Balfour Declaration

Chris Law Excerpts

Monday 30th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

I agree very much with my right hon. Friend that, as it were, the protasis of the Balfour declaration has been fulfilled, but the apodosis has not. It should have spoken of the political rights of those peoples and, by the way, in my view it should have identified specifically the Palestinian people. That has not yet happened, and it is certainly our intention to make sure that Balfour does not remain unfinished business. As I have said, we want to recognise a Palestinian state as part of a two-state solution, but we judge that the moment to do that is not yet ripe.

[Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)]

While the historical context is complex, we have stressed the need to learn some important and relevant lessons from the Balfour declaration. There is plenty of room for lessons to be learned, and for historic and moral responsibilities to be assumed for the betterment of all the peoples of the middle east today. This must start with the recognition of the state of Palestine as a fundamental stepping stone towards a lasting two-state solution.

I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s words, at least in principle, on that solution. However, we deeply regret that the UK Government have not fulfilled their commission in the declaration that, as we have already heard,

“nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”.

The consequence of this failure remains all too clear. We hope that the centenary of the Balfour declaration will serve as an opportunity for reflection and a reinvigorated peace process across the middle east.

The Scottish National party supports the European Union position of a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders, and we firmly encourage Palestine and Israel to reach a sustainable, negotiated settlement under international law, based on mutual recognition and the determination to co-exist peacefully. The SNP has consistently condemned obstacles to progress in the peace process, such as the indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israel or the continued expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied territories.

Opposition Members have repeatedly called on the UK Government to use their influence to help to revitalise the peace process. I repeat those calls and ask the Foreign Secretary what efforts he is making to use his influence to bring about a renewed effort to break through the political deadlock and bring an end to this conflict.

The Scottish Government have been clear that they would welcome a Palestinian consulate in Edinburgh. Will the Foreign Secretary take this opportunity to recognise formally a Palestinian state as a fundamental stepping stone to a two-state solution by enabling the opening of an embassy?

[Boris Johnson]

Of course we are doing everything in our power to push on with a two-state solution. I have spoken about the outlines of a deal that everyone can imagine—the land swaps for peace that can be arranged—but it is also vital that we remember that Israel has a legitimate security interest. If we are to get this done, I am afraid it is essential that not just Fatah and the PA but Hamas as well have to understand that they must renounce terror, their use of anti-Semitic propaganda and the glorification of so-called terrorist martyrs. They must commit to the Quartet principles, and then there is genuinely the opportunity to get both sides together.

The hon. Gentleman asks rightly about what this country is doing specifically to advance this, and we are engaged heavily in the diplomacy. Not only is the Israeli Prime Minister coming this week, as is proper, to mark Balfour, but Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, will come next year. We look forward to an intensification of contacts with them in the run-up to that visit.

Raqqa and Daesh

Chris Law Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

I am not going to go over previous discussions about this, and I understand the point of my right hon. Friend’s question. The coalition forces in Syria that have been backed in relation to Raqqa contain a variety of forces, but not Syrian regime forces. We still hold, and are right to hold, the Syrian regime responsible for a large proportion of the atrocities in Syria, and that should not be forgotten or glossed over. President al-Assad is responsible for launching murderous attacks on his own people, and it has been right to separate, in so far as is possible, coalition forces fighting Daesh from those of the regime.

[Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)]

We welcome the news that Daesh or the so-called “Islamic State” has been defeated in Raqqa by the Syrian Democratic Forces after its three-year rule over the city. We also welcome the pledge we hear today of £10 million from the Department for International Development in humanitarian aid.

Does the Minister agree that in order to sustain the military achievement in Raqqa, rebuilding efforts and the introduction of post-IS mechanisms need to start immediately in order to allow locals to develop and run their city meaningfully and in an inclusive manner that will ensure good governance and reliable public services? What funds have therefore been allocated, both to the immediate and the long-term reconstruction of Raqqa and the wider region? Does the Minister agree that British jihadists need also to be captured, where possible, and tried for their heinous war crimes, some of which, such as genocide, can only be faced in the International Criminal Court at The Hague? That would allow the whole world to witness them. Does he agree we should do that rather than, to use the words of the Minister of State, Department for International Development, the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), follow an approach where

“the only way of dealing with them will be, in almost every case, to kill them.”?

That of course will only fuel IS recruitment.

[Alistair Burt]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support. There are two elements of reconstruction after conflict, the first of which is the stabilisation phase. My right hon. Friend the International Development Secretary addressed that the other day, and it is about providing the immediate assistance that is needed. As I indicated, that helps to clear lethal landmines and explosives, restock hospitals and mobile surgical units, provide some 145,000 medical consultations, provide immediate relief for innocent people who have been displaced, improve access to clean water and look after pregnant women who are in difficulties. The United Kingdom is contributing to that immediate work. In the longer term, resources have not yet been allocated, and that will be done in conjunction with UN and other donors who will be providing support. That will be a long-term process.

Again, the hon. Gentleman put his finger on the necessity for inclusive governance in a difficult area. That will be a matter for the Syrian people and for the political negotiations we expect to start in Geneva in November, which will look at the overall governance. They will have to take into account the situation in Raqqa and the political situation in the area, which will be difficult, but he is right to talk about inclusion.

On those returning to the United Kingdom, let me make it clear, as the Defence Secretary said on 12 October, that those who go to Syria put themselves in danger. Those who go to Syria to take action against the United Kingdom and the UK’s interest put themselves in particular danger, and if they are involved in conflict or in planning actions that will take the lives of British citizens, they run the risk of being killed themselves. Of course those who surrender to forces in the area must expect to be treated under the laws of armed conflict, and to be treated properly and humanely in terms of being brought to justice. As I have said, those who return to the UK will also be questioned about their activity and brought to justice. It is important that justice is seen as the ultimate outcome for those who have committed wrong, but those who are a present danger to the UK run a greater risk and it is right that they do.

The Rohingya and the Myanmar Government

Chris Law Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I will try to reduce my speech significantly because the key points have been made, particularly on the awful atrocities that have been happening to the Rohingya people in Myanmar. We have heard horrific stories from Members around this Chamber, beginning with the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali). Those atrocities include Government soldiers stabbing babies, cutting off boys’ heads, gang-raping girls, shooting 40 mm grenades into houses, burning entire families to death, and rounding up dozens of unarmed male villagers and summarily executing them. That says it all. When the UN branded the Burmese Government’s actions as “textbook ethnic cleansing”, that was being polite, to say the least.

For those who have survived to get into Bangladesh, the torture continues—not directly from the Burmese military but from malnutrition, cholera and other diseases. Save the Children has warned that over 14,000 children are already suffering acute malnutrition and over 250,000 refugees need food urgently. Sixty per cent. of all refugees going into Bangladesh are children—more than half. This is the story that should be dominating our national newspapers and on our television screens day after day, instead of the Cabinet’s squabbling, yet it goes largely ignored. We have heard about the history of this. It has been going on for decades. As Human Rights Watch has said, the Rohingya have faced

“decades of discrimination and repression under successive Burmese Governments. Effectively denied citizenship under the 1982 Citizenship Law, they are one of the largest stateless populations in the world.”

As we heard earlier, the International Development Committee has just begun an inquiry into the situation in Myanmar for our first report on the subject. My colleagues and I on the Committee will be going to Myanmar and Bangladesh and reporting back here as soon as we can. It is encouraging that the Department for International Development announced on Thursday that it will pledge £2 million to the crisis in addition to the £3 million it has already donated. The Scottish Government have also played a key part in pledging £120,000 to be made available for the emergency response.

I want to turn my attention to the UK Government’s decision to provide UK taxpayer-funded training to the Burmese army to the tune of £305,000 a year. The UK Government initially claimed that the training related to human rights, but were later forced to admit that only one hour in a 60-hour training course covered human rights. Considering the history of the Burmese military, the decision to train and trade with them is a spectacular failure of this Government’s foreign policy. The UK Government announced only last September that military training contracts between the British military and Myanmar would be immediately suspended, and I welcome that. However, ending the free training programme should be just one small part of a wide range of measures that put pressure on the military to end its violations of international law.

For too long the international community has tolerated the intolerable. Therefore, the UK must put strong international pressure on the Burmese civilian and military Government to stop the persecution and help negotiate a process for the protection of the remaining Rohingya in Myanmar and the return of those who have been forced to flee. There must also be a full restoration of international sanctions and a global arms embargo on Myanmar, and this needs to be imposed now. The UK Government must take the lead in building international support for this.

I was sorely disappointed when Aung San Suu Kyi refused to speak out against the violence as Myanmar’s de facto leader. In fact, her silence was so deafening that even fellow Nobel prize winners such as Desmond Tutu urged her to intervene to help with the crisis. Aung San Suu Kyi has been a hero of mine for a long time. She was imprisoned for nearly two decades after calling for democracy and human rights under the country’s oppressive military. She played a part in inspiring me to become involved in politics, as I am today. In a recent speech to Myanmar’s Parliament, she denied that there had been any “armed clashes” or “clearance operations” since 5 September this year. However, last week, in a welcome move, she announced plans to set up a civilian-led agency with foreign assistance to deliver aid and help to resettle Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state.

I appreciate that Aung San Suu Kyi may need to be careful not to inflame the situation further, as her adviser has said, and that she may have little influence over the powerful military. However, as a politically elected representative of the Government, and as someone who has championed human rights for decades, she has a moral responsibility, as well as a political one, to do right by all her people, which includes the Rohingya.

Many parts of the UK have already taken action. Glasgow City Council has written to Aung San Suu Kyi to give her one month before she loses the freedom of the city. My own city of Dundee is in the process of writing, and I have spoken out publicly. I would like to send a message to Aung San Suu Kyi today in the strongest terms. Her Government must now speak to the military, community leaders of Rohingya Muslims and Rakhine Buddhists and the international community to end the cycle of persecution and violence, to prevent further loss of lives and homes, to restore law and order, to prevent violence from spreading to other parts of the country and to stamp out the online xenophobia that has been watched by the world.

I would like to end with some important words that inspired me in the past:

“It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.”

Those are not my words, but the words of Aung San Suu Kyi. I therefore urge her to act fearlessly in the face of power, in the face of those who surround her and in the face of those who are committing—all of us in this Chamber can call it what it is—genocide on this earth as I speak.

[Mr Speaker]

Thank you. We can now enjoy the brilliance from Bishop Auckland for a maximum of seven minutes.

Scotland-Malawi Relationship

Chris Law Excerpts

Wednesday 13th September 2017 Westminster Hall

[Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)]

It is good to see you in your position, Mr Chope, and it is a pleasure to be back in Westminster Hall. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) on securing this important debate.

We have heard today that the links between Scotland and Malawi go back more than 150 years. They are built on a sense of dignified partnership and civil engagement. It is a relationship of mutual understanding and respect. The friendship between Scots and Malawians began, as we have heard, in the late 1850s, with a warm welcome extended to abolitionist and missionary David Livingstone and his companions when they entered what is now Malawi for the first time. The Scotland-Malawi relationship is arguably one of the world’s strongest north-south people-to-people links. It is defined by respect for a two-way partnership, rather than simply a one-way charity. As we have heard, almost 100,000 Scots are actively involved in links with Malawi, and almost double that number of Malawians are actively involved in links with Scotland. In fact, almost half of all Scots personally now know someone involved in a link with Malawi. That is an incredible achievement, is it not?

As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East said, the partnership succeeds in mobilising energy from across all sections of Scottish civil society, with hundreds of Scottish schools, churches, community groups, universities, businesses and hospitals actively involved.

[Alison Thewliss]

My hon. Friend mentioned the links that schools have made. Is he aware of the Glasgow-Malawi Leaders of Learning programme that Maureen McKenna, the director of education in Glasgow, has piloted? It has taken 35 staff from Glasgow since 2012 over to Malawi and fostered really great links between Malawi and Glasgow.

[Chris Law]

I am aware of it. It is just one of many examples of the partnership between Scotland and Malawi and how it continues to grow. I certainly will touch on a couple more examples.

To give one example in my constituency, Dundee University medical school is partnered with the University of Malawi’s College of Medicine and Kamuzu Central Hospital in Lilongwe, providing outstanding opportunities for final-year Dundee medical students though placements at partner institutions in Malawi. Those placements are used to help to develop medical and educational infrastructure in Malawi by supporting staffing and staff development.

A further example is the twinning project between Westgate health centre in Dundee and Matawale clinic in Zomba. They maintain two-way communication between Dundee and Malawi via internet access at the clinic. They also provide locally sourced equipment for the clinic, and local Dundee artists display their paintings for sale in the waiting room, with 25% of the purchase price then donated to the project.

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

We have heard a lot in this debate about the constituency and school links. In my constituency, St Margaret’s High School has set up an orphanage. It has improved attendance and attainment at its partner school, Chisitu. New Monkland Primary School, Clarkston Primary School and St Dominic’s nursery are also all doing great work. Does my hon. Friend agree that the work done on fostering those links from an early age is so important for both countries and needs to continue?

[Chris Law]

I absolutely agree. It is also about understanding people from different parts of the world, and the exchange, the cultural relationship and the building of bonds.

I would like to turn my attention to the 1955 UK-Malawi double taxation treaty. I echo the comments and concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East and other colleagues who urged the Government to update that treaty. It is without doubt a completely unfair and outdated treaty. It is so outdated, in fact, that it cannot cover not only digital and IT services but televisions, which go back to before my date of birth. We know that both Governments have committed to updating the treaty. However, in the last Parliament UK Ministers repeatedly stated that it would be imminently finalised, and a final deadline of July 2017 was stated and once again missed. I do not know about your thoughts on this, Mr Chope, but to me, “imminently” means immediately. Here we are, with something so simple still to resolve. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments shortly.

I would also like to draw the Minister’s attention to the issue of UK visas, which we have heard about today. Malawians regularly report that getting a visa for the UK is almost impossible because they are faced with endless bureaucracy, failing systems and non-existent customer service, and they can only ever speak with private businesses contracted to work for the UK Government. The failures of that system, week in, week out, have the potential to undermine not only the 150-year-old Scotland-Malawi friendship but the UK Government’s own development, diplomatic and trade interests in Africa. I therefore urge the Minister today to support a full public review of the UK Government’s visa-issuing processes for those invited to the UK as part of our credible, long-standing civic links.

On a lighter note—I will finish on this—I believe that this debate has captured and celebrated the scale, energy and impact of the bilateral relationship between Scotland and Malawi. The relationship is stronger and more engaging today than ever before and represents the best of Scottish internationalism. For the reasons I have stated, Scotland can rightly be proud of the distinctive and effective approach it has taken over the last 150 years to international development, and I am sure that all in the Chamber would agree that they wish this partnership to not only endure but strengthen for many years to come.

Hurricane Irma: Government Response

Chris Law Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

As he is a former Foreign Office Minister, I totally respect the thinking and comments of my hon. Friend. We do not directly govern the overseas territories; they govern themselves. It is perhaps questionable whether it is appropriate, looking at the geography, to have a permanent base at any of them. However, we do rotate our naval assets so as best to cover the danger of hurricanes and to be able to respond to them. I think that in this case that has been shown to be very effective. The trouble is that if we have permanent assets, people or machinery pre-positioned, they can often get hit by the very hurricane that we are trying to respond to a few days later.

[Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)]

First and foremost, our thoughts are once again with those who are affected by the impact of the devastating Hurricane Irma. The SNP echoes the widespread calls for the UK Government to step up their efforts to ensure that those who are in need of urgent assistance receive it as swiftly and safely as possible. We welcome the fact that more than 700 British troops and 50 police officers have been sent to the British Virgin Islands after they were battered by the most powerful storm recorded in the Atlantic ocean. In addition, 20 tonnes of aid and £32 million is a start, but there must be more and we must ask the Minister to provide details of additional help to come. This is too little and too late.

There is real concern about the lack of preparedness by the UK Government in responding to the hurricane. The severity of Hurricane Irma had been predicted and there was time to prepare, but the UK Government did not do so. It is clear that in comparison to other territories’ and Governments’ responses, the UK Government have been lagging behind in their support and strategy. To give just one example to put this beyond any doubt, the French Government deployed their military before the storm, but the one ship sent by the UK Government arrived only on Thursday. Of course, if the UK Government had a proper shipbuilding strategy and this was implemented, they might be able to act sooner. Will the Secretary of State for International Development learn from the example of other Governments with reconstruction efforts and emergency funds? Once the International Development Committee is reconvened in Parliament, an inquiry into the UK Government’s slow response must be made an immediate priority to ensure that the UK is as prepared as it can be in dealing with such disasters.

Why have the UK Government lagged behind other countries in their support and strategy in responding adequately to Hurricane Irma? As I said last week—we have not heard a word about it so far from the Government Benches—it is clear that climate change plays a clear part in the ever-increasing 100-to-500-year storms that we have seen last week, as echoed by Gaston Browne, the Prime Minister of Barbuda. I therefore ask again what further pressures the UK Government are putting on Donald Trump to change his stance on the Paris climate change agreement.

[Sir Alan Duncan]

Again, I am rather dismayed by the hon. Gentleman’s sweeping criticisms of the efforts that have been made, because they are unsupported by the facts. For instance, the French do not deploy in advance specifically for hurricanes; they have troops permanently based there because the nature of French overseas territories government is different from ours. Our overseas territories are self-governing; the French govern directly, and therefore they have soldiers there all the time. But if they are there, depending on where the hurricane goes, they may not necessarily be in the right place, and some of their assets which they hoped would help may have been destroyed. Our flexible naval deployment is the best way of helping people in response to a hurricane when we know pretty well only at the last minute exactly where the force of the hurricane is going to hit.

On a shipbuilding strategy, I do not know where the hon. Gentleman has been over the past few weeks, but we have just announced one. Perhaps he might have the good grace to admit that we have announced a shipbuilding strategy and that instead of criticising us, he ought to be standing there saying, “Thank you very much.”

I reiterate the point—perhaps I chose my language imperfectly—that we are not so much evacuating people, because that is not always the right thing to do, particularly for those who want to live there and stay near their homes, as helping them to depart in a way that I would argue, and I think we can prove, is very efficient and is the right way done to the highest standards.

Hurricane Irma

Chris Law Excerpts

Thursday 7th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

First, let me say that we are endeavouring to contact everybody, although this is difficult in some cases. There is always a distinction between DFID funding that is Official Development Assistance-eligible and that which is not, but we will make all the assessments we possibly can, in order to give the help that we would like to give wherever we find that the need is severe. We will, as my hon. Friend requests, focus on all the help, and we have dealt with many hurricanes and typhoons in the region before. Indeed, four years ago, as the Minister, I gave some assistance to St Lucia and St Vincent, which had had all their bridges swept away. It was because we had the professionalism required to assess the damage that we knew how best to respond to it. Our response is flexible, which again reflects DFID’s professional competence.

[Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)]

I, too, am grateful for advance sight of today’s statement. There is no doubt that the devastation across the Caribbean is both grave and a tragedy. Naturally, our thoughts and wishes go out to all those waiting to find out whether or not they are in the path of Hurricane Irma—those in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, the Bahamas and Florida; and to those who have already been hit in the Virgin Islands, Anguilla, Puerto Rico and St Martin, which we hear is “almost destroyed” and in Barbuda, whose Prime Minister says that the island is “totally demolished” and “nearly uninhabitable”. We encourage the Minister to send as much urgent aid as possible to them.

The upgrading to hurricanes of storms Jose and Katia, making it three in the Caribbean basin, is terrifying. The prospect of Jose hitting locales we have already seen hit, amid the devastation, is unthinkable. The world is witnessing the increased prevalence of hurricanes. In the past three years alone, Texas has had three 100-year to 500-year events, leading to warnings that this is the “new normal”. We are seeing the major impact of climate change, and we must step up actions on this at the highest priority. Gaston Browne, the Prime Minister of Barbuda and the larger, neighbouring island of Antigua, told the BBC’s “Today” programme:

“The science is clear. Climate change is real, in the Caribbean we are living with the consequences of climate change. It is unfortunate that there are some who see it differently.”

Will the Government express our solidarity and sympathies with the communities affected, especially those on the devastated island of Barbuda, through communication with their Prime Minister? What efforts have the Government made to note how many UK nationals have been caught up in the path of this devastating hurricane?

Finally, as part of the UK’s much-vaunted “special relationship” with the United States, what pressure are the UK Government putting on Donald Trump to change his stance on the Paris climate change agreement, and to be part of the solution and not the problem?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I of course hear what the hon. Gentleman says about climate change. There is no doubt that many parts of the world are facing a greater incidence of severe weather, but I hope he will allow me to confine myself to the urgent nature of our response to people in desperate need, rather than engage today in a debate on the broader issues. Our priority is primarily the overseas territories, but it is not confined to them. Thus, we will be focusing in the first instance on the British Virgin Islands, Anguilla and, by the look of it, the Turks and Caicos Islands. That is why the crisis centres in the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development are working joined at the hip to ensure that our response is as effective and as rapid as possible.

Violence in Rakhine State

Chris Law Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his words. I know that he, having held the post that I now hold, has a lot of knowledge of the area. As I pointed out in my initial comments, after the violence broke out on 25 August, the UK, as a matter of urgency, spoke out and took a lead not just in issuing statements but in ensuring that we had a UN Security Council discussion on 30 August—at a time when the UN was looking at other matters. He is absolutely right to suggest that this situation must be looked at in the context of Malaysia and of other neighbouring states in the region, and not just in the context of Bangladesh. Our ambassador has lobbied the Burmese Government, and our high commission in Dhaka has also discussed the situation with the Government of Bangladesh. We will continue to keep a close eye on developments. I hope that we can do that partly through the UN and other international bodies. My right hon. Friend’s suggestion that the UK brings things together is something that, uniquely, we have some authority to do. I hope that we shall do so if there is any escalation of the situation in the weeks ahead.

[Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)]

The recent violence in Rakhine state and the long-standing persecution of the Rohingya are appalling and must end immediately. In the past two weeks alone, some 120,000 refugees have fled the violence in Rakhine state, and the two main UN camps in Bangladesh are now overflowing. We ask the Government and the military of Myanmar to remove all restrictions on entry to Rakhine state for the media, aid agencies and non-governmental organisations, as the world must be allowed to see what is happening and to help people in need.

While attacks by Rohingya militants are not to be condoned, the Government and military of Myanmar have a responsibility to protect civilians in all communities from violence and displacement, and they must begin to do so immediately. Will the Minister therefore make a commitment to work immediately with the UN and the Bangladeshi Government to provide urgent aid, food and water to refugees both inside and outside the camps?

[Mark Field]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his words. He will appreciate that I have already touched on some of the issues in relation to Bangladesh.

I, too, am concerned on behalf of the UK Government that Burma has dissociated itself from elements of the fact-finding mission to which the hon. Gentleman referred. Following the last set of attacks in October 2016, the UK co-sponsored a resolution at the Human Rights Council setting up a fact-finding mission to look into the human rights situation in Burma. We will continue forcefully to urge Burma to co-operate with the mission and its mandate, and as the hon. Gentleman rightly said, the more the world sees what is going on, particularly on the border of Bangladesh and Burma, the more urgent attention we can give to the Burmese authorities to ensure that this terrible humanitarian crisis comes to a close at the earliest opportunity.

Korean Peninsula

Chris Law Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

I thank my hon. Friend for his compendious question. He rightly says that we are one of the few countries to have an embassy in Pyongyang—we are the only P3 country with an embassy there. As such, we are determined to keep that embassy going, and I hope the House will share our determination to keep it going, along with support for other P5 countries, and for other western interests in that city and in North Korea. Let me pick out his most important question; I do not wish to comment on British forces’ operational activities. I think he is really driving at the question of whether the Chinese have yet played all the cards they have in their hand. China controls 93% of North Korea’s external trade. It is a simple fact that North Korea is wholly dependent on imported oil. In the end, the Chinese do have much further to go on this. There are ways in which they can tighten the economic ligature; they can make more of a difference. The question in their minds is whether they can do that without incurring serious political convulsions within North Korea. We think there is room for further Chinese effort. We are working with our Chinese friends to persuade them to do this. To be fair to the Chinese, I must say that they have shown a much greater willingness than they have hitherto to understand the threat that North Korea poses and to take action. To that extent, the Chinese should be commended.

[Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)]

It is very apparent that the international community needs to act immediately to ensure that all sides exercise restraint and return to diplomatic dialogue. The most effective means of reducing tensions would be for the North Korean regime to immediately suspend its nuclear development and testing, and we join the majority of the international community in urging it to do just that. We also take note of the numerous calls for even tougher UN sanctions to be imposed on North Korea. However, to be most effective, increased sanctions should be accompanied by reinforced six-party talks and renewed efforts to reach a peaceful diplomatic solution. Moreover, the UK Government must use their much-vaunted “special relationship” with the United States and influence their friend Donald Trump to drastically calm his rhetoric. If that relationship is worth anything—if the UK has any sort of genuine influence in the White House—the UK Government must use it now to walk President Trump back from the unacceptable threats he has made and to bring some modicum of rationality to his dialogue. If the UK Government are unable or unwilling to make a constructive intervention, that would make a mockery of the so-called “special relationship” and of the much-vaunted “global Britain”.

Finally, this crisis is a stark reminder of the danger posed by nuclear weapons and must be harnessed to intensify efforts towards multilateral disarmament and achieving global zero. The recent UN treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons was a major achievement. Will the UK Government therefore take this opportunity to demonstrate real leadership on the international stage, and show that to all of us, by choosing to become the first nuclear-armed state to sign the UN treaty and to commit to legally binding nuclear disarmament? It is worth reiterating that the people of Scotland live side by side with nuclear weapons every day. On their behalf, my colleagues and I in the Scottish National party urge the UK Government to sign up to the UN treaty without delay.

[Boris Johnson]

On the American point, let me just say that it is vital that we keep the focus of our attention on Pyongyang’s primacy of responsibility for causing this crisis; anything else is a distraction. As for nuclear disarmament, let me make a comment I might direct to those on the Opposition Benches: surely to goodness this crisis shows the folly of unilateral nuclear disarmament. That is one of their policies and it would open up this country and others to nuclear blackmail from North Korea.