Oral Answers to Questions

Bob Seely Excerpts

Tuesday 25th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that if the Opposition want a deal, they should vote for one?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

Yes.

Yemen Peace Process

Bob Seely Excerpts

Thursday 23rd May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

The debate on Yemen seems to focus very much on arms sales, and it is an important debate that raises many ethical problems, some of which are rather complex. However, like the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes), I think that denying sales to Saudi may not achieve a great deal because it will simply buy the bombs from elsewhere. I would rather have our people in there targeting cells to minimise casualties.

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis). She makes a very important point about ensuring that targeting in built-up areas is given an intense priority because of the potential for civilian casualties. As I am sure she knows, when we were running the ISIS campaign, if there were any civilian casualties, even in ISIS territory, we simply could not drop a bomb. For Saudi, it may be that those restrictions on battle damage assessment—BDA, as it is known in the military world—are somewhat looser or perhaps they justify it by going after particular individuals. There is an issue over BDA and the levels of BDA allowed by Saudi as opposed to other people.

I do not intend to talk for long, but I want to raise a few issues about the internal dynamics in Yemen and to ask questions of the Minister, in part because I am curious about the subject and covered it a bit in a previous employment. For me, the most concerning issue is the proxy conflict between Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Oman in the south and east of Yemen. All three countries are important allies of ours. I fear that those proxy dynamics are being played out through tribal forces in Hadhramaut and Mahra. A worsening conflict between those major states will increase civilian casualties in formerly more peaceful parts of the country, such as Mukalla, Hadhramaut and Mahra. It will also worsen the dynamic between our allies—the Saudis, the UAE and especially the Omanis—and Iran. The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) was absolutely right when he said that we should not just see this through the prism of a proxy war. Unfortunately, that is an important part of great power politics. Clearly, that proxy battle, as we are seeing with the Houthi, and the dynamic between the Houthi and the Saudis in other parts of the country—around Sana’a and in the major ports—is driving the civilian casualties. Solving the civilian crisis and solving the great power politics around Yemen are very much one and the same thing.

I am concerned about the Iranian dynamic and about the Saudi desire to put a pipeline through parts of Yemen when there is no central Government to negotiate on behalf of the tribes in Hadhramaut and Mahra provinces. I would like to hear what the Minister thinks we can do to use our limited influence—we should remind ourselves that our influence is limited—in certain parts of the country for stabilisation. I ask that for a specific reason: about five years ago, we had a plan—not for all of Yemen, but the MOD and other bits of Government put together a plan for the south and east of Yemen. I vaguely know about it because I was very vaguely involved in it. It was a good plan, which looked at linking up a bit of military support with peace-building measures, a bit of development, a bit of media work, education work and a clean-up along the coastline, because the place was a bit messy. All these things were designed to stabilise south and east Yemen to prevent the Iranian smuggling routes of drugs and weapons into Yemen that were fuelling the conflict, especially from Mukalla. I cannot quite remember when, but about 15 or 18 months ago, the UAE special forces cleared out Mukalla—the Saudis came in as well—with the local tribes. I understand from my contacts with the local tribes, especially in the Mahra tribal federations, that they have, to a certain extent, welcomed outside forces, because they have helped to clean out al-Qaeda. Yemenis fear UAE attempts to cut off Aden from the rest of the country. The tribes fear that the Saudis are simply going to put a pipeline through eastern Yemen and not ask too many questions. The Omanis, who may not be our most powerful ally in that part of the world, but are one of our best allies, fear that they are being dragged into a proxy conflict with Saudi tribal federation groups and the UAE.

I am very keen to hear from the Minister how our influence is being played out, either locally or in our diplomatic relationships here and elsewhere, to ensure that our allies do not come to blows, and that they and we can be part of a solution that seeks to stabilise. Specifically in Hadhramaut and Mahra, that would look like engaging a broader tribal federation or tribal council—I think in Afghanistan it is called a Loya Jirga, but I cannot remember what the Yemeni version is called. There should be a wider tribal federation plan than the one that exists at the moment, whereby some tribes accept Omani support and some accept Saudi support. I know that I am asking some detailed questions, but very often the devil is in the detail with these things. If the Government could say what they are doing as an honest broker between our allies, I would really appreciate it.

Will the Minister also say whether there is a new joined-up strategy to replace the at least partial joined-up strategy that was attempted a few years ago, which for various internal governmental and agency reasons sadly never saw the light of day? I regret that because it was a decent plan. Are the Government concerned about the posture of the UAE in Aden? Are they concerned about the posture of Saudi in other parts of the country and about whether it wants a more permanent presence in Yemen? If it does, what would that mean for the delicate internal dynamics in that country?

--- Later in debate ---

[Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East) (Lab)]

First, I welcome my opposite number, the Minister, to his place. He has big shoes to fill but I know he will do it effectively and efficiently.

I thank my right hon. Friend—my good friend; my dear friend—the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) for bringing this debate to the House today. He is a fine, fearless and forthright advocate for Yemen. For as long as I have known him, he has provided that advocacy, but never more so than in these past four years when it has been more necessary than ever before. He opened our debate by talking about the unification of Yemen in 1990, when it was a country that was being destroyed and fragmented, to use his words, after four years of appalling conflict, echoes of which we have heard from many hon. and right hon. Members. We know that 100 children die every single day and 70,000 have been killed or have died since the war started. This is the largest humanitarian disaster since the second world war and a shocking testament to our inability to stop this needless slaughter of innocents. A child dies every 12 minutes, he told us, and many have echoed that.

My right hon. Friend referred to the Houthis’ indiscriminate use of landmines, which we have condemned over and over again. He mentioned the Stockholm agreement that was agreed in December 2018, but the implementation process of which has been sadly and woefully slow. On 10 May—at last—Houthi forces began their redeployment. We hope, like him, that that is a path to peace. As we know, 80% of goods come in via Hodeidah, and they are much needed—more needed than ever before. There has been $2.6 billion pledged in aid, but only $770 million in aid has been received. Sir Mark Lowcock says that much more must be done to try to ensure that those pledges turn into reality. The most important message that he gave us was, “Stop the bombing now”—something echoed by every hon. and right hon. Member who spoke.

We then heard from somebody who has really shown his mettle over the past few years and has acted where many others just speak—the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell). He is somebody we should always listen to. I agreed with everything he said, bar one thing that I will come to in a moment. He posed four pertinent questions to the Minister, and I know the Minister will do his best to answer them. The right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield has visited Sana’a, Sa’dah and many other towns and cities in Yemen, and has shown his knowledge and understanding from those visits. He said something very important—that the United Kingdom has been complicit in this war. He mentioned the corrupt Houthi leaders blocking food aid, and the aerial attacks by the Royal Saudi Air Force and the United Arab Emirates, which I will say a little more about later.

My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), the Chairman of the International Development Committee, has also taken up the cause of Yemen and spoken again and again, with passion and with feeling, to try to make sure that we play our part in this country to stop the slaughter. He said that the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe has been widely described. He emphasised the 80% gap between the funds pledged and the funds actually paid, and asked what the United Kingdom is going to do to ensure that the push for the pledges to come forward is made. Like every other Member, he mentioned the effect on children, especially those under five, and the 1,000 children a day—a day—who are contracting cholera. He welcomed, of course, the diplomatic leadership by the United Kingdom. Importantly, he agreed that there should be a major rethink on arms sales to Saudi Arabia. He said that although we do have rigorous arms sales licensing, as the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield mentioned, our sales of arms to Saudi Arabia undermine that rigorous set of rules. He said that a nationwide ceasefire is of course vital, but, more than that, we must have a long-term commitment by this country to rebuild Yemen. We would all agree with that, I hope.

The hon. Member for Henley (John Howell) said that it is a cause for celebration that the truce outlines are there, and that the peace process is akin to a mediation, but much more needs to be done to build peace. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby mentioned peace building, a role close to my heart as our shadow Minister for peace.

We then heard from the former Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes), a close friend. I served under him on the Committee when he was Chair. His knowledge, understanding, interest and passion came through very strongly. He is a Member we should always listen to, especially on this subject—especially with his lifelong knowledge and expertise of the middle east and of the conflicts. Not only does he talk about these things, but, as he made clear to all of us this afternoon, he acts, too; he visits the regions—he is fearless in doing that.

The hon. Gentleman made some important points. The UAE is also a big player in the coalition against the Houthis, and of course Iran’s role in this proxy war is extremely important and we need to tackle the Iranians on it. He also said something I would certainly agree with: while we listen to what the Americans say about Iran we need to play a much stronger role because we have a warmer relationship with the Iranians. In that regard, I hope I will be having some contact myself with the Iranian ambassador, as I am sure the Minister does regularly. The final point the hon. Gentleman made was that there are more than just two Yemens; this is a multifaceted country and we have to make sure all parties, all tribal groups and all the groups playing a role in this terrible conflict are brought into the peace talks, not just the main contenders.

The hon. Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) again talked about the plight of children. I know that she is concerned and always passionate about trying to stop conflict. She mentioned the increase in violence in other parts of Yemen now that there is a relative ceasefire in Hodeidah.

Finally, we heard from the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Seely), who also clearly has a great deal of knowledge about the region. He said, again backing up comments of the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield, that this is not just about weapon sales, and stopping weapon sales will not solve the issue. He also emphasised once again that this is a proxy war.

The Houthi rebels have started to comply with a UN-led agreement to withdraw their forces from the key port of Hodeidah. Before talking about that, however, I want to mention a “Dispatches” documentary by journalist Sue Turton shown on Channel 4 recently. It underlined the role our country is playing and that many personnel, both military and non-military civilian staff, are playing in ensuring the Royal Saudi Air Force is able to operate. They do not touch the bombs—that would be against the law—but they do make sure the aircraft are airworthy and able to go on bombing missions. That is why Labour pledges absolutely to push as hard as we can on this, and if in government to stop all arms sales to Saudi Arabia while we ensure there is a UN investigation into the role those arms sales have played. I accept that, as some Members have said this afternoon, it will not stop the war necessarily, but I urge everybody who has not seen that documentary to watch it; that journalist’s credentials are excellent and her sources impeccable, so it is worth watching because it might change Members’ views about this.

While UN figures estimate over 10,000 people have been killed in the last two years, the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project claims that the figure is closer to 60,223, many of these being children as we have heard so often today. Save the Children claims 85,000 may have died from starvation since 2016. I know that figure of 85,000 has been mentioned a few times this afternoon, but we need to remember it. These are children; not only are they the innocent victims of war, but they have no say in trying to stop this war. They were never consulted, and nor were most of the civilian population for that matter.

While we on this side of the House welcome—as I am sure we all do—the progress finally being made under the auspices of the Stockholm accord and the Houthi decision to withdraw from the port of Hodeidah, it is now vital that all sides adhere to the terms of the peace plan. Over 80% of humanitarian aid enters Yemen through the port of Hodeidah. The Yemeni people have suffered enough, and the chair of the Redeployment Coordination Committee, Lieutenant General Michael Lollesgaard, is right to say that the unilateral withdrawal of the Houthi rebels must be followed by

“the committed, transparent and sustained actions of the parties to fully deliver on their obligations”.

We believe that there must be a full investigation into why there are reports, such as in the documentary I have just mentioned, of British weapons and even SAS soldiers being used in Yemen—it may not be true, but there have been reports. The fact that British weapons may have been used to kill innocent civilians, including many children, is extremely sickening, but we want to make peace in Yemen possible.

[Mr Seely]

I do not say the hon. Gentleman is wrong to argue the point he is making, but does he understand that insurgency theory specifically suggests that insurgents put their kit and their people where, if attacked from the air, there will be civilian casualties? This has been practised as long as insurgency wars have been going on. So the insurgents are deliberately trying to induce the Saudis to bomb them where civilian casualties will be an outcome. Therefore this is not a black-and-white scenario, but is a very complex one about risk versus reward on targets. I am not saying the Saudis are not getting it wrong sometimes, but it is not a black-and-white situation as they are trying to target a justifiable target that specifically goes into civilian areas.

[Fabian Hamilton]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, and I hope I have not suggested for one minute that there is a simple solution to this conflict and it is simply a matter of stopping UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the whole thing stops, although I would recommend that, if the hon. Gentleman has not seen it, he watches that “Dispatches” documentary because there is certainly a hint in it—although I do not necessarily agree with it. Of course this is a complex situation, but, as the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield hinted, there may come a time when we all call for the withdrawal of UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia as a way of trying to stop the conflict escalating further or of trying to bring about a peace deal. But Labour thinks those arms sales should stop immediately.

We think that in order to make peace in Yemen possible we must end those arms exports to Saudi Arabia immediately. Following in the footsteps of our European allies—Germany, Spain, Italy and Denmark—we think that that will give the Stockholm agreement and the United Nations the best chances of achieving peace, although I do accept that there are the complexities that the hon. Member for Isle of Wight legitimately raised in his intervention. We on this side of the House have consistently called for that immediate cessation of arms sales and of the conflict—of course we all want to see that. We feel that, as other Members have mentioned this afternoon, we are complicit unless we act more neutrally and diplomatically in the conflict in Yemen.

We have also called for an independent UN-led investigation into allegations of war crimes in this terrible conflict. An open letter to the Government sent a few weeks ago by colleagues of mine in the shadow Cabinet and other Opposition parties states that

“it is morally reprehensible that the UK government is not only not considering changing its policy”

on arms sales

“but is actively lobbying other foreign governments, as it did with Germany, to resume arms sales to Saudi Arabia.”

I also want to briefly refer to the House of Lords International Relations Committee recent report that stated that the UK was

“narrowly on the wrong side”

of the law by allowing arms exports to Saudi Arabia for the war in Yemen. The report noted that it was concerned that the Saudi-led coalition’s misuse of weaponry bought from the UK has been deliberately or accidentally causing civilian casualties. The report stated:

“Relying on assurances by Saudi Arabia and Saudi-led review processes is not an adequate way of implementing the obligations for a risk-based assessment set out in the Arms Trade Treaty.”

My colleague, the shadow Foreign Secretary, claimed in The Guardian earlier this year that as many as 40% of the soldiers in the Saudi coalition and the Houthi rebel army were children, and the United Nations has documented 1,702 cases of child recruitment for which it has clear evidence. As we have heard, Saudi forces have bombed vital infrastructure and innocent civilians, and starvation has been used as a weapon of war through the blockading of ports. A UN human rights investigation in August 2018 noted that Saudi coalition airstrikes might constitute war crimes. I have posed a number of questions to add to the list that the Minister already has, and I will end my remarks here to allow him the chance to answer the questions that have been put to him this afternoon.

Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty

Bob Seely Excerpts

Monday 4th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question—I know he takes these matters very seriously. Yes, trust has clearly broken down. It is difficult to try to restore trust. It is worth remembering, as he mentions, that the Obama Administration had a clear goal from the moment they came into office at the beginning of 2009 to re-cast their relationship with Russia. Even within that context, they concluded, during the course of their time, that Russia could not be trusted on these matters because simply, as the hon. Gentleman rightly said, there was no evidence of verification. I am afraid that that situation has not improved over the past two and a half years.

[Mr Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

Tension over nuclear forces is clearly highly dangerous. NATO experts argue that the Russian Federation seeks overmatch in four areas: political warfare, conventional forces over its neighbours, European theatre conventional missiles and European theatre intermediate nuclear missiles. What is being done to reassess the balance of power in eastern Europe and the level of forces needed to deter Russia? Will the Minister endeavour to keep the House informed? I get the sensation that not enough is being done or talked about on this extremely dangerous issue.

[Mark Field]

I reassure my hon. Friend that Ministers will keep the House up to date, not just on this issue—and obviously, it affects other Departments, including particularly the Ministry of Defence. My last overseas visit, only 10 days ago, was to Warsaw. I spent two days in Poland and we discussed some of these issues, which are clearly far closer to the hearts of our Polish counterparts, as well as those within Baltic and Nordic states, who are very concerned about the proliferation and potential threat of Russia in this regard. My hon. Friend also rightly made the point that in many ways, as I mentioned earlier, Russia’s nefarious work extends well beyond the nuclear sphere. The campaigns of disinformation and the use of cyber-attacks in a very aggressive way are all very modern ways—well beyond the nuclear—in which there are major threats. Obviously, those are issues that the whole of Government have responsibility for, and we shall do our best to keep the House informed about them.

Ukraine-Russia Relations

Bob Seely Excerpts

Tuesday 27th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

The Minister has eloquently told us what the FCO thinks the situation is. Will he explain what the FCO thinks the situation may become? Is what has happened recently just a continuation of low-level aggression? Is it a ramping up of economic warfare by a blockade of Berdiansk and Mariupol? Or is it part of a shaping operation for a more violent assault on Mariupol? If it is one of the last two, what contingency measures is the FCO thinking of taking?

[Alistair Burt]

I know that my hon. Friend has a deep-rooted knowledge of this subject, but he asks the UK Government to speculate on a series of potential outcomes, which I do not think would be wise. The point of his question, however, is to illustrate that from the actions already taken there could be further more serious consequences. Given the concern with which he asked his question—concern that I am sure is echoed by the House—I should be very clear that the UK does not want further escalation. Risks have been taken in the actions we have seen, and it is essential, if those risks are to be de-escalated, that Russia recognises its actions and the concern they have caused, and changes them.

Idlib

Bob Seely Excerpts

Monday 10th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

The processes to try to bring about a political transition in Syria are still going on, led by UN special envoy Staffan de Mistura. Talks are continuing, and have been supplemented, to a degree, by talks that have taken place with those outside the formal process—Turkey, Iran and Russia. Efforts have failed because, on the ground, the regime has been successful, and the cost to it has therefore not been sufficient for it to want to make changes that would bring political reconciliation or political change. Those efforts are still being made through the United Nations. It is clear that a reimposition of the regime in its current form after the conflict is unlikely to bring stability to Syria, and to prevent the opportunity either for extremists to act again or for further civil unrest to occur. If the conflict is to come properly to an end, there will indeed have to be a degree of transition and change in the regime, and that will come through political efforts that are ongoing and will continue.

As for the prediction of events and military attacks, what the United Kingdom has been able to supply—the House will understand that I do not want to go into too much detail—is effectively an early warning system, which can be activated by electronic awareness of potential attacks. It can provide information through social media as well as by more conventional means, which enables people to take evasive action and to hide to the extent that they can. Of course, the best way to avoid civilian casualties is not to employ an early warning system, but to stop the bombing.

That leads me to the issue of war crimes. The designation of a war crime is not a political act, but a judicial act. Certain criteria are clearly laid out through international humanitarian law. There is an independent accountability mechanism—the so-called IIIM—that the United Kingdom is supporting in Syria. It is essential that, at some stage, the world is able to see accountability measures working. If there is impunity, there is injustice, and if there is no accountability, there is impunity. We will work with those systems. Whoever may be liable for war crimes, the United Kingdom will seek to ensure—through international and judicial means—that they are appropriately pursued.

[Mr Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

I welcome the Minister’s remarks about chemical weapons. I want to develop the point about the primary and priority targeting of hospitals in Syria—in Idlib, and also during early parts of the civil war—which is one of the most flagrant and obvious violations of the Geneva conventions since the Spanish civil war.

Seven or eight weeks ago, the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) and I met 20 Syrian doctors, some of whom had been in hospitals that were bombed 30 times by the regime and its Russian backers. The Minister talked of naming and shaming Syrian military units, but he said nothing about shaming Russian and Iranian units that are involved in the same flagrant breach of the Geneva conventions, along with their command chains. Will he confirm that as well as naming and shaming those Syrian military units, he will name and shame individual Russian and Iranian units, pilots and chains of command?

[Alistair Burt]

Russia has continued its close military co-operation with the regime in spite of the atrocities that it has committed, including the use of chemical weapons. It has chosen to shield the regime’s use of chemical weapons from international scrutiny. Its repeated blocking of the mandate of the UN-OPCW joint investigative mechanism sent a dangerous signal to the Syrian regime that it could continue to use chemical weapons with impunity.

Russia must change tack. It must end its destructive support for the regime’s military campaign and instead support de-escalation and a political settlement. Of course, when information is available about those who may have taken part in war crimes, the accountability mechanisms that I have mentioned should, and must, come into play.

Global Britain and the International Rules-based Order

Bob Seely Excerpts

Thursday 6th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House welcomes the Government’s aspiration to ensure the UK retains its influence and status as it prepares for departure from the EU; notes that for Global Britain to be more than a worthy aspiration the slogan must be backed by substance; further notes the threats to the international rules-based order posed, in particular, by the aggressive stance of the Russian Government; and therefore calls on the Government to publish by 31 October 2018 its assessment of the threats posed by Russia and other hostile states to the international rules-based order, and the Government’s strategy and resources for countering those threats.

It is a pleasure to rise to speak on this motion, which stands not only in my name but in the names of every other member of the Committee that I am privileged to chair. I am particularly privileged because we have such a wide range of views and yet such a harmonious existence; that is naturally down to their skill as politicians rather than mine as their convener. I am grateful they have kindly agreed to allow me to speak on this motion today.

We are here to talk about global Britain, and that is because—as the Clerk who will be expertly advising you throughout this debate, Mr Deputy Speaker, will be able to tell you, having been such an expert Clerk of my Committee beforehand—the debate is about how Britain resets its relationships as we move away from the structures that have kept us propped up according to some, or stable according to others, for the past 40 or 50 years. The argument for this country is really about how we set ourselves in this new, turbulent world. The Committee has asked the Foreign Office that question and we have, I am afraid, been extremely disappointed by the answer; we have found a headline and a slogan, but that is largely it.

[Mr Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

I should like to echo my hon. Friend’s thoughts. With the best will in the world, and despite the fact that the Foreign Office is full of remarkably intelligent people and very good Ministers, there seems to be a great paucity of thought on what global Britain will actually consist of post Brexit. It will be different from now.

[Tom Tugendhat]

I am grateful to my fellow Committee member for making that point; he is absolutely right. That is exactly why we have called this debate. We want to explore the depths of this question and to challenge and push the Government. It is no accident that the motion calls on the Government to publish their assessment. We want to ensure that the House has the ability to exercise power over the Executive and call on them to deliver what we ask for. In this case that is an assessment, and I will say more about that in a moment.

Let me touch on a few of the areas where we have found answers to be lacking. The former permanent under-secretary at the Foreign Office, Sir Simon Fraser, told the Committee that there was a lot of “mushy thinking”, and Lord Owen, the former Foreign Secretary, has bemoaned the lack of consistency in what the Government are saying on the subject. He also said, in words that are now somewhat historical but that speak to the truth, that if he listened to the radio and heard the Foreign Secretary saying something that the Prime Minister would then contradict, he wanted to throw something at his radio. I think his radio has been saved by a recent change in appointments, and let us hope that the situation will be improved by some co-ordination. I hope that the Foreign Office will manifest the same change through improvements in its thinking.

The question of a global Britain is a wide one, and we have produced a series of reports to cover it. In our first chapter, we look at what the Government will do differently and how they will change their approach. A lot of that is to do with the reality of bilateralism in Europe and how Britain will work when we are no longer working through the structure of the European Council, Commission and Parliament. For example, we will have to increase the number of our diplomats around Europe who speak Dutch, French, Italian, Spanish and other languages. The bilateral missions will do the range of jobs that bilateral missions would otherwise normally do, but for various reasons have not needed to because the European Union has been our focus. We have looked into that question, but as yet we have not found the detail we would like to see. We have heard talk of money, true, and we have heard talk of languages, which again is good, but we have not heard talk of strategy, co-ordination or delivery.

We need to be clear-eyed here. We need an assessment of our place in the world, and we need to be clear-eyed about what we are going to do to maximise our position in the future. That involves understanding who we are and what we want. We have a real choice: either we choose to shape events or we will be shaped by them. Over many centuries, the people of the United Kingdom have got into the habit of being actors in this world, rather than being acted upon by it. I would like that to continue, but it will require co-ordination.

We have seen what happens without such co-ordination. We have seen the lack of co-ordination in some areas of eastern Europe as well as the expansion of Russian influence and the spread of corruption. We have seen the physical reality of that in the energy markets, with the Russian Government deliberately salami-slicing those markets in order to salami-slice alliances. That is why I have spoken out so strongly against the Nord Stream 2 project. But there is more: we have seen that happening there, but we are also seeing it happening in other parts of the world, as well as in our own alliance of NATO. In NATO, however, it is different. The truth is that NATO has not spent nearly enough on its own defence. Indeed, if every nation were to achieve the 2% target, rather than just a few, we would be talking about another $100 billion or so being made available for the defence of Europe. The fact that some nations are not willing to carry the burden of their own responsibility shames us all, because it weakens us all, so when we talk about global Britain we must be clear that we are actually talking about Britain in a network of alliances.

If I may, I would like to mention the late Senator John McCain. He was a friend to many in this House, and I see one of his good friends sitting here, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Sir Michael Fallon). Senator McCain spoke out passionately for the transatlantic relationship because he fundamentally understood that the sovereignty of nations is not diminished by alliance but enhanced by it and that the freedoms of individuals are not hampered by co-operation but increased by it. That is the message that we must carry forward, and that is why I have been urging NATO to name its new headquarters after the late Senator. There would be no greater tribute to a great friend of the United Kingdom and Europe. I hope that we will see that change.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Gapes]

But I do want to say a few words about Russia. Given the challenges to the global international order that we face and the direct challenges to our country as a result of the criminal murder in our country by the Russian state, this is the worst possible time for our country to be leaving the European Union. We need partners, allies and international co-operation. I asked the Prime Minister about this yesterday and she confirmed how important it is that we continue to have security and defence co-operation with our EU neighbours and friends. That is not guaranteed if we get the no-deal situation and we have no agreement—I will leave that there.

What is also clear is that we need to be serious about not only the crimes in Salisbury, but the 14 other suspicious deaths linked to Russia that have occurred in recent years. There has been a remarkable development this week, with the Chair of the Select Committee on Home Affairs being written to by the Home Secretary in a letter that said:

“I can now formally confirm that the Government’s assurance work around the 14 cases is complete. The Police have confirmed that there is no basis on which to re-open any of the investigations. Clearly, should any new information become available, then the relevant police force will continue to monitor this position and take additional action as necessary”

That letter was written on 23 August. In the light of what we now know and the Prime Minister’s comprehensive and detailed statement yesterday, I call on the Government to revisit this issue, because there have been other murders and other deaths of Russian exiles in this country, over several years. I am not convinced and satisfied that they are not linked to the way the Russian state carried out an attack in our country in Salisbury this year. I therefore ask the Home Office to look again at that issue.

While we are talking about Russia, I wish to say something to my party and to my Front-Bench colleagues. In March, the spokesman for the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Seumas Milne, was quoted as saying to journalists that

“the government has access to information and intelligence on this matter which others don’t; however, also there’s a history in relation to WMD and intelligence which is problematic to put it mildly.”

When pressed on whether he thought that Russia was being framed for the events in Salisbury, he then said that

“if the material was from the Soviet period, the break-up of the Soviet state led to all sorts of military material ending up in random hands.”

Frankly, he was implying that the Russian state was not responsible. In the light of what we now know, we need an unequivocal, unambiguous, clear statement.

In my opinion, Mr Seumas Milne has been dissembling and attempting to divert attention from the real cause and the real culprits: the Putin regime in Moscow. Perhaps that should not come as any surprise, because this is the man who hosted President Putin at the Valdai forum in Sochi. This is the man who said in The Guardian on 4 March 2015, under the headline “The demonisation of Russia risks paving the way for war”, that the events in Ukraine were justifiable from the Russian perspective. He wrote:

“Russian covert military support for the rebels, on the other hand, is denounced as aggression and ‘hybrid warfare’”.

He criticised the fact that Putin was portrayed in the west as a “reckless land-grabber”, and he criticised attempts to challenge this as “interventionism and even neoconservatism”.

Frankly, all that goes against the whole basis of the historic Labour tradition of standing up to the aggression that came from the Soviet Union in the cold war period, our establishment of NATO under Clem Attlee’s Government, and the consistent support for our values and for the defence of our society by successive Labour Governments. I believe very strongly that the Labour party would be in a much better place, and that we would have much greater clarity on foreign affairs matters, if we had people working for our party leadership who actually believed in those Labour values.

[Mr Seely]

I am interested in the fact that the hon. Gentleman quoted from that 2015 article. Is he aware that Seumas Milne wrote at least four articles in 2014 and 2015 that are highly instrumental and manipulative in their device? They all have a very similar message: “You may not like Russia, we all hate the United States, Ukraine is Nazi, but one thing we can all agree on is this central argument about the need for autonomy and federalisation.” That was exactly Russia’s political aim at the time. At best, he is a useful idiot, and at worst, he is something much worse.

[Mike Gapes]

I do not wish to go any further down that route, because I am getting signals from Mr Deputy Speaker about time. The hon. Gentleman can no doubt make his own speech when the time comes.

I want to conclude by focusing on one other area, which is what the United States Administration are doing to the global order. The Chairman of the Select Committee made reference to Senator John McCain. The suggestion has been made that the new NATO headquarters should be named after the senator. I met him when I was previously on the Foreign Affairs Committee and we were always given the greatest courtesy. He took us on a tour to the Statuary Hall to have an informal chat with him as well as a formal meeting. He was an outstanding internationalist—one did not have to agree with him on everything, but he was always polite, friendly, warm, interesting and engaged. What a tragedy it is today that the President of the United States and some of those around him are the opposite of that. They are challenging the international order, which the United States and the Labour Government established in 1945, with Eleanor Roosevelt playing an important role in the United Nations system and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In those days, we had co-operation to build a new peaceful world. Unfortunately, the demagogues, the populists, and the extremists—on the far left and the far right—are undermining that order. It is under serious threat and serious challenge and we in this country and we in my party must fight to defend it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

It is a genuine privilege to follow the hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones), who spoke very eloquently; it was a pleasure to listen to him. I thank the Minister for being here to listen to us. Not every Minister is impressive, but this one undoubtedly is.

It is a privilege to be here with representatives of the two Canadian units and the Australian unit in the Gallery. My great-great-uncle was the last member of my family to represent my seat, the Isle of Wight, which I have the huge privilege to represent. He served in world war one with the Canadian Cavalry. In fact, he led the Canadian Cavalry Brigade in world war one, and at Vimy Ridge, which was remembered in France earlier this year, it was the Canadian Cavalry charge that halted the German advance and saved the splitting of the allied forces and possibly the war in March 1918. He was very proud of his service with the Canadian Cavalry. He was a Brit from the Isle of Wight, but he was associated with the brigade. It is a pleasure for me to be here with them.

I would like to talk briefly about two things. First, I shall ask, what is global Britain? Secondly, I shall make some points about the international order that relate to China, Iran and Russia. I do not wish to be too critical of the Minister, for whom I have high regard. Global Britain is a great phrase, but we really need to fill it out. I have some questions about it. What are we prioritising? Every time our Foreign Affairs Committee says, “What are you prioritising?” the answer is, “Everything.” Correct me if I am wrong, but the FCO does not have unlimited resources. Global Britain is about more than just opening half a dozen extra posts in Papua New Guinea. It has to amount to something. Is the priority trade? Is it aid? Is it security?

For the past 15 years, we have had a foreign policy that has been somewhat gesture politics, and much more in the world besides. In the past five years, foreign affairs, threats to Britain and our role in the world have become much more serious, urgent and pressing questions. There is a strong argument that our priority has to be trade and then security and aid. That is not to underestimate the importance of aid, but it is to say that we have vital national interests that we have to try to meet.

[James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)]

I co-chair the all-party parliamentary group on trade out of poverty. Does my hon. Friend agree that trade, aid and global security are three legs of the same stool and that success in those three can be mutually reinforcing?

[Mr Seely]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. My answer is that they can be, but not necessarily; it is dependent on how the money is spent. I will come to that a bit later. They are not separate—that is certainly true—but it is how we deal with them as a whole that is the issue.

The next question is, what role is there for the Anglosphere? We talk about deepening relationships with Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States. What does that mean in practice? Is there a role for a global NATO and a NATO that looks at not only physical force but threats to democracy from cyber-attacks and other organisations and criminal and state actors?

What should the structure of the FCO be after Brexit? I am quite a fan of the argument that the FCO should be a super-Ministry, with oversight and a stronger role in leading—[Interruption.] I am glad that the Minister has just signed up to that. With the Department for International Trade, the Department for International Development, the Ministry of Defence, the Cabinet Office and the Prime Minister’s office, there are so many bits of government that are now involved in foreign affairs. We want coherence.

Above all, the critical thing we need to learn is how we integrate government better, not only here but at home, to deliver efficiently. I do not like Russia’s hybrid war, but it is an incredibly efficient use of power. I am not saying that that is our model, but efficiency and integration are important.

We need to rebalance our overseas spending. I do not believe that how the 0.7% is spent should be dictated by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe. We should dictate how we spend that money. There is an argument to suggest that the BBC, which is part of the broader aid budget, should be entirely funded through DFID, as should all peacekeeping operations, which are fundamental elements of aid.

[Tom Tugendhat]

I hope that my hon. Friend will forgive me for intruding just for a moment. Does he agree that the establishment of truth and facts is one of the fundamentals in building fair societies and therefore that the BBC’s role is not simply informative, but fundamental to the democratic survival of our partners and allies?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Seely]

Yes. One of the points I am coming to later—I thank my hon. Friend for mentioning it—is that we are at the moment in a global struggle with authoritarian states that wish to use cyber but also open societies to undermine those open societies and the freedoms that we have. Therefore, to see the BBC—the World Service, radio and TV—endlessly begging for money is, again, a luxury that we cannot afford. I believe that we should rebalance overseas spending, respecting aid, but redefining how that is done.

Do we have a grand strategy, or is grand strategy a thing of the past? It very much feels that we are simply muddling through with a foreign policy. We have stumbled into Brexit. I voted for Brexit, but we have stumbled into it. The European Union has treated this like the mother of all vicious divorces, while we have treated it as a flat-share partnership in which we are going our separate ways. I think that if we stumble into a global Brexit, it will not be particularly helpful to our future.

Those are just some of the questions. I will also be thinking about these themes, and writing about them, as I have today on ConservativeHome. I know that the Foreign Office and other parts of our Government are very focused on Brexit—in fact, politically, our political classes are obsessed by it to the diminishment of the domestic agenda, which I think is extremely serious in its own right—but more thinking on global Britain would not go amiss.

To come on to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the international order is under threat.

[The Minister for the Middle East (Alistair Burt)]

rose—

[Mr Seely]

Does the Minister want me to give way, or is he getting a glass of water?

[Alistair Burt]

I am getting a glass of water.

[Mr Seely]

I am so sorry, but one never knows.

[Alistair Burt]

Don’t worry, you’ll know when I want you to give way. [Laughter.]

[Mr Seely]

The Minister was waving earlier, and I thought he was just being friendly and agreeing with me, as ever.

The international order is not being helped by President Trump, whose actions are deeply rash and foolish. However, the main structural threat to the international order comes from authoritarian states that are trying to break down the current system. As I have said, one of the key battles we face is how we will protect the future of open and free societies against states that want to undermine them. China is doing it gently, while Russia and Iran are doing so much more aggressively.

Although China is being more subtle, its aims are somewhat the same. It does not have Russia’s little green men, but it has little blue men pushing the maritime boundaries. It has claims in the South China sea, it has tried to change the law of the seas and it is building artificial islands. It is offering loans to Vanuatu and other Pacific states, and it is building up an unhealthy degree of influence in New Zealand and Australian politics, some of it corrupt. Against that, we need global as well as Atlantic and European alliances. That leads me to raise this question: NATO—the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation—has been a force for good in our area, but does it need to be extended to have a global front?

The international order is not perfect, but it is worth defending, but one of the things that is changing and making it more difficult for the international order to work is the nature of warfare. Conventional warfare is becoming rare and forms of non-conventional warfare are becoming much more common. Indeed, one of my roles when I was serving in the military was to understand these new forms of unconventional war. This has put significant pressure on the norms of war. For example, in Syria, the Syrian war—now in its seventh year—is arguably the first in history in which hospitals and medical facilities are the primary and, indeed, the priority targets for the Syrian regime backed by the Russians. Yesterday, we talked a great deal in this House about bringing to justice people in Myanmar, but there is an embarrassing degree of silence in the western world about naming Russian regiments and Russian planes that are dropping bombs on hospitals.

[Antoinette Sandbach]

Does my hon. Friend hope, as I do, that the International Criminal Court will eventually indict those responsible for what are, in effect, war crimes happening in Syria?

[Mr Seely]

Absolutely. I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, but there is no “in effect” about it. The words “war crime” are bandied about quite often, but dropping a bomb on a hospital—is it in chapter 35 of book 4 of the Geneva conventions?—is absolutely specifically forbidden. There can be no other interpretation, yet for the past year and a half it has become one of the key de facto means of war in Syria.

Let me now turn briefly to Russia because I want to suggest some ideas to the Minister. Since March, the Government have been sensible and robust in the measures they have taken, but I believe it might be useful for them to consider some additional ideas, which I have outlined in an article today, when dealing primarily with the Russian threat but also more generally with the subversive threat to the United Kingdom. First, we need to systematically expose what the Kremlin is doing, not on an ad hoc basis through the Foreign Affairs Committee or other Committees, but by setting up a small, permanent, multi-agency group whose role is to understand and expose those subversive activities.

In the 1970s and ’80s the United States had such a group. It was called the Active Measures Working Group and was reckoned to be extremely successful in investigating and exposing Russian—then Soviet—subversive activities. Such subversive activities were called “active measures” in those days, but they meant assassinations, propaganda, smears, blackmail and all those other forms of spy warfare, with occasional support for terrorist groups and so on. I believe we need such a group now. It does not have to be big, and it could be seconded from other Departments, but I believe we need something more than what is done on an ad hoc basis.

Secondly, we need to introduce a list of PR agents, reputation management firms and others who work as agents for Russian influence in the UK, either directly or via proxies or third parties. Thirdly, we must consider laws that introduce a health warning on broadcasters. A counter-propaganda Bill is currently going through Congress to do just that, and we should consider the same thing. Fourthly, as I have mentioned, we need properly to fund World Service TV and radio, and specifically the Russian service.

Fifthly, we need to look at our visa regime, which I know my colleagues on the Foreign Affairs Committee are extremely concerned about. For Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and other states from the former Soviet bloc, we make it very easy for oligarchs—basically kleptocrats—to come here, but very difficult for ordinary people. I believe we should make it much easier for ordinary Ruskies, and ordinary Ukrainians, Azerbaijanis and Kazakhstanis to come here if we judge them to be decent to do so, and much more difficult for the people who have stolen their money in the first place. We need to flip the system around.

Sixthly, the FCO needs to be more active in seeing Russian influence in the round. My hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) made, expertly as ever, a point about Nord Stream 2, which is not just a commercial venture; it is a critical piece of geopolitics that will affect Europe for years to come. We should have been much more active.

[Tom Tugendhat]

My hon. Friend is making a key point about that pipeline, but it is not just about that. When we see one of our important European partners invite a dictator to the wedding of the Foreign Minister, and we see them dancing together as though that dictator were some sort of champion of freedom and a partner of choice, and then at the end of the dance we see the Foreign Minister—the Foreign Minister of a NATO power and a European partner—curtsey to a murderous dictator, we must ask ourselves what is happening in our neighbourhood under our watch.

[Mr Seely]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. Our glorious Prime Minister might not be as good a dancer as Putin, but I would rather have her as our leader.

Seventhly, we should give Ofcom greater powers. The Latvian Government regularly highlight the negative content of Russian broadcasters based in London that spew propaganda into the Baltics. I do not believe that we should close such people down, or Russia Today or Sputnik, which churn out a regular diet of anti-western nonsense. However, we need to strengthen fines and rights of reply and ensure that Ofcom investigates those potential offences more quickly. Eighthly, we need to use financial and legal powers to hurt those people around Putin. I have talked to the Minister for Security, and I am aware that things are in the pipeline and happening, so watch this space.

Ninthly, we need to look at conventional deterrence. Russia’s political and financial dealings with the west are part of a multi-faceted strategy. We need to relearn the art of deterrence for both conventional weaponry and non-conventional conflict. It is better to be robust now than to encourage the sort of adventurism that we are now seeing—perhaps we should have been robust 10 years ago.

Tenthly, we need to understand the threat to our electoral system posed by cyber-infiltration and fake news. We have seen how divisive disputed elections can be in the United States. There is little doubt that the Russians had an extremely sophisticated operation, going back to 2014, to begin the process of manipulation, by using cyber-means to break into state boards of election, by backing people around Trump, by attacking Hillary Clinton and by understanding the Democrats’ strategy by stealing the information from their servers. That was not just a case of embarrassing the Clinton campaign; it was more sophisticated and far more malign.

Indeed, we have cyber-attacks and cyber-problems here. I should declare that I wrote a definition of Russian warfare for the Henry Jackson Society, which has about 440 brute force attacks on its website per month, many of them coming from Russian IP addresses. There are regular Russian attacks on Dr Andrew Foxall, its excellent Russia expert. We are seeing these attacks, probably from Russia, perhaps from other more sophisticated state actors, on think-tanks in the United Kingdom. As well as myself, the Henry Jackson Society has hosted, rather more importantly for Mr Putin, Bill Browder and the wonderful Marina Litvinenko. We should be wary of what the Russians and others are doing here and elsewhere. It is a global problem. In the new kind of political conflict we are facing from authoritarian states, hackers, assassins and trolls, as well as market manipulators and criminals, are perhaps more useful than conventional forms of warfare.

I will leave it there, Madam Deputy Speaker. I apologise if I have spoken for too long, but I would appreciate the Minister’s thoughts on both global Britain and some of those suggestions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Julia Lopez]

Yes. I do not want this to descend into a Brexit debate. I was a floating voter during the referendum. I very much hope that having voted to leave the European Union, we are not seen as having an isolationist instinct, because my hon. Friend is right—we share a great number of values, and those relationships will be extremely important as we go forward in an increasingly uncertain world.

[Mr Seely]

As well as being European values, does my hon. Friend not agree that they are global values?

[Julia Lopez]

I thank my hon. Friend for his point. The point I was making is that although we might assume that these are universal global values, we have seen in recent years that we cannot assume their universality. That is why we, as a nation, need to stand for something in the world. There is a debate to be had about those values, and it is important that the UK has a strong independent voice in that debate.

The challenge for us as politicians is to give those whom we represent both a sense of security and priority and a clear understanding that our engagement with the rest of the world has practical relevance to their lives. To echo what others have said today, though, if we do not act in the world, we will be acted upon. With that challenge in mind, I want briefly to share some thoughts on how we might begin this new journey.

First, I echo the view that my hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling has expressed on a number of occasions: we want to see a much more prominent role given to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as we leave the EU. If we are to make the most of this period of momentous change, we require intense, sustained relationship building at all levels, and a strong narrative about our direction of travel.

The Department for International Development became an independent Department in 1997, as a key component of new Labour’s self-proclaimed ethical foreign policy. Overseas aid moneys previously distributed from the Ministry of Defence and Foreign Office budgets were centralised, leaving less financial autonomy for both those major Departments of State.

With the aid budget now ring-fenced by law, in recent years we have seen DFID rushing to spend its budget before year-end on projects that have undermined the otherwise strong case for its broader work on disease prevention, disaster relief and security. Meanwhile, the FCO has struggled to sustain its existing network of operations, so while the FCO may have the grand trappings and the historical clout, it can at times feel rather hollow when it is DFID that has the cash. Brexit should provide us with the perfect opportunity to refocus our outward-facing Departments and infuse our international work with strategic intent.

[Julia Lopez]

Certainly. The problem with the debate on aid is that it is so often perceived as a DFID-bashing exercise, and that is not what I intend my comments to be. They are a statement that, actually, the Foreign Office needs to take a strong leadership role so that DFID money is not frittered away on projects that have no strategic value to what we are trying to achieve in the world.

[Mr Seely]

I am sorry to intervene again, but there is an important point here. We all complain about DFID, but the fact is that, as far as aid agencies go, DFID spends its money about as well as it can. There is a stronger argument to suggest that the £2 billion of public money spent by other Departments—including, sadly, the FCO and the Home Office—is potentially not as well spent. That is a separate argument about the overall balance in overseas spending.

--- Later in debate ---

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

I thank the Foreign Affairs Committee for initiating this vital and timely debate, and I thank all Members who have contributed to it this afternoon. I will say more about those contributions in a moment, but at the outset, I believe that this is an apt debate in which to pay tribute to the great Kofi Annan, who sadly passed away three weeks ago. I was looking back at a speech that he made to this Parliament in 2007 to mark 200 years since the abolition of the British slave trade. What he said that day resonates just as strongly now. He talked about the men and women who fought to abolish the slave trade, saying that they

“represented a moral truth…a moral passion that must at first have seemed utterly impracticable. Yet by persistence, by resolve, by eloquence, and by imagination, they changed history. They showed that moral suasion could prevail over narrow self-interest.”

For me, this entire debate today boils down to that same basic challenge. When we talk about global Britain, do we just mean aggressively pursuing our economic self-interest around the world in the shape of trade deals? Or do we believe in a Britain that acts as a global force for moral truth, moral passion and moral suasion and that seeks to change the world in which we live? We only have one planet.

When we talk of a rules-based international order, do we mean that those rules should be applied equally, consistently and with the same moral force to all countries, whether friend or foe, or do we decide in practice that there is one set of rules that we rightly apply with great vigour when it comes to countries such as Russia, Syria, Libya, Venezuela or Iran but another that we apply to America, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel or China? That is the crux of today’s debate and why I have been so interested to hear speeches from both sides of the House. I applaud the many excellent contributions about Russia and the crimes committed by agents of the Russian state on our soil.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) rightly challenged the Government about suspicious deaths of Russians that have happened in the UK over the past few years, and he called again for those investigations to be reconsidered. He is right that the evidence is clear that there is no doubt of the culpability of the Russian state in the Salisbury poisonings. We also heard a condemnation of Russia from the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee and he was quite right to do so. I was particularly interested to hear the speech of the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Seely), who is creative and used lateral thinking in his contribution, which was of great value. I did not necessarily agree with all of it, but it is important to have people with an independence of thought who can help to inform not just the Government’s thinking but, frankly, that of the Opposition.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) is right to say that, given that we continue to recklessly warm up our planet, it only has any chance if we work together with internationally recognised rules. At a time when the very rules that we have been abiding by until now seem to be being undermined, we must also face the challenge of having to develop new rules in order to maintain the planet on which we all live. I was very impressed by the hon. Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Julia Lopez)—I hope that this is not a blight on her career—and her extremely thoughtful speech. The hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) said many things that we agree with, particularly about the importance of a change of policy on Yemen and the importance of us having a proactive role with regard to the Rohingya.

All the speeches were timely, not just because of yesterday’s revelations, but due to several other factors that we must discuss today. We are living through a period in which the world order and the international rules that are supposed to underpin it are under greater threat than at any time since the 1930s. In every instance, the problems that we face come down to countries simply ignoring the rules that should govern our world. From Venezuela and the Philippines to Turkey and Egypt, we see the rule of law ignored. What were once democratically elected Governments have turned into autocratic regimes. From Yemen and Myanmar to Cameroon and South Sudan, we see the indiscriminate killing of civilians in flagrant breach of international humanitarian law. From the battlefields of Syria to the streets of Wiltshire, we see the convention on chemical weapons brazenly ignored and innocent victims injured and killed.

In North Korea, despite Donald Trump’s efforts, and in Iran, because of Donald Trump’s efforts, we see the threat of hostile states becoming nuclear states in breach of the non-proliferation treaties. In Russia, Israel and the United States, we see three leaders behaving as if none of the normal laws applies to them and actively trying to undermine the institutions that uphold them. Faced with such challenges, it is incumbent on us all to stand up for the world order, to stand up for human rights and international treaties, and to insist on working for peace through the United Nations. We cannot do that if the concept of global Britain, if our entire foreign policy approach, is not driven by values, ethics, rules and principles but is a simple case of what works best for our balance sheet.

For example, on 7 June 2018 The Guardian ran a special feature on the brutal campaign of violence by the regime of Cameroon’s President Biya against English-speaking communities in the west of the country, which was formerly known as British Cameroon. We owe those communities a historical responsibility. The Guardian quoted the ordinary men and women who saw their villages attacked by Biya’s military, who saw their neighbours and family members killed and who were forced to flee for their lives. It quoted the charity workers who are looking after thousands of displaced women and children, for whom they warned that going home would be suicide.

By any normal moral standard, the UK Government would be expected to be appalled by those reports, but not this Government. The very next day after that report was published the British Secretary of State for International Trade announced a £1.5 billion deal with a British natural gas company and President Biya’s regime, a deal which, in the words of the Department for International Trade’s press release, will generate a “huge revenue stream” for Cameroon’s public treasury. Cameroon’s regime is ranked as the 25th most corrupt in the world. Its ruler, in his 43rd year of autocratic power and with personal wealth of more than $200 million, is engaged in a systematic campaign of brutality and killings against the English-speaking community in his country, and all the UK Government can do is boast of doing trade deals that will only enrich him further. That is what this Government mean by global Britain.

Under the previous Foreign Secretary we saw the same approach over and again, where the sole consideration on every foreign policy issue was how to help British businesses make a quick buck. We saw that in Libya with his horrific talk of British developers turning the country into a paradise of beach resorts just as soon as they could clear away the dead bodies of the Libyans who died fighting Daesh. We saw it again in Yemen, where there was literally nothing Saudi Arabia could do—not using starvation as a weapon of war; not cutting off supplies of food, clean water and medicine; not bombing farms, schools and hospitals; and not killing thousands of innocent men, women and children—that would persuade the former Foreign Secretary even to suspend the supply of arms for use in that conflict, pending a proper war crimes investigation.

We saw it in Myanmar with the Rohingya, where the former Foreign Secretary toured the killing fields of Rakhine state and called out what he saw as industrial ethnic cleansing, but he refused to take the next logical step of asking the UN Security Council to refer Myanmar to the International Criminal Court. The Government were afraid of upsetting China and jeopardising future trade deals.

[Mr Seely]

The shadow Minister makes an interesting and valid point about moral equality. I accept that, but it is slightly concerning that your side of the House tends to focus on Yemen a great deal.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

The right hon. Lady’s side.

[Mr Seely]

I apologise. The right hon. Lady’s side of the House focuses on Yemen a great deal. Does she understand the difference between the Saudis doing something badly and the Syrians, with their Russian support, bombing hospitals as a deliberate policy? There is a moral intent, which is different. One may criticise the Saudis for being sloppy and not valuing human life enough, but there is a difference.

[Emily Thornberry]

Dead is dead. Whether a person has been killed because those with the bombs have been behaving recklessly or doing it intentionally, they are still dead, and it is still in breach of international humanitarian law to do either. I understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but we should strive to apply international law to countries equally. The idea of balancing one above the other is a slippery road.

In the end, the rule of law is one whereby we treat everyone equally before the law. If people have breached international law, they have breached international law and they should be held to account for that. That is my view and indeed it is our policy.

I was talking about Myanmar and the Rohingya, but then I wanted to move on to talk about Egypt, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Honduras and Sudan. The list goes on and on, and always with the same common factor: under the former Foreign Secretary, if there was a trade deal to be done, any concern for human rights and international rules would go out of the window. Above all, we saw it in his consistent policy, and that of the Prime Minister, towards Donald Trump: every abuse of human rights has been tolerated; every effort to destroy international treaties has been indulged; every attack on the UN has been pampered; and every mild criticism of him by this Government has had to be forced out of them, usually after 48 hours. Whatever Trump has done, this Government’s hand has remained outstretched, all in the hope of some mythical free trade deal to solve the almighty mess they are making of Brexit.

Even though the new Foreign Secretary has not taken part in today’s debate, I genuinely hope he will usher in a change of approach from that of his predecessor. The test will be whether he can show, through his actions rather than his words, that “global Britain” is about more than trade and that it is also about morality, values and principles. If we want to have a world order based on international rules, we must apply the same rules not just to Russia, but equally to every country, whether or not we have military alliances with them, whether or not we trade with them and whether or not Donald Trump wants us to. That is the only way we can restore what Kofi Annan called for, which was “moral truth”, “moral passion” and “moral persuasion”, to our country’s foreign policy. If this Government cannot do that, it is about time they made way for a Government who will.

Oral Answers to Questions

Bob Seely Excerpts

Tuesday 4th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I recognise the enormous amount that the hon. Gentleman has done on this issue as Chair of the Select Committee on International Development. I think we have two priorities in this situation, which is both a humanitarian catastrophe and a justice issue. The first is to enable the safe return of the Rohingya to their home. That is not unproblematic, but it is very, very important because of the humanitarian situation across the border. The second is to ensure that the perpetrators face justice. That will be a long, hard road, but he should rest assured that we are committed to going on that journey.

[Mr Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

I welcome the Secretary of State to his new role, and I welcome his words of assurance that war crimes will not go unpunished in Myanmar, or indeed anywhere in the world. On the latter point, will he do the same for the Syrian and Russian regimes, which according to Syrian doctors are currently bombing hospitals as priority and primary targets, and will he update me on how we are going to take the Russian and Syrian regimes to the ICC?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. That is audacious to the point of extreme chutzpah. Much as I admire the hon. Gentleman’s ingenuity, I am not sure that I altogether salute his cheekiness. [Interruption.] “Go on”, says the hon. Gentleman from a sedentary position. If the Secretary of State wants to issue one of his brief but eloquent replies, we are happy to hear it.

Draft European Union (Definition of Treaties) (Strategic Partnership Agreement) (Canada) Order 2018 Draft European Union (Definition of Treaties) (Framework Agreement) (Australia) Order 2018 Draft European Union (Definition of Treaties) (Partnership Agreement on Relations and Cooperation) (New Zealand) Order 2018

Bob Seely Excerpts

Thursday 12th July 2018 General Committees

[Mr Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

The countries that we are discussing are very close allies, as the Minister is aware. May I ask him how the Government will seek to build on these agreements in the months and years ahead? How do they envision having a much closer relationship with these Commonwealth states, and in what fields—defence procurement, trade or visa regimes? Which fields are a priority for seeking new and deeper arrangements with these Commonwealth states?

Russian Federation Activity

Bob Seely Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mr Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Russian Federation activity in the UK and globally.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. This is an important issue for me and I hope that others will see it as important, too. I am thankful to those who are taking part in this debate.

One of the most significant challenges that we face in this era is the Kremlin’s political conflict against the west. It is one of our most complex problems. Western states arguably face a new kind of conflict, in which all the tools of the state, non-military as much as military, are combined in a dynamic, efficient and integrated way to achieve political effect. I have called this brief debate to seek updates from the Government on a series of issues. If the Minister will allow me, I will outline 10 ideas concisely, which I hope the Government will take on board. That does not mean that I am not supportive of Government policy at the moment. We have some down time after the immediacy of the Skripal poisoning to think more comprehensively about our relationship with the Russian Federation and its Government.

It is important to note that this is not about being anti-Russian, despite some of the nonsense that comes out of the Russian embassy and Russia Today. The friendliness of Russians to the English during the World cup, shows that the Kremlin’s hostility to the UK is not shared more widely, regardless of whether we think President Putin is a popular leader or not. The World cup, however, is proving to be a PR godsend to his regime, because elsewhere it is business as usual for the Kremlin. The same day that England beat Panama 6-1, which everyone was very happy about, Russian jets were in operation in southern Syria, allegedly hitting civilian targets, the war in eastern Ukraine continued and dirty money continued to flow through and to London.

Critically, Russia’s slide towards an authoritarian stance is part of a trend taking place around the globe—the rise of authoritarian states, which use open societies to protect and promote their interests, as well as to damage those open societies. China, Russia and Iran, as well as non-state actors such as Hezbollah, all use a complex mix of tactics.

One of the problems for western states is that we have not had a definition of this hybrid or full-spectrum war. A month ago I presented what I think may have been the first comprehensive, peer-reviewed definition in the western world. I argued that contemporary Russian conflict was sophisticated and integrated. At its heart is the old KGB active measures conflict, as it was called, a form of political warfare, around which has been wrapped the full spectrum of state power. I argued that there are at least 50 tools within this full spectrum of warfare, which can be divided up in six broad elements with command and control at its heart. This Matryoshka doll of conflict is one of the forms of conflict that we in the west will have to get used to, because it will be used. It is important to understand that Russia is probably the most sophisticated user of those tactics, but not the only one.

Russia’s aims towards the west are perhaps more difficult to fathom. Contemporary Russian conflict appears to seek to divide and demoralise us—especially those states that border Russia—to damage the cohesion of NATO and the European Union, and potentially to break down the bonds that bind western alliances within the European Union.

Russia’s allies are doing rather well at the moment. The Freedom party in Austria and the Northern League in Italy are both in power. For me, the most important point is that it is about reorienting Russian society away from a liberal model of development—albeit a corrupt, chaotic and unsuccessful one in the 1990s—to a much more authoritarian model. We are the enemy, not only because we represent an alternative to that but because the Kremlin security establishment needs an enemy to help it to exert control over the Russian people. We see that in the daily diet of propaganda on Russian state television.

I strongly support the Government’s actions in recent months, but now that the immediacy of the Skripal case has passed, I would like to propose a series of measures, which I would be grateful if the Government would at least consider and maybe discuss with me at a time of their own convenience. First, I believe that we need to methodically expose what Russians and others are doing. In the 1970s and 1980s the United States established what it called an inter-agency active measures group, which investigated and publicised what was then known as active measures—the KGB form of subversion. As I said, that included tools such as disinformation, propaganda, assassination, support for terrorist groups, smears and espionage, running agents of influence, etc. I believe that we need to set up something similar, some kind of permanent structure to look at subversive operations against the west, the UK and our allies.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman will come on to this point. Does he agree that the Electoral Commission, in responding to measures aimed at subverting democratic processes in this country, is entirely unfit for purpose, that it is an analogue regulator in a digital age, and that, in fact, we should be integrating its functions into the National Crime Agency and giving it real forensic investigatory ability, to ensure that attempts to subvert our democracy are dealt with effectively and properly?

[Mr Seely]

I think the hon. Gentleman is more of an expert than I am on that. I absolutely think that the strength of our electoral systems and their vulnerability is one of the critical issues. I think it is number 8 on my list, so I will come to it shortly. I am grateful for his suggestion, which goes further than what I would propose.

To wind up the first point, occasional Government statements are good, as are some excellent Select Committee reports, but I believe we need something more permanent —not something that points fingers at the Russians but something that seeks to methodically understand the way subversive operations operate in the western world. We face a new kind of political conflict from hackers, trolls, assassins, politically connected business executives and market manipulators, spin doctors, paid-for protestors and criminals, who are often more usable and useful than conventional tools of conflict. On that point about market manipulators, given the Bloomberg investigation earlier this week, which showed that hedge funds had been buying private polling data that effectively allowed them to front-run the Brexit vote, is it not time to initiate a parliamentary inquiry into the behaviour of those involved, especially considering statements made by some party political leaders at the time of the result, which appeared to concede defeat, despite possibly being told by their favoured pollsters that the Leave campaign would likely win? I choose my words carefully, but I think there is a prima facie case here, which is concerning.

Secondly, I believe we should introduce a list, as they have in the United States, of PR and other agents of Russian influence in the UK. Russians will have influence in this country that is clear and above board, but people who work for President Putin, one of the oligarchs, a proxy front or a third group linked to them need to be open about it and we need to have some kind of register. Perhaps that will be a voluntary thing for PR companies to do; it may be something for the Select Committees to do; but it may equally be something for Government to look at. We also need to ensure that the House of Lords has the same anti-sleaze standards as the House of Commons. It does not at the moment, and I think we can expect more scandals.

We do have a problem with Russian influence here, on both the hard right and the hard left. I have written about Seamus Milne’s mirroring of Russian lines in 2014 and 2015, when he was working for The Guardian. I wrote about it in The Sunday Times in the spring. He is clearly one of a number of people with uncomfortably close links to the Kremlin around the Labour leadership. I believe that that does not serve democracy well.

Thirdly, we should introduce laws to ensure a health warning on broadcasters and other media that are paid-for propagandists for authoritarian states. A counter-propaganda Bill is going through Congress to do just that. Just as we have a public health warning on a packet of cigarettes, we can have some kind of public health warning on a TV channel that is a propagandistic outfit for an authoritarian state, which does not have an independent editorial line. If we shut down Russia Today or RT—or whatever it is calling itself this week—in our country, we can expect the Russians to shut down the BBC in their country and they would probably quite like an opportunity to do so. I am not suggesting that we do that. I am suggesting that TV stations that do not have an independent editorial line should be forced to advertise that fact in some way. The Countering Foreign Propaganda Bill, which is going through Congress at the moment, is potentially a model.

Fourthly, we should properly fund the BBC World Service radio and TV, and boost the Russian service more than is currently being done. We are in a battle with authoritarian states globally to promote free speech and open societies. I do not think this is a battle we should aim to lose; it is an important one to win. For me —this is a wider point—the Department for International Development should be paying all £400 million for that, as part of a fundamental rethink of what global Britain means and how we spend that 0.7%, because I do not believe that we get value for money for it at the moment.

Fifthly, we should change our visa regime to make it easier for ordinary Russians, Ukrainians, Georgians and people from that part of the world to come here, and more difficult for oligarchs, rather than the other way around. At the moment, our visa regime with too many countries rewards kleptocrats at the expense of ordinary people. I congratulate the Government, potentially, on a recent oligarch visa decision.

Sixthly, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office needs to be more active in seeing Russian influence in the round. I am sure the Minister would say that it does, but more vocality, if that is the right word—being more vocal—on Nord Stream 2 would not go amiss. I am aware of recent statements by the German leadership about oil concerns for Ukraine, but we know how the Kremlin tends to get around such promises. We also need to ensure that the Kremlin’s appalling war crimes in Syria, which are genuine, significant, serious and consistent, are recorded for history. We should work with others, if need be, to shout about it and use open-source information to highlight it.

We should also take much more interest in the hacking of the Democratic National Committee in 2016, in relation to the manipulation of the US presidential elections, which may be one of the most serious and significant cases of Kremlin and Russian espionage that we will ever witness in our lifetime. An important part of that process took place in London and probably involved Mr Julian Assange as the recipient and online publisher of the material stolen from the DNC. It is bizarre that we have not heard more from the Mueller inquiry in relation to London, because so many links seem to go through it.

I ask the Minister, and I choose my words carefully, what the current Ecuadorian Government are doing to encourage Mr Assange’s exit and an end to this process. What representations have the Government had from Jennifer Robinson or other members of his Australian, UK-Australian and UK legal team? Two Australian consular officials recently visited Mr Assange, and I am curious as to why.

What passport does Mr Assange hold? I was told that it was an Ecuadorian diplomatic one, but it may not be. I ask that because the Soviets sprang George Blake from Wormwood Scrubs in 1966 and I am aware that under the previous Ecuadorian Government, the Ecuadorian secret service looked at a series of possibilities to get Mr Assange out, including a rooftop escape by helicopter, getting lost in the crowds in Harrods—I did not know it was that popular—being smuggled out in the ambassador’s car and being made the Ecuadorian ambassador to the United Nations. I stress that there has been a change of Government in Ecuador, and I suspect those plans are no longer in the state they were before, but I would be grateful for the assurance that the Government are aware of the risks, especially in propaganda terms.

There are several potential suspects. A courier—a cut-out—was likely used to take the DNC-hacked material from the GRU, Russian military intelligence, and the Guccifer 2.0 account from Moscow to Mr Assange in London, possibly via a diplomatic pouch or a third country. Two weeks ago, James Clapper, a former director of US national intelligence, said that a suspect had been identified last year, so this is a live issue that very much relates to Russian activity in the United Kingdom and the United States.

[Mr Peter Bone (in the Chair)]

Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, who is making a most interesting and powerful speech, but I want to ensure that we are not straying into anything that is sub judice.

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[Mr Seely]

I do not believe we are—certainly not in this country.

[Mr Peter Bone (in the Chair)]

The hon. Gentleman has assured me, so that is fine.

[Mr Seely]

Thank you, Mr Bone. I am well aware of the point.

The suspects in this case range from the improbable to the possible. There are many Australians on the visitor logs to the embassy, which I have seen, but there is no evidence, and little reason, for those people to have been involved in handling stolen material. There have been allegations that UK politicians may have been conduits, but it should be clearly stated that again, there is no hard evidence. The Guardian has indicated several people, including a courier who has worked for Mr Assange in the past. A German gentleman who fits his description visited the embassy in late September, on the same day as the date stamp on the second DNC dump, which included the Podesta emails.

The FSB might have continued to use journalists. The first dump of DNC emails ended on 25 May, and in early June, an RT journalist, Nikolay Bogachikhin, visited the Embassy twice—a four-minute social visit, which is pretty taciturn even by Russian standards, and a slightly longer 22-minute visit on 8 June. If those were social visits, they were pretty brief. One cannot say much in four minutes, but there are probably other things one can do in that time.

Up to 80 people could be suspects, so I would be grateful if the Government could shed any light on who they believe is the culprit and whether they will encourage the US to name a suspect. I ask because the guilty parties were probably acting on behalf of the Kremlin to bring stolen material from the United States into Britain to influence the US presidential elections, which is incredibly serious.

To return to the main theme of my speech, my seventh point is that we should give Ofcom greater powers. The Latvian Government regularly complain about the content of Russian broadcasters from London who spew out propaganda in their country. Ofcom’s investigations take up to a year, while RT and Sputnik churn out a regular diet of anti-western nonsense. I do not believe that we should ban RT or Sputnik, as I have told the Minister, but we need to strengthen Ofcom’s powers, including fines and rights of reply, and ensure that it investigates broadcasters of knowingly fake or propagandistic news more quickly.

Eighthly, we should use our financial and legal powers to hurt people around the Kremlin regime. Transparency International has identified £4.4 billion-worth of properties in the UK that were bought with suspicious wealth, a fifth of which was Russian. I am curious to know whether any unexplained wealth orders have been used against people from eastern Europe.

Ninthly, we need to look at conventional deterrence as well, and I am sure we will do that at the coming NATO summit, which is causing a certain amount of consternation in political and military circles in Europe because of Mr Trump’s, shall we say, erratic tweets. Russia’s political and financial dealings with the west are part of a multi-faceted strategy that runs from information warfare to military dominance of its neighbours, including dominance in tactical nuclear weapons and conventional missiles. It is part of a holistic strategy that includes military and non-military elements.

Finally, to repeat the point that the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) made, we need to understand the threat of bots and fake news to our democracy and our electoral system. We have seen how divisive disputed elections are, and one only has to look to Capitol Hill to see that Democrats want to talk about the 2016 US presidential election but Republicans definitely do not. In much the same way, Brexiteers refuse to discuss the referendum here. I voted for Brexit, and I have seen no serious and significant evidence that the referendum here was manipulated, but the time to talk about it is now—as soon as possible. Does the Minister realise how disastrous it would be for our country to have disputed elections and referendums in the same way as the United States? The German secret service recently accused the Russians of being heavily engaged online in the Catalonian referendum and in other elections in the European Union. We have already discussed the United States. Does he realise the urgency of this issue? We should do this now, not in two years’ time.

To sum up, we need to spend more money on hard power, but we also need to get the balance between hard and soft power right. We need to fundamentally re-examine what global Britain means and how we can maximise our influence in the world to defend the existing order and gently but resolutely deter countries that wish to undermine it, such as the Russian Federation under its current leadership and other states. Russian conflict strategies are an example of how political and other forms of war and conflict are changing. I am ready and willing to help and support the Government in that challenge, and I hope that they are willing to listen to me and other hon. Members on both sides of the House who wish to contribute to that debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Seely]

Thank you, Ms Buck, as well as Mr Bone, for your chairmanship of the debate. I thank the Front-Bench Members as well as my hon. Friend the Member for Clacton (Giles Watling) and the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) for taking part.

On the hon. Gentleman’s point, it is incredibly important to understand Russia’s complex, somewhat love-hate relationship with the west and, in debates such as this, to seek more to understand than to condemn. That is why I wrote the definition and have suggested measures that the Government can take. It is important to do that rather than simply see the world in binary terms.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered Russian Federation activity in the UK and globally.

Oral Answers to Questions

Bob Seely Excerpts

Tuesday 26th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

No, I will not. There is plenty to do in relation to this without me setting out any red lines that may or may not be extant.

[Mr Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

9. What progress his Department has made on the global Britain agenda.

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Boris Johnson)]

Global Britain is about being open, outward-looking and engaged with the world so as to maximise our influence, and I give the House the clearest recent example of that: the 28 countries that joined us in sympathetically expelling 153 Russian spies.

[Mr Seely]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is the perfect opportunity for us to fundamentally rethink our foreign policy post-Brexit, and that more work could be done on the idea of global Britain to ensure that we have a foreign policy fit for the 21st century?

[Boris Johnson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that is why we have responded to the challenges that the world presents us with today by increasing our diplomatic staff by another 250 diplomats, in addition to the 100 that we added to our European strength, and we are opening 10 new sovereign posts in the Caribbean and the Pacific, with more to come in Africa.