokered last Thursday remains in place, but so too, if we are honest, do the fundamental political differences that began the conflict.

The road from popular uprising to stable democratic governance is of course hazardous. In the absence of a clearer democratic pathway forward or bold, decisive economic policies, the Egyptian economy shrank by 4.2% overall in just the first quarter of this year compared with a year before. With unemployment now running at about 12%, the economic risks confronting Egypt are real and dangerous. Democratic political reform becomes a much more onerous, indeed difficult, task when it occurs against the backdrop of economic decline. I therefore believe that the Government have to do more to convince all of us in the House that multilateral organisations, critically including the European Union as well as the multinational financing organisations, are taking all possible steps to assist the Egyptian economy in this difficult period of transition. Perhaps the Under-Secretary could set out the practical steps that the British Government are urging upon those institutions.

I share the concerns expressed by the Foreign Secretary about the recent developments on the ground in Syria. As the UN commission of inquiry report issued earlier today states, and with recent UN estimates putting the death toll at a horrific 3,500, it is clear that Assad has lost any legitimacy and must step aside, but how can the international community act to isolate further the Assad regime at this time? First, we must ensure that pressure from the Arab League and regional powers remains coherent and consistent. The Opposition welcome, as did the Foreign Secretary, the recent diplomatic steps taken by the Arab League, including steps taken this weekend to impose further sanctions on the regime. However, will the Under-Secretary give his assessment of the impact that he expects that pressure to have, given that despite the steps already taken the violence has continued unabated and the death toll has continued to rise?

Secondly, can the Government say any more about what discussions they are having with European counterparts about the possibility of imposing further economic and diplomatic sanctions on Syria through the European Union? Do the Government share my view that, in light of the welcome and significant steps taken by the Arab League, the EU should now be prepared to go further than the sanctions announced as recently as September?

Thirdly, the Opposition welcome the Government’s involvement in passing the unequivocal statement at the United Nations condemning the recent violence in Syria, but given the stated opposition of China and Russia to taking further diplomatic steps against Syria, which has already been the subject of some debate this afternoon, will the Under-Secretary tell the House whether the Foreign Secretary raised the issue during his most recent discussions with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, and particularly what further discussions are scheduled to press the Russians to change their position on Syria?

Finally on Syria, I wish to address the role that Turkey can potentially play in securing an end to the violence, an omission that I found curious in the Foreign Secretary’s remarks. Last week, along with the Foreign Secretary, I met the Turkish Foreign Minister during the state visit to London of the Turkish President. Let me commend publicly the statements that Turkey has made, making it clear that it regards the Assad regime as now having passed the point of no return. But there should be no doubt, as the Turkish Government have made clear, that the longer this crisis endures, the greater are the prospects of ethnic, religious and sectarian fault lines re-emerging in Syria in ways that could make it harder still to reach a swift and peaceful resolution to the conflict. Can the Under-Secretary therefore share with the House some of his thoughts about what further action could be taken, given Turkey’s significant role in the region and its strong commitment to try to see a resolution to the crisis presently affecting Syria?

We welcome the publication—albeit delayed—of the report of the Bahrain independent commission on human rights. Notwithstanding the remarks by the Foreign Secretary, I regret that—contrary to the undertaking that he previously gave the House—the Government have failed to provide a comprehensive written ministerial statement setting out their views on that report. Therefore, I welcome the fact that he confirmed today that the Government are giving their immediate backing to recommendations in the report, not least the call for any protestors accused of a crime to be tried in civilian courts and not special military courts that operate outwith the normal legal system. Therefore, I ask the Under-Secretary to update the House, when he winds up, specifically about the retrials of 20 medics detained during the recent protests. Has he received assurances from the Bahraini authorities that they will meet the necessary international standards of free and fair trials and, if not, what steps are the Government taking to seek to ensure that that happens? We also welcome the report’s conclusion that there is no significant evidence of Iranian involvement in the recent violence, but I suggest that that makes the task of national reconciliation in Bahrain all the more important and pressing. Perhaps the Under-Secretary could be more forthcoming about what steps the Government will take to encourage such critical national reconciliation, given the continued suggestions of violence within the country and Britain’s historically strong links with Bahrain, which the Foreign Secretary described this afternoon.

Ten months after the mass uprising that swept Ben Ali from power, Tunisia has taken a vital step this month in its transition from autocracy to democracy. The country’s constituent assembly held its opening session this week, following the first ever free elections last month, which saw more than 90% of those registered turning out to vote. We therefore urge the Government to continue to monitor the constitutional reform process in Tunisia closely, and to do all that they can to support the democratic transformation thankfully already under way. Only last week, thousands gathered in the streets of Tunis to call on the newly elected legislature to ensure that the new constitution reflected the rights and freedoms that they have for so long sought. Can the Under-Secretary be more specific on what steps are being taken, through the work of the British embassy in Tunis, the Arab partnership fund and the European Union’s neighbourhood fund, to support the democratic transition under way?

In Libya also, the political leaders have begun the process of drawing up a constitution and it is vital that in the months ahead that process is recognised to be fair and transparent. I welcome the swearing in of Libya’s transitional Government, which represents a vital next step in the country’s roadmap to elections next year. The decision by the national transitional council in Libya to work with the International Criminal Court and the United Nations in investigating alleged crimes committed by Muammar Gaddafi and his recently captured son is also welcome. We urge the Government to continue to offer their full support to that process.

It is, however, a matter of regret to hon. Members on both sides of the House that the recent tide of change in the region has not yet led to progress on one of the most intractable conflicts that continues to define the lives of so many in the region—the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Across the House, I believe that there is strong consensus that we therefore now need the renewed efforts and energies of which the Foreign Secretary spoke to be invested in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Since we last debated the issue in the House, too little progress has been made on the ground—millions of Israeli civilians are still living in fear of the deadly barrage of rocket attacks from Gaza, while settlement building on Palestinian land has continued unabated in clear violation of international law. For real and urgent progress to be achieved, both parties must be encouraged to come back to the negotiating table.

The international community, as well as a majority of Israelis and Palestinians, share a common view of the principles on which a final agreement will be based. The Foreign Secretary rehearsed them again this afternoon—land swaps around the 1967 borders, Jerusalem as a shared capital and a fair settlement for refugees. However, despite that apparent consensus, progress seems to have stalled and efforts to reinvigorate it remain all too weak. We agree with the Government that there is no alternative to a negotiated peace, and we will support them in their efforts to facilitate a negotiated agreement. Given the present deadlock, will the Under-Secretary tell us what specific steps the Government are taking to re-establish the peace process, and will he offer the House his view as to how the present logjam can be broken?

Let me turn now to Iran, on which there is a broad and wide consensus in this House. An urgent and pressing issue in the region is the apparent ambition of the Iranian regime to acquire nuclear weapons. Based on the threats of the Iranian President himself, we know that, if Iran were to acquire a nuclear weapon, it would pose a grave threat to its immediate neighbours as well as to the stability of the region and the security of the international community as a whole.

Members across the House will have been shocked by the scenes of anger that were directed towards the United Kingdom in a recent session of the Iranian Parliament. Chants of “Death to Britain” were just the latest reminder of the violence and brutality that characterise too much of the Iranian regime. In light of those recent developments, will the Under-Secretary give an assessment of how the downgrading of diplomatic ties is likely to impact on the UK’s ability to take what diplomatic steps it can to stop Iran acquiring nuclear weapons and how the UK strategy on that issue can be advanced notwithstanding these actions by the Tehran regime?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

As my right hon. Friend knows, I am not in favour of anyone anywhere having nuclear weapons. He will also be aware that Iran is a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and that last year’s review conference called for a middle east nuclear-free zone. Such a zone would obviously include Israel, which is not a signatory to the NPT. Does he not think that, at this delicate time, it is more important than ever rapidly to engage with all shades of opinion in Iran to try to head off a potentially catastrophic descent into a military attack on Iran, which clearly some people are planning to do?

[Mr Alexander]

I do not know whether this will encourage or dispirit my hon. Friend, but I can do little better than to echo the words of the Foreign Secretary on the matter. We want that twin-track approach. It is therefore important and necessary that there should be engagement with the Tehran regime. The most recent International Energy Agency report issued a stark warning about the nuclear programme. In all parts of the House, we should be mindful of the grave risks that the Tehran regime is now running. We have already welcomed the steps that were taken last week by the Government to impose new sanctions against Iran, which will cut off all financial ties with Iranian banks.

When the Under-Secretary winds up, will he tell us whether the Government will consider taking further action under the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008, which could add further pressure on the Iranian Government? Will he also give us his assessment of the effect of the present EU sanctions on Iran’s critical petrochemical, oil and gas industries? We must continue to search for those peaceful forms of pressure to persuade the Iranian regime to think again. In light of the most recent IEA report, it seems that UN action should be stronger. Will the Under-Secretary give us his assessment of what prospects there are for further action at UN level, given the stated position of both the Chinese and the Russian Governments, and also assure the House that in any recent and further meetings with those Governments, the issue of a nuclear-armed Iran will be high on the Government’s agenda?

Let me turn briefly to events in Somalia, where a tragic food crisis has emerged in recent months. I welcome news that a conference is to be held in London in February, not least given the range of issues that now demand the attention of the British Government and the international community, which include the food crisis and the security challenges, of which the Foreign Secretary spoke.

The first famine of the 21st century was declared in Somalia in July. The lack of rain in the region is due to be the worst in 60 years and the UN is warning that, as a result, more than 1 million people face imminent starvation. Against that backdrop of human tragedy, we are gravely concerned by reports emerging this week that the al-Shabaab fighters have closed down several aid agencies working in Somalia. The stranglehold of al-Shabaab on the region is having a wholly negative impact on the prospects for peace across the region. Given that, will the Government provide an assessment of the progress made in establishing the authority of the Somali Government across the entire country, particularly in areas where militants are making it almost impossible—sometimes wholly impossible—for aid agencies and others to access vital life-saving support from international aid agencies?

In conclusion, as already evident, there is broad agreement across the House on the steps that need to be taken in response to the extraordinary wave of change that has come to be known as the Arab spring. It is already clear that democratic transformation will not unfold uniformly across countries as vast and divergent as Egypt, Libya and Syria, but the consistency of the demands made by the protesters across these borders is testament to the enduring values for which they have been struggling. It is therefore incumbent on the Government to act in the months ahead in ways consistent with the scale of the opportunities and the scale of the risks confronting the middle east and north Africa.

16:45

[Sir Malcolm Rifkind (Kensington) (Con)]

I begin by apologising for the fact that I will not be able to hear the winding-up speeches, but I look forward to reading them.

I agreed with the shadow Foreign Secretary’s observation that patterns are emerging in the Arab spring, and I wish to draw attention to one pattern that has not given risen to much comment but which is very significant. Although turmoil has affected every country in the Arab world from Morocco to the Gulf, it is significant that the greatest turmoil and the revolutions have taken place and dictators have fallen in the republics, whereas the monarchies, with the exception of Bahrain, despite experiencing significant disturbances, have not seen such substantial violence or attempts to overthrow the system.

It is worth asking why that might be. It is over-simplistic and incorrect simply to say, “It is to do with those countries that have oil and those that do not”, because clearly Morocco and Jordan have minimal amounts of oil while Libya has a great deal. I think that it is about legitimacy. I am not suggesting that there is antipathy towards republicanism as such in the republics of the Arab world or that there is a love for monarchy, but these are dictators who have acted cruelly, who achieved power by force—or, in the case of Assad, whose father took power by force—who have maintained it by the cruellest methods of despotism and who therefore have not earned their people’s respect.

Admittedly, the monarchies have not been democracies but authoritarian states, some of which have exercised their power in a way that we and many of their own people would consider unacceptable, but nevertheless in the eyes of a significant proportion of their own people they still have that legitimacy without which a modern Government cannot expect to survive.

[Mike Gapes]

I agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman. Does he also accept that certainly in Jordan and Morocco there have been progressive improvements towards democracy—too slow perhaps and possibly temporary but nevertheless a reform process—which has not been the case in some of the other countries?

[Sir Malcolm Rifkind]

I was coming to that point. The hon. Gentleman is correct. There is something else that Jordan and Morocco have in common: both the King of Jordan and the King of Morocco claim descent from the Prophet, and many of their people accept the legitimacy of that claim. Furthermore, the King of Saudi Arabia does not call himself “King of Saudi Arabia” but “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques”—Mecca and Medina—to emphasise, as he would argue, his spiritual not simply secular role. But the hon. Gentleman is correct: the other phenomenon in many of these monarchies is that they have been prepared, however hesitantly, to begin the process of reform, which might help them to deal with their long-term problem.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I am pleased that my right hon. and learned Friend is raising this issue. I would add that there are many people in Libya who wish for a restoration of their constitutional monarchy and very much regret that the national transitional council is proposing a presidential system without any plebiscite to find out what the people wish.

[Sir Malcolm Rifkind]

As it happens, I have met the Crown Prince of Libya in the past few months. It is, however, up to the Libyan people. They were pretty good at getting rid of Gaddafi, and if they want a restoration of the monarchy, it should not be too difficult for them to insist at least on a plebiscite so that the Libyans can decide.

I raise this question not simply to praise the monarchies. In the longer term, they face exactly the problem that the north African countries and Syria face now. They do, however, have a window of opportunity. Their peoples are saying, “We, too, want more liberal, accountable government and the rule of law, just as the rest of the world has increasingly had it. Because we accept your legitimacy and because we acknowledge that you are introducing reform, however tentatively, we are prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt for the time being.” However, I predict that if, in five to 10 years from now, not much real progress is made—if the kings, emirs and sheiks remain autocratic rulers in all but name—then revolution will come to those countries as well.

The crucial country is Saudi Arabia, where even that tentative process of genuine parliamentary reform has not even begun yet—it will always be slower for all the reasons that the House is familiar with. Saudi Arabia needs to embark on that process. Prince Nayef—a man who does not have the liberal inclinations of King Abdullah—has been chosen as the new crown prince, although whether he will be more pragmatic when he one day becomes a monarch remains to be seen. However, Saudi Arabia needs to realise that it cannot simply be immune from this extraordinary revolutionary fervour, which has affected Saudis as well as those in other Arab countries.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that there have been demonstrations criticising the monarchy in Saudi Arabia—which have been brutally suppressed—that the army has been sent into Bahrain and that there is almost unparalleled control of the media in Saudi Arabia, even compared with the previous regimes all over the region?

[Sir Malcolm Rifkind]

The hon. Gentleman is right that even in the monarchies there are human rights problems, including in the United Arab Emirates in the past few days. Ministers have resigned from the Kuwaiti Government because of protests over various developments there. In Saudi Arabia, it is more a protest of the Shi’a minority. They are big minority—20% of the population—but they can never aspire to power, and if the Saudi Government have sense, they will try to achieve a policy of reconciliation with them.

I want to turn to a second point—one that came up briefly in the earlier exchanges—about the role of Islamist parties in the region. Like most people in the United Kingdom or the west generally, one feels more comfortable if secular parties win elections; however, we should not get too over-exercised by the fact that parties that call themselves Islamist are doing rather well in a number of countries in free elections. The first point, which is perhaps the most important, is that, from the point of view of al-Qaeda, what is happening with Islamist parties in those countries is a disaster. The whole point of al-Qaeda is to reject a parliamentary route to power, to reject the sharing of power and to insist that only by revolution combined with terrorism can the Islamist ideal be achieved.

What we are seeing, not just in Tunisia and Morocco, but with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt too, is a recognition—for a number of reasons and motives—that, at the very least, power will need to be shared. There is a public declaration of a commitment to multi-party democracy and the rule of law. Of course there will be people in those parties who do not share those values, but so far the evidence supports the view that those declarations are what those parties are about. As I mentioned when I intervened earlier, opinion surveys in Egypt suggest that elections in Egypt are likely to be similar to the two elections so far. The Muslim Brotherhood will do well—it will probably be the largest party—but all the evidence so far, including independent surveys of opinion, suggests that it will not form a majority by itself. It, too, will have to share power, which is crucial.

Earlier I mentioned another factor in relation to Egypt which seems not to have been commented on, but which is significant. If the House accepts that the most important reason, apart from a general desire for the rule of law and freedom, for the revolutions in Egypt and elsewhere was a demand for economic progress—those countries are economically stagnated, having fallen woefully behind Brazil, south-east Asia and countries of the far east in their economic development—that means that the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt faces a particular problem. Anyone ruling Libya will have vast amounts of oil wealth and will be able to afford to act in an extreme way—if that is the way they want to go—because they do not need the co-operation of the rest of the world. The Muslim Brotherhood knows perfectly well that if it were to acquire power in Egypt and then use it as though it had the right to impose an Islamist system on a population that did not want it, that would immediately destroy any possibility of overseas investment in Egypt. Who would invest in Egypt if it seemed to be going the way of Iran? The people of Egypt would never forgive an Egyptian Government who destroyed the prospect of economic growth by pursuing a theocratic agenda. I believe that the Muslim Brotherhood understands that perfectly well and that the first priority of any Egyptian Government has to be to reassure the outside world that Egypt will be an attractive place to come as a tourist and to invest in its resources, in order to help build the economy.

[Kwasi Kwarteng (Spelthorne) (Con)]

Does my right hon. and learned Friend accept that as a consequence of the 25 January revolution and the uncertainty, Egypt has seen enormous capital flight, so much of the risk and the economic disaster that he outlines has already happened?

[Sir Malcolm Rifkind]

Yes, of course, that has happened over the past few months, but it could be reversed if there were a prospect of stability and progress. The tragedy of Iraq is that the Iraq war went on long after the military conflict, with the whole economy destroyed as a consequence. It is only now that Iraqi oil production has got back to its original level. Libyan oil production should be back in a year or 18 months or so—perhaps even earlier. Tourism will return to Egypt when there is stability, but not without it. Any party that destroys that prospect will not be thanked.

Let me turn briefly to two other issues. The first is Syria. There are serious limits to what can be achieved by the outside world in relation to Syria. I pay tribute to the people of Syria who I never expected for a moment would be able to survive eight months of this appalling treatment by their own Government. I assumed wrongly that it would be like the tragedy of Iran and that when the Government used the police, the security forces, the prisons and the torture chambers, the Syrian opposition would, within months, have been pushed under ground, though not destroyed. That has not happened as it did in Iran. The Assad regime is doomed; the question is how we can assist that process.

I welcome the fact that the Government have already opened up contacts with the Syrian opposition. That is highly to be encouraged. I make just one additional point. It seems to me that, although for all the reasons that are increasingly understood, there cannot be a military dimension to the help we give the country, what the Syrian opposition need most is for their morale to be boosted and for them to be able to demonstrate to the people of Syria that they are increasingly winning, not losing, this conflict. That is the significance of the Arab League’s decision and the imposition of economic sanctions. That is how the United Kingdom, the European Union and the United States can make an impact—by demonstrating solidarity with those in Syria who are seeking change.

The final area on which I want to comment is, of course, Iran. There has to be very serious doubt as to whether the current policy of economic sanctions has any prospect of working. However much they are extended, there is no evidence that the Iranian Government are terribly interested in dialogue or even in a carrot-and-stick policy.

One problem—we have heard about it elsewhere— is the attitude of Russia and China. The question is whether there is any way in which the Russian and Chinese Governments can be persuaded to change their position. Russia is acting in an utterly illogical way, even given its own national interest. It is difficult to understand why Russia, with a large Muslim minority of its own and considerable destabilisation in the Caucasus, should acquiesce in the growth of nuclear weapon capability in Iran. If one looks for a Machiavellian explanation, there is a very simple one. The Machiavellian explanation for Russia’s opposition to what is happening with Iran is that it does not want sanctions to work and hopes that the Israelis or the Americans or both will use the military option. That would have the dual benefit of destroying or damaging Iran’s nuclear capability, without Russia having to share the responsibility and thus benefiting both ways from the consequent developments. That is a Machiavellian explanation. I hope it is not true, but I am not yet convinced because I cannot think of any other reason why Moscow should behave as it is.

If there is to be any prospect of economic sanctions working, the only opportunity I can see for success takes us back to the Arab League. As the Foreign Secretary has remarked, the Arab League has already acted in an unprecedented way—first with Libya, when it called for the international action to be taken. As a consequence, Russia and China, which would otherwise have vetoed the international action, came round to allowing the resolution to be passed. Secondly, the Arab League has acted impressively in the case of Syria.

In respect of Iran, however, there is an extraordinary silence. Were it not for WikiLeaks, we would not have been made aware of any public comments showing not just the distaste of Arab countries, but their absolute horror at the prospect of an Iranian nuclear weapon as a result of the geopolitical impact it would have on the region as a whole and on account of their perception of their own security. The situation is extraordinary. As any of us who meet Arab Ministers, Governments or leaders privately will be aware, this is at the top of their agenda: what is the west going to do to prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon?

It was thanks to WikiLeaks that King Abdullah was quoted as saying that the head of the serpent must be cut off—a clear endorsement of the kind of military action by which some Members do not seem to be too enthused. The question is, why can the Arab leaders not express their views publicly? If they did, they would put a great deal more pressure on Russia and China. Those who put that question to them, as I have, are normally told, “We must have equivalence between Iran and Israel. We cannot just call for sanctions against Iran, because Israel has a nuclear weapon, and unless Israel responds as well, it would not be acceptable.”

I must say that I find that a pretty pathetic and unconvincing argument. Israel has had nuclear weapons, rightly or wrongly, for probably some 30 years. Of course the Arabs do not like it—they hate it—but they are not frightened of Israel’s nuclear weapons. If they were, they would have moved towards acquiring nuclear weapons themselves some 30 years ago, but they have not made the slightest effort to do so. They know that, while Israel is a threat in other respects, it possesses its nuclear weapons—rightly or wrongly—essentially in order to protect its very existence as a state should it be subjected to unassailable odds in some conventional conflict.

The Arabs have learnt to live with that, but they do not find it acceptable in the case of Iran. They know that this is all about Iranian nationalism. The Shah, as well as the ayatollahs, was interested in acquiring nuclear weapons, although he did not do much to achieve it. Iran’s traditional enemy is not Israel, but the Arab states themselves. If the Arab states are deeply disturbed by this prospect—if they believe, privately if not publicly, that it is a much greater threat to their security than Israel’s nuclear weapons have ever been or are ever likely to be—they must be as bold in respect of Iran, through the Arab League and individually, as they have so splendidly been in respect of both Syria and Libya.