Government of Qatar

Baroness Harris of Richmond Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Harris of Richmond (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, for bringing forward this timely short debate. I declare my interest as a member of the Qatar APPG as well as my policing interests, which are in the register.

I first visited Doha in 2008 when I was on a parliamentary delegation discussing security matters. It was obvious at that time that the state was developing at an enormous rate, with buildings going up daily and facilities for the residents, and visitors, of the highest standard anywhere in the world. Yet it was still a very small city. I visited again a couple of years later and was astounded at the physical rate of progress of its cultural and built environment. It had doubled and more within those two years. What had not changed was its warm and friendly hospitality, which was demonstrated throughout our visit.

Along with colleagues, we were delighted to see the beginning of the building of its amazing Museum of Islamic Art, which the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, referred to. This was in a complex of many other cultural buildings, including a newly built opera house, a mirror-image of our own in London. The Cultural Village, as it was known, had not yet been fully completed—I expect it has been now—but it gave us a very good idea of what to expect, with an abundance of areas for poetry, music and art that would satisfy all tastes, as we have heard.

Since then, of course, Qatar has become a much valued and essential provider of around 20% of our gas needs, as the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, referred to. A few years ago, I was invited to lead a delegation to visit the site at Milford Haven, where tankers transporting the liquefied natural gas from Qatar were being offloaded into state-of-the-art refineries and then distributed to our national grid. With the whole of Europe suffering the huge spike in energy prices, the UK has agreed a deal with Qatar to continue delivering LNG so that we have a safe and secure supply, one very good outcome of our trade deals.

In 2020, Qatar was the UK’s 34th largest trading partner and UK exports to Qatar were worth over £3.8 billion. As we have heard, its investments in the UK exceed £40 billion. Qatar has been a good friend to our country.

In the security industry, we sold Qatar 24 Typhoon aircraft, nine Hawks, Brimstone missiles and the services to go with them. Other investments in the UK include linking Rolls-Royce with their green energy operations. As we have heard, Qatar is one of Rolls-Royce’s biggest customers, especially for its Trent engines that power the aircraft for Qatar Airways, one of the most prestigious airlines in the world. It is also hoping to develop small modular nuclear reactors—SMRs—with Rolls-Royce, which, it is anticipated, will deliver thousands of new jobs. It is equally hoped that these jobs will be in areas of the country most in need of levelling up.

However contentious the venue, Qatar did win the right to put on the prestigious World Cup event, and we can only hope that it is as successful as other World Cups have been. There has been a lot of concern, quite rightly, about how migrant workers have been treated when building stadia for this event. Qatar’s human rights have been questioned and criticised, and I believe that its Government know that these things have to change. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, referred to this. They have begun that process and are making strenuous efforts to address these international concerns. Qatar has created the National Human Rights Committee, which investigates abuses and is advancing the country’s standards, to take part in research programmes and advise other government bodies on human rights issues.

The Government have also developed a significant labour reform programme, and Human Rights Watch has commended Qatar on its progress and hopes that other Gulf countries might follow its lead, especially as it was the first country in the region to introduce a minimum wage. It is also the first Arab country to allow women the right to vote, although there is still a long way to go for women to have anything like equality with men.

This is a very febrile region. Qatar has its own security concerns, so it is perhaps not for us to criticise our country’s friends when they also have to face security challenges. As a good friend to our nation, we should be thankful that our trading ties with Qatar are close and secure and hope that the future plans for working together come to a happy conclusion for both our nations, especially for that troubled region.