Commission Work Programme 2013

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Monday 7th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington)]

I beg to move,

That this House takes note of European Union Document No. 15691/12 and Addendum, a Commission Communication on the Commission Work Programme 2013, and welcomes the Work Programme as a useful summary that enables the Government and Parliament to plan their engagement.

I welcome the fact that the European Scrutiny Committee has referred this subject for debate. Today’s debate on the 2013 work programme of the European Commission provides us with a timely opportunity for both Government and Parliament to look ahead and plan our consideration of forthcoming European Union business.

As is always the case, the work programme sets out the European Commission’s priorities, in this instance for 2013 and early 2014; and it may be the last substantial work programme under the current Commission, whose term ends in October 2014. The substance of the Commission’s plans is contained in the annex, which previews 58 initiatives, making it shorter than previous work programmes. However, we know that the list of initiatives is unlikely to be exhaustive; previous experience suggests that reactive work will arise. As the House is aware, various European measures from previous Commission work programmes are already in the system, and work on those will be ongoing over the next 12 months or so.

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

The Minister mentioned reactive legislation. Is any reflective work done? Eleven years ago, 2012 was supposed to be the year when Europe was the most competitive economy in the world. What went wrong?

[Mr Lidington]

We could spend a fair time debating exactly what went wrong and the extent to which fault should be laid at the door of European institutions or of various national Governments who failed to implement the right economic measures to inculcate greater dynamism. I make no bones about the fact that the European Union as a whole would benefit from focusing—perhaps not to the exclusion of everything else, but ahead of all other priorities—on the urgent need for Europe as a whole to rediscover economic dynamism and economic growth through trade and open markets, because in the face of a dramatically changing global economy, that is the only way Governments of European nations can ensure that future generations enjoy both the material standards of living and the degree of social protection that we have come to take for granted in our day.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Lidington]

To be fair, that is a charge my right hon. Friend has levied not only at the European Union but at successive Governments in this country. I certainly agree that too often the European Commission’s first instinct—to be fair, too often it is the first instinct of Departments of State in this country—is to measure its activity and political success by the number of new legislative measures it invents and takes through the legislative process. Often—I certainly believe this is true at European level—more could be achieved more effectively and significantly more cheaply through a sensible exchange of best practice, by looking at what works in one member state but perhaps does not work in another and seeing whether it is possible to encourage the dissemination of best practice rather than always looking at legislative measures as the first step.

I do not want to exaggerate the extent to which the Government have been able to shift a deeply ingrained culture that looks to legislation, but I think that it is important that the House appreciates that we have managed to secure some changes that none of our predecessors, of either party, managed to secure. Last year we got agreement to a measure under which businesses with fewer than 10 employees should be exempt altogether from any new EU legislative proposals unless there was a good reason for their inclusion. This is the first time in the EU’s history that the default position has been that there should be an exemption from regulations rather than the inclusion of all companies within them. Agreement was reached, too, that lighter regimes should be developed for those occasions when such businesses needed to be included. For example, in March last year agreement was reached that exempted up to 1.5 million UK small businesses from certain European Union accounting rules.

[Ms Gisela Stuart]

The Minister says that there will be an exemption unless proved otherwise. What is the mechanism whereby we keep track and action is reported back to us, because we hear this year after year but nothing happens?

[Mr Lidington]

The hon. Lady makes a perfectly fair comment. That is why at European Council after European Council my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister keeps coming back to the charge and saying, “We all agreed as Heads of State and Government two or three months ago that the Commission should come forward with a set of proposals on smarter regulation; now we want to see what it has actually been doing in the meantime.” One of the key objectives of the Prime Minister and of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills is to ensure that we do not simply relax having achieved a paragraph in the conclusions of a European Council that commits everybody to a measure of deregulation but follow it through so that in all our conversations with the Commission, in our work with MEPs, and in the work that we do bilaterally with other member states we try to co-ordinate a more growth-friendly approach across the European Union. These high-level declarations need to be nailed down in terms of concrete action, and the Commission should be expected to report back. We are making progress on that. I am the first to say that there is still a great deal more to do, and we will encourage the Commission to consider further and more ambitious measures.

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

Just ahead of the debate, I checked one of the political blogs and saw the following phrase:

“Over a hundred million pounds over budget, four years late, and the subject of a National Audit Office investigation”

and I thought that must be about the European Union. No, it was about the BBC’s rebuild. That brought it home to me that this House collectively pays great attention to the BBC, gives it more scrutiny and is better informed about how it runs than it is of the entire Commission work programme. As this is probably the last European Commission work programme before the 2014 election, at which the Conservative party might find itself beaten into second place by the UK Independence party vote, and we are moving into a time when matters European are going to be important across all the parties, I want to discuss the way in which we talk about the Commission programme.

It has been interesting to note that over the past hour, we have talked just about process and there has been very little on the substance. The truth is that debating an entire Commission programme in an hour and a half is a bit like saying that the Chancellor’s Budget speech or the Queen’s Speech should be debated by the House of Commons in an hour and a half. That is the equivalent; let us face it. If, as the Minister says, he is throwing a gauntlet down to Parliament, I would like gently to chuck it back to him and say that a number of things need to change if Parliament is seriously to engage with this issue.

I genuinely mean no disrespect, but if the European Union has this huge influence on our domestic legislative programme, which this work programme shows it does, what on earth is this matter doing in the Foreign Office? This is not foreign; it is domestic. The number of legislative issues that need to be addressed must be addressed by departmental Cabinet Ministers on a regular basis. I know that suggestions have been made about upgrading the role of the Minister for Europe, but I say no: I want UKREP to have a political role. All the negotiations going on need to be answerable on an “in time” basis, not through bits of paper that are fed to us afterwards. That should be done by UKREP, but at the moment it has a diplomatic role. If a Cabinet Minister were answerable from this Dispatch Box for all the negotiations at UKREP level, that Minister would be the equivalent of the Deputy Prime Minister. It is a serious post.

Let me give one simple example. The work programme talks about a “safe and secure” EU. I always remember Matthew Parris once saying that a speech or statement should be assessed on the basis of whether anyone would dare to say it if the word “not” were put in front of it. As I read through the document I thought that that would not apply to a single statement in it. It was a case of cut and paste, add the year, and motherhood and apple pie.

The Commission refers to establishing a European public prosecutor’s office

“to fight against crimes affecting the EU budget and protect its financial interests”.

I remember that 10 years ago, during the negotiations that led to the Lisbon treaty, the UK had to fight tooth and nail to make sure that a public prosecutor would operate on a legislative basis that would require unanimity. Ten years ago, we expended considerable political capital on that, because whenever the veto is exercised or unanimity is insisted on something has to be given back at some stage or other. We are now 10 years on, the basis of unanimity remains but the Commission still wants the office, so this never goes away.

The UK Government have said that they are opposed to the proposal. This House has to have a way of understanding how we are going to be against it—what the political negotiating cost will be of our not being part of such a move. I am afraid that an hour and a half of debate on the Commission’s programme—or even chucking the issue to a Select Committee or the European Scrutiny Committee, however worthy they may be—will not give us an “in time” political debate in order that we may really understand the value of something or the price that we pay for it.

[Sir Alan Beith]

I do not understand why the hon. Lady thinks that Select Committees are incapable of focusing significantly on the issues, obtaining the evidence relating to problems such as those that worry her, and bringing them quickly to the attention of the House. We do it all the time.

[Ms Stuart]

That would be true were it not for the fact that we scrutinise on a departmental basis, whereas UKREP’s political “give and take” negotiations in Brussels are cross-departmental. I have been present during such negotiations. Representatives say, for instance, “We will give the Germans a bit on cigarette advertising, and in exchange the Danes will be given a bit of an opt-out on fish and the Greeks will get a bit more money to enable them to grow tobacco.” The House of Commons will never fully understand that kind of give and take, but, whatever our relationship with the European Union, it needs to start to understand it.

I say to the Minister: yes, continue with the Select Committees, but there should also be a much better “in time” flow of information. UKREP needs to play a political role in the Cabinet. It should have a ministerial function, and should be answerable to the House. Moreover, now that we have Westminster Hall, what is to stop us asking Commissioners to go there in 2014 and answer questions from Members about the Commission’s programme? Why is this a “third party” relationship? We all stop and stare in admiration or astonishment when we see one of our Members of the European Parliament in the House of Commons. Most of us probably would not recognise half of them. That shows that there is a very sad relationship between the two legislative bodies.

In 2014, there will be a new Commission. On the assumption that our wonderful coalition will still be in place then, and that the Prime Minister will not go to the country until 2015, I think that the Government should think seriously about asking the incoming Commissioners to come here and explain their work programme in a way that would allow the House to question them directly and on a cross-departmental basis.

[Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)]

Although I disagree with some of what was said by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart), I think that her analysis of the political processes with which we are dealing was fairly shrewd and helpful. I also agree with her that there is something unsatisfactory about the way in which we are currently going about this—not least the provision of a mere hour and a half for the debate, although it must also be said that it is taking place at a much earlier stage than the last one, after two months rather than six, and is taking place on the Floor of the House rather than in Committee. However, I do not think that it would be improved by being extended to six or eight hours; I think that what this tells us is that we need more systematic, subject-by-subject scrutiny, as well as some awareness of the give and take that happens not just in European politics but in British politics: a Department will give way on one thing, and will be given something else by another.

It is to the Minister’s credit that he has engaged in dialogue and sought to encourage Select Committees to play the role that I have described. I can say, not just in my Justice Committee capacity but as Chairman of the Liaison Committee, that our discussions with him have been very useful. However, I think that he has found it a bit difficult—and we have found it very difficult—to build sufficiently on qualities that are already there and available.

When Committees go to Brussels and meet UKREP staff, many of whom will have been seconded to UKREP from individual Departments, they find them uniformly helpful, very well informed, and able to give a fair amount of guidance not only on the content of proposals but on the amount of traction that they are likely to achieve. They can say whether the proposals are worth spending time on, or are unlikely to get anywhere. We ought to deploy knowledge of that kind in a process that will engage Committees usefully and in a timely way, so that a British perspective on an issue—the perspective of British business, charities or trade unions, for example—can be brought to bear where it really matters.

We on the Liaison Committee are doing all that we can to encourage Committees to allocate time for such work properly in their programmes. Some of them do it all the time anyway. Most of the subjects for which the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, for example, is responsible are dealt with at a European level, so the Committee is greatly engaged with it, and other Committees regularly have issues as well.

[Ms Gisela Stuart]

I am genuinely seeking guidance. Which of the Committees of the House could have looked at ash dieback disease, for instance? People now say that, even if we had identified it, the EU could not have stopped the trade in infected trees early enough. Which Committee in our system could have tackled that, traced it back and said, “We need to do something”?

[Sir Alan Beith]

In our system, it follows the departmental responsibility, unless it is the kind of cross-cutting thing the Environmental Audit Committee deals with. In the case that the hon. Lady mentions, however, it would probably have been the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.

There is absolutely nothing preventing Select Committees from seeking to get Commissioners in front of them or from going to Brussels to talk to them. The Justice Committee has questioned Commissioners on our areas of responsibility—for example, we have questioned them a great deal on EU data protection and information proposals. Select Committees have the opportunity to do that kind of work and to report in a timely way to the House. On data protection, for example, the Justice Committee has told Ministers that, in our view, they need to get the Commission to go back to the drawing board in respect of the excessively prescriptive nature of some proposals.

For the process to be engaged in effectively, however, there needs to be a change of attitude in some Departments in recognising what Select Committees can and should do. I think that the Minister is trying to achieve that. The reason I made the rather harsh comment earlier about it being delivery time was that we do not need any more dialogue; we know what needs to be done and what tools are available to help us to do it properly, so let us get on with it.

There is some sensitivity in this matter, as the Minister referred to when he said that Governments do not want to give away their negotiating position. Obviously, they do not, but these are not cold war negotiations or negotiations with North Korea over weapons; these are democratic states with open Governments trying to discuss with each other well-known concerns in each country. What final decisions Departments come to, when faced with having to give up one thing in order to get another, will probably remain late-stage decisions—as is the case every December at the Agriculture and Fisheries Council, for example—but none of that precludes sensible and timely discussion. Governments have talked about publishing lists that make it clear to the House and the public what questions and issues they have to resolve on matters that the Commission are bringing forward. We ought to be doing that clearly and explicitly.

Those are issues on which the real knowledge is not necessarily inside the House, but out there among the wide variety of bodies from which we take evidence and which are affected. The Justice Committee has been taking evidence from chief police officers about data protection rules and from organisations involving individuals adversely affected by some of these proposals. We have the means at our disposal to do the work, but we need timely information, guidance on issues that the Government recognise are difficult to resolve and not too much sensitivity about, “Oh, we’d better not discuss it with the Committee yet, because Ministers have not decided what they think.” That kind of obstacle is out of date, given that we are trying to deal with an evolving European situation.

I think that there is common ground between those of us who believe that Britain’s place is inside the EU and those who want to achieve fundamental change in it: while we are in it—as I hope we will remain—we must ensure that the legislative process works for us, and in order to do that we should use the tools at our disposal in the House and the House should have the benefit of the knowledge that the Government have at their disposal.

Syria

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I absolutely agree with my right hon. and learned Friend, as he could gather from my earlier replies. This is why the international coalition should include nations well beyond Europe and the Arab world. I discussed the matter this morning, for instance, with the Foreign Minister of Australia, which is keen to be a participant. Across the Commonwealth as well as across the Arab and European communities, there will be a demand to be involved in that wide coalition. We will pursue that very energetically in the hours and days ahead.

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

One country singularly absent from the Foreign Secretary’s statement was Iran. Will he say a little more about the extent to which he thinks the Assad regime feels supported and receives succour from the Iranians?

[Mr Hague]

The Assad regime certainly feels that. As we have discussed before, Iran has certainly given active support to the Syrian regime in the form of equipment as well as advice on how to deal with civil disorder and rebellion. There may be many other ways, of which we are unaware, in which the Iranian regime supports the Syrian regime. This is a classic piece of hypocrisy. The Iranians have supported revolution elsewhere in the Arab world, particularly in Egypt and Tunisia; they supported disorder in those countries, but they are against it in Syria. I think that the whole Arab world sees through that, which further widens the current widening separation between Iran and its Arab neighbours.

EU Sanctions (Iran)

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

If there were a reasonable hope of any such policy succeeding, of course there would be a case for it. In the Foreign Office, I regularly review our overall policy and the alternatives to it. However, at every stage, I and my colleagues on the National Security Council reached the view that this is the right policy—as have the Governments, as my hon. Friend can gather from what I am saying, of the entire western world. We have come to that conclusion because Iran has resisted or rebuffed efforts to create a better relationship. We offered substantive and serious help with the development of civil nuclear power in Iran, provided there was no nuclear weapons programme. I often point out that one of my predecessors, the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), made heroic efforts to improve relations with Iran on several visits there, and attempted the rapprochement for which my hon. Friend calls. None of that has worked, despite the best efforts of all involved. The policy choices are whether to do what I have set out to increase the peaceful pressure on Iran, to leave a situation in which military conflict is more likely, or to do nothing. The latter two options are not very attractive.

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

What steps are being taken to prevent third countries from trading on behalf of Iran, thereby circumventing sanctions?

[Mr Hague]

As the hon. Lady can gather, many nations are joining in the measures and similar measures. Of course, we will talk to other nations around the world about their own policies. For instance, we have discussions with the Gulf states, which are also deeply concerned about Iran’s nuclear programme. It is also worth pointing out that the United States Congress has adopted sanctions with extra-territorial effect. They have a major effect on transactions from the financial institutions of other nations and trading in oil by other nations.

National Referendum on the European Union

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Kate Hoey]

rose—

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

rose—

[Mr Hague]

I will give way another couple of times in a moment, but I am trying to help the House to make progress.

My sixth and final problem with the motion is that it does not do justice to the reality that the European Union is not a matter of everything or nothing. We are in the European Union, but not, thankfully, in the euro. We are not in the Schengen border control area. We opt out of many justice and home affairs provisions. I do not believe that most people in Britain want to say yes to everything in the EU or no to everything in the EU; I believe that they want to know that no more powers will be handed over to Brussels without their explicit consent, which is what we have provided for in our Act.

[Mr Hague]

I will give way to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) and then to my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi).

[Ms Stuart]

I am sure that we still have sufficient time before the Foreign Secretary catches the plane to get him a DVD of his 2008 speech on the Second Reading of the legislation on the Lisbon treaty. He can then blush in the privacy of the aeroplane and probably answer the question as to why he was for referendums then and is against them now, the difference being that now he is in government.

[Mr Hague]

It will not be necessary to get the DVD—it is on YouTube. I can assure the hon. Lady that my position is exactly the same. I was in favour of a referendum on any treaty that hands over the powers of the people of the United Kingdom, and I am in favour of that now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jake Berry]

It is the Government’s policy. We heard the Prime Minister give commitments today on the referendum lock and future treaty negotiations. I and, I hope, my constituents take comfort from the words from the Front Bench. I will not support the motion today, but I am relying on those commitments, and I and my constituents want them to be honoured.

[Ms Gisela Stuart]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jake Berry]

I am sorry, I do not have time to give way.

Failure to honour commitments on the repatriation of powers and the referendum lock will lead to further erosion of trust in this Government and this Chamber. I hope that the Government will continue to look at repatriating those powers.

--- Later in debate ---

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

About halfway through this evening’s debate, it might be helpful to remind the House that the motion states:

“That this House calls upon the Government to introduce a Bill in the next session of Parliament to provide for the holding of a national referendum”.

Do hon. Members remember national referendums? All three parties promised one in their 2005 election manifestos, and each came up with its unique way of reneging. The motion states that the referendum should be

“on whether the United Kingdom should

(a) remain a member of the European Union on the current terms;

(b) leave the European Union; or

(c) re-negotiate the terms of its membership in order to create a new relationship based on trade and co-operation.”

I must confess that when I first read that, I thought it would be extraordinarily difficult for anyone to disagree with a single word of it, whether they were for or against the EU.

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

On the subject of reneging on promises, is not the crux of the matter this: if we live in a democracy, the people should have a voice?

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[Ms Stuart]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. Moreover, whatever people think about referendums—whether they think they are good or bad—the political parties on both sides of the House have started to promise them, but once in government, they come up with incredibly ingenious ways of changing their minds.

I recommend that the one third of hon. Members who were not here in 2008 watch the Foreign Secretary’s speech on Second Reading of the European Union (Amendment) Act 2008—the Foreign Secretary mentioned that it is on YouTube. It was a brilliant speech. It was so funny I even bought a copy. It is quite interesting to see why he has changed his mind. For an illustration of a 180° turn, watch that speech.

European Union debates become kitchen sink debates. Rather than put arguments on the substance of the debate, hon. Members put arguments for or against. For the Lib Dems, returning one criminal to the UK becomes the reason why we need an EU-wide arrest warrant and criminal justice system; on the other hand, the EU is bad because one old lady is run over in a constituency in the north-east because of the working time directive.

Let us for a moment forget about that and talk about the nature of democracy and the nature of democracy in the House. For better or worse, the House has decided that it should become a far more participatory democracy. We have said that we will ask the people much more and have such things as e-petitions. If we are to have e-petitions, we had better start taking them seriously. We cannot say, “Some are more frivolous than others. If they suit us, we’ll take them on board; and if they don’t, we’ll knock them on the head,” because they are all serious.

The introduction of the Backbench Business Committee was good for democracy in the House, but there are things that we cannot do—the Prime Minister’s statement, which was one of the weakest I have ever heard from a Prime Minister returning from a European Council, showed the weakness of the changes made. We no longer have pre-European Council debates, whereas previously we would have had a day to discuss it; the Foreign Affairs Committee, as I understand it, no longer visits one of the troika countries during the six-month period of a presidency; and we have no specific debates on the EU, and whenever anybody wants to discuss it, we write them off as narrow-minded little Englanders who just want to get out, but it might be that they do not like the current arrangements or that they want someone to make the case for them.

It is presumptuous of the House to think that it knows what the people would say. We should not take for granted what the people would say. Even if I were to accept the Government’s argument that now is not the time, what is the case against having a referendum at the same time as the EU elections in 2014? I assume that for once—it has not happened since I have been around—we would have a European election during which we actually talked about Europe. We could have a referendum on such an occasion. In the name of democracy and having trust in the people, which we all say that we do, we should vote for the motion tonight, because if politicians do not trust the people, why on earth should the people trust the politicians?

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call Lisa Nandy. Not here.

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

On the morning of 13 August 1961, the people of Berlin woke up to find a wall being built across their city. That wall remained in place for some 30 years before it came down and allowed the unification not only of Germany but of the east and west. Will the Foreign Secretary, together with the Secretary of State for Defence, use that anniversary as an opportunity to remind Europe that that would not have been achieved without the help of the Americans, and to remind the Americans that Europe remains important to them?

[Mr Hague]

Yes, absolutely. I completely agree with the hon. Lady. Indeed, her question should prompt us never to forget these things. The transatlantic alliance remains the absolute cornerstone of our security, as does NATO, and that will remain the case in the years ahead.

Middle East and North Africa

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Commons Chamber

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

The Foreign Secretary suggested that one reason why we heard so little from the Arab League in recent weeks was the level of disagreement. Will he update the House on where agreement may be reached, as the support of the Arab League will be extremely important and vital to all of us?

[Mr Hague]

On Libya, the Arab League has been very clear and is very supportive of what we have done under the Security Council resolutions. I trust that it will be represented on the contact group in Abu Dhabi. This week, it is on Syria that Arab councils would be more divided, because the connections between some of their Governments and the Syrian authorities are much closer than they were in the case of Colonel Gaddafi. There is no doubt that Arab nations individually are, in many cases, playing a role in encouraging President Assad down a path of reform, although it may be too late for that. However, they are playing their role in doing so as individual nationals, rather than through the Arab League.

Middle East and North Africa

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Yes, I will. On top of that, such actions will not even bring longer-term security to the regime itself, so it is a thoroughly bad idea.

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

We have sent in a small team of military advisers, as have the French and, for all I know, some other countries. What co-ordination is there between those various teams of military advisers in order to provide coherent, rather than contradictory, advice?

[Mr Hague]

As ever, that was a very perceptive question from the hon. Lady. That is a very important issue. A French team is going, and there may well be a team from another European country. They are working very closely together, and the effectiveness and experience of the British team is helping to ensure that everyone there works together.

Escape of Taliban Prisoners

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2011 Commons Chamber

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

I think the record will show that I have spent the best part of the past five years asking Ministers in successive Governments how many secure prison places they think exist in Afghanistan. So far I have not had a decent answer, but, given that the Minister said he thought that this was an isolated incident, can he give us an assessment of how many secure prison places he thinks currently exist in Afghanistan?

[Alistair Burt]

The short answer to the hon. Lady is that I do not know, and she must forgive me for that. I will endeavour to get a written answer—to the best of our knowledge—to her as quickly as possible, so that it is public. The picture is more flexible, depending on what one sees as detention, official prison places and the like, but if the hon. Lady has asked successively we must get the best answer that we can for her, and I undertake to do that as quickly as I can.

North Africa and the Middle East

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Thursday 24th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Almost, as it is not just the people of Benghazi we need to protect. Although UN resolution 1973 specifically mentions Benghazi, it also calls for the taking of all necessary measures to protect the civilian population and populated areas in other parts of Libya. That is our mission. Our military mission is defined as clearly as any military mission has ever been by a UN resolution, and we will stick to that resolution. Clearly it is highly desirable for Gaddafi to go, as we have said for many weeks, but in military terms what we have set out to do is enforce the resolution. That means protecting Libya’s civilian population, attempting to bring about a ceasefire and not putting any occupation force on to any part of Libyan soil. We will stick strictly to the resolution.

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

Since Turkey has said it would supply ships and submarines to enforce the arms embargo, that leaves Germany as the only major NATO member state that is not contributing to the actions in Libya. Will Germany be invited to the conference next Tuesday?

[Mr Hague]

Yes, Germany will be invited. It is a crucial partner of this country in the European Union and in NATO. The different countries in NATO have of course taken varying decisions about their level of participation, and indeed on whether to participate, but Germany has not been unhelpful or obstructive and has not attempted to block the work we need to do in NATO. It set out its position at the UN Security Council and did not vote for the resolution, which we must respect, but it has not been unhelpful in so many other ways. I hope that it will attend the conference in London.

North Africa and the Middle East

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

I disagree very strongly and I think that in 10 to 20 years’ time, the right hon. Gentleman will have been proved wrong. I think the situation is equivalent to 1989 and that is the direction in which those countries are heading. It is patronising and mistaken of him to believe that this is simply a repeat of the 1950s and 1960s.

Let us look at Libya specifically. Gaddafi is going to be a very peculiar, eccentric and isolated figure even within his own country. Everything is shifting against that man. When he came to power, the population was rural and there was an anti-colonial movement. He now faces a situation in which 80% of Libyans live in cities in which he is perceived as a colonial oppressor. He has gone from the bloodless revolution that brought him to power four decades ago to a bloody attack on his own people. What we are hearing in Egypt and Tunisia is not some accidental, sporadic pop-up that will be constrained by inevitable forces of tyranny or Arabic culture. It is probably something closer to what we have seen in central and eastern Europe and in Latin America in the past 20 to 30 years. Furthermore, it is in our political and moral interests to support it. Even if I am wrong and it is not an inevitability but only a probability that things are going in that direction, it is the direction in which we should be pushing. This is Britain’s opportunity and Europe’s moment, and that is the direction we need to go in.

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

I take absolutely no issue with the hon. Gentleman’s comment that it is our political and moral duty to do that. However, at the risk of rehearsing European history, the 10 countries that joined the European Union in 2004 were democracies before the iron curtain fell, so we were restoring democracy and we did it within the framework of membership of the European Union. It is different.

[Rory Stewart]

I thank the hon. Lady for those comments. The last thing that I, or any of us, want is to be starry-eyed about this. The differences that she has raised are incredibly important and have to be considered in relation to how we speak to the middle east. The whole movement in central and eastern Europe and the ability to speak about democracy, liberty and joining NATO and the European Union was driven by the history of the 1930s and by the cold war. The language on the streets in the middle east today is very different. I am afraid that George Bush has done a great disservice to words such as liberty, equality and democracy—words that were on the lips of Vaclav Havel—which do not sit so easily today when we talk to those countries. We need new words and I was pleased to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames) talk instead about dignity and justice. We need a whole new language and it needs to be driven by them, not us. Freedom is not something that is given but something that is taken.

All those words of caution need to be considered, but we can, nevertheless, have a constructive role over the next 20 to 30 years in helping the middle east and north Africa be more stable, more prosperous and more humane than today. That is our mission. That is what we have to put our weight behind and is where we need to invest, which means a number of things for our foreign policy. Rhetorically and financially we have been stuck in Asia. Financially, if we include debts and veterans’ costs, we are spending more than £7 billion a year in Afghanistan. Rhetorically, we have been in China and Brazil for good reasons—they are big emerging countries—but this is a wake-up call about what is going on at the other end of the Mediterranean, which, in demographic, energy, religious and security terms will prove to be more important to our institutions and future than we have acknowledged in the past five to 10 years. We therefore need to invest in institutions.

I absolutely celebrate what the Foreign Office is doing in recruiting more Arabists. We need people who can focus on Azeri and people who speak different languages. There are not enough British ambassadors in the middle east who speak fluent Arabic. We need to make sure that Tunisia is no longer seen as some French extension and we also need to take into account the lessons from European enlargement. We need to look at the way in which the Commission approached Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia and we need to give the prestige and investment to our energies in north Africa and the middle east that was given to those countries.

If we get those things right and we keep to the principles on Libya that the Government have put in play—first, clarity; secondly, a coalition; thirdly, a recognition that we can set strategic direction without having to rush in with our troops; and finally, institutional investment over the next 10 to 20 years in our relationships with these countries—I think we will find that although we can do much less than we pretend, we can do much more than we fear.

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

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys), who put her finger on the main issue that I want to address—no-fly zones. There has been a confusion between military and humanitarian aims and outcomes, and if we are not clear when we are taking military action and do it under the guise of humanitarian action, we might end up doing neither properly.

The hon. Lady also mentioned the move towards a duty to protect—a concept that the United Nations has started to develop. The question of the stage at which the United Kingdom feels that it should step into the breach in a duty to protect is a very live one. The Foreign Secretary said in his evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee that it depended on circumstances. Of course, that is right, but this place, at some stage—probably not now—needs to think through what the duty to protect would mean in practice. If there was one mistake that the Blair Administration made in the run-up to the Iraq invasion it was that the debate should have been about “Why now?” rather than weapons of mass destruction. That should have been the logic of his Chicago speech and the subsequent actions.

However, today’s debate is about north Africa and the middle east. I should like to make a technical and narrow contribution about no-fly zones, which many people have talked about. Even when the Prime Minister raised the issue, I was not entirely convinced that he really knew what he was asking for. I thought it might be useful to look back at the experiences of previous no-fly zones and the lessons that we should have learned from them regarding where they worked and where they did not.

The no-fly zone in northern Iraq from 1991 to 2003 is, by and large, seen as a successful one. The reason is that the northern no-fly zone linked western air operations with Kurdish political parties and militias. In combination, they deterred Iraqi military action against the Kurds, which enabled a stable and sophisticated political and economically prosperous autonomous Kurdish cell. That success endured, even after the 2003 chaos. The northern Iraqi no-fly zone is arguably the most successful single engagement of the entire UK military engagement in Iraq since 1991. We ought to hold on to that point, because I do not think that the subsequent two no-fly zones were successful and we must consider why.

The southern Iraqi no-fly zone lasted from 1992 to 2003, and was imposed after the brutal repression of the Shi’as was effectively complete. In other words, we stepped in after the disaster had happened. No coherent Shi’ite political structure was accessible to the west and there was no appetite for direct action to prevent Iraq draining the southern marshes, on which the Shi’as depended for survival. From a humanitarian standpoint, the no-fly zone achieved little. As a coercive policy instrument, it achieved more. In 1994, it was extended from latitude 32° north to 33° north. To prevent a re-attack on Kuwait, its terms were widened to make it a no-drive zone for Iraqi armoured and mechanised divisions. In 1998, Operation Desert Fox was launched through the southern no-fly zone against sites associated with the development of weapons of mass destruction in central Iraq. The capture of Iraq’s senior commanders in 2003 revealed that Operation Desert Fox persuaded Iraq to abandon its manufacture of WMD.

The third no-fly zone I will discuss was in Bosnia from 1993 to 1995, and I am glad that there is somebody in the Chamber who knows much more about it than I. The assessment is that it was neither a practical nor a political success. Its effectiveness was limited by restricted rules of engagement that prevented action against helicopters, and by poor co-ordination between NATO and the UN. Its coercive impact was seriously undermined by a bitter political dispute between European capitals and the Clinton Administration over America’s preference to lift the arms embargo on the Bosnian Muslims and to strike the Bosnian Serbs directly.

I come now to the practicalities and what we should do in Libya. The conflicts in Iraq, Syria and Yugoslavia indicate that air forces equipped with 1970s and 1980s Soviet and French aircraft are comprehensively outmatched by air forces equipped with modern western aircraft and training. Technically and tactically, the US and NATO have consistently proved their ability sufficiently to suppress 1980s vintage integrated air defence systems, and thus enable air operations at an acceptable level of risk. That does not necessitate the complete destruction of the IADS. Indeed, that was never achieved in Iraq or the Balkans. In Iraq, between 1998 and 2000, there were 470 separate engagements of American and RAF aircraft by Iraqi surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft artillery. They were defeated by a combination of tactics, self-protection counter-measures carried by all participating aircraft, aircraft equipped with anti-radiation missiles designed to attack air defence radars, and airborne stand-off jammers. Importantly, the US remains the only nation with the electronic warfare and ARM capabilities needed to support sustained operations against a functioning IADS.

Clear command and control to prevent the destruction of friendly military or civil aircraft is a prerequisite for any air operations, as are legal and unambiguous rules of engagement. Ambiguities that might allow transport aircraft and helicopters to fly or for civilian aircraft to be used for combat operations provide obvious points of challenge. The southern Iraqi no-fly zone was undermined by Iraqi Airways flights between Baghdad and Basra, and Baghdad and Mecca. The Bosnian no-fly zone was rendered ineffective by the consistent use of helicopters, particularly by the Bosnian Serbs. The success of the US special forces and air power and the Northern Alliance’s forces in Afghanistan 2001 reinforces the experience of the northern Iraqi no-fly zone. To be effective, air operations must be designed to affect the surface of the earth and influence protagonists.

[Mr Ellwood]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful case about something that we are only starting to understand—the strength of the armed forces involved. She is absolutely right to say that second-generation bits of kit are involved in the current situation, some of which have fallen into the rebels’ hands and are being used. However, it is dangerous to compare Libya with Bosnia, Iraq and other places, because the terrain is very different. A 750-mile stretch of land, 5 miles wide, is the area that needs to be controlled, so we are comparing apples and pears. I urge caution in suggesting that because something did not work in Iraq or Bosnia, it could not work in Libya, which is a very different ball game.

[Ms Stuart]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, because he allows me to correct the impression I might be giving that I am against no-fly zones. I believe that we need to consider this carefully and positively and work out how to make it happen. In a sense the Libyan terrain is much easier, not least because, to state the obvious, it is much flatter than Bosnia in particular.

However, I do not believe that we yet have the local engagement with the political parties and groups on the ground that made the northern Iraq no-fly zone successful. We have not yet achieved that in Libya, and we need to establish it. I suggest that the Libyan air force capabilities are probably pretty much comparable with what Yugoslavia and the Iraqis had in the 1990s.

I think it was the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) who cautioned us to try to learn from history. As A. J. P. Taylor said, it is perfectly possible not to learn lessons from history and to make entirely new mistakes. There are some things that we can learn from no-fly zones. We need absolutely clear and unambiguous rules of engagement and absolute clarity about when the purpose is humanitarian and when it is military, and unless the no-fly zone supports something that is happening on the ground, it will not help. We had better be aware of that.

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[Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard). Of course, if he goes to Tunis, he will see the ruins of Carthage, where our dear Roman friends sought to ensure that the Carthaginians were destroyed and not permitted a future. We do not want to revert to that kind of parallel.

There are a couple of interesting anniversaries for us to consider today. One is dear to me: it is 30 years since the suppression of the Polish union Solidarnosc at the end of 1981. That great hopeful moment of liberation for the Polish people was then crushed by a cruel dictatorship, and we did not know how to respond. I hope that we can think constructively about what is happening in north Africa, which indeed is a revolutionary moment and a hopeful moment for the world. We have heard good speeches from both sides of the House in what is a most enjoyable debate to listen to.

Today is also an anniversary of a different sort, because exactly one month ago, on 17 February, the Foreign Secretary came to the House to make a statement on Bahrain, in response to an urgent question granted by Mr Speaker. The Foreign Secretary had just been there, and immediately following his visit there were the first demonstrations, repressions and killings; however, he did not seem to know that this was about erupt. It is that lack of what I would call intuitive imagination about world affairs that is the problem in our handling of foreign policy. I am not making a strictly party political point, because the same applies just as much to the previous Administration. I asked the Foreign Secretary to come to the House and, as the hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames) pointed out in his excellent speech, I asked him:

“Does he agree that a wind of change is blowing through the Arab world”?

I also put it to him that he should

“agree to a wide review of UK foreign policy in the region before it is too late”.—[Official Report, 17 February 2011; Vol. 523, c. 1136.]

I wish that such a review had taken place earlier, but as so often in our country, it is now taking place under the force of events. There have been some unhappy reactions, but there is no point going over who made a mistake, who went on an arms sales trip, which planes could not leave the tarmac and the rest of it. Rather, we should work out how we need to go forward.

I will not talk about making any sort of military intervention in Libya, because there are others who are experts. However, if, as the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) pointed out, the intervention in Iraq helped to increase al-Qaeda’s standing and status, then perhaps non-intervention in Libya will have exactly the same impact. In the non-intervention philosophy of the 1930s—if I could take my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) a little before her birth date—the line was “Do not intervene”, and as a result the most horrible dictatorships and repressions were given the green light.

What do we have as a foreign policy? There are perhaps three components to our foreign policy: hard power, soft power and political influence. Sadly, because of cuts in the military our hard power is, frankly, decreasing. We have two aircraft carriers that are now Britain’s no-fly zones because we do not have planes that can fly off them. We are also heavily engaged in Afghanistan. However, just as America’s international influence was drained by its presence in Vietnam year after year—the Americans stayed for many years after they could serve any useful purpose, allowing Brezhnev and other horrible dictators to roam freely round the world—we need to look at reducing our profile in Afghanistan faster.

We need to look at the fact that we are cutting back our diplomatic service, including our diplomatic foreign language training schools. The hon. Member for Penrith and The Border appealed for more Arab-speakers. “Ditto,” say I, but we are not just cutting Arab-speaking diplomats; we are cutting our entire diplomatic presence.

Moving to soft power, the last time the Foreign Secretary came to the House to answer an urgent question, it was to defend the cuts to the BBC World Service. Two weeks ago the Secretary of State for International Development announced that he was cutting support for the International Labour Organisation’s core funding. However, there are trade unions in Egypt and Tunis; indeed, I have been meeting them on and off for 20 years, including the Union Générale Tunisienne du Travail, the one Tunisian trade union that has some independence. That union wants help from the ILO and the TUC, but we are cutting such aid at the very moment that it could be most useful in building civil society.

We are also reducing the number of students from those areas coming to study in Britain. We have fewer Chevening scholarships, but more importantly, we are saying to those students around the world, “You’re no longer welcome to come and study in mainstream British universities,” because of the anti-immigration nostrums of the Conservatives, in thrall to an unpleasant press. That is the decline in our soft power. I put it to the House that every Tunisian, Libyan or Egyptian who comes and gets a degree in Britain leaves a friend of Britain.

[Ms Gisela Stuart]

Does my right hon. Friend also recognise the work of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy? Its funding has been increased, but it has also been working in Lebanon and Egypt on strengthening parliamentary democracy.

[Mr MacShane]

I am a fan of the WFD, but its total income is less than half the going rate for a banker’s bonus—[Interruption.] For once, that was not my phone. Madam Deputy Speaker and I have a relationship over my mobile phone—over it sounding in the Chamber, I hasten to add.

We are saying to the students of the region, “You are not welcome in Britain any more.” We are losing it on the soft power front. We are even withdrawing the pitiful amount of funding that we give to the Quilliam Foundation, whose director was imprisoned in Cairo and who knows the leaders of the Cairene opposition. It is preposterous that the Home Office should be shutting down that outfit at a time when it needs more help, not less.

I understand from replies to my parliamentary questions that the Department for International Development will spend more than £1 billion in the next four years on aid to India, a country with more billionaires and millionaires than we have, with a space programme—almost a man-on-the-moon programme—and with its own aid programme. We are giving £1 billion to India, yet we are not finding any money at all for Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco because they were not on any United Kingdom aid programme. Tunisia was not even a target country for our trade promotion activities.

That is what I mean about the Government’s utter lack of intuitive, emotional understanding of the changes that are about to take place. I know that there has been a crisis at the Foreign Office and that that has been uncomfortable for Ministers, and I do not blame officials, although perhaps I am not so sure about all the strategic top grip. I wrote an article in May last year saying that the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg) should become the Foreign Secretary and that the right hon. Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Mr Hague) should become the Deputy Prime Minister. I still think that that is a job swap that the Prime Minister should consider. The foreign policy announced after the change of Government was very simple. It consisted of trade, trade and more trade—hence the embarrassment of the arms sales to which hon. Members have referred, which continued for two more days after 17 February when the Foreign Secretary came to the House to make his statement.

We also need to find ways of making our Parliament more involved and engaged in these extraordinary events, not only in the region that we are discussing but elsewhere around the world. Since November last year, I have made 11 requests at business questions for a debate in Government time on international and foreign affairs. We are now having such a debate, but only thanks to the Backbench Business Committee. Yes, we have debates on specific issues relating to the middle east or to a particular country or cause of concern, but we do not discuss synoptically what we want from our foreign policy. Of course we can all do the party political knockabout, but there should be much more that unites us than divides us. For that to be achieved, however, we need more parliamentary involvement. When hon. Members go abroad, the event should not be pilloried in the press as a “junket”, and the Whips have to understand that travel not only broadens the mind but makes for a better House of Commons.

Finally, I repeat the appeal that I made to the Prime Minister, to which I have received a sympathetic response, that we need to create a British foundation for democracy development. This would in part incorporate the Westminster Foundation for Democracy and transform it from a £4 million or £5 million a year outfit to an £80 million or £100 million a year organisation. Even that amount would still not be remotely close to the annual allocation that we will give to India and other countries that benefit from DFID aid. Let that be what we will learn from this whole crisis, which will continue, albeit unevenly. I learn from Le Monde today that there is a lot of repression in Morocco, for example, and I am worried about Prince Charles going there later this week. Tunisia is also far from stable, and Egypt still effectively has military power. Britain needs to think differently, and this House should be at the heart of making that happen.