China

Bob Seely Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2024 Westminster Hall

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

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Government policy on China.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Rees. I am here to look at Government policy on China, but also to argue for a more coherent version of that policy, notwithstanding the very considerable progress that, to be fair to them, the Government have been making.

I will start by outlining a few ideas. For me, the 21st century will mark a struggle between two visions for humanity: between open and closed societies; between states that are the servants of their people and states that are the masters of their people; and whether the great scientific discoveries of this century—artificial intelligence, big data—will be used to help humanity or to enslave it.

Opposing the policies of the Chinese Communist party and the direction that it has sadly embarked on for the past 10 to 15 years does not mean being anti-Chinese. Many Chinese oppose the Chinese Communist party, as indeed do many tens of thousands of brave Hong Kong activists in our own country.

I am delighted that the Deputy Foreign Secretary is present to respond to this debate on behalf of Government. I fully accept that the relationship we have with China is significantly more complex than the relationship we had with the USSR; we have a much deeper trading relationship with communist China, and we need to work together on climate and the environment, although that should not be used as an excuse for the status quo. China presents the need for a more complex set of alliances and more complex containment, but there is a greater urgency because, in many ways, China is more powerful than the Soviet Union was. We need to change the dynamic. It is quite clear that shutting off the global economy, which the west still heavily influences, but no longer controls, is not an option.

For me, the direction of travel is clear. Just this week, what have we had? Chinese vessels encroach daily on Taiwanese territorial waters, with conventional military tensions increasing. In the UK, the head of GCHQ warns that China represents a growing and genuine threat, not only to the UK but to the internet as a whole. Three men, including a Border Force officer, are arrested on spying charges. The US announces that it will raise the tariff on Chinese electric vehicles to 100%, citing “unfair practices”.

We are in the middle of what the Government have called an “epoch-defining challenge”; some Members on the Government Benches, and perhaps indeed those on other Benches, see it as a more significantly adversarial relationship. I accept that there are elements of both, and that just focusing on the words to define this issue—be they “adversarial”, “enemy” or “challenge”—is not necessarily the most helpful thing. What is important is that our policies become less piecemeal.

As I say, I do not want to underestimate the journey that the Government have been on. Much has changed since the failed golden era. It is clear that the hope held by the UK, the US and other partners—that normalising trade relations with China would lead to greater security on all sides—has not materialised. Indeed, quite the opposite is true: what China and arguably Russia have done is trash the system from the inside. However, with respect, I think that our policies are still a little too piecemeal. Although we have had sensible decisions on Huawei, spurred by myself, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) and others, and the passing of the National Security Act 2023 and a significant number of measures, I still think we need to go further.

I am looking at trying to develop a coherent set of ideas, not only in this speech but with the think-tank Civitas, with whom I hope to publish stuff next month. I pay tribute to and thank people such as Charlie Parton, the former diplomat who has done a lot of great work advising Members of Parliament on both sides of the House on China strategy, highlighting what the Chinese Communist party has been saying to itself about the west; Ben Rogers and others at Hong Kong Watch; and Luke de Pulford at the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China for the work that they have all done.

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for securing this debate. Given the arrests this week and the issues that he has outlined, does he agree that the issue here is the pace at which we are assessing the situation, and the need for a cross-Government audit of the Chinese Communist party’s attempts to influence UK politicians and Government, and also individuals, which we saw this week with the arrests of individuals attempting to intimidate and harass Hong Kong democracy activists in the UK?

[Bob Seely]

I agree very much with the points that the hon. Gentleman makes. We need to increase our pace, which is one of things that I would like to argue today. What the Chinese Communist party wants is no secret. It does not want to live in harmony with the west; it wants to dominate it. Western nations are viewed in CCP literature as hostile foreign forces intent on damaging Beijing. In Document No. 9, for example, the CCP describes democracy as one of nine false ideological trends. The full list includes: promoting western constitutional democracy; promoting universal values, which would be an attempt to weaken the theoretical foundations of the party’s leadership; promoting civil society, to dismantle the ruling party’s social foundations; promoting neoliberalism, which would challenge China’s basic economic system; promoting the western ideal of free journalism, which would challenge the communist party’s grip on power; promoting historical nihilism, or rather a different interpretation of the communist party’s history; and questioning the socialist nature of socialism with Chinese characteristics. All those things are seen as false historical trends, and there are many other documents, which I will not go into.

The challenges—I use the Government word, “challenges”—from this potentially adversarial state are arising on many fronts. On cyber, just this week GCHQ has said that there is an increased threat; indeed, I was one of the unfortunate servicemen and women whose details were found potentially not to be as secure as we would have liked. I think it was last week when we were told that our details had been stolen or were potentially vulnerable to theft. Trade dumping is an absolutely critical element of this. China’s developing country status at the World Trade Organisation means that the rules on dumping do not apply to it. As we are slow off the mark here, and because the Americans have put a 100% tariff on electric vehicles, on which the European Union may follow suit, I worry that we will become a dumping ground for Chinese goods. That is not an accident. The destruction of our own industries is not happening because the Chinese are necessarily good at them—although some are and, in a free state, arguably more would be. It is a deliberate state policy of intellectual property theft that is happening now, but which was also happening 10 to 20 years ago.

Then there is the long-term planning to buy up resources, the super-cheap communist state loans, the over-production as a matter of policy, and the dumping of goods on international markets to bankrupt western firms. Huawei was an instructional lesson on that. It originally partnered with Nortel, a Canadian company that suddenly found its intellectual property in Beijing. Nortel then collapsed and its place was taken by Huawei, whose state agenda was to undercut western firms and dominate the 5G market. That creation of dependence is one of the things that is most dangerous—I will explain why in a couple of minutes.

There is also the transitional repression—the spying on and intimidation of not only China’s own people abroad, but Hong Kong activists, which is a growing problem that we seem reluctant to tackle robustly. Then there is the question of covid and its origins. If covid had come out of a laboratory in France or the United Kingdom, or the United States especially, we would never have heard the end of it from political parties in this country or the media; and yet I am staggered by the lack of interest shown in the likelihood that covid came out of the Wuhan virus laboratory. I am also staggered at the lack of interest in whether it had been genetically altered before it was, presumably, accidentally leaked. As Lord Ridley said:

“The UK security and scientific establishment refused to look at the evidence for a lab leak.”

That is an extraordinary claim from somebody who is a considerable expert on that. If nothing else, it is astonishing that we seem to be so uninterested in biosecurity standards in other countries, given the potential hazard not only to ourselves but to humanity.

The united front, the malign influence of which we have potentially seen in Parliament, is a long-term, whole-of-state strategy used by the Chinese Communist Party to further its interests within and outside China through multiple organs of the Chinese state and a range of activities—overt and covert; legal and illegal. It encompasses not only espionage but forms of malign influence that are sometimes overt, but sometimes covert. We know from our Intelligence and Security Committee that the united front has “achieved low-level penetration” across “most sectors of UK business and civil society”. What does the Deputy Foreign Secretary have to say about that? Is he concerned about that penetration across most sectors of UK business and civil society by the united front?

I will spend a couple of minutes on the domination of DNA research and on cellular modules, which are so little known, but potentially so important. China believes that its own biomedical data is a

“foundational strategic state resource.”

Yet, at the same time, it is hoovering up DNA data and genomic data from around the world. Western security officials, including those identified in the ISC report, see DNA biotech as another major concern. The Pentagon in the United States listed the BGI group, otherwise known as the Beijing Genomics Institute, as a Chinese military company, and the US Government have twice blacklisted the group’s subsidiaries for their role in the collection and analysis of DNA that has enabled China’s repression of its own ethnic minorities.

That is a really creepy and unpleasant policy that the CCP and the BGI group have been accused of: collecting DNA research for the repression of their own minorities. Needless to say, not only have we not done the same thing as the US, but BGI Tech Solutions was awarded a £10.8 million contract in this country for genomic testing of covid samples. Not only that, but in 2021, Reuters revealed that the company was selling prenatal tests to millions of women globally in order to collect their DNA data, using biotech methods developed with the Chinese military.

A top counter-intelligence official from the US Government has said that BGI is

“no different than Huawei…It’s this legitimate business that’s also masking intelligence gathering for nefarious purposes.”

I wonder if we are again sleepwalking dangerously and somewhat naively into another ethical crisis—the kind that we had with Huawei, and which we could now be seeing with BGI.

I have not had time to show the Minister my speech, because I only finished it about half an hour before the debate, so I will happily write to him on these questions, and perhaps he could give me a written answer. What are the Government planning to do on genomic research and protecting the United Kingdom, which does not only mean our DNA data—unless he thinks we can share it with the rest of the world; maybe we should or could be—and what do we think BGI and China are trying to do with our DNA?

I will talk a little bit about cellular modules because, again, it is an obscure, but important, topic. The internet of things refers to internet devices that talk to each other, from alarm systems, video recorders and fridges, to aeroplanes, boats and, maybe one day, nuclear weapon system launching programmes—and even the lights in our living room. Those gadgets rely on modules—groups of chips—that connect the equipment to the internet and talk to each other. China supplies the west with more than 60% of those modules. But because they are updated remotely by the manufacturer, it is practically impossible to ensure that they are not spying on us and sending back data flows to their source. If that sounds a bit paranoid, let us remember that TikTok is currently under investigation by the FBI after its parent company used the app to monitor journalists in the United States. Let us also remember that a Government car was allegedly compounded—I cannot remember if that was last year or a few months ago—because a cellular module in it might have been pinging back eavesdropped conversations. China aims to dominate the market, as it has with Huawei and BGI, for cellular modules. Do the Government have an opinion on whether that is a threat to our economy, to our people and to our national security?

I am not even going to bother touching on the military threat, because it is complex and detailed, though my fear is not only the slow domination. Sun Tzu, a great man and a philosopher of conflict, said:

“The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.”

That seems to be President Xi’s aim. Arguably, it should also be our aim. That idea should inspire us that we need to defend ourselves now, and that we need to take the short-to-medium and the long-term decisions to defend ourselves, not to aggressively wave fingers at people, but to be able to defend ourselves. The reason I say that is that the most dangerous outcome is that we become so dependent on China in the next five years, for everything from vehicles to fridges to cellular modules to our DNA, that when Taiwan is attacked, if we took out sanctions on China we would effectively collapse the global economy. It would cause chaos and collapse in Europe and our own country that would make the energy crisis for the Ukraine war look like a picnic, with rioting on the streets and destabilised western societies—or we can stand by and say, “Fair enough.”

The other, potentially even greater, threat is that we break the alliance between the United States and ourselves and the United States and Europe, which is undoubtedly China’s strategic aim. That will be a catastrophe for western civilisation. We need to deepen our alliances with the US and Oz and many other states in that part of the world, including South Korea, Japan, the Philippines and Indonesia.

Finally, I have two more points. On TikTok, for young people in China the algorithm is different from that in the UK. In China, it is used to promote science, education and history, including the history of China. In our countries, it makes citizens watch

“stupid dance videos with the main goal of making us imbeciles”.

That quotation is from the former chief software officer of the US Air Force and Space Force. In China, TikTok is about entertaining education; here it is just about entertainment. It is not only cyber-addiction, but real addiction, that is an issue. Do the Government have a position on the large-scale illicit supply of fentanyl by China to the United States, which I understand is now also becoming a problem in this country? I will wind up in two to three minutes; I said I would stick to 20 minutes, which I am trying to do.

What are we going to do about this issue? The real aim of the immediate policy is to insulate ourselves. In no particular order, here are some ideas. Let us add science to human rights. We can DNA test where cotton comes from. Should we not be mandating that, in supply chains that go anywhere near China, we DNA test cotton so that we can see whether it comes from Xinjiang and is made by slave labour, so that we can outlaw it? That is an important thing to do for fair trade, and to help jobs not only in this country, but in Bangladesh, India and places where they do not use slave labour. It is also important for human rights: taking a consistent approach to the human rights agenda and giving it the respect it needs.

We need to diversify as a matter of urgency. As a national priority, we need to diversify our supply chains, so that if there is war in the Pacific or around Taiwan, we are not going to destroy our standard of living, economy or people’s jobs in order to put sanctions on China, or to support the United States or Taiwan.

We need longer-term planning over rare earth minerals—something I have not even brought up due to time considerations. We are beginning to act but we are two or three decades behind China.

We should tell Confucius Institute centres to stop spying on their citizens, or shut them down and kick out the people in them. The same should apply to Hong Kong economic offices, which are now also being used to intimidate Chinese people in this country.

As for the military, we need a permanent western presence in disputed waters and more money spent.

On WTO and dumping, we need to work together; we need to treat China as a developed economy, even if in WTO terms it is not.

I also suggest that we need to have faith in ourselves. There is no inevitability about China’s future victory. It is a very powerful country, but like Russia, it lacks few actual friends. Its one formal alliance is with the basket case of North Korea, although the basket case of Russia is also a pretty close ally. We have many friends and allies, as do the United States and France, and we need to be working with those allies and with our partners in the Pacific for a new, subtle but thoughtful, determined and robust containment programme. That means spending on hard power, but it also means a much more assertive defence of our interests, as well as understanding how decades of subversive conflict across culture, business, sport and science can damage our national interest and threaten our people. Whether it is the use of artificial intelligence, big data, DNA sequencing, advanced propaganda techniques or cellular modules, we need to do more to understand the modern world that we inhabit.

We are in a battle for the future of humanity, between democracies and authoritarian states. At the moment, that conflict is being lost by us. It is also being conducted in myriad subtle ways. We need to grasp the extent of it and do more to react robustly to defend ourselves.

[Christina Rees (in the Chair)]

May I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to be called in the debate? I would be grateful if Members do not refer to cases where charges have been brought, because they are sub judice.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Logan (Bolton North East) (Con)]

Unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely), I have not prepared a very thorough speech, but I am glad that he has brought this important topic to Westminster Hall.

(The Member continued in Mandarin.)

The hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle)—I am not sure how to say that in Chinese—speaks fantastic Mandarin Chinese and is a living manifestation of what our aspirations should be for the country. More people should study Mandarin Chinese. That was in the integrated review, and we have talked about it for years on end, but we need more diplomats in the Foreign Office and people across the whole of Whitehall who can not only speak Mandarin Chinese, but engage with China. Many experts have in the past talked about the plus one: no matter what field someone is working in these days—they may be a biological scientist of some sort, an accountant or a Government official—that should be the substantive part that they own, and then the Chinese understanding is the icing on the cake.

I do not want to step on the toes of the Deputy Foreign Secretary, but I will give some of my own thoughts in response to the points that colleagues made. I was based in the People’s Republic of China for about 13 years —I worked in the Foreign Office and was based in Shanghai. I have studied China for about 20 years, and I know less about it today than I did 20 years ago, but I will try my best.

I worry sometimes about the overall tone or mood of a lot of these debates about China over the past four and half years—my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight will be very perceptive of this—because whether we are sat in the United Kingdom, the United States or elsewhere in the west, it feels completely driven by fear and by that sense of threat. That makes me a little worried, in that that strikes as us being reticent and not having confidence in what we have to offer ideologically or in our system. Implicitly, in the 1980s, we did not really care about China, because it was not competition for us, but today we care about it and talk about it every day, in every single debate, which unfortunately might give a signal to others in the world and, indeed, to China that it perhaps does have the upper hand in many different forms of engagement, whether that is business, commercial, political or diplomatic, among other things.

That soul searching part is incredibly important for us, because this should not just be about asking what our China policy or strategy is. Rather, this is about the UK: what is our identity? What is our place in the world? What are our priorities? And then, it is about having everything else flow from that, because at the end of the day, China is just one country out of 200. It is a very important country: it is a United Nations Security Council member and the second biggest economy in the world, it has a population of 1.4 billion and it had great GDP growth rates, in the double figures for many numbers of years. When the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark and I were there, it was experiencing 13% or 14% GDP growth rates every year, but that has ended. China is in a very different economic climate now, especially over the past couple of years.

The question I often ask myself is not what our China policy is, but what do the Chinese think of us? What is China’s UK strategy? What is China’s UK policy? I am never really sure of the answer. Again, I am conscious of different friends in our audience who have been long-time China watchers, but I have always felt, in the years of being based there—even working in diplomacy and coming into contact with party secretaries, mayors and those from the politburo from time to time—and to this day, that it has felt like an invisible hand. So I am always perplexed when people speak with great authority about the Communist party of China, because it is just so invisible. I often wonder where that intel and knowledge about the CPC come from.

There is another thing about some of the points that were raised, and this can be really difficult. Obviously, we do not want to play into China’s political rhetoric, but we often talk about the disaggregation between the people of China and the Communist party of China, and although I know that this stat has been overused over the past number of years, there is a certain amount of truth in it: in 2020, when the Ash Centre in Harvard researched levels of approval for the Communist party of China or the central Government in China, their approval ratings were sitting at about 95%. I know that everyone will come back to say, “That cannot be true,” but my feeling—my sense from being there for more than a decade—was that very rarely did people complain about the national leadership. Usually, complaints were about local government at the village level, or the municipal or provincial level, but rarely were there complaints against the national Government. It would be interesting to see an updated poll, because that research was from 2020, just before covid struck, and China has had a lot more difficulties politically and economically since, especially in the past couple of years. I would be very interested to see polling on that.

On Monday, when we were at Policy Exchange, the Prime Minister made an incredibly interesting speech. I was struck by these ideas of securitisation and of entering into a world over the next five to 10 years that is potentially more dangerous than the one that we have lived in in recent decades. Another slight concern from my end—not necessarily vis-à-vis the Prime Minister—was something I wrote about in the South China Morning Post about three years ago, and that is this idea of liberalisation, or ideas of liberalism, in the international system. We have often talked about how, with economic engagement, China would become more like the west, but it seems that we have given up on that for the most part in recent years. My contention, however—this is very provocative, but I ask it every single time in this kind of debate—is this: is it China becoming more like the west, or is the west starting to copy things from China’s handbook when it comes to banning things?

Those linked to the Policy Exchange think-tank are very clear and intent on banning TikTok in the United Kingdom, but my worry is that that is driven by fear, by this idea of threat. What is more important than politics and regulation, however, is being innovative. It is about saying to ourselves in the UK, “Can we come up with a company that can outstrip the American tech companies and do better than TikTok has done? Or will we become like the European Union and just think we can regulate our way into a successful future?” I do not think that is possible. The Chancellor recently stated that he is keen for us to have “a British Microsoft”, and I absolutely agree with that sentiment and that positivity.

[Bob Seely]

I am sorry, but I take issue with the point about fear. I think it is about understanding and not about fear. On the TikTok issue alone, my hon. Friend is talking about a fear of TikTok. Does he think that, actually, it is about TikTok having one set of values for Chinese kids and another for everything else? In other words, it has nothing to do with fear but it has something to do with protecting children.

[Mark Logan]

I am not here to defend TikTok. I do use TikTok, as do many of our colleagues, including some high-profile Ministers in the Cabinet. That is not what this is about. Some of this has to do with education as well, and I look to my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight. Again, I was based in China. I have a daughter in the education system and, going into primary school level in China, there is a lot in the education system that is focused on the harder aspects of education: learning the sciences, mathematics and physics. I think that that can be reflected in the social media that is used there, by the case of Douyin.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bob Seely]

I thank everyone for attending and I thank you, Ms Rees, for chairing the debate. As the Deputy Foreign Secretary is writing to us on Thames Water, I would be grateful if he mentioned and looked into the Isle of Wight ferries. We were discussing how much China’s investment is, and bizarrely, one of the offshore companies was paying out to the Chinese central bank, so unfortunately it became a partial owner.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered Government policy on China.

Oral Answers to Questions

Bob Seely Excerpts

Tuesday 30th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[David Rutley]

I very much welcome the report. It was good to meet my hon. Friend and parliamentary neighbour, the respected special envoy on FORB, to review the report—I read it with interest and will respond to the inquiry members shortly. She can be assured that we continue to call out this behaviour—this unacceptable behaviour—by the regime, which does not respect human rights and certainly does not respect freedom of religion or belief.

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

17. What steps his Department is taking to support Jimmy Lai during his trial in Hong Kong.

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)]

We have called for an end to British citizen Jimmy Lai’s prosecution in Hong Kong and for his release. The Foreign Secretary raised his case with the Chinese Foreign Minister in February, and I raised it during my visits to Beijing and Hong Kong last week.

[Bob Seely]

Would Ministers agree that this dreadful case shows the true nature of the Chinese communist regime? Could we be doing more to really get a stout defence of British citizens throughout the world, including Vladimir Kara-Murza in Russia and Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong, who are part of political show trials in authoritarian or fascist states?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

Mr Lai has faced multiple charges to silence and discredit him, and he has been targeted in a clear attempt to stop the peaceful exercise of his rights to freedom of expression and association. My hon. Friend raises an important question about dual nationals and the challenges that our consular teams face in countries that do not recognise that British nationality. We will continue to champion them, and we have consular teams at Jimmy Lai’s trial almost every day and will continue to provide what support we can, including to his family.

Oral Answers to Questions

Bob Seely Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Leo Docherty]

The hon. Gentleman asks a characteristically intelligent and pertinent question. We are working together to increase defence industrial capability. Some new ideas have come out of the French summit about increasing domestic capability for our Ukrainian friends. A lot of diplomatic support goes into that. On frozen assets, he will have seen recent thinking from the European side about using the interest payments from those funds, which we will consider. We need to find a reliable legal route, if that is to be sustainable.

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

6. What diplomatic steps he is taking to help secure the safety and release of Vladimir Kara-Murza.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Leo Docherty)]

The UK has consistently condemned Vladimir Kara-Murza’s politically motivated conviction and called for his release. We sanctioned 11 individuals in response to his sentencing, as well as two individuals involved in his earlier poisoning. We regularly raise his case both with the Russian authorities and at multilateral fora.

[Bob Seely]

Since the death of Alexei Navalny, do the Government recognise the increased urgency of Vladimir Kara-Murza’s case? He is now the most high-profile living political prisoner in Russia. What more are the Government considering doing? Are the Government working with our allies, such as the United States, on a number of issues in this field?

[Leo Docherty]

Our ambassador raised Mr Kara-Murza’s case in person with Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister on 19 January, repeating our request for consular access. The Foreign Secretary met Mrs Kara-Murza, and Mr Kara-Murza’s mother, Elena Gordon, on 1 March. We remain in close and regular contact with his family and legal representatives, and we will continue to keep his case at the top of our agenda.

Death of Alexei Navalny

Bob Seely Excerpts

Monday 19th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Leo Docherty]

The House should have confidence and should be proud of the fact that we have sanctioned more than 1,900 individuals and entities. There is no space or place for dirty Russian money in the United Kingdom.

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

I just want to reinforce the point about Vladimir Kara-Murza. He is a British citizen, and he is now the most high-profile political prisoner in Russia. In my conversations with the Minister and his officials, when I have talked about prisoner swaps, which I was doing at the behest of the Navalny team, it was made quite clear that doing that encourages state hostage taking. I accept that argument, difficult thought it is, but unfortunately it comes at a price. In my conversations with Evgenia Kara-Murza, she is adamant that she now wants everything possible done to get Vladimir out, despite the fact that he went back of his own accord, because his health is in a fragile condition, and if Putin can kill Navalny, he can kill Kara-Murza. There is some criticism that the Government have not done everything possible in the past. Will the Minister reassure me that every option and every conceivable course of action to get Kara-Murza out—potentially including negotiated swaps with Russian spies in Sweden or wherever—will be looked at? Otherwise, he will be next.

[Leo Docherty]

As my hon. Friend said, we do not and would not countenance a policy of prisoner swaps, but of course we continue to make every effort to support Mrs Kara-Murza and to seek the release of Vladimir.

Situation in the Red Sea

Bob Seely Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Defence (Grant Shapps)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the situation in the Red Sea.

Last week at Lancaster House, I set out why we are living in a far more dangerous world. Members will need no reminding that we are dealing with multiple conflicts at once: Russia has increased the intensity of its attacks on Ukraine; the appalling Hamas atrocities of 7 October have brought conflict to that region; and, most recently of all, international shipping is now being threatened by Houthi proxies aided and abetted by Iran.

Since November, there have been more than 40 attacks on commercial vessels across the region. It is salutary to think that it has been 30 years since the maritime law was codified in the United Nations convention on the law of the sea. Some 168 nations back the UNCLOS treaty. The UK signed it, Yemen acceded to it, and even Iran is a signatory to it. There is a good reason why it has achieved such broad support. All nations rely on global trade, and none more so than the UK, given that a full 90% of UK commerce comes to us by sea.

Some 12% of international trade passes through the Red sea every single year, amounting to more than $1 trillion-worth of goods. In addition, 8% of global grain trade, 12 % of seaborne traded oil and 8% of the world’s liquefied natural gas all pass through this ancient seaway. Perhaps even more astonishing is that 40% of the goods that are traded between Europe and Asia go through the Red sea.

Sadly, the Houthis’ unlawful and callous attacks are putting all that trade at risk. Twelve international companies have been forced to suspend the passage through the Red sea because of the attacks. The number of vessels transiting Bab al-Mandab was 54% below the level observed in the previous year, and diverting vessels around the Cape of Good Hope has had a crippling impact, not only adding days of delay to vital deliveries but driving up international shipping costs to prohibitive levels. Some reports suggest that shipping costs are up by 300%.

What these Iran-backed Houthi pirate thugs forget is that it is the least well-off nations and people who suffer the most from their illegal actions, starting with Yemen itself, where almost all food comes by sea. At times like these, nations must stand up. Attacks on Red sea shipping automatically make this a global problem.

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

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his recent speech. According to the House of Commons Library, there are 12 Iranian proxy forces in Bahrain, Iraq, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories and Yemen, so this is not just about the Houthis, although that is what we are dealing with now. To what extent are we able to keep tabs on and monitor, or to work with allies who can keep tabs on and monitor, those dozen proxy forces that, sadly, Iran is now using with increased repetitiveness to attack not only our interests but the interests of our allies?

[Grant Shapps]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right; he is something of an expert in this area. Iran is absolutely behind all the different proxy groups that he outlined, and many more. In a way, Iran is able to control this situation without getting too involved itself, and the world needs to wake up and recognise that. We are of course monitoring all of that incredibly closely. Appeasing the Houthis now, or all these other groups, will not lead to a more stable tomorrow, in the case of the Houthis, in respect of the Red sea. Being blind to the sponsors of terror will not benefit the international order in the long run, which is why it is so important that the world has acted.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Healey]

What do I think? Well, it would be helpful to have access to the sort of classified information that the Defence Secretary has in order to make these decisions. It is his responsibility to do so, and it is our responsibility in this House to challenge and hold him to account when he makes those decisions—and, of course, if he fails to make decisions.

Perhaps I might return to the Red sea and the theme and focus of this debate. We now have around 2,500 military personnel in the middle east, and I begin by recognising their special service. Many were deployed at short notice—most were away from their families over Christmas—helping to supply essential aid for Palestinians in Gaza, working to reinforce regional security and reduce the risk of wider escalation, and, in cases such as those of the crew of HMS Diamond and the pilots of the Typhoons and air tankers, operating under great pressure and threat. They undertake their tasks with total professionalism. We thank them and are proud of them.

[Bob Seely]

At this juncture, I think it worth pointing out—the Secretary of State may want to refer to this—that Iranian proxies are regularly rocketing, or attempting to rocket, US bases in Iraq, some of which have a UK presence. It is only through good luck, and complex air defence, if I understand correctly, that there have not been considerable US casualties or potential UK casualties. That is a point that we need to bear in mind when we talk not only about Iranian proxies but about UK forces in the middle east.

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[James Gray]

My right hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. Incidentally, I forgot to mention that I very much welcome him to the Front Bench. He is doing a good job standing in for the Foreign Secretary. I hope he will take note of the Procedure Committee’s report this afternoon on how a Secretary of State who is in the House of Lords should or should not be questioned by this House, and that the Government will accept the Procedure Committee’s proposal, namely that the Foreign Secretary should be called to the Bar of the House to take questions.

[Bob Seely]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[James Gray]

We must not get too far off the subject, but of course.

[Bob Seely]

I think I support what my hon. Friend says. Of the two times we voted on military action, the first time we were misled and the second time we were stung by having been misled, so we went the wrong way. As someone who was quite close to the Libyan conflict, as I saw it play out with ISIS in northern Iraq, I think we should have taken military action in principle over the use of chemical weapons. By not doing so, regardless of the outcome of the Syrian war, we weakened the idea of western resolve. I know it can be a bit of a cliché, but if we have a red line and dictators ignore it, we end up in a world of pain.

[James Gray]

Both my hon. Friend and my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) are seeking to involve me in a debate about a matter that happened some 10 or 15 years ago and is well beyond the scope of the debate. My point is not about whether or not striking against Syria was right, wrong or indifferent, but about the fact that we in this House chose not to do so. The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), was absolutely right to say that not doing something is often as bad as doing something.

We in this House had a shortage of information—my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) knows a lot about these things, and I am ready to admit that I do not—of briefings, of secret intelligence and of legal advice, but we chose to take that decision. It seems to me that, in the extremely dangerous world that we live in, we will see an awful lot of these decisions taken in the months and years to come. The way in which matters were handled this time shows that the pendulum, which had swung from the divine right of Kings in the middle ages, whereby the King decided on his own, to the time in 2003 and 2013 when we allowed this House to vote, albeit not necessarily sensibly, has swung back to precisely where it ought to be—namely, that if this House votes on something, it is, by that means, diminished. We cannot then hold the Government to account; we cannot come back and say, “You, Mr Government, have got that wrong,” because we voted for it. And if we had voted for it, the Secretary of State would surely say, “But you voted for it!”

Our whole purpose in this House and this Chamber is to scrutinise what the Government have done, hold them to account and, if necessary, remove them when they do the wrong thing.

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[Sir Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)]

I begin by paying tribute to all of our armed forces personnel who have been involved in action in the Red sea. They always rise to any challenge asked of them with professionalism and courage, and are a great example of the fact that our armed forces are so much more than the hardware we invest in.

I accept the point that the Secretary of State for Defence made at the outset of the debate—there is no direct link between the conflict in Gaza and the Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red sea—but we would be wrong not to accept that there is interconnectivity between the tensions in different parts of the middle east today, and we need to understand the context of those tensions.

Back in 2020, the Trump Administration brokered the Abraham accords between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and then Morocco. It was a great exercise in leadership to bring reconciliation to a part of the world that had seen too much conflict for too long. It has resulted in a big improvement: both economically, in terms of business and trade between the countries involved, and in people-to-people relationships. For example, around half a million Israelis visited Dubai in the past few years, something that would have been unthinkable just a decade ago.

However, there was always one country that did not want the Abraham accords to succeed: Iran. It did not want those accords to succeed because it did not believe in a two-state solution, because it did not believe that Israel should exist. Ayatollah Khamenei has been tremendously consistent in his views about the purity of the Islamic revolution, his detestation of the west, and his contempt for the existence of the state of Israel. Anyone who is interested should read the book “Reading Khamenei” by Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Iran was never going to want to see peace between the Arab states and Israel, because that threatened Iran’s hegemony—as it saw it—over the Islamic parts of the middle east.

The big question was always: what would Saudi Arabia do? It is a major player in the security of both the Red sea and the Gulf. When I saw the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia on Fox News saying that every day he believed Saudi Arabia was closer to peace and reconciliation with Israel, my first reaction was that Iran would react against it, whether through its proxies: Hamas in Gaza, funded and armed by Iran; Hezbollah in Lebanon, funded and armed by Iran; or the Houthis in Yemen, funded and armed by Iran. In fact, it turns out that we now see all three being active, and we need to understand that that “axis of resistance” against the west, as Iran calls it, is something it will keep going as long as it possibly can. It will not seek peace; it will resist peace at all times.

In the Red sea, we are absolutely right to say—as many Members have done, and I do not want to go over that territory again—that the Houthi threat is a specific one that we must deal with. Some 95% of UK exports and imports go by sea, and in the whole global trading environment, 15% of all global trade passes through the Bab al-Mandab strait. As many Members have said, not to act would leave international maritime law in tatters, and having no deterrence there whatsoever would risk a bout of global inflation. We saw what the disruption from the conflict in Ukraine could do, and the same would be true were there to be permanent disruption in the Red sea. We would have disruption of vital supply chains, including food and the medicines that so many people depend on. So we were right to take action.

However, we need to come back to understanding the role of Iran in this and other processes. We have seen Iran develop drones that are sent to Russia by Iran Air to oppress the people of Ukraine, yet Iran Air still flies out of Heathrow airport in the United Kingdom. Why is it tolerated? We have seen the money moved around the global financial system by Iran to fund its proxies, but we still have two Iranian banks trading in the City of London within a stone’s throw of the Bank of England. Why is that happening? As the Chair of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns), said, we have videos of antisemitic speeches by IRGC generals being investigated by the Charity Commission. The regulator is looking at footage of “Death to Israel” chants on an Islamic charity’s UK premises. Two of the videos show talks by IRGC leaders about an apocalyptic war on the Jews. Again as my hon. Friend said, the IRGC actually took responsibility this week for a military attack on a foreign territory, which is something they have not had the audacity to do before.

So I ask again: why is the IRGC not a proscribed organisation in this country? It is clearly involved in a wide range of activity that is dangerous to Britain’s national interests and our security. I have never once, when I have raised this issue in the House, been given a clear answer from those on the Front Branch about why we will not ban Iran Air, why we will not stop Iranian banks in the City and why we will not proscribe the IRGC. I live in a little bit of extra hope that we may get an answer tonight.

[Bob Seely]

The answer that the Government have so far given on the IRGC is that it is an arm of the state, and it is very difficult to proscribe an arm of the state. I am not saying I agree with that answer, but that is the answer given. Is there a way around it?

[Sir Liam Fox]

It is an answer, but it is not a very convincing one. I hope we will get a better answer from the Minister of State at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), who I know is well capable of giving us answers in greater detail than that.

We face a choice in the Red sea and beyond: we are either going to deal with the political problems we face or, rather than the rosy future that the Abraham accords offered, we can go back to 1971, with a radicalised generation in the middle east and return to all the problems of hijacks, Munich and all the things we thought we had left behind us.

We need to drive a solution. As the Prime Minister said earlier this week, there must be a commitment to a two-state solution, and it is not acceptable for anyone to put a political block on that. We need security guarantees to be given for Israel and the Israeli people, who have a right to live in peace, and for any future Palestinian state. That will require an international peace agreement. It will require the United States, Saudi Arabia and others all to be willing to commit to that peace. It will require a new way of looking at politics in the region, and it is right that Hamas cannot be part of that if there is to be any way forward, and there will need to be massive economic reconstruction in the area.

In conclusion, let me say what I have said before in the House: when we look at the whole region, we see that peace is not just the absence of war or conflict, but the freedom from the fear of conflict, oppression or terror. It comes with concepts of rights that have to apply to all people—not just rights and dignity, but enforceable rights and dignity. Only when all the people of the middle east and the wider region have access to all those things will we have any chance of achieving the peace that is not just part of their security, but part of our security.

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

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker; I will try to wind up after seven minutes. I am mindful that lots of others want to get in. Lots of good speeches today; I just want to start by referring to the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran). I completely agree with what she is saying about a two-state solution. Those friends of Israel who give Netanyahu and the Israeli right an easy ride on this are no friends of Israel, as far as I can see, because all they are doing is making Israel’s long-term future significantly more precarious. Israel’s existence is accepted and guaranteed when there is peace with the Palestinians, and until there is peace with Palestinians, Israel is always going to be under threat of some kind.

Where I differ from the hon. Lady is on her optimism. I would have agreed with her in the 1990s, but there has been so much more awful water under the bridge since then. On Palestinian statehood, I cannot see a good reason not to do it now, but if we had Palestinian statehood now and Hamas immediately took over that Palestinian statehood in the west bank, it would simply undermine the cause of Palestinian statehood. There is a significant problem there and, as the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Sir Liam Fox) rightly pointed out, Iran is behind so much of this.

I want to make a few points in the brief time I have. I want to make reference to the excellent speech made my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond) and also the speech of the Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman, my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns). There appears to be a growing, significant, provable link between the use of proxy warfare and non-state actors, often used by other states, and the rise in conflict-related sexual violence, which in some parts of the world and some conflicts is now endemic. We saw that with ISIS, which is a non-state actor, and arguably nobody’s proxy, in the use of Yazidi women effectively as the spoils of war until they were raped to death. We have seen it with the abuse of Israeli women by Hamas, but Hamas are also increasingly intolerant in their Islamist attitude towards women in their own society. We have also seen it with the Houthis, with Wagner in Ukraine and with Russian troops. It occasionally involves state troops, as well as non-state actors and proxies, and there is an increasing casualness with which sexual violence is used in conflict, which I think should disturb us all.

The world is moving to a more dangerous place; that is quite clear. It has been becoming more dangerous since 2010. Putin declared his new cold war in his Munich speech in 2007, but we did not want to notice. Unfortunately, everything since then has progressed quite logically from Putin’s point of view, although we have still feigned surprise. I do not know why we do that. Since 2015 we have had a growing China problem with an increasingly intolerant regime under President Xi. There is a battle for humanity under way in the 21st century between open societies and closed societies and between societies where AI and big data will hopefully be used to improve the quality of human life and places such as Iran, China and Russia where AI and big data will increasingly be used to control people and societies and, effectively, in an Orwellian state, to prevent people from rebelling because it will be possible to use algorithms to identify when they are about to rebel or fight back and do something about it. That is the bigger picture that we are dealing with.

It is particularly concerning at the moment that in several areas of the world we have conflicts between united axis powers, if I can call them that. Out of three potential conflicts that are under way at the moment or about to be, Ukraine and Russia is a hot war where the Russians believe that we are directly involved although we believe that we are indirectly involved. That war is fought with cyber, disinformation, espionage and poisoning, and some of that has been happening in the UK. We also have the expansion of China, with it trying to take territory in the South China sea and presenting an increasing threat to Taiwan. Xi has told his army to be ready to take Taiwan within the next three years, if I remember correctly.

In the middle east, Russia’s ally Iran is behind much of what is happening, as my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset so eloquently said. Iran now has 22 proxies. In Bahrain it has two or three and in Iraq it has at least six, some of which are rocketing UK and US forces. Where else? In Lebanon it has Hezbollah, which is potentially its most powerful proxy. It is strongly aligned to the regime in Syria. That is not a proxy but the regime has been heavily dependent on Iran to fight its wars. Throughout the middle east, the Iranians have built up a web that is a significant threat to us.

We have had conventional wars that we prepared for and fought for, or that we prepared our armed forces to fight and hopefully win, and we have this very black-and-white notion that we are either at peace or we are at war, yet the nature of war is changing. We are living in a world in which we are effectively in a perpetual state of conflict with some nations. Russia sees itself in perpetual conflict with us. There will be periods of hot war and periods of cold war, and we must be prepared as never before. Likewise, we are effectively waging an indirect war against a series of Iranian proxies: Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and whoever was rocketing us this week in Iraq. China’s power is more economic, but it is using “little blue men” to seize territory in the South China sea—that is in contrast to the “little green men” the Russians used in Crimea. In these key areas of the pre-global war phase, we are beginning to see a form of total war being waged by our adversaries in Ukraine, the middle east and the South China sea.

The Foreign Affairs Committee recently heard some interesting evidence on how Iran is, in many ways, both more unstable and more powerful than at any other time. It has 22 proxies, and it has the material to build and prepare a nuclear weapon within a week. Iran is at a potentially frightening stage but, at the same time, we know it is very unstable and we know that its young people, especially its young women, are hostile to the regime, as never before. Many people in Iran wish ill of the regime, so we are dealing with an Iran that is more aggressively adventurous in its foreign policy, potentially because of its weakness at home.

We have arguably not had enough deterrence, and we need more. Various Members have talked about that in greater deal than I have time to go into now.

All these things—the growing number of black swan moments and the growing instability in the world—are an argument for having a greater sense of strategy. Many people talk about strategy, and there are so many think-tanks in the UK dedicated to strategy. It would be wonderful to see politicians from both sides of the House engaging more in strategic thinking. One of my suggestions for global Britain is that, as well as having a National Security Council to deal with current problems, we should have a national strategy council that is always looking five, 10 or 20 years ahead to identify problems as they come.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I fully agree with the last point made by the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely). We need those structures.

Before you came into the Chamber, Madam Deputy Speaker, we discussed the nature of this debate and whether we should have a vote. We are taking military action in a region that has been described as a tinderbox by virtually every Member who has spoken. There are just over 20 Members present, and I say this with respect and affection, but most of them are the House’s defence nerds. The reason we do not have more Members present is that this is a discussion, not a debate. There is no decision to be made at the end and, as a result, I do not think the House is taking its responsibilities seriously. I think we are on the edge of real danger in this region, and it could spill over and affect the lives of our constituents. If we are to take military action, I want to take some responsibility as a Member of this House. I want to be able to go back to my constituents and explain how I have exercised that responsibility, which is why I believe we should have a vote.

I was in the Chamber one afternoon when, with even fewer Members present than now, John Reid reported that we were sending troops to Afghanistan. He gave the impression that not a shot would be fired in anger. There was hardly any debate and very little reporting back, but we lost 400 British troops in Afghanistan and tens of thousands of others, and the war went on for more than a decade.

I was also here for the vote on Iraq—we did have a vote then. The hon. Member for North Wiltshire (James Gray) said, “Yes, look at that, we made a huge mistake.” It was a huge mistake, but the mistake was that it was a whipped vote. I think that had it been an unwhipped vote, we would not have taken that decision. The right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) mentioned Syria. I was here for that vote, when I think we made the right decision, because we could have been getting into another Iraq situation and still be stuck there, with a huge loss of life—a loss of British life, as well as of others. That is why I believe that on these issues we should be able to vote and decide on when to take military action. We should exercise our own judgments, on the basis of our own views and consciences, because no more significant decision can be made than to send someone to where they could lose their life. That is why we should vote on these occasions. I think we will have to have a vote at some stage in the coming period, because I fear that this situation will go on and on.

Unrelated to that issue, I wish to make a plea. The International Court of Justice’s interim decision will be coming out soon, perhaps today, as some have said, or on Friday, and when it does come out it is important that we have a debate in this House. That would enable the Government to tell us what they will do in the light of that decision. The interim decision will almost certainly attach some conditions to the activities of Israel in particular, and it is important that we debate that in this House. It is also important that we have a decision-making process—a vote—on how we as a country can ensure that such a decision and its conditions are abided by and implemented.

My second brief point is that, time and again, the Prime Minister and others have said that there is no link between the Houthis’ actions and what is happening in Gaza. That argument is unsustainable. I agree with everything that has been said, by Members from across the House, about the Houthis—I condemn them outright. The basis of their beliefs, as far as I can see, has to be condemned. Their actions in Yemen and what they are doing at the moment have to be condemned. What they are doing is horrific, it is putting lives at risk and they are undermining their own people, but to say that it is completely unrelated to Gaza is unsustainable.

People have said, “Well, maybe it is ‘connected’ to Gaza,” As my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) said, what is happening in Gaza is mobilising the Arab street across the middle east, and understandably so. People are watching the reportage of the human suffering and reacting aghast at what they are seeing on the ground in Gaza. As a result, they are putting pressure on their own regimes, right the way across, for some form of action. It is because both the US and the UK have not taken effective action that desire for action gets distorted in other forms—it is the Houthis’ excuse for their actions.

That leads us to the fact that we here have to accept our responsibility. The right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) talked about the House being shamed by the number of deaths—the 25,000 deaths that have taken place. We are shamed by witnessing on our television screens the operations and the amputations of children’s limbs without anaesthetics. We should be shamed, but we should be more shamed by our refusal to act soon enough. I think we were complicit with Biden in basically saying to the Israelis, “You have more time to sort this out with military action, rather than looking at a real strategic plan for the future.” We have a responsibility because of our history over the past century and a half in the region, so we should come forward with our own proposals soon. Some have been mentioned already and I do think that the recognition of Palestine is important, because that sends a message to Israel and elsewhere—

[Bob Seely]

rose—

[John McDonnell]

If the hon. Gentleman does not mind, I am going to try to keep within the time if I can.

Recognition of Palestine will send a message to Israel that it has to come to terms with that reality at some stage. I know people have said that we have to get rid of Hamas, but, as soon as we can secure peace, Palestinians should be given the opportunity to vote for their leadership and be allowed to exercise democracy. I think people will be surprised at how the Palestinians will vote; I think they will vote for peace and for those who advocate peace. That might give us the opportunity to consolidate the Palestinian people, who have been so divided by Israel between the west bank and Gaza. We need to think creatively, for example like that, before we blunder even further. I hope the Government will now come forward with a more constructive plan, and let us vote on it.

Trial of Jimmy Lai

Bob Seely Excerpts

Monday 18th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

The hon. Lady is right; it has been tragic to see the disintegration of all those freedoms, which, when both countries signed up to the Sino-British joint declaration, we considered that China would stand by. Of course, when we saw the national security law coming in, we responded very quickly and decisively, in particular with the new immigration path for British national overseas passport holders, so that we could provide that security for those who felt under most stress. We also suspended the extradition treaty with Hong Kong indefinitely to provide protection for those people and we have extended our arms embargo on mainland China to cover Hong Kong. This is a tragic situation, and we will continue to call for change and for the Hong Kong authorities to reverse the national security law and restore those freedoms that were part of Hong Kong’s extraordinary opportunity for economic success, as well as other things.

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

Given everything that is happening in China, including this pitiful show trial, is it not now time that the Government of this country developed a proper, coherent cross-Government strategy for dealing with China, since they are patently lacking one at the moment?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

As we set out in the integrated review refresh published in March, China’s challenge to both economic and global security is one that we consider to be right at the heart of the challenges we face. We continue to work closely with officials and in concert with G7 and other partners around the world to tackle some of those challenges.

Israel-Hamas War: Diplomacy

Bob Seely Excerpts

Monday 11th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

I understand the right hon. Lady’s strength of feeling, but she does no service to Members on either Front Bench, who have made it clear that the reasons why a ceasefire would not work are known to the House and that trying to secure humanitarian pauses—the longer the better—is the way to release humanitarian support to those who are suffering in the way she describes.

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

The despicable actions of Hamas and Iran are responsible for this conflict, but proportionality is important in the rules of war, as my right hon. Friend knows. Can he explain what we are doing, working with our friends in the middle east, to encourage a sense of proportionality in Israel’s response, so that we minimise the many civilian casualties while respecting their need to take military action?

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend expresses the balance very clearly and very well, particularly in the first part of his question. The important point, which Britain makes continually to Israel, is that its response must be proportionate, and it must operate within international humanitarian law.

Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories

Bob Seely Excerpts

Tuesday 14th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Mr Seely, are you going to be quiet?

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

Yes.

[Mr Speaker]

Right—in which case, the shadow Foreign Secretary may continue.

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[Mr Mitchell]

We are speaking out in every way we can to try to protect vulnerable citizens. I quote what President Joe Biden said yesterday in an Oval Office address. He said that Al-Shifa Hospital “must be protected” and that

“it is my…expectation that there will be less intrusive action”.

Israel has made it clear that it has clashed with Hamas nearby, but has not fired on the hospitals themselves.

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

First, I thank the FCDO for helping to rescue a group of Isle of Wight pilgrims who were caught in the Holy Land at the beginning of this dreadful conflict. Secondly—it is a genuine question—both sides have talked about the importance of protecting hospitals, but what can Israel do when those hospitals are being used to store ammunition and hold hostages, when there are military HQs and operational Hamas commands underneath those hospitals, and when Hamas are deliberately denying those hospitals fuel, because they would rather broadcast pictures of very tiny babies dying than try to save them?

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend speaks with great eloquence and passion on this point. I can do no better than to commend the eloquence of his argument.

Hong Kong National Security Law Anniversary

Bob Seely Excerpts

Wednesday 28th June 2023 Westminster Hall

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

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way. As a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, I know we are concerned to hear whether Ministers can be more vocal when speaking out for British prisoners, or political prisoners across the board—in the case of not only Jimmy Lai, but Vladimir Kara-Murza.

[Sir George Howarth (in the Chair)]

Order. Before I bring in the shadow Minister, I want to point out that I know the hon. Gentleman has an express interest in this subject, but it is not good to intervene right at the end of a debate without having listened to it.

Situation in Russia

Bob Seely Excerpts

Monday 26th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

The hon. Gentleman makes an incredibly important point about the personal courage that President Zelensky demonstrated at a point in time when Russian tanks were advancing on Kyiv. I have had the pleasure of meeting him on a couple of occasions, and it is a genuine privilege to do so.

We of course look at a wide range of open-source reporting. Much of that reporting is speculative, and much turns out to be inaccurate; we attempt to sift as much as we can, but it is difficult to get a clear picture of the events on the ground. As such, what we tend to do—as the hon. Gentleman will understand—is work on a range of potential scenarios and plan around the most credible and likely of them.

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

The latest news, if it is to be believed, is that 8,000 Wagner mercenaries will be joining Yevgeny Prigozhin in Belarus, in a small town called Asipovichy where I understand some bases are being built at the dictator Lukashenko’s request. Without wishing to speculate on whether that brigade-sized force will be a greater threat to Lukashenko or to Putin in the short to medium term, may I ask the Foreign Secretary to assure us that that base will be very closely monitored, given its proximity not only to Russian nuclear weapons—we have seen the dual loyalties that the Russian army has towards Wagner—but to NATO borders?

[James Cleverly]

My hon. and gallant Friend makes an incredibly important point: I am not at all sure that I would be comfortable with 8,000 Wagner fighters being my friends any time soon. We have made it absolutely clear to the Belarusian Government that we expect them not to be involved in or to facilitate attacks into Ukraine. We will of course keep a very close eye on reporting about the locations and activity of those Wagner fighters in Belarus.