EU Referendum Leaflet

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Monday 9th May 2016 Westminster Hall

[Paul Scully]

I thank my right hon. Friend for bringing to my attention the extra 20 people who have been galvanised by the thought of this afternoon’s debate. I want to read into Hansard the whole prayer of the petition, headed “STOP CAMERON spending British taxpayers’ money on Pro-EU Referendum leaflets”:

“Prime Minister David Cameron plans to spend British taxpayers’ money on a pro-EU document to be sent to every household in the United Kingdom in the run up to the EU referendum. We believe voters deserve a fair referendum—without taxpayer-funded biased interceptions by the Government.

We, the petitioners, demand the Government STOPS spending our money on biased campaigning to keep Britain inside the European Union.

The Great British Public have waited since 1975 for a vote on our relationship with Brussels. No taxpayers’ money should be spent on campaign literature to keep Britain inside the EU.”

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Prime Minister could have learned something from Harold Wilson? Not only did he give a free vote, but the information that was circulated made both cases equally.

[Paul Scully]

I absolutely agree with the right hon. Lady. As Members will see as I develop my argument, it is important that we have a fair and level playing field for the important decision that we have to make on 23 June.

When an e-petition reaches 10,000 signatures, the Government must issue a response, and they have done so. I will read a brief extract, though I am sure that the Minister will expand on it when he responds. It states:

“This is a big decision for the country. The Government is determined that the public should be clear on what reforms have been agreed, and what EU membership means for the UK.

The Referendum Act requires the Government to publish reports that set out the outcome of the negotiation of our EU membership and the Government’s opinion on that outcome and provide information on rights and obligations in EU law and on examples of countries that do not have EU membership but do have other arrangements with the EU.”

The leaflet went to households across England between 11 and 13 April, but it is going to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland this week, to avoid the pre-election purdah rules in relation to last week’s elections.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Gisela Stuart]

During the passage of the Lisbon treaty, the then shadow Foreign Secretary, William Hague, referred to the red card of national Parliaments only ever being invoked if something like the slaughter of the first born was proposed. As the red card was part of the Prime Minister’s deal, does the hon. Gentleman agree that that could be the next threat—one that is not mentioned in the leaflet?

[Paul Scully]

The right hon. Lady is absolutely right. It is interesting that the orange card in the Lisbon treaty has been replaced by the red card in the reforms secured by the Prime Minister, which sets a higher bar for reversing or rejecting legislation proposed by the EU.

As we have heard, back in February the Prime Minister ruled nothing out if he did not manage to succeed in securing reforms. Those reforms, meagre as they were, were based mainly on pull factors for migration and avoiding deeper integration. He and the remain campaign have gone as far as saying that we might be risking a war if we vote to leave. Is that really what this debate has been reduced to—cheap holidays or war?

I am pleased to see that the Chairman of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt), has taken a more measured view. He worked through the possible effects on our foreign policy of two positive options, in a report agreed unanimously by his Committee, before coming to his decision in favour of Brexit only today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kate Hoey]

Indeed, President Obama was quite wrong. When I was in Washington last weekend, we met a lot of senior Democrats and Republicans who said to us quite publicly, behind the scenes, that the UK leaving the EU would really not make any difference whatever to the United States. That is what the ordinary political person in America thinks. However, the vast majority of the American public do not even know what the EU is, so what President Obama said is not too worrying.

It annoyed me so much that one of the facts in the leaflet is:

“The UK has secured a special status in the EU.”

I have read a lot about that and have been through various documents, and I would love to see where that wording is actually included in the renegotiation document by the Heads of Government.

The renegotiation is not legally binding. The hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) has done a lot of work on that in the European Scrutiny Committee. We cannot be confident that the aim of ever closer union will, in any way, do anything other than to take the renegotiation into account. It is so ridiculous that that has been put in, and I want the Minister to respond to that point.

[Ms Gisela Stuart]

I raised that point with the Prime Minister and asked him whether he could cite a single occasion when ever closer union was the sole basis for legal judgment. He wrote back to me admitting that there was not an example.

[Kate Hoey]

That “fact” is therefore completely untrue. Although I do not want us to spend more public money, we really should produce another leaflet pointing out all the things that are wrong in this one.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

Oh, the joys of email inboxes. I received an email about the leaflet; it had an attachment that I printed off. It looked much like the Government’s leaflet, except that it was by “A British citizen”, who had written her own leaflet based on the Government’s, called “Why I believe that voting to leave the European Union is the best decision for the UK”. I thought her leaflet made a darn sight more sense than the Government’s. Given the current debate about national security, I thought I would share what she wrote. The only reason why I do not name her is that I did not check whether it was all right to do so. She was happy for me to use the leaflet. Under “Keeping us safe”, she wrote:

“Our UK police and intelligence agencies do a fantastic job. There is no EU intelligence sharing arrangement, and there is unlikely to be one soon. Security and intelligence services are intrinsically secret organisations which share their information only with those they trust to keep their secrets. There are direct agreements between certain member states. These are not dependent on membership of the EU.”

Based on my impressions from reading the Sunday newspapers, she shows a greater understanding of how our intelligence services work than some of our former heads of MI5 and MI6, who put the facts in a way that suits their case.

[Mr Jenkin]

The Prime Minister discussed in his speech today the importance of sharing our intelligence with our European partners, but I am sure the right hon. Lady knows about the importance of our relationship with the United States, which spends $52 billion a year on signals intelligence and gives us everything it has whenever we ask for it. It would not do that if it thought we would give it to the French and the Germans; it would cut us off instantly. That was its experience in the Kosovo campaign, when there were intelligence leaks to the French. It would simply not countenance supporting that intelligence relationship if we shared all our intelligence with our European allies, as the Prime Minister seemed to suggest we do in his ludicrous speech.

[Ms Stuart]

I could not agree more. The House is currently considering the Investigatory Powers Bill, and our intelligence services operate under strict democratic oversight processes that determine how they use data. Agreeing to European Union-wide intelligence sharing, or handing over data to systems when we are not even certain about the democratic scrutiny of those systems, is just not going to happen.

It is dangerous to distort historic events, given that the referendum has historic significance and that a whole generation of young people who have probably never experienced anything else will be voting. As it happens, tomorrow will be the 75th anniversary of the day when this House was severely damaged during bombing raids. Churchill made it clear that whatever happened, Parliament would have to go on. I see that I am getting a puzzled look; it was the night of 10 to 11 May. It was clear that the most important thing, even at the height of real attacks, was that democratic processes go on, because they were at the heart of this country.

There have been statements such as, “We have secured 70 years of uninterrupted peace in Europe.” Try saying that to the hundreds of thousands of Bosnians and Serbs who had to give their lives before the United Kingdom and the United States took action, without a UN mandate. When the European Union did get involved politically, it made a complete and utter hash of it. We must not lie to the young. I expect the old at least to be able to make up their own minds and have historical perspective.

I object to the final page of the leaflet. The Minister is looking at it; he needs to note this. People came up to me in my advice surgery saying, “Do I have to register to vote for the referendum?” I did not know what they were talking about until I looked at the back page, which says:

“If you’re aged 18 or over by 23 June and are entitled to vote, this is your chance to decide.”

So far, so good.

“Registration ends on 7 June. Find out how to register at aboutmyvote.co.uk and register online at gov.uk/register-to-vote.”

People are reading that to mean that they will have to register specifically for this vote. That is misleading.

It is also highly dubious to align the issuing of postal votes closely with the date on which purdah will kick in. The Electoral Commission is issuing postal votes very early on. In my understanding, the whole purpose of purdah is so that Government machinery will not unduly influence voters’ decisions. Electors are used to political parties taking sides, but they are not used to the Government, in their guise as the Government, taking deeply party political decisions. I want the Minister to show me that he has taken due account of that, so that purdah and the issuing of postal votes will not overlap and there will not be some Treasury report a day before the postal votes land on doormats telling us that we are all going to starve and start sending children up chimneys again. Will he have a word with the electoral registration officers about the misleading statement that has been made?

Similarly, we must put the costs of the leaflet into context. It has cost £9.3 million. The Electoral Commission was set up as an independent body to facilitate fair conduct of such a referendum. As part of that fair conduct, two organisations have been designated to make the case for and against. Those participating have strict financial limits. The Minister will have to explain to me why it is fair and proper to allow the in and out campaigns to raise £7 million each from individual sources, not Government money. There is a real misconception about that. People think that the campaigns have been given that money by the Government. They have not. They have been given permission to raise it. Yet the Government, in one mailshot, have spent more taxpayers’ money than they are spending on the whole process of facilitating the election. That kind of imbalance is simply wrong.

[Scott Mann (North Cornwall) (Con)]

I have done some brief calculations on the back of an envelope. We have 650 MPs—let us say that each of us was entitled to £13,500. There are a couple of worthwhile projects in my constituency that I would have supported, including a new transport plan for St Teath. Does the right hon. Lady have any projects in her constituency on which she would have liked to spend that £13,500?

[Ms Stuart]

A couple of schools immediately come to mind, never mind hospitals.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

It might help the right hon. Lady to know that the Minister for Europe and I share a county in which the health trusts’ deficit this year is approximately the same as the amount of money spent on the leaflet.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Stuart]

The sad thing is that not only has that money not been spent more helpfully and usefully, it has been spent to undermine democratic processes. What worries me more than anything else is that this vote is meant to reinvigorate democracy and encourage participation, but it is causing increased mistrust and cynicism, which is not helpful.

[Tom Pursglove]

One thing that I know as a former local councillor is how much work local authorities and public bodies must do to prove value for money. Does the right hon. Lady think that the Minister will be able to set out for us what value-for-money steps were taken in the procurement?

[Ms Stuart]

I am sure that he could, but the problem is that it is a bit like spilt milk—once the damage is done, if we were to say that we wanted another leaflet putting the facts straight, that would simply compound the problem.

The only points that I want the Minister to respond to in his summing-up are how intends to redress the statement about voter registration and how he will deal with the situation with postal votes and purdah.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pat Glass]

It is not. It is called “Labour In for Britain”. I am part of a Labour campaign. As far as I can see, the leaflet is entirely legal. It has been issued by the Government well in advance of the last 28 days of the referendum period, when section 125 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 will apply and restrict publications about the referendum by bodies or persons that are wholly or mainly publicly funded. The leaflet represents the official view of the Government on the biggest decision that this country will make in a generation and which will impact on this country and our neighbours for decades. In my view, it would be unacceptable for the Government not to have a view on that and not to share that view with the people of this country.

[Ms Gisela Stuart]

Will my hon. Friend give way on that point?

[Pat Glass]

No. As has been pointed out, we have had a huge debate, but we have heard one side of the argument. Hon. Members should do me the courtesy of allowing me to give the other side of the argument.

It seems perfectly reasonable to me for the Government of the day to set out their position in the referendum. This is not a precedent; it is exactly what Governments have done before. This leaflet is clear, and the title is not misleading. It seems to me, and no doubt to those watching the debate today, that those challenging the leaflet are hoping to silence the arguments contained in it, rather than discussing the merits of issuing a leaflet or the cost.

We know that, on this issue, the Labour party—I expect to get one or two requests for an intervention here—is largely of one voice. A handful of my colleagues—I think it is five altogether—have long-held and deep-set views on the issue, and I absolutely respect that, but I think they are mistaken, and they would certainly have to agree that they are out of step with the vast majority of the parliamentary Labour party, constituency Labour parties and Labour voters. The Conservative party, however, is split on the issue. Let us look at the facts. We have a parliamentary Labour party pro-EU group. That group has 214 members.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Lidington]

I am sorry, but there was a collective Cabinet decision. There are and always have been—for as long as I have been in politics—honourable, sincerely held differences of opinion within our party and within the Labour party about the European question. The Prime Minister therefore said that, on this issue and this issue alone, he would relax the normal rules by which Ministers are obliged to support the collective Government position without question and that those Ministers would, in a personal capacity, be able to express their dissenting views.

[Ms Gisela Stuart]

I am happy for the Minister to write to me on this point. As he places significant importance on the Government’s website, can he tell me where, as of today, I can find certain quotations by the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer? As recently as four months ago, they said that we would be perfectly alright outside the EU, but those quotations have disappeared from the website.

[Mr Lidington]

The hon. Lady does not have to search through the Government website. She can look at Hansard and will see that my right hon. Friends have, on many occasions, said that the United Kingdom could survive outside the EU. However, the question that faces the electorate in the referendum is whether remaining in the EU or leaving the EU is the best outcome for our prosperity and security. It is my contention, and the Government’s contention, that the economic and political interests of the UK and all its people are best served by continuing to remain as active and leading players in the primary international organisation on the continent of Europe.

The leaflet follows precedent from previous referendums, including that on EU membership in 1975, when a Government leaflet was also distributed. It also follows the precedent of the referendums on the creation of the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly in 1997 and on the creation of the mayoral system in London in 1998, and of two Government leaflets during the Scottish referendum in 2014. Government publications of this sort, including the distribution of the leaflet, are entirely lawful. However, I can confirm that, as set out in section 125 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, special rules limiting Government publications of all kinds will apply during the last 28 days of the referendum campaign.

Libya

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Tuesday 19th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

Yes, and yesterday I offered Prime Minister Sarraj technical support in relation to the central bank, the national oil company and the Libyan Investment Authority. It is a tribute to Libyan resilience and ingenuity that international partners recognise the figures who have continued to run those institutions throughout this period of chaos over the past few years as technically competent and well motivated—they have been doing a good job. Prime Minister Sarraj has now brought the competing appointees—the eastern and the western chairmen of each of those institutions—together to work together and to seek to forge consensus on how the institutions can go forward as truly national institutions on a collaborative basis.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

I was interested in what the Foreign Secretary had to say about the current state of Daesh, and how it needs to be contained now and not allowed to spread further. Are we talking to other allies, such as Jordan, about working on training deployments and training up troops? If we do not contain Daesh now in north Africa, it will simply be an expanding problem.

[Mr Hammond]

Yes, we are talking to other partners, such as Jordan, about how we can provide support to the Libyan Government. Of course other actors are acting independently; Egypt has a recognised vital interest, because of its long land border with Libya, and some of the problems Egypt has been facing in the Western desert are directly attributable to penetration from Libya. The House will recall the continuing issue of General Haftar, the commander of the Libyan national army. He is an important figure who commands significant military forces in the east but is unacceptable as a command figure to many who are supporting the new Government. That is one of the big challenges Prime Minister Sarraj is facing.

Syria: Russian Redeployment and the Peace Process

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There are two reasons why the humanitarian aid must go on being delivered and getting into parts that it has not yet reached. The first and obvious reason is that people on the ground desperately need it, but, secondly, it is to enable the opposition who are at Geneva to stay there and carry on talking. They find it very difficult to maintain their legitimacy and credibility with their supporters on the ground if no humanitarian aid is getting through and regime bombs and Russian bombs are still falling on them.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

The Foreign Secretary said that he has not talked to Mr Lavrov. Is that because Mr Lavrov is refusing to take his call, or that he has not yet tried? If it is the latter, why not?

[Mr Hammond]

Again, experience is the answer. I have not tried to make the call, and I am in no doubt that I could predict quite confidently the outcome of such a call to Foreign Minister Lavrov. I have had many conversations with him over the course of our regular meetings at Syria-related events, none of which has been fruitful.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

As the whole House will know, we hosted in London on 4 February a very successful conference on Syria and the region, raising $11 billion in a single day. The real significance of that meeting, however, was that we moved on from the idea of simply collecting money and distributing it to working with the host countries in the region to ensure that refugees are able to access the labour market, get education for their children and access healthcare, making them less likely to feel the need to decamp and become irregular migrants heading towards Europe.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

Daesh moves into areas of conflict and ungoverned spaces. King Abdullah of Jordan has asked that we reach out to areas such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania and Kosovo, as he regards them to be among the next potential trouble spots. Are we making any progress?

[Mr Hammond]

Yes. The right hon. Lady is right. We should be very much focused not only on the countries that already face that challenge, but on the countries that are next in line for the challenge, and we should seek to reinforce them. I am happy to tell her, if she was not aware of this, that the Prime Ministers of all the western Balkan countries were in London yesterday, and I had the opportunity to meet the Prime Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Serbia, Albania, and Montenegro. We are working closely with them to ensure the resilience and the European trajectory of that region.

UK’s Relationship with the EU

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

The documents do point to areas where very clear exemptions would be made. Clearly, the Court is there to ensure that the treaties are observed by all member states and by the institutions, but if the drafts we have received today are agreed by everybody, and if they take the form of international law decisions and European Council declarations, they will have not just political but legal significance, which the Court will take into account when it frames its response to any particular case brought to it.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

When we first negotiated the concept of a red card back in 2003—it is hardly a new concept—one of the stumbling blocks was the mechanism by which national Parliaments would come together to form a collective opinion in order for it to be effective. Is the Minister now saying that he will advocate the creation of a new European institution to allow that to happen? If not, how does he think national Parliaments will co-ordinate without the presence of Members of the European Parliament?

[Mr Lidington]

I do not think that needs the creation of a new European institution. I think that national Parliaments—perhaps this would also involve the strengthening of the COSAC secretariat—need to get more adept at the habit of working closely together so that, as a matter of routine, they co-ordinate in a similar way to how Foreign Ministers across Europe co-ordinate, week by week, on foreign policy issues.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development made a statement on that issue yesterday. The specific question asked is properly an issue for her Department, so I will ask her to write to the hon. Lady. What I can say to the House is that the use of starvation as a tool of warfare is illegal in international law—it is a breach of international humanitarian law—and we have made that point repeatedly to the Syrian regime and to the Russians.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

There are currently some 16,000 refugees on the Syrian side of the Jordanian border, and Jordan has offered to help with their dispersal. Could the Foreign Secretary update us on what support we are giving to the Jordanians?

[Mr Hammond]

We are helping and supporting the Jordanians with the Zaatari refugee camp. As I have said, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development will be in Jordan later this week, discussing that, among other issues. There has been an upsurge in fighting in the southern area of Syria, with Syrian Government troops, supported by Russian airstrikes, becoming active in a part of the theatre that has been quiet for quite a long time. That is deeply destabilising for Jordan and puts at risk the possibility of supporting the refugees to whom the right hon. Lady refers.

Saudi Arabia

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Tuesday 5th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

The House will be well aware that Raif Badawi is the blogger whose case has been a source of concern for Members across this House. We have raised the case with Saudi Arabia on a number of occasions. I have raised it myself, as has the Foreign Secretary. We understand that Badawi’s case is still in court, but let me make it clear that we do not expect him to receive the lashes that he has been sentenced to receive.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

If the name of the game is de-escalation, bringing people around the table and making some progress in this situation, have Ministers made it clear to the Saudis that they could not have done anything more provocative than the 47 executions, particularly the one involving Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, to make the situation worse?

[Mr Ellwood]

The right hon. Lady’s points are now on the record. Our focus is to de-escalate those tensions. We have a number of regional challenges in which Saudi Arabia plays an important role, and that is what we will focus on now.

UK and Kazakhstan

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Tuesday 5th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the relationship between the UK and Kazakhstan.

Happy new year, everyone. It is particularly good to see staff from the embassy of Kazakhstan here. I declare my personal interest as treasurer of the all-party parliamentary group on Kazakhstan.

Kazakhstan is massive. The whole of western Europe would fit into the state. It is the world’s largest landlocked country, and it stretches from the Caspian sea to China. Some 16 million people live across its vast lands. Kazakhstan is so vast that, if those people were evenly spread out, there would be only six in every square kilometre. In 1991, Kazakhstan was the last former Soviet republic to break from the Soviet Union. The former Communist party leader, Nursultan Nazarbayev, has effectively ruled the country since its independence—he is now 75 years old. He was first elected as the secretary of the Communist party of Kazakhstan in 1989, but he was re-elected after the break with the Soviet Union in 1991. Practically unopposed, President Nazarbayev has won—

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

I declare my interest as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Kazakhstan. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one of Kazakhstan’s problems is that its wealth is very much in its oil and that it needs to import many products? One of the challenges that the political leadership will have is in governance and the country’s relationship with its neighbours.

[Bob Stewart]

I thank my good friend, despite her being in opposition, for that intervention. I entirely agree that that is one of the problems that Kazakhstan has to address.

The President is very popular with ordinary Kazakhs and is credited with presiding over successful political, economic and social changes through the 1990s and impressive economic growth since 2000. Corruption is undoubtedly a serious problem in the country, with perceptions of Kazakhstan in Transparency International’s annual index being almost as bad as the perceptions of Russia. However, I note that Kazakhstan is not listed as a country of concern in the 2014 Foreign and Commonwealth Office annual report on human rights, unlike its neighbours Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

Clearly, President Nazarbayev retains a tight rein on power. In fairness, he argues that real democracy will come one day but that change must be gradual so as not to destroy the country’s stability. That makes pragmatic sense, considering the situation in many surrounding countries. Kazakhstan is doing its very best in a region where good governance is hardly endemic. After all, Kazakhstan is no different from countless other states across the world, most of which the United Kingdom considers to be both friendly and a trading partner.

With that in mind, I support Kazakhstan’s bid for a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council in 2017, and I hope the Minister will do so, too. Kazakhstan has a great record on non-proliferation and disarmament, and it gave invaluable help to our Government during the withdrawal of British forces from Afghanistan. Kazakhstan also hosted two rounds of negotiations on the Iranian nuclear programme, which was important. Kazakhstan has also mediated in talks on Syria and Ukraine. Finally, the country has initiated the establishment of a nuclear weapons-free zone in central Asia—that treaty was signed on 8 September 2006 in Kazakhstan. In 2009, it was Kazakhstan that initiated the adoption of the UN resolution declaring 29 August as the International Day against Nuclear Tests. Kazakhstan has also closed down a nuclear test site, which was a legacy of the Soviet Union. That is an impressive record.

Oil is dominant in Kazakhstan’s economy. It provides a very large source of foreign investment, Government revenues and employment. Kazakhstan is the 17th largest oil-producing country in the world and has the 12th largest proven reserves of oil, too. Booming oil prices sustained Kazakhstan’s strong growth from 2000 to 2007, when the global financial crisis hit. GDP per capita, a measure of living standards, rose by 89% in real terms over those years. Growth slowed in 2008 and 2009, but picked up again in 2010. The World Bank notes that those rising income levels have led to rapidly falling levels of poverty, which is excellent news.

Our Prime Minister visited the Kashagan oil district on the Caspian sea in June 2013, taking with him representatives from 30 British businesses. The visit was billed as the beginning of a new strategic partnership with the United Kingdom. More recently, President Nazarbayev visited the UK last November to hold talks with the Prime Minister in No. 10 Downing Street. The President and Prime Minister discussed Russia and Ukraine. On Syria, they considered the vital importance of finding a political solution to the conflict and, concerning Daesh, the Prime Minister and President agreed that violent Islamist extremism poses one of the most significant threats to our generation and that there must be comprehensive efforts to defeat it. On Afghanistan, the two leaders agreed that rebuilding the economy would be a key guarantor of the country’s future stability. In short, Kazakhstan is clearly playing a full and responsible part on the world stage.

After the meeting, the Prime Minister announced that the two leaders had secured 40 deals worth £3 billion. The biggest deal was a memorandum of understanding with Kazakh state firm KazTransGas on the construction of a 1,500 km gas pipeline and four power plants in Kazakhstan. Will the Minister tell us about President Nazarbayev’s reforms and our partnership deals with Kazakhstan? What further plans are there to enhance our relationship with the Kazakhs?

I am told that there is a bit of a problem doing business in Kazakhstan. Consultant advisers such as McKinsey & Company suggests that it stems from factors such as the taxation system, lack of transparency, corruption and possibly the revision of original contracts, which is awful for businesses. Mindful that the UK is one of the top 10 investors in Kazakhstan, what are the Government doing to help fix such problems for our businesses?

As a member of the Defence Committee, I am particularly interested in how we can foster and grow a bigger military relationship between Kazakhstan and the United Kingdom. I gather that a certain amount of defence co-operation has taken place already, particularly on the UK’s withdrawal of troops from neighbouring Afghanistan. Just over two years ago, in November 2013, a military co-operation plan was signed between our Ministry of Defence and Kazakhstan’s. Matters decided included support for English language training, career courses in the UK and peacekeeping courses with the British military advisory training team based in the Czech Republic, as well as for programmes to professionalise the Kazakh armed forces and participate in KADEX, the Kazakhstan defence exhibition. Although I appreciate that the Minister is not part of the defence ministerial team, when he replies to this debate, can he update us on the status of our defence relationship with Kazakhstan?

In conclusion, I believe that the United Kingdom’s current and future relationship with Kazakhstan is of huge importance and will be beneficial to both. Kazakhstan might not be a democracy in the way that we experience democracy, but it is one in its own manner. We should help the country to evolve its own version of democracy even further, which will take time. Political, economic, social and military links between the UK and Kazakhstan will help each not only to understand the other better but to prosper.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

For the sake of belt and braces, I repeat my interest as chair of the all-party group on Kazakhstan. I am beginning to wonder whether, whenever we discuss a country, we should start by being given a map showing that country in the centre. It would give us a bit more understanding of the geographical constraints and some of the problems and historical developments. In the case of Kazakhstan, that is particularly important now that we are establishing more exchange and relationship.

I think of a poignant quote from the chief executive officer of the Kazakh central bank, Berik Otemurat; I am happy to take pronunciation lessons after this debate. As someone whose name is permanently mispronounced, I am sure that it must be irritating for people to listen to us mispronouncing their names. He said of Kazakhstan’s current problems in the context of falling oil prices that the country has massive cash reserves, and it is a question of how to invest those; what is its relationship with hedge funds and all the new financial vehicles? He went on:

“I have always thought about ourselves”—

Kazakhstan—

“as a newly-born giant kid standing on the shore of an ocean of opportunities for the country, being afraid to make our first steps without breaking a leg. Before you run you have to learn how to walk.”

What is imperative is reaching out both to the people and to the Government. As for our definition of democracy, we hope that this is not just the beginning, but that democracy will continue. The Government are the people, and the people should provide the Government. Therefore, it is not always helpful to draw those kinds of separations.

However, the best thing that we can do to help in terms of reaching out and allowing this process, which in many ways is one of learning to walk, is around governance, including governance of party political processes. We have fantastic organisations here, such as the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, where we work across parties. We must recognise that there is a real difficulty post-1989 for countries to establish political parties, including a process whereby loyal opposition parties that have different ways of thinking about how things should be done can be established.

At the same time, when there is an electoral result of 97% for one party we just know that something is wrong; not even someone’s own family would vote for them with a margin of 97%. That takes us to the processes of transition. One mistake that we sometimes make is that we think that just because someone has a ballot paper and because there are ballot boxes, that in itself means there is a democratic process; that may be one of my criticisms of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe when it carries out election monitoring. Kazakhstan has gone through the process, but to quote T.S. Eliot, “You had the experience but you may have missed the meaning”. For me, the meaning always is that the people actually change those in government in a peaceful process. So, it is not the first election or even the second election that matters; what matters for me is always the first peaceful transition from those who have been in power to the Opposition, which replaces them. In that sense, when we look at that whole part of the world post-1989, we see that most of the countries are, in some way or another, struggling with that process.

We need to do what we can to help with that process. There is a reason why I think Governments and bureaucracies are so important. I always say we need bureaucracy and such things as a civil service and all the other institutions because they are the organisations that stop things from going seriously wrong when there is a crisis. Therefore, we need those fall-back positions.

There are two areas that I plead to the Minister about regarding our relationship with Kazakhstan. One is financial governance. There are some serious problems if a country has huge cash reserves, is beginning to look at greater involvement with hedge funds and has a big national sovereign fund. We also read about the emergence of the Bitcoin market. If the financial markets are ungoverned spaces, we just know that something will go wrong.

The second area is about the times when a country experiences very high inflation while also experiencing falling oil prices. Those periods will have some economic problems, which—again—we can provide some significant help with, by supporting those structures that I have mentioned. What will hold us together is membership of the big international organisations, whether it is the World Trade Organisation, the International Monetary Fund or the United Nations. Those structures have rules which we all must comply with. Therefore, it is as much in the interests of the people of Kazakhstan as it is in our interests that such rules-based processes and a shared understanding of those rules are entrenched, so that the rules are not something that countries must learn to evade or avoid, but instead help people to govern their own country and to deal with other people.

Building that capacity—whether it is with the OSCE or the WFD, or through bilateral support of our businesses—is something that we must do more of, particularly in those parts of the world that will become increasingly important to us all. It is in relation to one of those countries—Kazakhstan—that I am glad that parliamentary colleagues, both in the Commons and in the Lords, have decided that an all-party group should be formed. Therefore, I hope that, in the end, we will learn from each other, and if we cannot do so I hope that we will at least understand each other better.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Tobias Ellwood)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I wish you and hon. Members a happy new year. It is a real pleasure to respond to this debate on our relationship with the important country of Kazakhstan. I congratulate my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) on securing the debate. I am pleased to see the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) in her place. She is co-chair of the all-party group on Kazakhstan with Lord Astor. That is formidable cross-party representation and a reflection not only of the interests of Parliament, but of the bond between the two countries.

I pay tribute to the Kazakh ambassador, His Excellency Erzhan Kazykhanov. His hair went a little bit greyer, as did all of ours, in preparing for the presidential visit to this country and the Prime Minister’s visit to Kazakhstan in 2013. Both visits were extremely successful and were examples of how our two countries are working together far more closely. I had the pleasure of visiting the country last September. As my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham articulated, this landlocked country is the size of Australia—it is situated between Russia and China; it is where the apple is said to have originated and where horses are claimed to have first been domesticated; and it lived under the tsarist shadow and then the Soviet shadow—and there is no doubt that it is taking significant steps in becoming a regional and global power. The recent visit by the President is testament to the growing bond between our two countries. During my visit, the presidential visit here and the Prime Minister’s visit in 2013, the hand of friendship has been clearly extended to Britain, and we should embrace it.

For people who have not been to the country and are not familiar with the region, the chances are that when they think of Kazakhstan, their thoughts might be out of date. It is a proud, rich and extremely large country that has escaped the shackles of its Soviet past and is modernising. It is confident and willing to do business with traditional trading partners in Moscow and newer partners such as China, south-east Asia, the west and Britain. Commercially and politically, the Kazakhstan of today is on the verge of becoming a significant player on the regional and international stage. It boasts, as we have heard, an impressive range of mineral wealth, from oil and gas to ferrous and non-ferrous metals, and a space launch facility, which a Briton has taken advantage of to get up into the International Space Station—I pay tribute to Tim Peake, who I had the pleasure of serving with in the Royal Green Jackets, and I hope that Members will wish him well.

The country has changed hugely, and when I visited the capital I saw that its skyline was akin to that of Dubai, with many of the skyscrapers designed by British architects. Kazakhstan has also decided to fast-forward its integration into the international rules-based system on which the world’s security and prosperity depend, reducing the role of the state in its economy through a substantial privatisation programme. Furthermore, the introduction of English contract law as part of the development of the Astana international financial centre makes the country one to watch—or, for someone in business, a country to consider visiting before being beaten to it by competitors in other countries.

Kazakhstan is about to become a member of the World Trade Organisation, and it aspires to membership of the G30 and the OECD in coming years. As has been mentioned, an enhanced partnership and co-operation agreement with the EU will shortly be concluded, enabling a broader and closer partnership.

[Ms Gisela Stuart]

I am grateful in particular for the Minister’s comments about the WTO. Are contract law and WTO membership both things that will require anti-corruption measures to be addressed very seriously? We have a mutual interest in Kazakhstan meeting those requirements, which will also enable our companies to deal with the country.

[Mr Ellwood]

I absolutely concur that a strength of our relationship with Kazakhstan will be, with our experience, to encourage the country to sign those agreements and to engage with the international rules that will allow and encourage further commercial activity and the bond between our two countries. Only when businesses are confident that there is that positive and transparent environment will we be able to enhance the commercial relationship that the right hon. Lady is espousing.

I am grateful that the President was able to make his visit to the United Kingdom in November, which confirmed the UK as a partner of choice as he seeks to implement governance and rule of law reforms, in line with universal rights reforms as well. Another important element of our bilateral relationship, which I know is of particular interest to my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham, is the military relationship, which he raised in relation to various matters. He articulated the need for political structures and mentioned President Nazarbayev’s reforms, the challenges in doing business and our commercial and military relationships. I will address those one by one.

First, the success of any country relies on good governance and reform. While acknowledging the continuing challenges faced, we should recognise that Kazakhstan has made great efforts to improve its governance structures and engage accordingly as the best way to promote reform. In May, President Nazarbayev launched a far-reaching programme of reforms. These included changes to the legal system, the civil service, the economy, and public accountability. These will be implemented through his 100 concrete steps—essentially, milestones for each of the five reform areas that hon. Members have mentioned today.

I recognise, as other hon. Members did in their contributions, that although Kazakhstan has made real progress on its human rights record, there is further work to be done, in particular to avoid the risk that progress in one area might be offset by retrograde developments in others. We rightly have high expectations for a country that is a leader in the region and seeks a greater international role.

During the President’s visit in November, the Prime Minister discussed Kazakhstan’s progress on political and societal reform, including creating a more permissive environment for non-governmental organisations. The President outlined some of his thinking on the reform agenda and spoke of the creation of new structures designed to tackle corruption. For our part, we plan to invite Kazakh Government representatives to our anti-corruption summit in May. Our embassy in Astana is one of a small number that contribute to regular meetings of the Kazakh Investment Council, where transparency issues are discussed. Hon. Members will be pleased to hear that, on taxation, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs is working hard on a revised double taxation agreement with the Kazakhs. Those discussions will be completed shortly.

On the commercial relationship, let me answer hon. Members’ questions about where we stand on the various partnership deals since President Nazarbayev’s visit to the UK last year. A wide variety of commercial memorandums of understanding were signed during the President’s visit, ranging from joint exploration studies to the forming of a task force to facilitate new partnerships between Kazakh and UK companies in the oil and gas sector. The target is to form 10 to 15 new partnerships in the sector by 2017. We are working hard across Government to follow up swiftly. For example, in the gas sector, UK Trade & Investment is offering in-country assistance to the British company, Independent Power Corporation, to help to take forward its programme.

To provide the maximum support to British businesses, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has appointed Lord Astor as trade envoy for Kazakhstan, so he is not just co-chair. I pay tribute to Charles Hendry for the work he has done. He will now work with the country as it hosts EXPO 17 and will act as the commissioner for the United Kingdom. Both will play an active role in the UK’s thriving bilateral relationship with Kazakhstan, and they are both planning to visit the country next month.

We will continue to support British businesses wanting to trade with Kazakhstan across sectors, from energy to infrastructure. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston commented on the falling oil prices. That underlines the need to not rely on hydrocarbons, but to diversify. As my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham noted, the opportunities are many. For example, the two-way trade in the region is worth about £1 billion per annum. Over the next 10 years, expenditure on major new oil and gas developments in Kazakhstan is expected to exceed £60 billion. We want to be a part of this exciting investment. Indeed, the oil and gas programme is the highest grossing programme globally for UKTI, having already delivered £6.6 billion of business wins for the UK.

On military relations, the Ministry of Defence, through the defence attaché in Astana, has built an extensive network of contacts throughout the Kazakh armed forces. There have been reciprocal visits at the highest level of chiefs of defence staff, and a visit by the Kazakh Defence Minister in 2013. My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham raised the issue of officer cadets from Kazakhstan being trained in the UK. Our MOD colleagues have been working hard on this. I am pleased to say that it is now making real progress and our embassy is currently following up with the Kazakhs.

The current focal point of defence engagement with Kazakhstan is the Steppe Eagle exercise, now in its 13th year, with the aim of developing the Kazakh forces’ capabilities to deploy on peacekeeping missions, which my hon. Friend mentioned. In July 2016, it will take place in the UK for the first time, and we look forward to Kazakhstan taking part in its first UN peacekeeping role in the near future. Exercise Steppe Eagle is clear evidence of Kazakhstan’s growing international ambitions and of the positive contribution it can make on the international stage.

Europe: Renegotiation

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

No. That is a matter for the detailed negotiations that are now under way. The technical talks have given us a menu of options to help us determine, in respect of particular reforms, whether we would be able to rely on secondary legislation, on treaty change, on protocols or on political commitment. That menu of options will now be available to the Heads of Government as they embark on the political negotiations. The purpose of the technical talks has been to ensure that leaders are informed about the legal and procedural solutions that are available, so that they do not have to start that work from scratch when they are in a leaders’ meeting.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

We believe that if powers do not need to reside in Brussels, they should be returned to Westminster. Will the Minister tell us which treaty provision he intends to use for that purpose, and if he does not have one, will he negotiate a new one?

[Mr Lidington]

In my statement, I described the areas in which we are seeking change. If the right hon. Lady looks at what the Prime Minister said in his speech this morning, she will see that he spoke of making the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality more of a reality, and of establishing an agreed mechanism within the EU system to ensure that we not only look at new proposals coming out of the Commission but have a means of reviewing regularly the existing exercise of competences and deciding which competences that are currently exercised at EU level no longer need to be exercised at that level.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

Clearly, what I seek is a package of reform that will allow me and the British people to embrace enthusiastically Britain’s future in the European Union. The British people will, however, approach this process with a sceptical frame of mind. They will be looking for real and substantial reform, which is binding and enforceable and irreversible in the future. That is what we are seeking.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

What legal advice has the Foreign Secretary had that would give him reason to believe that he can get these substantial changes that would allow non-euro countries fair representation within the architecture without treaty changes being required?

[Mr Hammond]

We expect that some of the changes that we are seeking—by no means all, but some—will require treaty change. We are exploring in technical discussions with the Commission’s lawyers how we might enter into binding arrangements ahead of treaty change that will have the effect of binding our partners into the agreements they have made.