Oral Answers to Questions

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

We talk to all the parties and players involved. Obviously there is an important NATO component. The US withdrawal of troops is, of course, a matter for them, but we note that a small residual number of troops are going to be left for counter-Daesh operations. We support the deconfliction mechanism that is in place to try to ensure that the airspace can be correctly and properly policed.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

It is an honour, Mr Speaker, to be the first Back Bencher to be called from the Government Benches during your Speakership. I made my remarks about your predecessor a matter of formal record, and I hope I can now get called, which would be agreeable.

On this very serious issue, having recently been to the region may I urge my right hon. Friend and his colleagues to engage with the local leadership there when they make themselves available at ministerial level? On the conduct of the Turkish military operation, there is now pretty incontrovertible evidence that white phosphorus has been used as a weapon against civilians, if not other chemical weapons, either by the Turks or by their Syrian auxiliary allies. This is a matter of immense seriousness; will the United Kingdom Government now hold Turkey and her allies to account?

[Dominic Raab]

Your tenure and leadership, Mr Speaker, are already producing changes on the Back Benches, which are hugely welcome. My hon. Friend is right to be concerned that we ensure we are engaged with key figures on the ground in northern Syria. In relation to white phosphorus, we are very concerned by the reports—which have not yet been fully verified, as we have said—and we want to see a swift and thorough investigation by the UN Commission of Investigation. That is what we are pressing for.

British Children: Syria

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

I thank the hon. Gentleman, who puts his points in his usual effective and forceful way. It is right to point out that the UK has been right at the forefront of applying international development funding to the dire situation in north-east Syria. We are right at the top of the league table, and it is important to say that. Particularly as winter approaches, it is of vital importance that the British public know that their money is being spent to alleviate as far as they possibly can this dire humanitarian situation.

I am not going to be drawn on other countries, because it is invidious to make comparisons. It is very easy just to pluck out a couple of countries from the air and say that we are not doing as well as X or Y. Let me be clear: we are doing what we can, given the difficult circumstances on the ground, and of course within the rule of law, for vulnerable children in north-east Syria. This is a piece that is rapidly developing and rapidly changing, and of course we keep all things under review. I hope that is helpful to the hon. Gentleman.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

I declare my interest both as an expert witness in the defence of John Letts and Sally Lane in respect of the non-provision of consular services in the region—evidence that was unchallenged by the prosecution—and in respect of a visit to the region with three parliamentary colleagues with the all-party parliamentary group on Rojava five weeks ago. In al-Hawl camp, we were told that there were 16 British families there. I have to say to my right hon. Friend that every single day we delay in bringing these children home is an extra day of trauma that we are going to have to address at great expense in the United Kingdom. We must take up our responsibilities both to the children and to ourselves in order to protect our future security.

[Dr Murrison]

Yes, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s first-hand experience in Syria and the efforts he has made to better understand what is going on. The situation in north-east Syria is difficult and unpredictable. We have a ceasefire at the moment, and I hope it endures. If that ceasefire does hold tonight into tomorrow and into the future, the situation becomes much more permissive in terms of trying to deliver assistance where it is necessary and also in dealing with the cases that he has referred to, particularly the orphaned children—the unaccompanied minors—who are deeply vulnerable. I entirely agree with him that with every day that goes past means these children potentially getting even more deeply disadvantaged. I want this resolved. At the moment, we are working with agencies to do what we can. In the event that the ceasefire holds, I think that things will hopefully move a lot more rapidly and we will be able to do more.

Turkish Incursion into Northern Syria

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I thank the hon. Gentleman. I will of course take on board his concerns. I can see that they are deeply held and expressed with genuine and sincere passion. I have already explained the situation in relation to unaccompanied minors and orphans, but we will take on board his concerns. We keep the situation under review.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

The Foreign Secretary, in his reply to the initial question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), talked about the PKK threat to Turkey across its southern border. When I was there four weeks ago, we could see no evidence of that. What evidence does the Foreign Secretary have for there being a threat across the southern border? The PKK was undoubtedly responsible for giving the SDF the capacity to help stop ISIS in 2014, but since then, from what I could see, particularly with the agreement to allow joint Turkish and American patrols 5 km into the area it controlled over the border, it was bending over backwards to make sure there was no threat or provocation to Turkey from Syria in the south.

[Dominic Raab]

My hon. Friend would not expect me to comment on intelligence matters, but what I can say is that we understand Turkey’s broader concern in relation to the PKK. The point I was making on both that and the refugee situation is that Turkey has been dealing with some of the implications of the conflict in Syria for a long time. It has now taken over 3.6 million refugees. I think we could do with showing at least some empathy and understanding of what the scale of that involves. I say that by way of setting the context that we need to take a clear-sighted and long-term view. We have been absolutely clear in our condemnation of the action Turkey has taken, but we need to try to get Turkey to come back into compliance by coming out of Syria, ending its military action, and working within NATO rather than at odds with it.

Britain's Place in the World

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Keir Starmer]

I will in just one moment. The reality is that, of the seven Bills paraded as the centrepiece, five were exactly the same as the ones that have just been dropped and one is the same as the one that the Government would not introduce because they did not think it would win. That only leaves the lonely old private international law (implementation of agreements) Bill.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Keir Starmer]

I am grateful for that intervention, mainly because it double-underlines the point I am trying to make. This is the second day of the debate on the Queen’s Speech, and I am challenged on whether we should have a general election. This is supposed to be the opening of a new parliamentary Session. The point I am making is that this Queen’s Speech is a pretence. Those Bills got stuck because there was not a majority for them, so we are now reintroducing them.

[Crispin Blunt]

rose—

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

rose—

[Keir Starmer]

I promised I would give way to the hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) first.

[Crispin Blunt]

I am extremely grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for giving way, but what he knows, and the country knows, is that he had the opportunity many weeks ago, with all his colleagues, to vote for a general election today, on 15 October. They did not take that opportunity, so I am afraid that none of this presentation that he is making stacks up.

[Keir Starmer]

I am not going to vote for a general election until we have an extension. I am not going to allow our country to crash out of the EU without a deal. That is perfectly straightforward. That is my position. The hon. Gentleman may disagree, but that is my position. I am not going to vote for a general election until I know that an extension of article 50 has been secured and we are not leaving without a deal.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)]

It is sometimes easy to forget the sunlit uplands of days gone by when those of us in Westminster were not entirely immersed in the omnishambolic boorach that is Brexit. In old money, I would still be a first-term MP, rather than one facing a third general election in just over four years. In days gone by, if a new Government came in with a fresh set of ideas—say, to take us out of the European Union, upending decades of peace, stability and progress—we might expect them to have some idea of how to deliver their promises and what impact it might have on us all.

Well, 2015 seems like a long time ago—not so long ago, to be fair, because the same old faces who proposed leaving the EU without any sort of plan for how to deliver on their commitments once again find themselves in senior positions in Government where they can act on their commitments. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose, as they might say in the francophone parts of Brussels. Here we are, years on from the EU referendum, and those who failed to deliver on their Brexit commitments the first time around look like they are going to fail a second time around. What an almighty mess! We are now hearing reports that election leaflets from the Conservatives accept that we will not leave on 31 October—quite right too; it is the law. Let us hope that those in Conservative headquarters are a little bit better at sticking to the law than the Prime Minister appears to be.

The UK Government’s own analysis tells us that every type of Brexit will leave us worse off and poorer as a result of leaving the EU—every type. We are healthier with the co-operation in medicine supplies and groundbreaking research from our membership. We are wealthier with access to the world’s biggest single market. We are fairer in terms of workers’, parental and other rights, which I would not trust this or any other Tory Government with. And we are greener in tackling the climate emergency and developing technologies, where Scotland is leading the way, even if this Government do not always give us the powers that we need. Of course we can do better. Deepening co-operation between 28 independent and sovereign states—let us not forget that members of the EU are independent and sovereign—will never be easy.

[Crispin Blunt]

We heard the news from the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil) about the proposed referendum on independence. If that referendum took place and was carried in the affirmative, would he then say that Scotland will not leave the Union of the United Kingdom unless it could secure a deal with the rest of the United Kingdom?

[Stephen Gethins]

This is the most extraordinary thing. They sit here with no plan for Brexit, demanding all sorts that they cannot deliver, and telling the people of Scotland—who, time and again, provide a majority to the party that believes in independence—what is best, but forgetting that there are 27 models throughout the European Union for member status, which was also set out before the referendum in a White Paper. I like the hon. Gentleman—he might not thank me for saying that—but he fails to remember that it is traditional in a democracy to set out the plans before the vote, rather than four years later, scrabbling about days before we are due to leave, seeking a plan. The reason for that is that independence is normal. Member status of the European Union is normal. Brexit—isolationism—is not normal.

Leaving the EU will make us poorer, more decentralised, less fair and isolated from our closest partners, but let us just for one moment focus on one of the proposals—just one—contained in the Queen’s Speech. Rarely has there been a more damaging and regressive bit of legislation than that proposed to scrap freedom of movement. It is a freedom that generations of citizens have benefited from—from the pensioner who seeks retirement in Spain after years of hard work to the young person starting out on their career in education and getting valuable training or work opportunities in the Netherlands. That was me once upon a time—benefiting from freedom of movement. I did not benefit from the expensive education that many of the Brexiteers had, but I was able to use freedom of movement to my advantage to advance my education and career. The UK will now be unique among our neighbours in our citizens not having those opportunities. Why on earth would I vote to take away opportunities that I myself have had?

--- Later in debate ---

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

It is, as always, a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), and it is a pleasure to be called so early in the debate. Indeed, in some of our debates on the European Union it has been a pleasure to be called at all.

Reflecting on the work of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the last Parliament—I see that my hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat), my successor as Chairman, is present—I feel that I know only too well the cost of being a Brexiteer in this remainer Parliament. However, I am very proud of some of the work that the Committee did then, not only in analysing our future relationship with the European Union but in bringing home three unanimous reports on the vexed issue of Europe, although the Committee was split down the middle on the issue. Perhaps one of the most important reports was produced in advance of the referendum, and was entitled “Implications of the referendum on EU membership for the UK’s role in the world”. Given that the subject of today’s debate is “Britain’s place in the world”, I think that it should focus more on what our role in the world will be when we have left the European Union. Of course, I understand that a rearguard action of huge ferocity and determination is in progress with the aim of reversing the decision—the decision!—that the people made in the referendum in 2016.

[Stephen Gethins]

I must pick the hon. Gentleman up on just one point. As someone who never voted for article 50 and as someone who wants to remain in the European Union, I have to say that this does not feel like a “remainer Parliament” to me. If it were, we would not be in this situation, because we would revoke article 50, which the Court said that we could do tomorrow.

[Crispin Blunt]

The hon. Gentleman makes it clear that there is an awful lot of smoke on this issue, with people not being totally clear and honest about the precise position they are taking. I exempt the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish nationalists from that. The hon. Gentleman’s amity for me is fully reciprocated, although I rather suspect mine might do to more damage to him than his will do me, but on the question of no deal, the idea that Scotland, if it was allowed another referendum by this Parliament—[Interruption.] This Parliament would have to pass that, and I might point out to the hon. Gentleman that, as he well knows, we said we were dealing with this issue for a generation. If there was a future referendum, however, and Scotland voted to be independent, there would then need to be a negotiation about the terms of Scotland leaving the Union of the United Kingdom. The idea that he would come here and say that if the rest of the United Kingdom would not come to an agreement it would all be off is utterly preposterous. That is exactly the same kind of relationship that he has voted to impose on the United Kingdom in its negotiation with the European Community, however.

Finally, because we actually have a stated date of 31 October in mind, we are now getting the necessary concentration from our partners to at last get serious about the terms of the withdrawal agreement. I might just reflect that we have heard a great deal from the Taoiseach and the Foreign Minister of the Republic of Ireland in the years that have led into this negotiation, but finally, into the debate audibly came the Finance Minister a couple of weeks ago. I take that sense of financial reality—the financial implications of there being no withdrawal agreement between the United Kingdom and the European Union—and the entry into the discussion of the Finance Minister of the Republic of Ireland as a thoroughly good sign that we are now going to get serious as we run into the final stages.

[Ian Paisley]

The hon. Gentleman’s observations about what has happened in the Republic of Ireland—the sobering up of some people’s views—are very telling. He will recall, as I do, that since the withdrawal agreement came into existence this House has been told that it is unalterable—it is sacrosanct; it cannot be changed—but what has been happening since the smiling meeting in the countryside of England last week? It is being changed—an amazing turn of events.

--- Later in debate ---

[Crispin Blunt]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend that it is an amazing turn of events given the language used about the withdrawal agreement, but of course the reality is that it is not that amazing, because interests are finally entering properly into this discussion, and the interests of twice as many people in the European Union than in the United Kingdom are engaged in the economics of the outcome of there being no agreement. As the Foreign Affairs Committee said in our inquiry on the implications of no deal, it would affect a greater proportion of the UK’s economy, but more people on the other side of the channel and on the other side of the Irish sea will catch the consequences if we fail in bringing home a withdrawal agreement in the rest of this week.

I have to say to those on the Labour Front Bench, in the absence of the shadow Secretary of State, that the presumption that the noble purpose of defending the Good Friday agreement is why no deal must be taken off the table is false. Our fellow members of the European Union are of course not going to work to undermine the Good Friday agreement and the relations between Northern Ireland and the Republic once we have left the European Union. That is why we need to turn to the future and what Britain’s place in the world will be after this.

In the withdrawal agreement we have of course dealt only with the terms of the withdrawal, and what has to be settled is the future arrangements and relationship with the European Union. I trust that that negotiation will be rather better dominated from the beginning by the common interests that both the EU and ourselves have in a constructive trading relationship that gives us the opportunity to forge a new relationship with the EU, based on a new role in the world for the UK. The country made its choice between being part of a big bloc or being a nation of 65 million people on its own, and I think the choice it made in the long-term interests of the UK was the right one, given the direction that the European Union was going. We must convince our children of the merits of that role in the world.

The Secretary of State for International Development, in opening the debate, reflected on his visits around the world and on how the United Kingdom is seen. He focused on the values the UK is seen to uphold: our democracy, our rules-based system and the economic empowerment of people. One that he did not mention, which I think is one of the golden threads, is our respect for the law. That is why London is the place where so many international companies have their agreements judged under English corporate law—because our judges are trusted and our system is seen as fair. That is an English set of values that is seen as a global asset. Those values, including a sense of proper fair play, have been associated with England and the United Kingdom down the centuries.

We must explain Britain’s new role in the world to the generation of younger people who voted to remain in the European Union, thinking that voting to leave was somehow turning our back on internationalism. It is quite the reverse. The United Kingdom now has the opportunity to play a role in the world as a member of the United Nations Security Council, contributing properly to our security and defence through NATO, and as a development superpower making the commitment as a serious economy to spending 0.7% of our GDP on development and to putting our values into action across the world and being a global leader in every sense, for the best values of humanity.

US Troop Withdrawal from Northern Syria

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

I have alluded to our support for the humanitarian situation. I suspect I will be quizzed on this further when I appear before the Select Committee on International Development in a few minutes’ time. I am proud of the contribution made by the British people. We are in the top few countries in our support for the humanitarian situation in Syria.

I am also proud that, by 2020, we will have resettled 20,000 Syrians, including in my constituency. That is a sign of the generosity and big heart of the British people. It is a fair contribution, and it is an indication of the UK punching above its weight on international development.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

I was in north-east Syria just three weeks ago with the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) and my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Adam Holloway) and, at least then, it would have come as news to the leaders in the region that there was any engagement on the justice measures apparently being taken forward on the ground.

I am sure the Minister understands the scale of Kurdish resentment following the operation against Afrin, and therefore the scale of Kurdish resistance that there would be if there were a Turkish incursion. He has just said that we would resist any incursion into Syria and that we support the SDF and the coalition. What will we actually do to deter Turkey from making the profound mistake of this planned intervention in north-east Syria?

[Dr Murrison]

Turkey is a major NATO ally, and it is a good friend of this country. We have some leverage with Turkey, as a friend and as a partner, and my hon. Friend will understand that this is currently in the diplomatic space. He is tempting me to make all sorts of contingency preparations, which I certainly will not do at the Dispatch Box. This is clearly a dynamic situation, and we will have to respond to whatever happens, but our message to Turkey is, “Please don’t do this. It will deflect attention from what really matters here: first, defeating Daesh, and secondly, restoring this poor, benighted country to some sort of equanimity.”

Human Rights in Saudi Arabia

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Henry. I draw the House’s attention to my declaration in the register, not least because I chair a detention review panel examining the cases of Saudi activists for women’s rights. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on securing this debate. Saudi Arabia is an important ally, so it is important that, where she falls short of the standards we expect from countries we strategically stand alongside, we hold her to account.

It is also important to put the question of how we advance and support human rights in Saudi Arabia into the wider strategic context. By most measurable economic and social indicators, the world is improving for the majority of its citizens. Global poverty and child mortality are down. Vaccinations, basic education and democracy are going up. Those are trends over the past couple of centuries. We live in a liberal-democratic-inspired, rules-based international world order, underpinned by NATO, the United States security umbrella and the United Nations, based on those structures established at the end of the second world war.

Overall, we expect those structures to advance human rights, but we now have to recognise that those structures are under immense strain. First, there was the missed opportunity of the fall of the Soviet Union, which has been replaced over the past 30 years by an increasingly like-for-like security structure in Putin’s Russia. Additionally, in the middle east we witnessed the failure of the Arab spring to advance the political and human rights of those on the wrong end of governance in the pre-2011 middle east, except perhaps in Tunisia and Morocco.

Strategically, the main challenge we face is the rise of China. If we fail to secure China’s place in the rules-based international order, it will be to our peril, and it will not only have implications for the nation states who immediately abut Chinese regional power in east Asia, but have a direct effect on basic questions of advancing human rights in countries such as Saudi Arabia. If our policy serves to drive our allies into the open arms of China and Russia to provide for their hard security, we will do nothing to advance and support human rights, collective political rights and government accountability in countries such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain, which have also been mentioned. It could seriously damage accountable progress.

This is a perilous time for human rights. This debate rightly highlights that Saudi Arabia is a human rights priority country for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and has been for several years. Disengaging from its political development and security will only help more authoritarian countries, which place less value on the rule of law, to become the dominant paradigm in the world.

I profoundly disagree with the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter). I believe the cancellation of the Just Solutions International contracts, which engaged in the Saudi justice system, particularly in the management of offenders, is profoundly to be regretted. I believe in the merits of interdependence. I believe that the police and justice training that we support should be delivered as far as possible. If we can do that, and sell to countries our experience—particularly the experience of the Ministry of Justice’s retired senior prison governors and probation officers—at economic advantage to the United Kingdom, so that they can improve their systems and import some of the human rights accountability, which we take for granted, it is likely to be of significant benefit overall, both financially for the United Kingdom and, more importantly, for the values we want to promote in those societies.

[Mr Carmichael]

I said in my speech that I am pragmatic about these things and where progress is seen, it should be applauded and rewarded. The difficulty is that where there is no accountability, it is difficult for us to know how effectively our money is being spent. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the refusal to account for the money that is being spent, as I referred to in my speech, is not good enough for the taxpayers of this country?

[Crispin Blunt]

I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman. It does not only apply in this area. When I chaired the Foreign Affairs Committee, I served on the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, which made a report about the inadequacy of accountability in the conflict, stability and security fund, for example, and the right hon. Gentleman mentioned the integrated activity fund. We ought to have accountability for public money; it is a basic requirement of our responsibility as we levy taxes on our constituents.

Having made the case for co-operation with Saudi Arabia, I recognise the flipside. As vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Saudi Arabia, I feel particularly pained by the current situation. In my 22 years as a Member of this House, I have defended the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s important relationship with the United Kingdom. A few years ago, I had hoped that the Kingdom was taking a bold new step forward when Mohammed bin Salman—first as Deputy Crown Prince and then as Crown Prince—effectively assumed the majority of the Executive power in Saudi Arabia.

The moves of the Crown Prince towards economic reform, with Vision 2030, were accompanied by wider apparent social reform: the removal of arrest powers from the religious police, the formal preparation of legislation to ease male guardianship laws and granting women the right to drive. There is genuine potential for modernisation under that programme. However, if the price turns out to be the closure of any emerging political space, any overall societal gain will be heavily reduced, if not negatived altogether.

We must be beyond disappointed by the series of events over the past two years that have led to where we are today. There is a wretched contradiction between the recent societal liberalisation in Saudi Arabia and the detention of the people who campaigned for those changes. Saudi Arabia has been commended for allowing women the right to drive, for the opening of cinemas and other entertainment places and, as I said, for ending the religious police’s power of arrest. They were all immensely important to the freedom one has to conduct one’s life in Saudi Arabia, but if in parallel the activists who for years had advocated those changes are arrested, such incredible detention and this disastrous series of events must be challenged, not least by the friends of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia who recognise the importance of that nation as a regional ally. Pushing for successful reform should not lead to prison. The Crown Prince would be well advised to recognise the truth of the aphorism used by President Ronald Reagan that there is no limit to what we can achieve if we do not mind who gets the credit.

This year, I have worked with the hon. Members for Stockton South (Dr Williams) and for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) on a detention review panel for the female human rights activists in Saudi Arabia. I accepted the task because I believed that I would command the confidence both of Saudi Arabia and of its critics for fairness. I am trying to demonstrate in this speech that I hope to see both sides of the question. However, I was disappointed that the Saudi Government did not welcome independent oversight of the detainees’ conditions in detention when, by all measures, the Crown Prince ought to be proud of his fellow countrywomen for sharing his desire to advance reform in Saudi Arabia. I am sure the Saudi Government wish to resolve the issue. I can at least record my pleasure that, to date, the Saudi Arabian authorities appear, temporarily at least, to have released four out of the 11 women detained last year. Hopefully more will follow, as the Saudi Government must realise that the decisions leading to the activists’ detentions and the appalling circumstances and death of Jamal Khashoggi must be rectified to save the country from itself. If the lessons are to be learnt and we are to honour Jamal Khashoggi’s life’s work by ensuring a more open society in Saudi Arabia where criticism is seen as an asset to good policy making, and where there is a more open press to report criticism, it can come only if there is a change of approach from the very top. Such disasters must be used to learn lessons on the necessary limitations on Executive power.

The enrichment of Saudi Arabia has led to the education of its citizens, particularly women, which inevitably has led to and will lead to a desire for progressive change. Western nations, particularly the United Kingdom, have to stand by the current constitutional framework, which must find within it the capacity for progressive change in respect of the growing role and responsibility of Saudi citizens in their influence on policy. Of course, that means the United Kingdom faces a difficult situation.

We could choose to ostracise the kingdom, as implied by the policy proposals supported by the hon. Member for Hammersmith, with the cancellation of the Just Solutions contract. I ought to declare an interest as I was the junior Minister most enthusiastically in support of setting up Just Solutions in order to get its methodology away, so I treated the cancellation of that contract as disastrous and an immense personal disappointment. If we followed the prescription of the hon. Gentleman, we could turn the kingdom into a pariah and push it into the arms of Russia and/or China which, incidentally, are two other human rights priority countries for the United Kingdom. Populist diplomacy and noisy condemnation will always be heard, humiliating the key decision makers at the top. Cynically, if its target audience is just the domestic media and NGOs in the United Kingdom, in those terms it would be successful. But in terms of effecting support for human rights and advancing them in Saudi Arabia, and advancing and securing the position of Saudi Arabia within those nations committed to the current rules-based international order, I suspect the policy advocated by the hon. Gentleman might not be quite so successful.

[Andy Slaughter]

I am following the hon. Gentleman’s argument and I would hate to take credit for the Just Solutions contract being cancelled. I was simply an advocate of it. The hon. Gentleman’s parliamentary colleague, the then Lord Chancellor, must take the credit for it, and no doubt he has had those discussions. In advancing his argument, what evidence can the hon. Gentleman point to in recent years of the regime’s move towards a human rights success—not ones that have been forced or dragged out of it, but ones that he would say our close relationship has helped to achieve? What evidence is there?

[Crispin Blunt]

The most obvious one that springs to mind is the influence of American and British officers in the targeting cells for the operation in Yemen. The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen was unanimously approved by the United Nations in order to deal with the illegal usurpation of authority, and we all supported the necessary military involvement to restore order in Yemen. It is an awful place to try to advance by military means the political objectives that the world supported the Saudi coalition to put together. That campaign has been of immense difficulty. Rightly, the coalition was properly criticised for the way it appeared to be conducting the operation yet we should note that there has been a significant improvement. That operation has continued because of the quality of advice coming from the United Kingdom and also the United States in making sure that the military operations were conducted within the remit of international law with regard to human rights. I point to that as an area where there has been effective influence.

Domestically over the past two years within Saudi Arabia, I concede to the hon. Gentleman that what we see and what is reported about the execution of the 37 and the rest, and the detention of the women detainees that I and two of our colleagues inquired into, has been profoundly disappointing. I assume that the Saudi Arabian Government would reflect on the issues I have already mentioned—women being given the right to drive and the ending of the powers of arrest of the religious police—as an overall improvement but if, as I will come on to, Saudi Arabia simply closes down the political space and everyone is far too terrified to offer a critique, it will not help a consultative monarchy to advance good governance in Saudi Arabia. The picture is mixed, but let us not deceive ourselves into thinking that we have no influence whatever.

We have enormous leverage over Saudi Arabia as far as defence is concerned, until and unless we cancel our defence contracts with it. Such leverage would disappear and Saudi Arabia would be faced with the enormous expense of re-equipping itself from another supplier. It would be catastrophic if that supplier was in either Russia or China and provided it with the defence capability that it needed. We would certainly then say goodbye to any influence that we had over Saudi Arabia at enormous economic cost to ourselves. In that sense, we are engaged in a contest for influence, and its human rights is a very important part of trying to advance that agenda. I say to the hon. Gentleman that this is difficult, as I am sure the Minister will recognise. If we give up on interdependence, we will pay a very heavy price, as will the people of Saudi Arabia. We need to stand as much as we possibly can alongside them, and this debate and oversight of what is happening in Saudi Arabia should be part of that.

There is a degree to which it should be true that public shaming and the isolation of offending regimes can occasionally be a spur to progress, but it is better to offer a solution, to engage, and to assist by using our centuries-long hard-won experience of accountability for the rule of law. Rather than tell the Saudis sanctimoniously what their values ought to be, we should have these debates to challenge our friends and encourage them to see the merits of an open civil society, for the benefit of their nation’s policy making if nothing else. Given such a process and our influence, we should be able to agree that they could do nothing better than to release the female detainees straight away.

Previously, change came slowly to Saudi Arabia. It was a conservative country with a cautious monarchy. That caution appeared to be swept away with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, but expecting it to suddenly transform into a fully-fledged accountable democracy overnight was never going to happen. Britain remains in a position to help the Crown Prince move away from the path of a leader lethally intolerant of dissent. As our ally, there is a necessity for Saudi Arabia to uphold the highest standards of a consultative monarchy by better engaging with its citizens. There remains an opportunity for Saudi Arabia to set a course for a better future for its society and its economy, learning from the human rights disasters of 2018. Those are the terms used by Saudi Arabia’s own Foreign Minister about what happened to Jamal Khashoggi—it was described as a disaster.

The alternative to a consultative monarchy is an absolute monarchy, and down that route lies disaster and probably eventually revolution. Before that disaster and revolution lies terror and repression. In the west we need to ask ourselves whether we want a penitent reformer in charge of Saudi Arabia or a rolling back to a hard-line clerical domination that reflects the values of centuries earlier or some other revolutionary horror. To reapply the words of Talleyrand, the murder of Jamal Khashoggi was not only a crime; it was a mistake. We must help Saudi Arabia to deliver accountability for the crime, and for its future, we must do our best to ensure that it does not compound the mistake.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

If ever there were a prime candidate to be the subject of that excellent BBC Radio 4 series, “Moral Maze”, it would be Britain’s relationship with Saudi Arabia. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on securing the debate and on the measured and temperate way in which he presented the case.

All the Back-Bench Members who have spoken have shown wisdom and moderation in their remarks. I was particularly struck by the contribution of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt), who knows more about the Arab world than just about anybody I have come across in 22 years in this House. Even he, though, with all his knowledge of the subject, made no bones about the extent to which one must be conflicted about a relationship as complex as this.

I mentioned that I have been in this House for 22 years, which takes us back to 1997, when the Blair Government came in on a tide of optimism and idealism, and Robin Cook, who became Foreign Secretary, stated his admirable objective of importing an “ethical dimension” into foreign policy. The problem with trying to find an ethical dimension, however, is that the choices we face, far from being between good and evil, are often about which is the lesser of two evils. I am afraid that that is the situation in which we find ourselves regarding our decades-long involvement with the countries of the middle east.

It is sometimes tempting to feel a sense of superiority about the way in which our society conducts itself, compared with the brutal and authoritarian regimes in other parts of the world in general, and in the middle east in particular. It is good to remind ourselves, therefore, that a few hundred years ago people in this country, who regarded themselves as Christians, thought nothing of inflicting terrible barbarities on one another, similar to what happened to poor Mr Khashoggi in that embassy, in the name of a belief as to which was the true branch of Christianity and which was what we would call, in another context, an infidel variation on that theme.

If we think of that in the context of our history and say, “What could have been done several hundred years ago to rapidly bring those societies to an appreciation of human rights and democratic politics?”, we realise how difficult that process is. That is why revolutions often have such bloody consequences and make bad situations even worse. That is also why I would like to think that most hon. Members believe in the evolutionary, rather than the revolutionary, process. If we are going to make improvements, we have to take society with us from the point at which we find it.

Let me give an example of the dilemmas that arise in relation to Saudi Arabia. On 20 June, I asked the Secretary of State for International Trade:

“Do the Government accept that, as the years have rolled by since the 9/11 atrocities, it has become harder and harder to justify the closeness of our relationship with Saudi Arabia, but in defence of what the Government are trying to do, would it not be sensible for my right hon. Friend to have conversations with the Foreign Secretary, perhaps with a view to publishing a digest of some of the representations that we make to the Saudis in trying to keep them from straying further away from acceptable standards of international behaviour?”

We could add to that the dimensions of human rights abuse. The Secretary of State’s reply, rather predictably, was as follows:

“The Foreign Secretary and I have answered numerous questions on this issue in the House of Commons, and we have certainly cited some of those incidents and been questioned on specific incidents in the House. On my right hon. Friend’s key point, I do not think the proximity or otherwise to 9/11 is the key determinant here; rather, it is whether Saudi Arabia acts as an important source of intelligence for this country in our shared combat against a global terrorism. It is a valuable partner in that particular battle and has helped to keep numerous UK citizens safe.”—[Official Report, 20 June 2019; Vol. 662, c. 379.]

This is where we begin to run up against a dilemma, because we all know that much of the problem of international Islamist totalitarian terrorism derives from sources in Saudi Arabia. When 9/11 happened, it was widely pointed out that there was some sort of pact between the authorities in Saudi Arabia and the totalitarian Islamist revolutionaries that basically they could do what they liked abroad, as long as they kept their activities limited at home. That is what we might call a form of the devil’s bargain.

Because I am not within the ring of secrecy, I am not in a position to know whether the Saudi intelligence services are really constantly feeding us vital information to thwart terrorist plots, or whether, as well as promoting and funding madrassahs all around the world that leach out this terrible form of totalitarian ideology, they are actually just giving us what I believe is known in the trade as chickenfeed, to keep us satisfied that it is better to remain, rather than cease to be, their friends.

[Crispin Blunt]

I think that the position in Saudi Arabia has radically changed since 9/11. Its Government have had to take on board some of the consequences of their policy up to that point, and of the large scale of their investment to support madrassahs in most of the rest of the world. As I understand it, it is now illegal in Saudi Arabia to make a cash donation within a mosque, and everything now has to be accountable in terms of where the money is going. That is the scale of change that is happening in Saudi Arabia, and it is why our Government are right to see it as a practical and important ally in this ideological battle in which we find ourselves on the same side.

[Dr Lewis]

That welcome intervention, if accurate—I have no reason to believe that it is not—is a powerful argument in favour of continued engagement with the regime, even though from time to time it does things that we would regard, with justification, as barbaric. That has often been the nature of international relations, and those are often the difficult choices that have to be made. To give the most extreme example, Sir Winston Churchill had a lifelong hatred of bolshevism and communism; he said at the time of the 1917 revolution that he wanted bolshevism to be strangled at birth. When he found himself in alliance with Stalin after the Nazi invasion of Russia in 1941, he was twitted by a political opponent who pointed out his lifelong hatred of communism. His famous reply was:

“If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.”

The history of diplomacy is that we often have to have relationships with unsavoury regimes in order to avoid something that would be even worse. However, having to have a relationship with a regime that does terrible things does not mean that we should go silent on criticising it. That is why I particularly welcome this debate. In some senses, it was a relief to discover that it would be more about human rights than about the arms trade. Believe me, if we had to have the same debate about the arms trade, which has been touched on slightly, we would face an infinitely more difficult dilemma. We would have to decide, as my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Reigate said in passing, whether it was better to wash our hands of supplying military hardware to Saudi Arabia if the consequence would be to anchor that country in the orbit of Russia or China, as the Iranian regime already is.

I conclude by commending the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland for securing the debate, and by endorsing his notion that pressure on the Saudi regime on the human rights front is one area in which we can safely express our differences without risking a rupture that we cannot afford on overall strategic grounds. I wish him well in his campaign and congratulate all those who stand up for human rights in Saudi Arabia. I hope that they, in turn, will recognise that vast geopolitical forces are and will continue to be at work in the area, and that there are no morally perfect solutions to dealing with an environment like this, in which frankly all the actors are tainted.

I have mentioned Sir Winston Churchill, but perhaps we should go back to the 19th-century concept of the balance of power, which expressed the interests of Britain by ensuring that no one power could become overwhelmingly dominant on the continent and that we did not get drawn in too closely with any power. My fear, which I have expressed before, is that in the conflicts in the middle east we are sometimes in danger of getting too closely involved with one side rather than the other. That side, I am afraid, is Saudi Arabia.

UK Ambassador to USA: Leaked Emails

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Monday 8th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who, of course, has experience as a Foreign Minister, so he knows this process very well. It is not the purpose of an ambassador to ingratiate themselves with anybody; they are there to tell the truth, and it benefits everybody when they do, but leaks of this sort make that more difficult. I very much hope that our ambassador to Washington will not in any way feel browbeaten by the media onslaught. He has the full support of every single person in this House of Commons.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

When the Minister for the Americas first saw these leaked diptels, was there anything in them that surprised him?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

No, because obviously I had seen them before. I have had the benefit over two and a half years of seeing all reporting of this nature from Washington. I say again to the House that it is very balanced. Picking out a few little bits that can be construed as critical of what were, in fact, analyses at a critical time in Washington politics is a distortion of the broad picture of support and understanding, of a very high quality, that has come from Washington over the past two and a half years.

International Day against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle). She is, of course, entitled to her perambulation back through history to a time when the records of our respective parties were perhaps not in the same place, but even then and throughout that period, there were champions in the Conservative party who had been working for change for many decades.

I grew up in a period of British history when it was hard to be gay, and I know the weight carried every day—that it was wrong to feel this way; that it was the secret part of me that no one could ever know. I understand exactly what it is like knowing that social and professional death would follow if the fact were ever discovered. But at least I do not have to live with the possibility of actual death, unlike 600 million of our fellow citizens on the planet who live in jurisdictions where they could be sentenced to death for their sexuality. Freedom from that fear is the most important event of my life.

I am a social liberal. For me, freedom starts with the right of individuals to be who they want to be—to be how we want to be, to love who we want to love, to form the relationships we want to form and to create a family and home to share that love with others. I will no longer be party to a society where that is not possible.

Here in the United Kingdom, many of us now enjoy unprecedented freedom. There were 7,019 marriages between same-sex couples in 2016. In 2018, one in eight adoptions in the UK were by couples in a same-sex relationship, a civil partnership or a same-sex marriage. Furthermore, as the hon. Lady said, there are now, I believe, 45 Members who publicly identify as LGBT.

That said, there are many whose plight is only just beginning to be recognised, and here I will deal with the trans community. In July 2018, the Government Equalities Office published the national LGBT community survey. Of the 108,100 valid responses to the survey, 40% of people said they had experienced a negative incident in the previous 12 months involving someone they did not live with that was due to their being of the LGBT community or being thought to be a part of it.

For transgender people, however, their likelihood of experiencing threats of physical or sexual harassment or violence is double that for the rest of the LGBT community. We are just waking up to the fact that transgender people continue to face some of the worst discrimination in our society. Almost half of trans people in the UK have attempted suicide. Given that there are 200,000 transgender people in the UK, this means that an avoidable death is a threatening reality for many in our community—for our very friends and family.

Out of these 200,000 trans people in the UK, only 4,910 have been issued with a gender recognition certificate since the Gender Recognition Act 2004 came into force. The GRA enables trans men and women to update their legal gender by applying for that certificate, which allows them to change their gender and, if they wish, their name. It is required by trans people if they are to be recognised, legally and officially, as male or female. The Act was groundbreaking at the time but is now out of date. The process of obtaining a gender recognition certificate is intrusive, bureaucratic and medicalised. It also fails to make provision for non-binary people.

In 2017, the Government announced a welcome reform of the Act to streamline and de-medicalise the process, and after much delay the results are being analysed. I look forward to an update from the Minister on when these results will be published, along with plans for next steps. It would be a welcome conclusion to this debate. I can only hope it will help everyone to understand that being transgender, or indeed lesbian, gay, bisexual or intersexual, is not a lifestyle choice but usually an agonising realisation that no one would choose to go through. Accepting this crucial clarification is perhaps the biggest step towards ending aggression towards the LGBTI community.

That begins with education. My own choice had been to hide and to disguise myself. It was not until I got here that I understood enough about myself and everything else that I eventually found the courage to be open and to be myself. Education—the knowledge that it is not a matter of choice about who you innately are—is the cause that has to be won. The latest furore against the values of the Equality Act 2010 at Parkfield Community School in Birmingham was a stark reminder to us all of not only how far we have to go, but how easily we will backtrack on progress if we are not careful.

We have strong protections in Britain. The Equality Act is clear that people can be of different race, religion, disability and sexual orientation. This is non-negotiable. Homophobia exists, in part, because of a lack of education, and inclusive religious and sexual education is a cornerstone of ensuring that our children grow up to be some of the most well-rounded, inclusive, understanding and tolerant people in the world. We must remember and protect that.

[Martin Whitfield (East Lothian) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very powerful speech. Is there not some irony—I use the word carefully—here? The weekend gone, I went to the East Lothian Pride Saltire festival. It was a gathering of the LGBTI community, along with friends, families and communities of East Lothian. Since I had the honour of becoming an MP, I have not attended a more welcoming, open, friendly, inclusive gathering of people. The irony is that the prejudice is all one-sided.

[Crispin Blunt]

Obviously, I agree with the hon. Gentleman.

It must be a central characteristic of global Britain, with our people, culture and history, that if we as a nation do not understand difference at home, we undermine what is special about the United Kingdom abroad. People who dislike the idea of people with different sexual orientations may have children or grandchildren who do not conform to their social norms. In fact, statistically, of course they will. There are children who have two fathers, and there are children who have two mothers. There are children who are gay. Those are facts.

All children need education on what Britain is like and what Britain stands for, which is tolerance and inclusivity. Pretending that such people do not exist only serves to misinform and continue the bullying of these children. Education is a prime opportunity for the Government to step up and champion LGBT rights. It is a duty. Backing teachers who teach and promote equality should not be a hard ask. Indeed, if a group of people demanded that their children should not learn about physics, history or British values because they believed that that was wrong, we would not be having this discussion.

I will close by showing that there is light at the end of this tunnel. The decision in India was the most momentous for the most enormous number of people, but it has been accompanied by change in places such as Angola and Trinidad and Tobago, where laws criminalising same-sex acts have been repealed. I commend the work of the Commonwealth Equality Network. When people stand up together to challenge exclusion, they can achieve great things. As part of Britain’s place in the Commonwealth, we need to continue to support LGBT people globally and ensure that the British values of inclusivity, tolerance and respect reverberate around the world.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Saudi Arabia: Mass Executions

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I will happily confirm that you always win, but I will not say in which direction I am pointing, Mr Speaker.

I do not think anyone in this House would disagree with what the hon. Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton) has said. All Members want to defend human rights, and we abhor executions of this sort. We really do genuinely disapprove in the strongest possible terms of what has happened, particularly when it is reported that one of those executed was displayed on a cross—something that anyone in this House just a few days after Easter will find more repulsive than anything we could have pictured.

We have to be sure of our facts, however. We need to find out directly what precisely were the supposed crimes and what was the due process used. Although the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia can legitimately use its law to bear down on genuine extremist threats, its Government must appreciate that there will be growing international pressure on them to accept that the sort of action we are discussing is utterly unacceptable in the modern world. It does them no credit and it does not support the basis of law that any proper country should be working on.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

I have worked with the hon. Members for Stockton South (Dr Williams) and the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) on a detention review panel of the female human rights activists in Saudi Arabia. Does my right hon. Friend accept that these executions and the accelerating pace of executions in Saudi Arabia cannot be seen in isolation from the wider criminal justice policy—if that is what one should call it—that relates to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi and the detention of civil society activists in Saudi Arabia? If Saudi Arabian civil society space is closed down as it has been, the security and stability of the country, which is after all our ally, will be the victim.

[Sir Alan Duncan]

My hon. Friend makes a serious point: any country needs to realise that using such methods will eventually backfire. Although I think there are greater arguments for pointing out how unacceptable such methods are, rulers are wise to be mindful of such dangers.

I did not answer the question put by the hon. Member for Leeds North East about human rights defenders. Yes, we will raise the issue of freedom and protection for those who defend human rights. It is not acceptable to attack non-governmental organisations when what they are doing is trying to defend justice.

Brunei

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Thursday 4th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his words. Obviously, we will take this matter up with the Secretary General of the Commonwealth. Let me say a little about the broader Commonwealth position on LGBT rights, given the context that we have both discussed: more than half the members of the Commonwealth have, on their statute books, at least, what we regard as discriminatory legislation.

Using UK funding, the Equality & Justice Alliance is working to create a fairer, more equal and more inclusive Commonwealth for the LGBT community and, more widely, for women and girls. The project involves creating a cross-Commonwealth network and high-level champions, and the alliance is offering technical assistance with the reform of laws that discriminate against, or fail to protect, women and girls and LGBT individuals. We will also take action through the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group. It is currently chaired by Kenya but, as the hon. Gentleman knows, we are members by virtue of our having been the Commonwealth Chair-in-Office since last April. That, I think, will provide a space for some very sensitive discussions, which—I hope—will in turn allow discreet engagement through, for instance, the good offices of the Secretary General.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

As the Minister will recall, I raised this issue during Foreign Office questions on Tuesday. What struck me about his reply to my topical question then, and what strikes me now, is the utter paucity of any proposed Government action. I wonder whether the Minister can give us an explanation.

First, when were we aware that this proposal was coming down the track? It is not just about LGBT citizens. A third of the Bruneian population are not Muslim, and plainly the problem of death for apostasy presents a significant threat to anyone who professes a new belief, in a society in which many different belief systems are present. We have heard about the barbaric practices of amputation and the imposition of the death penalty for adultery. I take no comfort from my right hon. Friend’s reference to the requirement for a certain number of witnesses of those crimes, as confessions are obtained rather more easily in such circumstances.

This is an utter affront. We knew that it was coming, so why did we not divert it? What exactly are we going to do to ensure that Brunei at least pays a price that can be paid? It will not be paid through loss of its membership of the Commonwealth, given that two thirds of Commonwealth states still have anti-LGBT laws on their statute books.

[Mark Field]

The sharia criminal law came into being in 2014, and at that point—and certainly when I was in the country last summer—we were well aware that we were heading down a path towards the sharia penal code. We have tried to warn the Bruneian authorities throughout my time as a Minister, and possibly for some time before that.

I reiterate that the new sharia penal code does not supplant the existing common law, which will apply in most cases, and obviously to non-Muslims in Brunei. The burden of proof for conviction under sharia is incredibly high, and there will be no new intrusive efforts at enforcement. However, I understand the frustrations that my hon. Friend has expressed. I can only say that we have tried to give warnings through the diplomatic network, and that the international outcry caused by the imposition of a penal code has probably come as a surprise to many in Brunei. We will continue to make those diplomatic representations. As I have said, I personally take the view that it would be better to try to keep the country within the Commonwealth, and to make the necessary changes through some of the initiatives that we have in play, than to issue threats of expulsion.

I am sorry that my hon. Friend—who takes a robust view on these and, indeed, many other matters—feels that we have been light and lily-livered. I can only reassure him that, certainly during my time as a Minister, we have been aware of the concerns that were coming down the track, and have done our level best to advise Brunei accordingly.