Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I agree with my right hon. and learned Friend that the next few weeks and months will be crucial for Libya. Would that it was as simple as getting behind the democratic authority in Libya—it is not clear that there is a democratic authority behind which we can get. We need a coming together. I do not want to overplay the prospects, but the UN Secretary-General’s special representative, Bernardino León, is making some progress, and the Prime Minister’s envoy, Jonathan Powell, is also working hard. We will continue to engage, because having a stable Government in Libya is vital to our security.

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

The Tobruk-based Government have agreed to return to the UN talks, but on the condition that they are recognised as the only authority that can take part in those negotiations. What is the view of Her Majesty’s Government? Do they support the Tobruk-based Government?

[Mr Hammond]

Our view is that both the Tobruk regime and the Misratans, and indeed the regime in Tripoli, must attend the talks with the UN Secretary-General’s special representative on a no-preconditions basis and on the terms he proposes in order to discuss how they can form a Government of national unity of some kind so that we can begin to rebuild Libya, which could be a prosperous and successful country, and one whose stability is vital to our own interests.

Ukraine

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Tuesday 10th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

That is the great risk—that the Russian objective is simply to achieve a frozen conflict, and a situation in which, de facto, Russia exercises very extensive leverage over Ukraine, and Ukraine operates not as a truly independent sovereign nation, but as a semi-independent nation. We have seen Russian attempts elsewhere to manage frozen conflicts.

I sometimes think that one of the diseases we suffer from in the west is tidy-mindedness. We tend to think of conflicts such as this one as things that have to be solved and that have to have an end. I suspect that the mindset in the Kremlin is that the Russians can have any number of those conflicts, and that they can remain open, simmering for ever. That would suit them quite nicely.

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

It sounds to me as if President Putin is getting exactly what he wants. The right hon. and learned Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) was absolutely right. I was at Munich, too. Not only was it obvious that the UK’s views were utterly irrelevant—nobody in the room asked what the United Kingdom thought—but it was clear that Chancellor Merkel was not going to arm the Ukrainians. More remarkably, she did not mention the possibility of further sanctions. The Secretary of State said that we should not weaken Russia any further. It seems to me that we are not supplying arms and not applying any more serious sanctions, with the explanation that that would destabilise Russia even further. If so, Putin will have got what he wanted.

[Mr Hammond]

No. If the existing sanctions are rolled over for a further period, the pressure on Russia will be maintained. It is not the case that we have imposed a bunch of sanctions that are not having any effect, and now we should be asking whether we should impose more. We have imposed a bunch of sanctions. Alongside the declining oil price the absence of access to the capital markets is having a crippling impact on Russia.

While the hon. Lady was listening to Mrs Merkel in the room at Munich, I was talking to the Iranian Foreign Minister, so I did not listen to the speech, but I spoke to the German Foreign Minister afterwards. We are actively discussing the maintenance and extension of the sanctions regime with the Germans. Of course, they want to explore the opportunity that tomorrow’s meeting, if it goes ahead, might offer, but the Germans, and the German Chancery in particular, are robust. They have been admirably robust on the case for maintaining sanctions.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Tuesday 20th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

I can only repeat what I said—that we are working extremely hard to bring the political parties together. There is a danger that if these parties do not recognise the importance of taking advantage of the UN’s direction of travel, we will indeed suffer problems connected with ISIL taking advantage of the space, just as we saw in Syria.

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

“There is a civil war, we are working hard and it is on the agenda next week”, but I still have no sense of what precisely the United Kingdom will say we should be doing practically to bring the two warring sides together and do what the United Nations suggests—building confidence so that we can find a resolution. What are we actually going to do?

Nigeria

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Monday 12th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Swire]

There are allegations of equipment going missing and money not reaching the right place, and unfortunately I believe that all those allegations are founded on truth. That is why we have training teams in Nigeria—to try to build better institutional capacity for a better, more accountable and more transparent military, so that such things do not go on happening.

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

It has been reported that the French have an initiative whereby they are trying to create a multinational taskforce comprising Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Chad, but so far none of those countries has been prepared to provide the troops required. Is the United Kingdom supporting the French Government in that initiative, which must surely be the way forward?

[Mr Swire]

I think I said earlier that the solution should be regional. Some of those countries, such as Niger and Cameroon, are on the borders of Nigeria and are already affected. However, we cannot offer help if the country we are offering it to does not want it, so we have to hear more from the Nigerian Government about how the international community can assist, particularly locally. Hopefully, a force such as the hon. Lady suggests can come from that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I could not agree more with my right hon. Friend. Trade is at the heart of the European Union. Completing and deepening the single market and extending it into the digital, energy and services markets—areas on which we have scarcely scratched the surface—is the way to deliver economic growth in the European Union in the future, together with completing international trade treaties such as the transatlantic trade and investment partnership that will also hugely expand our opportunities.

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

We are not part of the eurozone and neither is Poland. Part of a reformed European Union will have to accommodate those countries that are not part of the eurozone. When did the Secretary of State last meet his Polish counterpart to discuss what that new architecture might look like?

[Mr Hammond]

I have had a couple of meetings with my new Polish counterpart and had more extensive meetings with the former Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski. I will be going to Brussels later on this afternoon and will have the opportunity to meet my Polish counterpart again. What the hon. Lady says is absolutely right. An essential emerging feature of the new EU architecture is the fact of the eurozone and the non-eurozone. If those countries in the eurozone wish to pursue closer political integration, they will be able to do so. Those countries that are outside the eurozone must be assured of the integrity of the single market, even though they will not take part in that process.

ISIL: Iraq and Syria

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Thursday 16th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend makes his point with great passion. He will know that there are a number of offences under English law with which returning foreign fighters can be charged. We have had a discussion about the allegiance question. We have seen people declaring that they have sworn personal allegiance to the so-called Islamic State. That does raise questions about their loyalty and allegiance to this country and about whether, as my hon. Friend rightly says, the offence of treason could have been committed. I will certainly draw his remarks to the attention of the Home Secretary, who ultimately will be the person who needs to look at this.

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

There are indeed many historic and political reasons for Turkey not to take a more active part in fighting ISIL, but will the Foreign Secretary assure the House that Turkey is not putting anything in the way of those who do wish to take part, in terms of access to air space or land routes, and also say to what extent any negotiations that the United States is having with Turkey at the moment over access and activity include the United Kingdom?

[Mr Hammond]

The hon. Lady will know that the Turkish Parliament has recently passed a law that allows Turkish air bases to be used by international forces, allows the stationing of international forces on Turkish soil and allows the passage of international forces across Turkish soil and through Turkish air space, so the framework is now in place to permit a high level of collaboration. What we, the Americans and the French are still talking to the Turks about is how best they can deliver their contribution to the coalition in a way that recognises the historical sensitivities, but none the less makes a significant contribution to the effort against ISIL.

Ukraine, Middle East, North Africa and Security

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Wednesday 10th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I agree with my hon. Friend. There is a qualitative difference between any proposition of air strikes in Syria and such an activity in Iraq. The legal, technical and military differences make the proposition of air strikes an order of magnitude more complicated in Syria.

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

rose—

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hammond]

If my hon. Friend will allow me, I will come specifically to the question of air strikes and their authorisation later in my speech.

[Ms Gisela Stuart]

rose—

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Hammond]

I will take one more intervention and then I must make some progress.

[Ms Gisela Stuart]

Will the Foreign Secretary elaborate on the military differences, as he said that there were quantitative differences between Syria and Iraq? We are talking about a process. What are the air strikes meant to achieve? Would they achieve something different in Iraq from in Syria, or are we taking this the wrong way round?

[Mr Hammond]

When I talked about a military difference between Iraq and Syria, I was referring to the different air defence systems that protect the territory in those two countries. In Iraq, the skies are open over ISIL-controlled territory, whereas in Syria a sophisticated integrated air defence system protects the whole of the country’s airspace and would make air strikes complex and difficult to deliver.

--- Later in debate ---

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

It is beautiful to follow the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood), because he calls for a strategy and then delivers a list of tactical responses which do not amount to a strategy.

Tonight’s debate is not just about Ukraine and the middle east, because, as we can see from the Order Paper, it is about a number of reports by the Defence Committee. We on that Committee were looking ahead to the strategic review in 2015 and produced a number of papers that should guide what a proper security and defence review should look like. One report was entitled “Intervention: Why, When and How?” and in the context of today’s debate it may be useful to remind the House of the conclusions we drew. The report states:

“As a starting point the Government must articulate a realistic vision of the UK’s place in the world, its level of strategic influence and the way the world is changing as well as the identification and prioritisation of the risks to it. The next Defence and Security Review should then translate this vision into defence planning assumptions and the development of the appropriate force structure. This would assist more strategic decisions on why, when and how to intervene.”

It is right to say that in the current world we cannot have the perfect plan. As the great strategist Mike Tyson put it, “You have a plan and then someone punches you in the face.” We can respond to being punched in the face in a way that is strategic only if we have some framework within which we operate. That framework has to be a clear definition of what we think our national interests are. We then need a plan that it is possible to put into action. It is no good having a list of aspirations if they do not give us any means of acting. We then require the disciplined community to put the actions into effect, which also requires an assessment of our capacity. .

The problems caused by an absence of a proper strategy have been shown in many ways in today’s debate. We talk about air strikes, but bombing is not a strategy. Why are we even considering those air strikes? We debated no-fly zones over and air strikes on Libya, and the error we made was in thinking that removing Gaddafi meant “job done”. Instead, it should have been the first step for further strategic implementation of a long-term plan. We talk about NATO as if it was not a membership organisation but an alternative body to which we defer. We are NATO! May I also remind the House that the big mistake we make is that we regard this country as the second most important member of NATO? The UK is not, because the second most important member, after the United States, is Turkey. Let us consider what the world looks like from the point of view of Turkey. It has the Black sea on one side, Syria on the other. Turkey is the country of the fall-out of the Ottoman empire and the Sykes-Picot agreement. That is all now coming back to haunt Turkey and those around it. Let us be clear that NATO makes decisions and that we are part of the decision making.

Let us also be clear that the problems we face in the eastern Mediterranean at the moment relate to whether the Sykes-Picot agreement is falling apart. If it is, what do we do about it? In 1916, Britain was the guardian of that agreement, whereas after world war two the United States was. From what we can see, the United States is now no longer willing or able to be that guardian, so that role must be played through a restoration of functioning nation states within that area which can deliver things. Some of the states there are functioning: Iran, Israel, Turkey and, for the moment, Jordan. It is crucial that we continue supporting Jordan. The question is how do we support the countries in between to become functioning nation states? If we end up with the creation of a caliphate and that is the solution, we will be haunted for centuries to come.

This process requires not only military weapons, but weapons of the mind. Bombing is an element of defeating people militarily, but in the long term this is a battle for the minds and hearts of a generation. We can win that battle only if we have a strategy that involves our own values. If we cannot define where we want to go, we will be incapable of ever knowing whether we have arrived. If we just make a little list of things to do, we are just like a fifth-former with a shopping list, so we should clearly explain why we are doing things. Let me give one example. A week ago, it was, apparently, not in Britain’s national interest to arm the Kurds, and many Labour Members thought that was wrong, but yesterday we are told that we are now doing so. The Government must learn to explain their actions within the framework of Britain’s national interest to this House so that we can give informed consent.

I hope that the Minister will tell us what we think about the illegal annexation of Crimea, because we have fallen very quiet on that. The former Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), said that it was a fait accompli. It may be that, but I would be deeply saddened if that was the Government’s starting position.

Afghanistan

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Tuesday 9th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

My right hon. Friend makes a valid point. The Afghan economy is fragile, even though it has very significant potential. We all know—perhaps, rather closer to home, we were reminded of it yesterday—that uncertainty is the enemy of smooth economic development and sustained growth. Once the new Government are in place, this will become a major focus for our effort and that of other allies.

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

When the Foreign Secretary was Defence Secretary, he suggested that if the status of forces agreement was not signed by the end of September, we may consider accelerating the draw-down of our troops. Does he now assess that the outcome of the presidential election, or a dateline for that, is sufficiently certain that that will not be necessary?

[Mr Hammond]

We keep this situation under continuous review. We have two candidates who disagree about the outcome, but nobody disagrees that one of them has won. They are both absolutely committed to signing the bilateral security agreement and the status of forces agreement at the very beginning of their presidential term. At some point, this agreement must be signed. Practical decisions have to be taken by the UK and other countries in order to get our forces out by 31 December if an agreement is not in place, but our working assumption for now is that it will be put in place within the next few weeks.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Tuesday 17th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Of course we work with other nations across the globe to counter terrorism, and the United Kingdom is absolutely relentless in its efforts to defeat terrorism all over the world. I can assure my hon. Friend that there is no softening of any of our policies in relation to Iran. We look to Iran to cease support for sectarian groups elsewhere in the middle east and to reach a successful conclusion to nuclear negotiations, but I believe that it is important to discuss such issues with Iran, and we need the ability to do so.

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

Having just returned from five days in Iran, I very much welcome the written ministerial statement on UK-Iran relationships. However, the events in Iraq have, for the first time ever, created a situation in which Saudi interests and Iranian interests have something in common, which is to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Is the Foreign Secretary doing anything to facilitate such a dialogue, and to bring those joint interests closer together?

[Mr Hague]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. One thing that would be of enormous assistance in defusing many tensions in the middle east is an improvement in relations between Iran and many of its neighbours, including the Gulf states in general. I hope that that will become part of Iranian foreign policy, and will be responded to by others. We certainly encourage any movement in that direction.

Ukraine

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Tuesday 13th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

So far, the co-ordination between the United States and the EU and between EU nations has been very strong, and we in the UK play an important role in ensuring that there is that co-ordination. Any discussion behind closed doors often features a variety of views—as one would expect, when 28 EU nations are involved—but so far we have had no difficulty in reaching unanimous agreement on the sanctions that I have described, and that includes the decisions we made yesterday. Russia should not underestimate the willingness of the European Union to add further measures, including more far-reaching measures if necessary, and to engage in close co-ordination with the United States of America in that regard.

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

The first broadcast in Ukrainian by the BBC World Service was in June 1992, and the last was in April 2011. Given that the Foreign Secretary himself has referred to the constant propaganda from Russia, will he discuss with the BBC whether it is time to reinstate that service?

[Mr Hague]

I think that point is worth considering. As I discovered in Ukraine last week, there is a constant demand for other media and for impartial media, given the behaviour of Russian-controlled or Russian-sponsored media, and we are considering ways in which that can be encouraged without controlling it ourselves. Of course, there is now a greater proliferation of television channels and forms of communication of every kind, so the answer is not necessarily to replicate exactly what we had before, but in many parts of eastern Europe there is a need for impartial information and news, and that is something that we must not neglect.