Department for International Development

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Monday 1st July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robertson]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman, to whom I pay tribute for all his work in that respect. I shall come back to that issue in a moment.

Let me turn to the Independent Commission for Aid Impact, which was set up by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell). It has identified some spending by, for example—this is only an example, and it is not the only one—the Newton Fund, which the commission said

“is not promoting the best use of ODA and some projects appear not to be within the ODA definition.”

That is of some concern. The commission lists some of the projects about which it is concerned. Sometimes when one looks into the projects and gets into the details, one finds they actually do help people who need help, but the headlines that they receive do not necessarily suggest that. Nevertheless, we have to be careful, because we all have constituents who want to see that their hard-earned money they pay in taxes goes to the right target.

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

My hon. Friend has just made an important point. It is absolutely right that we fund multilateral projects, and some of the organisations involved, such as the UN, are huge. In respect of the big multilateral projects it is easy to pick on the tiniest point about where some aid might go and blow that up into a huge headline, and that is what our constituents hear. We are not going to change that in the press—the newspapers will not print a headline that says, “All the planes took off on time yesterday”—but it is the House’s responsibility to emphasise exactly what my hon. Friend is talking about.

[Mr Robertson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, which enables me to move to another point. Contrary to what is sometimes said, we do not actually finance corrupt dictators in other countries. Another point raised—I have taken so many interventions that I cannot remember who made it—was that it can be difficult to get aid to the people who need it most. For example, people who live in war-torn countries are going to be desperate and will need help of one form or another. The people who live in countries with very poor Governments that have dictatorships need help. It is not the dictator who needs it, but the people who live in those countries certainly do need help. The trick is to get under the radar to help those people, but that should not be confused with the financing of wicked dictators. The two situations are different.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Gentleman makes his point.

Most of the problems that the Chair of the International Development Committee mentioned require more work and more international development. I will briefly comment on five of them. The first is migration. British development policy is designed to build safer and more prosperous communities so that people do not feel the need to migrate. The problems of migration, which are well understood and disfigure our world, need a lot more work.

The second problem is pandemics. I think that Ebola has been mentioned, as well as the tremendous announcement that the Prime Minister made in Japan about the replenishment of the Global Fund. As the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has clearly demonstrated, pandemics threaten within the next few years.

The third aspect is protectionism. There has been a coming together across the House about the dangers of protectionism and the importance of free trade in lifting the economic wealth of rich and poor societies alike.

Fourthly, let us consider terror. DFID’s work in Somalia and northern Nigeria directly contributes not only to the safety of people who live in jeopardy in those countries, but to safety on our streets in Britain.

Fifthly, on climate change, DFID leadership has made a huge direct contribution to tackling something that affects the poorest people in the world first and hardest. The British taxpayer has made a huge contribution through the international climate change mitigation funds. Britain is leading work on international development around the world, and that has a huge benefit.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that we come back to the problem of public perception of international aid? When we tackle climate change, disease and terrorism, that has a direct benefit to this country. Although it may be thought that diseases are thousands of miles away, they are only one plane journey away. Does my right hon. Friend share my frustration that we do not do enough to explain how taking world-leading responsibility directly benefits the UK?

--- Later in debate ---

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), a former Secretary of State, as he always makes a worthwhile contribution to our deliberations on DFID matters, although the David Cameron development consensus is a relatively new concept that I am not sure will catch on—but good luck! I also congratulate the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson) on securing the debate.

We wait ages for DFID Ministers to come to the Dispatch Box for debates and then suddenly three debates come along at once. In the whole time I was the SNP’s DFID spokesperson, between 2015 and 2017, it would just be DFID questions every six weeks; we would be lucky to get the odd statement or debate in the Chamber—I know they are kept busy in Westminster Hall. After the SDGs debate two or three weeks ago, we are back again, which is very welcome, not least as Ministers are currently looking to secure legacies for themselves. Perhaps in discussing the Department’s expenditure as part of the estimates process, we can consider how Ministers might achieve that.

There is a clearly demonstrated passion on both sides of the House for the work of DFID and the value it brings around the world. Like other Members, I have had the huge privilege of visiting projects both before my election and since: peace villages in Rwanda, food security and nutrition projects in Uganda, climate change projects in Malawi—all transforming people’s lives on a daily basis thanks to the support of DFID.

That is because aid works. Despite the doubts in some people’s minds and the political expediency of saying otherwise, the reality is, as we have heard from speeches so far and will no doubt continue to hear, aid makes a difference around the world, which is why the 0.7% target came into existence in the first place. It was calculated in the 1970s that if all the wealthy countries contributed that proportion of their national income it would be enough to end poverty and inequality elsewhere.

In the decades since, OECD countries have not reached the target. It is commendable therefore that the UK has achieved a cross-party consensus and that the target was finally legislated for under the coalition, with massive public support and after years of campaigning. I do not have the exact statistic, but we worked out how many billions of pounds had not been spent in all the decades the UK was not meeting the 0.7% target, but it has been since 2013 and that ought to continue.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I am enjoying the hon. Gentleman’s speech, but I would like to pick him up on something he said, because it is very important. He said the target was brought in with massive public support, and it was, but only in certain areas. The House has a responsibility always to espouse the virtues of international aid because there are many people—they contact us on email and so on—who want to get rid of it. We have to address those concerns directly and say that it is important. I always say: let’s get people selling it as if it was to be abolished tomorrow. That would soon raise people up again. There is a large body of people who do not support it because they do not understand what it does.

[Patrick Grady]

That is fair enough, although the campaigning had gone on for years. I think back to the jubilee debt campaign, the trade justice movement and the Make Poverty History campaign, which mobilised tens of thousands of people on to the streets of towns and cities across the United Kingdom. In many ways, the climate change protest—there was one here last Wednesday—is the successor to those movements. Now is the time to tackle climate change. If we do not, the progress towards the SDGs and MDGs is likely to go backwards, which is not in anybody’s interest. Those movements mobilised churches, trade unions and different parts of civil society. That sentiment still exists, and although it is quiet now, the hon. Gentleman is right that if there was a serious threat, that noise would make itself heard, just as it did in the days of the Gleneagles summit and the years after.

We have discussed how the DFID estimate is not the entirety of the 0.7% target and how we need greater scrutiny of other Departments that spend money that is counted towards it. Incidentally, the UK Government conveniently count towards it the money that the Scottish Government spend on international development, even though it is additional. Taxpayers in Scotland pay for DFID through their taxes and the Scottish Government, with cross-party support dating back to the time of Jack McConnell, choose to use a very small amount of their own budget to provide additional and often very innovative support, particularly through the grassroots links with Malawi, which I will say a bit more about shortly.

Ministers are aware of concerns that I and other Members have about the occasional double counting of money towards two separate targets: the 0.7% target for aid and the 2% for military spending. Some money is counted towards both targets. Ministers stand up and say, “Well, we don’t mark our own homework. It just so happens that the money is counted by the ODA and NATO and there’s not much we can do about it”, but if the money is being used to hit both targets, one of the budgets must be losing out. If they are committed to the targets, the Government should make an effort to meet them both independently. If they happen to spend a bit more, that’s fine, since both targets are minimums, not maximums.

I hope the Minister will take this opportunity to reiterate her and her Department’s support for the aid budget, under the current definition and amount, and for the Department remaining a stand-alone facility, because, despite what some Government Members have said about how they do not know where the talk is coming from, the talk is real. The outriders for the Tory leadership campaigns, particularly that of the former Foreign Secretary, have made it clear they think there is political capital to be made from undermining or changing the role of DFID and its budget.

Aid is not a tool of soft power to be used as some political lever. It should be dispensed on the basis of need and in pursuit of internationally agreed objectives, such as the SDGs and the Global Fund—and I join others in welcoming the announcement about the replenishment of that fund. When Government talk of aid working in the national interest, the question I always put back to them is: how is meeting the sustainable development goals not in the national interest? How is the national interest different from tackling global poverty and climate change? Even from a self-interested point of view, if we want to stop the migration of people, we need to give them reasons to stay in their home countries, and access to a good education and nutrition and not having to run away from major climate disasters are very good reasons—if that is the perspective we want to take.

I want to touch briefly on the importance of the Government learning from and engaging with civil society actors. I mentioned the Scotland Malawi Partnership. I declare an interest because it provides secretariat support for the all-party group on Malawi, which I chair, and which has issued an outstanding invitation to the Secretary of State, lasting as long as is left to him, to meet the group and member organisations of the Scotland Malawi Partnership.

The hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian C. Lucas), who is not here, at the last DFID questions raised the idea of DFID undertaking an exercise of mapping links between local civil society organisations and counterparts in developing countries to see the added value that civil society groups in the UK bring to development. That would be worth the Department pursuing in the near future. In Scotland, the Scotland-Malawi people-to-people model suggests that more than 208,000 Malawians and 109,000 Scots are actively involved in the links between the two countries, while a 2018 paper from the University of Glasgow reckoned that 45% of people in Scotland could name a friend or family member with a connection to Malawi.

Here is an opportunity for a ministerial legacy. What more could the Government do to connect formal Government efforts with those of civil society—not just the large NGOs we are familiar with, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) suggested, the thousands of churches, schools, hospitals, universities and community and diaspora groups involved in two-way partnerships—and not just engage with them, but fund them and encourage them to think innovatively?

The last piece of DFID legislation was the Commonwealth Development Corporation Act 2017. We recognise the important role that the CDC plays in leveraging private capital into development. I wonder what a civil society equivalent might look like.

I know that Mr Speaker has not selected the amendments, but I think that the fact that amendments were tabled to the motions is an interesting indication of the way in which the estimates process is beginning to evolve. We welcome that, because when the “English votes for English laws” system was introduced, SNP Members were told that it would be through estimates that we could continue to scrutinise Government expenditure, particularly when Barnett consequentials were involved. I do not believe that they are involved in DFID funding—as I have said, Scottish Government international development funding is separate—but, nevertheless, this is our opportunity to engage in such scrutiny. Gone are the days when SNP Members were told to sit down because they were talking about estimates during an estimates debate.

The amendment tabled to this motion was intended to put pressure on the Government by asking them to clarify their position in relation to a no-deal Brexit, and to prevent that from happening without the full approval of the House. We know that Departments, including DFID, are being touched by Brexit preparations; we know that dozens of DFID staff are being sent to other Departments to help prepare for no deal. The destabilising effect that we are seeing across Government must be a matter of concern, and it is right for us to use debates such as this to raise it and to keep the Government on their toes.

Today’s debate has enabled us to highlight the importance of DFID, but it has also drawn our attention to the risk that the Department will be downgraded, the risk that Brexit preparations will weaken its capacity, and the risk that policy progress will be stalled because Brexit continues to dominate everything. I welcome our recent opportunities for scrutiny in the Chamber, but I wonder whether those opportunities are likely to continue beyond 24 July.

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

It is a genuine pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady). I was glad that, towards the end of his speech, he referred to the amendment. I must say that when I saw it I was very disappointed that we would be playing with the question of whether this Department, in particular, was to have the budget that would enable it to proceed. I listened carefully to what the hon. Gentleman said, and I think I understand a bit more clearly why the signatories include a member of his party, the hon. Member for Dundee West (Chris Law). However, I am disappointed that such an amendment should have been tabled, on any of the estimates budgets but especially on this one, because—as many Members have pointed out today—the international aid budget is attacked on a regular basis, especially in the press and especially by those wanting to cause mischief by saying that we could be spending the money elsewhere.

It is dangerous to use the aid budget as a political football in relation to our own needs. The hon. Gentleman was right to say that it must be led by objectives laid down internationally to ensure that we are all pulling in the same direction, but it is also true that this country’s contribution is a real lever of the soft power we have in the world. That is at the heart of international development.

As the international chairman of the Conservative party, I go around the world—for instance, to southern Africa and South America—and see the difference that has been made by work of various kinds, whether it has been done through the Westminster Foundation for Democracy or through direct international development projects. The impact of that work becomes clear when one talks to Governments in other countries, as I know the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) will have done. I have an enormous amount of respect and praise for the hon. Gentleman, who has done fantastic work as Chairman of the International Development Committee, but ours is clearly a strong power, and I was disappointed by the amendment because it seemed to suggest that if we ended up leaving with no deal on 31 October, we would not have an international aid budget. If amended, the motion would effectively say, “If you leave, we will cut that budget and you will not be able to spend it.” I do not want to get into a Brexit argument now—that is not what this debate is about—but I did think it odd that those who are worried about the influence that we may lose during Brexit should also want to end the funding for one of biggest contributors of soft power.

At the heart of international development is the fact that it is morally right. I class myself as a Christian, and the second commandment is “Love thy neighbour as thyself”, and that is how we are in this country. Whether they are Christian, Muslim, Jewish or part of any other religion, most people want to “love thy neighbour as thyself”, and to look after one another. Ours is one of the richest economies in the world, and it is nonsense to suggest that 7p out of every tenner is too much and we cannot afford to spend it. However, we must ensure that it is spent in the right way. This is almost a nationalisation of people’s charity, and we must therefore make certain that every penny is used as efficiently as possible.

I have no problem with the scrutiny that is levelled at the Department, but I do have a problem with how it is abused to try and get cheap headlines and cheap stories. I do not blame constituents who write to me saying that they think we should get rid of international aid, because they are picking that up from certain quarters, but I write back to them and explain the impact that aid has. As I said earlier, it is all very well for a headline to say, “Your international development taxes did this in, for example, the Gaza Strip: we were funding terrorist organisations”. However, that was not a bilateral project. When it comes to multilateral projects, it is right for us to be part of world-governing bodies, because if we were not, what would happen to our soft power? What will happen to our influence in the world if we say, “I was not happy about one particular project, so I am cutting the funding for everything”?

Let me touch on some matters that have been touched on before. In 2016-17, humanitarian aid made up about 15% of the bilateral budget. I believe that an area the size of the United Kingdom was flooded in Pakistan, and millions of people were displaced—some of the poorest people on earth. We should stand up and be proud of the fact that this country was there, along with other countries, giving aid when it mattered. Let us be honest about what will happen if we stop giving that aid. That is how to breed the hatred and discontent that will end up back on our own shores if we walk away from these parts of the world, saying, “Not interested, your problem, don’t care.”

That leads me to the refugee crisis that has resulted directly from the Syrian conflict. I am immensely proud of the amount of money provided by this Government— well, let us say “this country”, because this is not a party political issue, but something of which we in the House should be proud. As was pointed out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), this country—from this House—has given more money than the rest of Europe put together. There are 6 million people in refugee camps; imagine what would happen in those countries if we were not able to provide that money.

Back in 2016, I went to Lebanon and saw the real hardship with which it was struggling in trying to absorb people. We are well aware of the millions taken in by Turkey, which is trying to help people on its borders. The Jordanians are doing incredible work, doubling school shifts and class sizes to ensure that a generation of children who have been displaced through a brutal war do not lose their childhoods and therefore their futures. Our aid money is supporting countries which would not be able to do that work without it. I challenge anyone to come up to me and say, “No, I would rather fix the potholes in my road.” There is really no question about it.

One of the most important aspects, which has already been touched on briefly, is the work that we do in connection with government and civic society. We take for granted the way in which our country operates, and the way in which the countries around us operate. We take it for granted that we can go and do business in another country that will have the rule of law and will understand about the civil service, about who can collect the taxes and about how they will be spent, but that does not apply to many of the countries that have emerged from dictatorships and are, in relative terms, young democracies. We lead much of the world in being able to provide the necessary expertise and training.

As a result, countries such as India have developed to an extent that we have massively reduced our aid. In fact, I think we are in the low millions now as we finish off a few international development projects. However, many people say to me “We give all that money to them but they have a space programme.” That is great; however, guess where they are buying the components—guess where the trade areas have developed. We should be proud that we have put a nation of over 1 billion people in a position where it can pursue these programmes. There is still a lot of work to do, and there is a lot of poverty in India, but, again, we have moved these things forward.

Health is a very important issue, but for too many people, especially when we talk about the African continent, it is an issue that seems to be thousands of miles away and is therefore not important. But as I said to my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield earlier, these diseases are but one flight away. Our Scottish colleagues will know of the brave nurse who caught Ebola and is still suffering the consequences to this day. These diseases are but one plane journey away of just a few hours: these are not distant problems that we can just ignore and say, “Nothing to do with me, guv.” These are things that could have a massive impact on our health, and this comes back to the point that this is an investment in our own country as much as anywhere else.

I understand that people get concerned when the money is being spent, and we absolutely must make sure it is spent in the most efficient ways possible, but I would argue that DFID is one of the Government Departments which spends it in the most efficient way possible and has the closest scrutiny of all Departments. Again, I do not mean to be controversial when I say this, because I do not want to demean the debate today, but we all know that there are inefficiencies in the NHS, schools and elsewhere. We may argue about where those inefficiencies lie, but according to one estimate there were £2 billion of unnecessary X-rays in 2016. In Leeds alone, over £30 million is locked up in surpluses in schools through previous management and it is not being let out so we are making cuts. We do not stand up and say, “Get rid of the school budget because millions of pounds in surplus is locked up,” or “Forget about giving any more money to the NHS because it has not worked in the most efficient way.” Of course we do not say that, but international development money seems to be the first target. Critics come straight to it and say, “It wasn’t efficient here; get rid of it, and I would rather spend it on a revenue project outside my backyard.” This just goes to show how much we have to emphasise what this money does and what it moves forward.

I wonder if the Minister can develop the following point in summing up. At the climate change lobby on Wednesday, I was asked a question by some of my constituents and I did some research at the Library. The statement made is not actually correct, but I will come on to that. It was said that 90% of our development projects use fossil fuels. I went to the Library and asked some questions, and I will read out two sections from the reply, which I think the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby) might recognise:

“Research conducted jointly by CAFOD and ODI shows that, between 2010 and 2014, the UK disbursed around £6.13 billion for energy support in developing countries, including £4.201 billion of ODA. Of this ODA support, 22% went to fossil fuels.”

That was over a four-year period. The Library response goes on to say:

“In 2017/18, 96% of UKEF’s energy support to high income countries went to renewables and 4% to fossil fuel projects. By contrast, just 0.6% of UKEF’s energy support to low- and middle- income countries in 2017/18 went to renewables and 99.4% went to fossil fuel projects.”

I ask the Minister to go away and look at where we can perhaps shift the balance in the middle to lower income countries, because clearly we want to make a big impact on climate change. My hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson) said that in trying to make a difference in the world we can reduce our carbon emissions but that that is a small drop in terms of what happens; however, we have the ability in the international development budget to have a far greater reach than to just those changes we do here in climate change. The Minister may not be able to answer that point from the Dispatch Box tonight, so I ask her to go away and see whether a balance can be struck to get more renewables into those projects and move away from fossil fuels, because ultimately that will give far more sustainability to the ongoing energy needs of those countries than just bringing in what is rapidly becoming a very old technology.

The one message I would like to send tonight is that this is not just about giving away our money to poor countries; this is an investment in our own country and in the world, and therefore in the futures of our children and ongoing generations, and that it all adds to our bigger security picture, our bigger climate change picture and our bigger moral duty, which allows us to lead this world in a way that not many countries can.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Law]

As I further develop my argument, the House will find that one of the two Conservative party leadership candidates does not share the view of the hon. Member for Stirling, although he and I do share the same view on the 0.7% target.

Let me put this into perspective: that 0.7% is 7p in every £10, as we have heard several times, or 70p in every £100. That is our commitment. When I visit schools and ask children, who are a great litmus test of where society is, to disagree with that spending, none of them raise their hand; in fact, they often suggest that we should spend more. Why, then, do the leadership candidates for Prime Minister support such brutal and callous action? For example, the one-time leadership candidate the right hon. Member for Tatton (Ms McVey) said that the UK should halve its aid spending, and blamed the Government’s failure to fund the police on their aid commitment.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Law]

I would like to press on because I am coming to my key point.

We all know that what the right hon. Member for Tatton said is not the case. Although the right hon. Lady was quickly eliminated from the leadership race, the favourite to be next Prime Minister does not fare any better. The right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) has previously said that aid spending should be used in the UK’s

“political, commercial and diplomatic interests”,

and has called for the Department’s purpose to be changed from poverty reduction to furthering

“the nation’s overall strategic goals”.

It could not be clearer. Those are not my words but those of the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, who is currently leading the race to be Prime Minister. I hope that that answers some questions.

Our future Prime Minister has little clue about either the importance of or the necessity for protecting the most vulnerable in the world and fails to see that it is in our strategic interests to do so. The Tory right can absolutely not be trusted to protect ODA spending, with the likely future Prime Minister calling for DFID to be mothballed and brought back into the Foreign Office. That flies in the face of the advice from a former head of the Foreign Office, Peter Ricketts, who said that DFID

“has established a worldwide reputation which is good for Britain. It was not a happy time when aid was part of the FCO: too easy to have conflicts of interest and aid badly used for political projects”.

Indeed, the 2018 aid transparency index, the only independent measure of aid transparency among the world’s major development agencies, rated DFID as very good, whereas the Foreign Office, which the lead prime ministerial candidate led as Foreign Secretary, was rated as “poor”.

Let us be in no doubt that it is essential that the UK’s ODA spend must contribute in a focused manner to sustainable development and the fight against poverty, injustice and inequality internationally. It is vital that it is never allowed to be viewed through the prism of national and commercial interests and as part of pet projects such as global Britain. The Department for International Development must remain dedicated to its core mission of helping the world’s most vulnerable people. Anything less is not only a complete dereliction of duty, but an absence of humanity.

To conclude, I cast my mind back three weeks to the debate in this House on sustainable development goals, when we were in agreement on the importance of tackling the massive challenges that we as a planet will face in the coming years—whether it be disease, displacement, food security, poverty or climate change. We are already in a position to have a significant impact on tackling these challenges, but only if DFID is adequately resourced and funded. We cannot let other Departments, Brexit or future right-wing Tory Prime Ministers derail that and we must be resolute in our defence of international development and the 0.7% commitment.

Gulf of Oman Oil Tanker Attacks

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

My hon. Friend is right to raise this. I have referred to a fifth of the world’s oil going through those straits, to Qatari LNG that powers up much of Europe and to the effect, potentially, on our constituents’ fuel bills. He may be aware that we have about 90 days of contingency through the International Energy Agency, but of course we do not really want to use that. We want those straits to remain open for the world’s trade, and we will do everything we can to ensure that they do.

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

I have been on the record in this Chamber many times saying that I am opposed to any territorial military action against Iran. I think that would be a complete and utter escalation beyond anything we would actually be able to control or make stay in place. I have listened very carefully to my right hon. Friend about Britain standing prepared to give assistance, especially in naval matters, and we are of course talking about international waters. I understand his not wanting to send Royal Navy vessels there at this time to provide support, but may I ask my him whether any conversations are taking place with international bodies such as the UN about being prepared, if need be, to offer protection to international shipping in international waters, which of course are nothing to do with the territorial areas of Iran? Indeed, if Iran were telling the truth in saying that it was not involved, it would not have any objection to international escorts for international vessels.

[Dr Murrison]

I am not sure that Iran would quite see it that way, and that is very important because we do need to try to turn down the temperature on this. The straight answer is that we do not propose, as things stand at the moment, to escort vessels through the strait of Hormuz. We do not feel that is necessary, based on what we know, and we feel that it would be escalatory, so there are no plans to do such a thing. However, we clearly have to keep a close eye on this situation, and in the event that there is a deterioration in the situation, we have to consider adopting a new posture. I hope very much that will not be necessary.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

The right hon. Lady just is not reflecting what has happened. Thanks to action by this Government and other Governments, a judicial process started in Saudi Arabia on 3 January and we are sending observers. We have a UN special rapporteur, Agnes Callamard, who is responsible for looking at extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, and she is leading an independent international inquiry.

When I became Foreign Secretary—the right hon. Lady was shadow Foreign Secretary then, too—we did not have a peace process in Yemen, and now we do, which is thanks to the UK and the huge diplomatic effort we have been making.

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

5. What discussions he has had with the Lima Group on the political and security situation in Venezuela.

[Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)]

18. What discussions he has had with the Lima Group on the political and security situation in Venezuela.

[The Minister for Europe and the Americas (Sir Alan Duncan)]

On 4 February, I attended a Lima Group meeting in Ottawa at the invitation of the Canadian Foreign Minister. At the meeting I spoke to the Foreign Ministers of Colombia and Brazil about the crisis in Venezuela. I have also spoken recently to Chilean Foreign Minister Ampuero and Peruvian Vice-Foreign Minister de Zela. We continue to work closely with the Lima Group, the Organisation of American States, the United States and like-minded European and international partners to find a peaceful solution to the crisis in Venezuela.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

The Labour party and its leadership have an unforgivable record of defending the Maduro regime, which is so toxic that people have started leaving the party. Can my right hon. Friend assure the House that this Government condemn the human rights abuses and the regression of democracy, and will continue to promote freedom and democracy and offer support to surrounding countries that are dealing with the refugee crisis as a direct result of this abhorrent regime?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I can give assurance to my hon. Friend on all those things. We are working closely with all international partners to find a resolution to the fact that the Maduro regime has completely bankrupted his country and made it destitute to the point where 3.6 million people have fled to neighbouring countries.

Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Monday 4th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

I am not going to become involved in speculation about arms races in other parts of the world, and, as the hon. Gentleman will appreciate, issues concerning the location of weapons are a matter for the Ministry of Defence. However, an escalation of these matters would be in none of our interests. I think that, in one sense, the treaty has worked well for 30 years—at least it has led to some peace on European soil—but trust and verification are required, and I am afraid that those have been lacking for some years. In many ways it is the Trump Administration who have grasped the nettle, with the support of all NATO allies.

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

I clearly remember the treaty being signed when I was 11 years old. That pretty much inspired me to take this career course, and it is with great honour and pride that I am now a member of the NATO parliamentary assembly and international vice-chairman of the Conservative party.

International relationships are very important, and today it is with a real sense of tragedy that we see where the treaty has ended up. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this shows the absolute importance of counterbalances? May I remind people who say that Russia promised that it would not put anything into Europe that it is a country which, less than 12 months ago, launched a chemical weapon attack on this country, and showed what its means were and what it was willing to do? Tragic as today is, does my right hon. Friend agree that we must continue our full support for NATO, our full support for our allies, and our engagement on the international stage with all countries to ensure our safer future?

[Mark Field]

I thank my hon. Friend for his youthful engagement in these matters. I am not sure that even at 23—which was my age in 1987—I realised quite what was going on when the INF treaty was signed. Levity aside, however, my hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that we need to work on this continuously. We should remind ourselves, as he has reminded the House, of events in Salisbury during the past year following the use of chemical weapons by a Russian state source on UK citizens, with fatal results.

I think that all Members who have expressed concern will agree that we need to keep lines of engagement open as far as possible. While trust has broken down and while we want to see verification, we need to talk. One of the criticisms made of international diplomacy is that it is notionally a talking shop. [Interruption.] As several of my right hon. Friends are saying from a sedentary position, we need to talk from strength, but, equally, we need to keep those lines of engagement as open as possible when it comes to these very important matters.

Gaza Border Violence

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

The United Kingdom continues to operate a very strict arms regime in terms of sales. I have already mentioned the legitimate uses of arms by a country that needs to defend itself. Any allegations of breaches are of course part of our consideration on future sales and the like, as the hon. Lady knows well.

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

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to take this measured tone. As he alluded to, the ratcheting up of the situation over many years has made no small contribution to what happened yesterday. I am sure that we all share the view that the death of any innocent civilian is terrible. What efforts can be made through the UN and the aid agencies to help with infrastructure in Gaza? One reason why the blockade was put in place was that such things were used to build tunnels, and the Israelis probably reacted in the way in which they did yesterday for fear of what would have happened if the border had been breached.

[Alistair Burt]

My hon. Friend raises an element of the difficulties in the region, by asking how we can ensure that materials used for rebuilding infrastructure in Gaza are not misused. We have strong and strict controls regarding the diversification of materials, and will continue to keep them under review. It is undeniable that more effort is needed in Gaza to relieve some of the population’s misery. Those who govern Gaza have a responsibility, but so do the rest of us. We will do our best to live up to that responsibility and find better ways in which to support the people of Gaza.

Iran Nuclear Deal

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Wednesday 9th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

It is important that we continue to do that, in the spirit of the agreement and to support legitimate UK business activity.

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

Nobody is in any doubt that the Iranian regime is responsible for great terror and often war, certainly in the region and in other areas of the world. My right hon. Friend, as a scholar of Churchill, will recognise the phrase, “Jaw-jaw is better than war-war,” so may I congratulate him on going out to Washington? He will also recognise that this is about not just the White House, but Capitol Hill. As we try to lead America to work on the deal and see how it can be adjusted, he should therefore also give attention to the House of Representatives.

[Boris Johnson]

I thank my hon. Friend for his work in building our relationships with Capitol Hill. As he knows, in Congress there is a very wide measure of support for the JCPOA and a great deal of confusion about the exact motives of the White House in choosing to walk away from it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

As the House will know, we have a number of very difficult consular cases in Iran at the present time, and every effort is being made on behalf of each of those—each of those—individuals. All I can tell the hon. Gentleman is that none of those cases really benefits from public comment at this stage.

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

With CHOGM coming up, does my hon. Friend agree that if Zimbabwe held free and open elections, that would give it a route back to the Commonwealth and, indeed, give what used to be the breadbasket of Africa free trade agreements with the rest of the world?

[The Minister for Africa (Harriett Baldwin)]

I assure my hon. Friend that, when I visited Zimbabwe recently, that was indeed the message I was able to convey to the new President.

Budget Resolutions

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant]

I entirely agree that it is more complicated than it is often presented as being. I have not said that Iran is entirely innocent, but Iran is not buying £2 billion-worth of weapons of war from the United Kingdom, and Saudi Arabia is. Saudi Arabia stands accused of war crimes. Until those allegations are investigated, I do not think that we should be selling weapons to those who may be committing crimes of mass murder, and I do not consider the question of whether or not they are using our weapons to commit those crimes to be relevant.

When I looked at the timetable for our Budget debate, I saw “Monday: global Britain”, and thought, “That’s not going to take very long, is it?” The fact is that even the Government’s own misguided ambitions for Britain’s place in the world, which I believe are still based on the fanciful belief that we are somehow entitled to retain an empire and colonies, rather than a simple acknowledgement that the world has moved on since the days when any nation could claim the right to colonise any other nation—

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

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Peter Grant]

No, I will not give way just now.

When we look at Conservative Members’ responses to statements by the sovereign Government of Ireland over the last couple of days, we have to wonder whether they recognise that that country’s Ministers have not only the right but an absolute responsibility to speak in the interests of their citizens. If what they say happens not to coincide with the interests of citizens in the rest of the British Isles, that might be something for negotiation.

Even despite the Government’s misguided ambitions for the role that they think Britain is entitled to play, that role is being catastrophically undermined by the shambles—“shambles” is as strong a word as I can use in the Chamber—of Brexit. Nor is it helped by the fact that we have a Foreign Secretary of whom people in the west of Scotland might say, “You cannae take him anywhere,” to which the response would be, “Or you have to take him twice—the second time to apologise.” When the Foreign Secretary assured us that he had had a number of meetings on the Myanmar crisis, I could not help wondering how many were required for him to apologise for the crassly insensitive and offensive way in which he referred to the people of Myanmar in one of his official pronouncements. We can joke about the buffoonery of the right hon. Gentleman, who is no longer in the Chamber. Everybody can say things that are stupid and wish that they had not, but if they start to make too much of a habit of it, especially if they hold as important and sensitive a position as Foreign Secretary, the time comes when the Prime Minister has to start asking whether she has the right person in the job.

We have heard a lot from Conservative Members during our Brexit debates about how leaving the European Union will open up all these wonderful markets for the United Kingdom. It might open up the American market, if we comply with the requirement announced two weeks ago by the American Secretary of Commerce to drop our opposition to genetically modified foods and chlorinated chicken. That is too high a price to pay, so I hope that the Treasury Minister who sums up today’s debate will confirm that if that is the requirement, there will be no deal with the United States of America.

I remind the House of a report published in the last Parliament by the Select Committee on Exiting the European Union on the Government’s negotiating priorities, particularly in the context of global Britain. Paragraph 170 says:

“The Government should seek a UK-EU Free Trade Agreement…which covers both goods and services and retains the mutual recognition of standards and conformity assessments.”

It finishes:

“The Government should maintain the maximum possible flexibility in its negotiating approach to achieve these outcomes.”

I am not quite sure how unilaterally deciding that the customs union and single market are off the table counts as flexible or anything like it.

Paragraph 198 says:

“The Government must provide more clarity as to the features of its preferred customs arrangement with the EU and how it will differ from a customs union.”

That report was published months and months ago—certainly before the election—but we still do not have that clarity from the Government. We hear the same platitudes, the same soundbites and the same slogans, but we still have absolutely no firm and concrete proposals, even for how they are going to square the circle of the border that runs across the island of Ireland, never mind how they are going to reconcile the irreconcilable and maintain full access to the single market when those who set it up made it perfectly clear that countries can be in or out, but cannot have full access without being members.

Madam Deputy Speaker—[Interruption.] Mr Deputy Speaker, I realise that there has been a sex change while I have been on my feet; I apologise to both of you. We hear the Government talk about prioritising the rule of law—the previous speaker referred to that. That is an excuse for turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to the brutality of the Spanish police against some of the citizens of Catalonia.

Why is it that we have annual state visits and state banquets for a Prime Minister whose Government act unlawfully in their occupation of the sovereign territory of Palestine? The UK Government believe that Israel is breaking the law by doing that, so why do they continue to have official state visits for the Prime Minister of a country that the Foreign Secretary believes is acting unlawfully, if the rule of law is so important to Her Majesty’s Government?

We often hear that the wishes of residents must be paramount. With regard to the residents of the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar, I agree with that 100%. What account have the Government taken of the wishes of the former residents of the Chagos islands, whose treatment by previous UK Governments could properly be described as ethnic cleansing or indeed abduction? By today’s standards it may well fall under the UN definition of genocide, which includes the forceful or fraudulent removal of a population. What account has been taken of their wishes? It seems to me that if we steal something from someone, the only way to make an apology seem sincere is to offer to hand it back. Having stolen the islands from their population, no apology can be sincere unless the Government are prepared to offer to hand them back.

--- Later in debate ---

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

There is much to welcome in the Budget, not least when we talk about Britain on the global stage. Infrastructure investment in this country will be important in raising our productivity and making us fit for the global stage. With that in mind, the £300 million to link other infrastructure improvements to the HS2 project is important to me, not least because it will link the HS2 station at Leeds to the main line, an idea raised by Transport for the North. That means there is now no need for a mile-long viaduct over Swillington in my constituency. It is not just about saving money on the project; the money should be reinvested in local trams and trains to ease congestion in the city of Leeds. We cannot be truly globally competitive if we are not working efficiently. It sucks away the productivity of this country if people lose a lot of time getting to work.

I was frankly appalled to hear the comments of the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant), the foreign affairs spokesman for the Scottish National party. He said that Britain has no role to play in the world, which is simply not true.

[Peter Grant]

I do not remember saying that Britain does not have a role to play in the world. What I said, and I will say it again, is that the role in the world the UK Government appear to have decided for Britain is not a role that the people of Scotland will be comfortable following. Nobody would deny that any country in the world has a role to play. If the Official Report shows that I said anything different, I will withdraw it. [Interruption.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. The Front Benchers have had a good go tonight. If they are going to intervene, it has to be with very short interventions. I am very sorry but, if people give way, others might fall off the list.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

My Conservative colleagues simply do not recognise what the hon. Member for Glenrothes has just said as a fact in Scotland. There is only one party on the rise in Scotland, and it is not the SNP.

The reality is that our country and this Government can stand proud of our work on the world stage. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan). The whole House recognises that she is a credit to the medical profession, and it is a credit to this House that she took time to go out to see the Rohingya crisis at first hand—it is a terrible situation. I recognise what she said about babies, as I heard the reports on “From Our Own Correspondent”. I cannot imagine the pain she must have been through. I pay tribute to her, because she is a credit to this House and to her profession.

That represents what this country is good at, which is helping in the world. I am proud that more money has been spent by Britain alone than by all the other European countries added together to help the Syrian refugees in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. We have been taking refugees, too—not to the extent that other nations have, fair enough, but we have been doing our bit. More importantly, we are putting resources on the ground. I simply do not recognise the view that this Government, however people want to describe them, are setting this country out as a place with which nobody wants to be associated, because that is not true.

It was the Royal Navy that was in the hurricane-torn areas of the Caribbean. Going back a few years, it was the Royal Navy that sorted out the Ebola crisis in Sierra Leone. This Government have committed to raising the defence budget by 0.5 percentage points over inflation year on year, because we recognise the need to invest in our armed forces.

Yes, only a few nations spend 2% or more of GDP on defence, but we are one of even fewer nations to spend more than 20% of our defence budget on capital infrastructure within our armed forces. That shows the renewal of our Royal Navy under this Government and our investment in other areas of defence. There is much on the global economy and global Britain of which we can be proud.

We have heard many people, and we will hear more this evening, talk about Brexit and where Brexit is, but Labour Members cannot carry on talking about Brexit without coming to one fundamental decision: we cannot nationalise if we are in the single market, so for Labour Members to say that they feel the Government should maintain our membership of the single market is totally at odds with the manifesto they stood on. I do not think we should be nationalising, which is looking backwards, but the reality is that we simply cannot nationalise under state aid rules if we are in the single market. I therefore seek some clarity tonight. Is it the Labour party’s position that it definitely wants to leave the single market?

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I wish to follow on from what my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Sir Robert Syms) said. This has been a good week for the Government because we are focusing on the most important thing—the Budget and the economy—rather than on ourselves.

When people start to think about what is going on in the economy, they start to wonder whether the Labour party yet has the answers. If I was a Labour MP, I would be worried that the opinion polls show us level-pegging. Why? Because the No. 1 problem that faces our economy—it is infinitely greater than so many other problems, particularly Brexit—is the size of the national debt. The question the Labour party has to answer is whether adding to that debt would solve our problems.

I sat through the speech by the shadow Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), so I heard him say that he wants to invest for the future. That sounds plausible, but the trouble is that it does not matter what the money is spent on—schools, hospitals, capital or revenue—because if that increases the national debt, our interest repayments increase. The problem we face as a nation is that our interest repayments on the national debt are already more than what we spend on defence, about which we have been talking, and the police every year.

The national debt is far too large. The shadow Chancellor tells me, “You’ve added to the national debt.” That is entirely true—the national debt is still rising by £186 million a day. I am allowed to speak for four minutes, during which the national debt will rise by £200,000. But would we solve our problems by adopting the Labour party’s strategy, which would add to that national debt? We are already facing so many problems in repaying it. I said that the national debt will increase by £200,000 in the four minutes of this speech, but it was increasing by £300,000 a minute when the coalition Government took power in 2010.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

A minute?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Yes, it was increasing by £300,000 a minute.

The central point for the Opposition is that they have to be credible, as new Labour found out in the years before it took power in 1997. The central credibility argument is whether, when the national debt is so crippling—as I said earlier, our repayments are equivalent to paying for 10 Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers every year—we can solve our problems by adding to it. My contention is that that is absolutely not the case.

Well into this Parliament, the reason why the Conservative party is still level-pegging with the Opposition, who should be way ahead, is that the Labour party has no credible economic plan to try to lift us out of our national debt, except for borrowing more, spending more and raising taxes. Who would suffer in that scenario? Would it be us? No, it would be our children and grandchildren, because we would be loading that debt on to them. Of course, as the national debt increased under Labour’s plans, interest rates would rise even more and mortgages would become more expensive. Who would suffer? The young who want to get mortgages. Labour Members’ policies simply do not add up. Until they come face to face with reality, they will never become the Government of this country.

Iran

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

I knew at some stage a question would be asked that is beyond my pay grade. I have always taken the view that there are many signatories to this agreement. The United States is considering the possibility of new legislation, but it remains a party to the deal, so the deal stays in place. We do not want to contemplate a situation in which one party unilaterally withdraws, because of the implications for other parties. We will do all in our power to ensure that all parties to the agreement continue to adhere to its provisions, that the deal stays in place and that it forms the basis of further discussions about the matters of disagreement between us so that we can build a new consensus on what is needed in the region.

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

The deal has made the world a safer place, but it does not cover all aspects, as my right hon. Friend has said. Some constituents of mine are worried that we are giving too much to Iran and ignoring the sponsorship of terrorism that goes on elsewhere. The deal is vital and only it can be the way a peaceful solution can be moved forward, but will he confirm that Britain still stands with other countries that may be affected by the terrorism sponsored by Iran, such as that of Hezbollah and Hamas?

[Alistair Burt]

I thank my hon. Friend for his observations and remarks, as he gives me another opportunity to make things clear. If this deal had tried to cover all the aspects of concern between the signatories and Iran, it would never have been signed—it just would not have happened. The whole point of the deal was to find an area between two groups of people who were concerned about each other on which they could agree and on which there could be external verification to mean that that particular issue was dealt with. That was the purpose of the deal. At no stage was it envisaged that everything else of concern would suddenly disappear. As I indicated earlier, we remain concerned about Iran’s ballistic missile testing and its activity throughout the region, but conversations go on between ourselves and Iran—and other states—on that and on the financing of terror. We can deal with those other issues in other ways, and sanctions will be applied where this is appropriate—where behaviour has been uncovered which breaks international rules.