Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Philip Hammond]

I have to tell my right hon. Friend candidly that the co-ordination between the civilian Syrian opposition and the moderate armed opposition is still disappointing. It is one of the areas on which we and our allies are working. We are committed to taking part in the programme of training and equipping members of the moderate Syrian opposition outside Syria, and that programme is beginning to gather pace now.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Was it the UK that first offered, or was it Ukraine that first requested, the presence of British military advisers, and can the Foreign Secretary assure us that their presence is more likely to lead to a peaceful settlement, rather than an escalation of the process?

[Mr Lidington]

There has been a discussion between the Ukrainian Government and ourselves and a number of other European Governments and the United States about various types of assistance, including non-lethal military assistance, and there was agreement among those different allied Governments to supply help to Ukraine. We think that the training will enable the Ukrainian army to operate more effectively than it has been able to do up until now, and that that offer of training would have been justified irrespective of the Russian intervention in the east.

European Union (Referendum) Bill

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Friday 17th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I absolutely agree. I am only just old enough to have voted in the last referendum on the European Union—my first ever vote. There is a whole generation of people who have never been consulted on this question and who are entitled to have their say.

We should all be able to agree on this question, not least because that is the agreed position of this House in this Parliament, because the Bill we are debating today is, of course, the same as the one introduced in the previous Session by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) and passed unopposed on Third Reading. We are left wondering why it enjoyed such apparent acquiescence from Labour and the Liberal Democrats in this House, only for them to block it in the other place by denying it time for debate. The question is why Labour and the Lib Dems do not trust the British people to have their say on Europe. If Labour and the Lib Dems do not trust the voters, the voters should not trust them.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

I understand what the right hon. Gentleman is saying about listening to the British people, but does he understand that if the British people are to speak with clarity of voice, they need the clarity of choice of the Prime Minister’s red lines, and those have not been revealed? Until they are, how can that possibly be the case?

[Mr Hammond]

The clarity of choice they will have in 2017 is a clear body of reform on the table. They will know what the future European Union will look like and will decide whether or not they wish to be in it.

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[Mr Alexander]

It is always revealing when those on the Government Front Benches give up an argument and simply go for abuse. If that is the best the Foreign Secretary can do—[Interruption.] I am happy to give way again to hear a single specific example of powers that he will repatriate. Is he prepared to take to the Dispatch Box and tell the House which social, economic or employment rights he is seeking to repatriate? It is unconvincing for Labour Members, but—this is much more worrying for the Foreign Secretary—it is deeply unconvincing for Conservative Members when he pretends that he is having conversations in Europe that he is not willing to tell any of us about. That will not convince the British public, and I do not believe it will convince the House.

[Barry Gardiner]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the obscurity that we have just seen displayed is deeply concerning given the time scale set out in the Bill? If within 19 months after May next year the British public are to have an in/out vote on this issue, there are not 19 months to negotiate but a much shorter time, if the matter is to be debated realistically among the British people.

[Mr Alexander]

What honestly worries me about the Government’s approach to Europe is not that it is clever, wily and strategic, but that they are making it up as they go along. Many months after the Bloomberg speech we have absolutely no detail. I see the Europe Minister is in his place, so perhaps he would like to advise the incoming Foreign Secretary about those detailed proposals for reform. Would he like to set out repatriation proposals for us today? I would happily give way.

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[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to speak in the debate and to support the Bill that has been introduced by the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill). I am pleased that he has done this. I also had the pleasure of supporting the previous Bill, introduced by the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton), and of serving on that Bill’s Committee. The right hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green) talked about prosperity in the European Union. I hope that he will go and tell that to all the unemployed Greeks and Spaniards, and ask them if they think the EU is prosperous. The economy of the European Union, and particularly of the eurozone, is diving into a black hole at the moment.

I rise to support the Bill because I believe that people want a choice. I was an active member of a multi-party organisation called People’s Choice. Interestingly, its chair and president were both members of my party, although members of other parties were also active in it. A big majority of the British people want a referendum. In my constituency, we held a mini-referendum just before the last election on whether to have a referendum, and there was a 2:1 majority in favour of doing so. I therefore feel that I can legitimately express my view here today, as it is also the view of the majority of my constituents.

I have some experience of referendums. In the 1975 referendum, I was the chair of the Vote No campaign in Luton. Subsequently, I was the agent for the no vote in Bedfordshire. Interestingly, the agent for the yes vote was Sir Trevor Skeet, the then Conservative Member of Parliament for Bedford. Some years ago, when I met him again and reminded him of our previous encounter, he was horribly embarrassed because he had changed his view. That was an interesting conversation.

The Labour party held a special conference at that time. It was my first ever Labour party conference, and a massive majority—myself included—voted in favour of supporting a no vote in the referendum. At that conference, I saw one of the greatest pieces of oratory of my political career. It was a speech by Michael Foot, calling for a no vote. In it, he referred to Joseph Conrad’s novel “Typhoon”, saying that if someone was in a storm, they should always face into the storm to save themselves and not run away from it. Sometimes we have to do that in politics as well. I have always remembered that speech. I am often in the minority, but I remember what Michael Foot said: if you believe you are making the right point, stick with it. I have certainly taken that on board.

At that time, a great majority of Labour MPs wanted to come out of the then Common Market, but the majority of Conservative MPs wanted to stay in. There has been much reference to Labour’s support for the European Union, but even fairly recently it was the previous Chancellor of the Exchequer, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), who kept us out of the eurozone. Had we gone into it, it would have been a complete disaster.

It has also been suggested that there have been great changes since 1975. We have certainly moved much further towards an integrated Europe, but there were early signs of where we were going. In 1979, there was a proposal to form an embryonic single currency called the European monetary system—the “snake”—but Denis Healey wisely kept us out of it. At the time, I wrote a brief for the general secretary of the union I then worked for, who then banged the drum at the TUC saying that we should not go into the snake. I like to think that I had some small influence on the Labour leadership at that time.

Now, my devout wish is to convince my Labour colleagues to support a referendum. They might not necessarily listen to my voice, but there are significant voices in and around our leadership that privately support a referendum. However, they have not won the argument inside the leadership yet. Their views are private, but I hope that my party will have acquiesced and decided to support a referendum by the time of the general election, even if it does not agree with my view on the European Union.

[Barry Gardiner]

I understand that my hon. Friend is a passionate and insistent voice on these matters. Does he believe that the timing that has been set out in the Bill is sensible? Will it allow the people of this country to have the necessary debate with full information about what any renegotiation might involve?

[Kelvin Hopkins]

Personally, I would like a referendum sooner rather than later. Most people in Britain have a pretty good idea of what the European Union is about.

We will renegotiate terms, and no doubt there will be some loose improvements in minor areas that will make no difference to our membership. A sticking point for me is that we should withdraw from the common fisheries policy. We need to restore Britain’s historic fishing waters so that we can start to restock our seas to ensure that we have fish for the long-term future. I put that case in private to a former UK representative in the European Union who immediately said that, in that case, we would have to get out of the EU because we could not possibly withdraw from the common fisheries policy. So there we are: we have a problem. If we are going to renegotiate, it should be about real things that matter.

[Barry Gardiner]

Is my hon. Friend aware of the work that Commissioner Damanaki has done for the renegotiation of the EU fisheries policy, and of the benefit that that is bringing to small fishermen in the UK? The UK quota can now be divided up, bringing greater advantage to the under-10 metre fleets.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I appreciate that improvements have been made to the common fisheries policy, and for that I give some credit to the previous Conservative Minister, but the pressure on him to renegotiate came partly from other hon. Members, including me—

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[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

I have in the past been a great supporter of Friday morning debates on private Members’ business. We often get some very straight talking on a Friday morning, and I gained that impression this morning. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers), who has had a tradition of opposition to the European Union going back many years, as have many Conservative Members. I do think, however, that it would have been better if this motion had been made more clearly one about getting out of Europe, rather than hiding behind the pretence that it was a motion about giving choice to the British people.

We should beware of politicians calling for common sense without telling us what that common sense actually is. What we have not had from the Conservative party or the Prime Minister is clarity about what a renegotiated Europe would look like or about the red lines as we go into the negotiations. Neither have we had clarity about a time scale within which to enable the British people to make the informed and common-sense judgments—I certainly trust the British people are able to do so, as many Conservative Members have claimed they do—that are needed. A common-sense judgment demands having some real questions on the table to look at, examine and then to decide on.

Because the Prime Minister has been unwilling to provide clarity over the red lines and because the Conservative party has been unwilling to set out what a revised European Union would look like after a renegotiation, within 19 months of next May, there would have to be clarity on those issues. I do not think that that is a reasonable time scale. The hon. Gentleman who often speaks for his wife and whose constituency I have forgotten—

[Mr Bone]

Wellingborough.

[Barry Gardiner]

Wellingborough: of course it is. The hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) said that the end of 2017 was a backstop, but, as he knows full well, in the last six months of 2017 Britain will be chairing the European Union, and it is inconceivable that we could hold the referendum within those six months. The hon. Gentleman drew the date forward, saying that there could be a referendum during the first six months of the year, but that would shorten the time that the British people would have in which to look at what was on offer.

I do not think that the Bill is lacking in disingenuity. It is disingenuous because it claims to rely on the good wisdom of the British people to make a judgment without giving them the basis on which to make that judgment, and without giving them a time scale that will allow them to exercise it.

Kashmir

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Thursday 11th September 2014 Westminster Hall

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

In exactly a week’s time, the people of Scotland will go to the polls in a referendum to decide the future of our country. The debate has been hotly contested and not without its ill temper; but imagine the outrage on both sides of that debate if the Indian Parliament, the Lok Sabha, were today debating the merits or demerits of Scottish independence and passing judgment upon what we in the United Kingdom see as a matter for us, and us alone, to decide.

The Simla agreement between Pakistan and India is actually quite specific upon this point: it requires the two countries to deal with Kashmir bilaterally and without the involvement or interference of any other state. India and Pakistan have both signed that agreement; it is therefore disingenuous for any politician here to claim that this is somehow a matter in which they have a legitimate role or voice.

Certainly, it is the role of all hon. Members to represent the concerns of their constituents. I do not doubt that or disparage the hon. Member for Bradford East (Mr Ward) for seeking to do so. But I believe that it is still the custom for every Member, on first entering this House, to be sent a copy of the speech of that great parliamentarian Edmund Burke, in which he speaks to the electors of Bristol in the following manner:

“it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion high respect; their business unremitted attention… But his unbiased opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure, no, nor from the law and the constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”

I would ask all hon. Members who contribute to this debate to have the humility to reflect upon and cast their judgment over the following salient fact. Earlier this year, the people of India conducted the largest exercise in democracy and expression of the public will that has ever been concluded in the history of humanity, when 550 million free Indians—7 million of them living in Jammu and Kashmir—voted in peaceful elections. Nobody was assassinated; nobody refused to leave office. The world witnessed an orderly transition of power, as one Prime Minister gave way to the democratic will and passed the levers of state to a new Prime Minister with a different political vision for his country.

In the last elections to the 89 seats in the Legislative Assembly of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, 61.23% of the electorate—a total of 6.479 million citizens— expressed their confidence in the democratic structures of the state of India by voting. They also expressed their faith that the choices they made would find proper expression through their elected representatives under the constitution of India. It is worth recalling that 74.9% of the population of Jammu and Kashmir is of the Muslim faith, because simple mathematics then gives the lie to those who would claim that this is not true for the overwhelming majority of Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir.

The fact is that millions of Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir will make their way to the polls later this year, just as they did in 2008, but there is a significant difference this year. In the general election earlier this year, three of the six Lok Sabah seats from Jammu and Kashmir were won not by the traditional parties of power, but by the Bharatiya Janata party, which actually took the largest share of the vote in Jammu and Kashmir despite having promised to scrap article 370, which gives Jammu and Kashmir special status under the Indian constitution. It won 32.4% of the popular vote ahead of the National Congress party, ahead of the Peoples Democratic party and ahead of the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference party, which finished on 11.1%.

The significance of those statistics cannot be lost on anyone with any understanding of Indian politics. The Bharatiya Janata party—the Hindu nationalist party, led by Narendra Modi—is regarded as the no-nonsense scourge of cross-border Pakistani-sponsored terrorism and topped the poll in Jammu and Kashmir. What should that tell the world? Perhaps that the people of Jammu and Kashmir want the constant cross-border interference from Pakistan to stop.

The border between India and Pakistan that lies along the state of Jammu and Kashmir is 1,125 km long. Jihadi terrorists have been infiltrating along that length for more than 40 years and the construction of underground tunnels and the cover fire provided by the Pakistan military has been a constant means of undermining India’s security and integrity.

More than 20,000 people have already been killed by terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir, and it is no use hon. Members here in this Chamber of all places condemning the radicalisation of young Muslim men in their own constituencies, while ignoring the fact that those young men are trained in the terror camps that are operating on the Pakistan border with Jammu and Kashmir. Those who continue to argue to undermine the legitimate sovereignty of India might do better to reflect that the people of India live in a relatively transparent and well-functioning democracy where the economy is growing.

Those who point to the presence of the Indian army in the state of Jammu and Kashmir might reflect that it is not Indians who have seen successive Governments overthrown by military coups, and that if it were not for the constant cross-border attacks the Indian army would not need to be there with such a strong presence. It is there to guarantee the country’s border integrity, nothing more.

Many of the victims of the cross-border terror have been Muslims. That is, of course, particularly so in the Kashmir valley, where by far the overwhelming majority of people are followers of Islam. I welcome the fact that on his recent visit Prime Minister Modi spoke of the need to give specific help to those bereaved families. Another group from the Kashmir valley who deserve specific attention is, of course, the Kashmiri Pandits, who for so long have been displaced from their homes because of the fighting and live in the sort of refugee camps that, were they elsewhere in the world, would be a constant item in our evening news.

I welcome the fact that Prime Minister Modi’s first intervention after his election to office was to ask Nawaz Sharif to come from Pakistan to attend his inauguration. I welcome the fact that, as Prime Minister, he visited Jammu and Kashmir just last month, not to engage in political rhetoric against Pakistan’s continuing border violations, but to inaugurate a new hydroelectric power project. To my mind, he seems to be doing as he did in Gujarat and focusing on bringing prosperity and development to people in the belief that votes will follow. It is right that peace in the subcontinent over the issue of Jammu and Kashmir will come only when people living on both sides of the line of control see their quality of life and standard of living improve. With that in mind, it is ill-judged for British politicians to be debating the history and status of people who are currently facing the most devastating floods in 50 years.

Our attention should surely be on the human plight of the people of Jammu and Kashmir and the humanitarian crisis of the people affected by the bursting of the banks of the Jhelum river. At least 200 people are known to have died and thousands have been stranded. Against that background and while politicians here have been raising questions alleging human rights abuses by the Indian army, the Indian army itself has mounted an enormous relief operation that has already saved the lives of 76,500 people in the flood-affected area. It has deployed 30,000 troops for rescue and relief operations, the vast majority of them—244 columns—deployed in the Srinagar region and the Kashmir valley. Eighty transport aircraft and helicopters have been mobilised, and almost 1,000 helicopter sorties have taken place, dropping almost 1,000 tonnes of relief materials. Eighteen relief camps have been established to deal with the appalling aftermath of this natural disaster.

Perhaps those who have shown themselves so keen to decry the actions—

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Order.

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[Andrew Griffiths (Burton) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I speak as the chairman of the all-party group on Kashmir. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bradford East (Mr Ward) on securing this debate and introducing it so well. I also congratulate Raja Najabat Hussain, as other colleagues have done, for informing Members and bringing this issue to our attention. I welcome Barrister Sultan Mahmood Chaudhry, former Prime Minister of Azad Kashmir, who joins us for this important debate.

Obviously, I am at the tail end of this debate, so I do not want to repeat too much of what other hon. Members have said. Perhaps it might be more helpful if I addressed some of the points raised. A suggestion was made at the beginning that this debate should not be taking place at all—that we are wrong to debate the issue in the House. However, I tell the people who say that that the 4,500 to 5,000 Kashmiris/Pakistanis in my constituency expect us to raise these issues. The hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) got quite exercised about whether we should be making this case. I gently point out to him that a look at his Hansard appearances shows that in the last few weeks he has spoken about Gaza, Israel and Ukraine, so there is a precedent for us to talk about international issues.

[Barry Gardiner]

Of course, we must debate international issues. My point was quite simply that, under the Simla agreement, the two countries will deal with the matter bilaterally. To that extent, it is not for the British Government to interfere.

[Andrew Griffiths]

I politely point out to the hon. Gentleman that there was also an agreement at the United Nations—resolution 47, in 1948—which called for a plebiscite in Kashmir and for the people of Kashmir to have a voice on this issue. It might be inconvenient for the hon. Gentleman, but those are the facts.

[Barry Gardiner]

rose—

[Andrew Griffiths]

No. I think I have heard enough from the hon. Gentleman. I have a short amount of time, so I should like to move on.

It is sad that this debate started off in such aggressive tones, because we should not forget that it is not about lines on a map or territory, but about humans and humanity. That must be central in all discussions that take place on this issue.

We have heard some fantastic speeches. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker) for leading the first debate on Kashmir on the Floor of the House, in which he spoke eloquently and was very informed. I had the pleasure of visiting Pakistan and Kashmir with my friend the hon. Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk), and talking to people who had been affected by this issue. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) also made a fantastic speech.

I want to talk about the impact of this situation on the people of Kashmir. We need to talk about human rights. The hon. Lady mentioned the report compiled by Amnesty International, “India: A ‘Lawless Law’”, which considered the operations of the 500,000 Indian troops stationed in this area—just think about that figure for a second. We heard earlier that, of course, the elections had taken place and that it was all fine: nobody had raised the issue of separatism in the elections. I say gently that there are 500,000 troops with guns pointed at people in this area, so it is slightly difficult to accept that an election can take place under those circumstances.

My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) says, “Well, this is a minority in Indian-administered Kashmir who want a plebiscite and their right to self-determination.” If that is so and he genuinely thinks that only a small minority of people in Indian-administered Kashmir are in favour of independence, then let them have the vote. What is there to worry about? What have the Indian Government got to worry about?

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Emulation of the brevity of the hon. Member for Torbay (Mr Sanders) is now required. I call Mr Barry Gardiner.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The Foreign Secretary is very clear about the use of sanctions against Russia and about their potential efficacy. Why, therefore, has the Foreign Office consistently said in relation to Sri Lanka that it does not believe in applying sanctions there or in other parts of the world?

[Mr Speaker]

The French Government, arms sales, Russia; I am sure that there was some relevance to those subjects in the hon. Gentleman’s question. I am working hard to find it.

Gaza

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Monday 14th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend is quite right about that and that was why I was saying earlier that the cycle of violence has got worse. He is right that, even between ceasefires, a large number of rockets have been launched against Israel, although usually in between ceasefires they have been launched by other groups and not necessarily by Hamas. What distinguishes a period such as this one is that Hamas is engaged in large-scale rocket fire against Israel, which it could control and prevent. He is right to sound a cautionary note about what will happen after any ceasefire and that further intensifies the message that reviving the peace process is very important.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Israel’s right to defend itself, of which the Foreign Secretary speaks, is not an unconstrained right, yet Israel’s response has been unconstrained. It has been disproportionate and wrong. Heavy bombing in a densely populated area with 100,000 civilians, causing the death of 170 people, a third of them children, is not self-defence; it is barbarism. What leverage does the Foreign Secretary have and will he now apply it to make the Israeli Government reappraise this barbaric and unproductive strategy?

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) spoke about the polarising aspects of this issue and there are passionate feelings about this and about what is happening to people in Gaza. As I said earlier, we must also remember that many hundreds of rockets have been launched indiscriminately against people living in Israel, and rather than refining our value judgments each day, are concentrating on bringing about an agreed ceasefire and urging all sides to abide by international humanitarian law. I think that that is the right thing to continue to do.

Israeli Teenagers (Abduction and Murder)

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Hugh Robertson]

I gave the answer that I did to an earlier question because I was assured, as I have been in the past, that there were no grounds for believing that. If a Select Committee of this House has uncovered evidence that firmly proves that that is not the case, that is a very serious issue. I can offer my hon. Friend a cast-iron guarantee that we will take that up. Indeed, the very fact that it has been found by a Select Committee will ensure that the Department responsible has to answer those questions.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Would the Minister care to reflect that, in rightly praising Secretary of State Kerry, he might have been slightly unfair to Madeleine Albright? Will he, in the context of this situation, tell us not only what might be proportionate for either side but what signals either side might send to the other that would advance rather than regress the situation?

[Hugh Robertson]

In my remarks, I intended no slight to Madeleine Albright. I simply meant that the most recent iteration of all this has been led by John Kerry with extraordinary energy and vigour, which is why I pay tribute to what he has done. As for the second part of the hon. Gentleman’s question, we will of course look at that very closely.

Ukraine

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Tuesday 13th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

That is a very important point, and it relates to part of the importance of further expanding the OSCE special monitoring mission. We might also deploy—and we are in favour of deploying—a civilian EU mission to advise on judicial and police reform, but what my hon. Friend is talking about is very much the job of the special monitoring mission. We are supplying further monitors from the UK, with the capability to build up to having 500 monitors in total. Their objective reporting will be very important in the coming weeks to international understanding of the situation.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Both the current Government in Kiev and the Foreign Secretary in his statement have pointed out that the referendum in Donetsk region was vitiated on the grounds that no valid register of electors is available. That being the case, how do they propose to hold valid presidential elections in the region on 25 May?

[Mr Hague]

Of course the register is available to those authorities holding the legal presidential elections in the vast majority of the country.

[Barry Gardiner]

indicated dissent.

[Mr Hague]

Of course it is true. The election observation mission, which I visited last week, is satisfied with the arrangements so far in 23 of the 25 regions of Ukraine. In Donetsk and Luhansk the picture is mixed—I think this is what the hon. Gentleman is driving at—and in some parts of those two regions the legitimate civil authorities have not been able to make preparations for the elections. That remains the case with 12 days to go, so Ukraine is faced with having a presidential election in which the vast majority of people in the country will be able to take part—but not all of them, thanks to Russian intervention.

Ukraine

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Tuesday 4th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

The issue should be raised vigorously in the Council of Europe. I welcome the decisions made by Conservative colleagues in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. There are Russian representatives in other political groups of the Council of Europe, and all political groups from Russia are, in one way or another, approved by the Kremlin. Opposition Members may therefore wish to attend to those matters. I hope that members of all parties in the Council of Europe will pursue the matter vigorously at their forthcoming part-sessions.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The Foreign Secretary has rightly welcomed the vetoing of the legislation downgrading the Russian language in Ukraine, but he will understand that the fact that the Parliament was prepared to pass and propose such legislation caused severe concern to the 20% of the population in Ukraine who are ethnically Russian. What further measures does he believe the Ukrainian Parliament should take to give reassurance to that part of the population that they are not under threat?

[Mr Hague]

That is a matter for the Ukrainians. As hon. Members understand, it is for the Ukrainians to decide in their country, but I put it to Ukrainian Ministers yesterday that, in addition to consolidating the veto of the legislation, they should think about crafting a new language law that represents the consensus in their country, and the long-term protection and upholding of the rights of minority languages in Ukraine. They are in the midst of a desperate crisis—we must understand that—but I hope they take that proposal seriously.

Sri Harmandir Sahib

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

The interaction between the move from a 30-year rule to a 20-year rule and the way Departments treat their files after 25 years raise interesting questions, as it would make the 25-year rule rather a moot point. That is why there is value in the further review I have announced today to ensure consistency across all Departments and to ensure that lessons that need to be learned from when documents have been withheld or published can be learned collectively across the whole of Government. I encourage my hon. Friend to await the outcome of that review for a definitive answer to his question.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The Foreign Secretary has been at pains to stress that the advice given by the British military adviser was not, in fact, followed and that it would therefore be inappropriate to take responsibility for Operation Blue Star and to issue an apology for it. None the less, it was countenanced to give advice; indeed, advice was given about how to storm the holiest site in Sikhism. Is that not something that the Foreign Secretary should apologise for?

[Mr Hague]

I go back to my earlier answers. I think it is fair to put it this way. If any of us, in any part of the House, thought that Britain had contributed to serious or unnecessary loss of life elsewhere in the world, it would be right to acknowledge a mistake and to say that the country apologises for that, but when the country clearly does not have responsibility for it, that is a different context. We have to go on the facts, and I think the facts are clear. Of course, the hon. Gentleman is really asking us to judge to a finer degree the decisions of Ministers at the time, which I feel, 30 years later and in a different Government, is very hard to do and could be unfair. I therefore stick to what I said earlier on this.

Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Wednesday 6th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

In 2012, the FCO identified Sri Lanka as a country of concern in its annual human rights and democracy report, admitting there had been some “negative developments”. The report highlighted the number of abductions and disappearances, as well as the intimidation of human rights defenders, members of the legal profession and the media. Meanwhile, President Rajapaksa has repeatedly rejected demands for an international inquiry into alleged war crimes, including from the Prime Minister.

In August 2013, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, visited Sri Lanka and noted the country’s worrying “authoritarian turn”. What concerns me is that there is a sense of complicity on the part of our own Government with what is going on in Sri Lanka, where we see the deepening and embedding of corruption, injustice and violence. I say that because Freedom from Torture has claimed that, despite the Sri Lankan Government’s claims of new-found peace, the post-conflict torture of Tamils is ongoing. The UK Government appear to be complicit, because they have forcibly removed Tamils back to Sri Lanka, where they know those people have been met with torture and ill treatment.

Following a freedom of information request in February, the UK Border Agency now admits to granting refugee status to up to 15 Sri Lankans who had been forcibly returned to Sri Lanka and subsequently tortured or ill treated, and who had then come back to the UK. That is deeply worrying.

Furthermore, Home Office solicitors are suggesting to judges in our courts that evidence of torture—scars, wounds and broken bones—is actually self-inflicted. They are saying that to push the courts into agreeing that people should be deported from this country. That is desperately worrying.

I have a constituency case of a 24-year-old man whom I will call Mr P. He came to the UK in April 2013 on a student visa. He subsequently applied for asylum on 26 April. He held pro-Tamil separatist political opinions, which he expressed in Sri Lanka and in the UK. His asylum application was refused by the Home Office, but it was won on appeal in July.

Mr P is a journalist, and he had previously worked on a newspaper in Sri Lanka in a minor capacity. In April 2011, he was detained and assaulted. He was released with the help of the newspaper’s circulation manager. In November 2012, he was admitted to Jaffna general hospital with multiple soft-tissue injuries to his body, lip laceration and teeth fractures—he had been beaten with rifle butts. The medical-legal report concluded—

[Mr David Amess (in the Chair)]

Order.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) mentioned the Freedom from Torture freedom of information request and the UK Border Agency’s reply in February. In its 2011 “Human Rights and Democracy” report, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office referred to allegations of torture of people who had been sent back to Sri Lanka and were subsequently given asylum in this country, but stated that there was no substantiated evidence that people returned there had been tortured. Interestingly, neither the allegation nor such a statement appeared in the FCO’s 2012 “Human Rights and Democracy” report. The Foreign Affairs Committee has questioned that, but we got no answers from Baroness Warsi when she gave evidence to us. Our report recommended that the FCO

“state whether it still holds the view that there is no substantiated evidence of torture or maltreatment of people who have been returned by UK immigration authorities to Sri Lanka.”

Will the Minister short-circuit the process and give us an answer today? Do the British Government still hold the view that people returned to Sri Lanka are not tortured, and that there is no substantiated evidence, or is their view—given the increasing concerns, and the compelling evidence of my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) and others—that there is evidence that calls into question the UK Border Agency’s policy of returning to Sri Lanka people who we know have been mistreated since 2009?

In those circumstances, when the Prime Minister meets President Rajapaksa and his several brothers, who run the Government in Sri Lanka, will it not be time to make it clear that the British Government and British parliamentarians expect answers to our questions about people sent back from this country to Sri Lanka and then mistreated, and to the questions asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk) and others about the mistreatment of British citizens in Sri Lanka?

[Barry Gardiner]

Is my hon. Friend aware that Judge Lobo has referred to the assistance offered by country guidance cases? In an appeal in the first-tier tribunal, he has said that the people at risk are those who have outstanding charges against them—journalists associated with publications critical of the Sri Lankan Government, and those who are aligned to pro-Tamil separatist movements and are working towards the destabilisation of the unitary state. That relates specifically to risks to people who are returned to Sri Lanka.

[Mike Gapes]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, but I will not respond to his intervention.

Finally, it is all very well to say that the Government should be there—that the Commonwealth is so important that the British Prime Minister, the heir to the throne or the Foreign Secretary should attend the meeting—but let us look at the history of the Commonwealth and where it is now. Many years ago, the Commonwealth agreed the Harare declaration, which set out human rights values and how institutions should work. In the past, Zimbabwe, Pakistan and other countries have been suspended from or have walked out of the Commonwealth because human rights issues were raised.

I must say that I am extremely disappointed with the Commonwealth secretary-general—I know him personally, because he was previously the Indian high commissioner in this country—and the way in which he has run the organisation. There has been a downplaying of human rights issues under the current Commonwealth secretariat. I am not giving away any secrets when I say that the British Government tried to raise these issues in 2009 and subsequently. In a vote in the Commonwealth, 50 votes were in favour of going to Colombo and four were against. That is the problem that we have to confront in the organisation. If the Commonwealth does not change, it will become irrelevant.