Oral Answers to Questions

Fabian Hamilton Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

As I have been saying, the key thing is to bring together all the sides in Libya—the two halves of the country, Mr Swehli, Mr Saleh, Prime Minister al-Sarraj and of course General Haftar—to change the Skhirat agreement of 2014 to get a new political settlement and then to have elections, and through those elections to produce a unified Government that we believe offer the prospect of peace and security in Libya.

My hon. Friend also raises the problem of illegal immigration, which the UK is of course doing a great deal to combat.

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

When challenged about his recent “clear the dead bodies” remarks, the Foreign Secretary said that his only critics were those with

“no knowledge or understanding of Libya.”

Can he therefore respond to Guma el-Gamaty, the head of the Libyan Taghyeer party, who said:

“Libyans fought and died fighting Islamic State in Sirte…Many remain where they fell…It is insensitive to talk about those bodies as if they are some obstacle to British businessmen enjoying beer and sunbathing. The very least he should do is apologise to the families of the young men who died”?

Will the Foreign Secretary now directly apologise to those families today?

[Boris Johnson]

By far the best thing this Government and this House can do is to get behind the plan this Government are promoting to bring security to Libya and to Sirte, which would do honour to all those who fell fighting Daesh in Libya. That is the way forward for that country, and that is the course we are promoting.

Iran: Human Rights

Fabian Hamilton Excerpts

Wednesday 11th October 2017 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Buck. We have had a number of debates on this important issue and I congratulate the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) on securing and introducing this one. It is another opportunity to ensure that the abuses of human rights in general and of the human rights of our own citizens—the dual nationals in Iran—are brought to prominence once again. Hopefully, by debating them, we put further pressure on the regime.

I do not know how many Members have visited Iran. I have myself, although it is 10 years since I have been there. Iran has many centres of power and an extraordinary history and culture, but it also has the most shocking and unacceptable human rights abuses, right across the country, thanks to the current Government, who were brought to power in the Islamic revolution of 1979. The right hon. Lady brought to our attention the suffering inflicted daily by the revolutionary Government on their own population—something that we are all aware of. The fact that 40,000 marriages of girls between 10 and 14 years old were approved in 2015 is enough to make us deeply concerned. The right hon. Lady was right to point to the cruelty and the lack of any regard for the human rights of individuals, especially women and—of course—children.

I was not aware that the right hon. Lady’s constituent, Ms Jahangir, had come to her about the mass executions of 1988, but I hope that now the Government are aware of that story—I am sure they already were—at least some further work can be done through the United Nations to bring more of it to light and to expose the appalling crimes carried out and covered up by the current regime. It is clear to me that, as the right hon. Lady said, the UK Government should redouble their efforts to relieve cruelty and suffering in Iran, and take a tough line.

We heard from the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), who mentioned again Nazanin Zahari-Ratcliffe and Kamal Foroughi. He said that he hoped that trade deals with Iran following the relaxation of measures that followed the Iran nuclear deal, which many people in Westminster Hall have criticised today, would not mean that human rights fell off the agenda. Of course he is absolutely right, and I do not believe that this Government or any other would want that to happen. Has the Foreign Secretary met the families of those people? I hope that the Minister will enlighten us on that. It is very important that the Foreign Secretary should at least give those families that backing and moral support.

We then heard from the hon. Member for Hendon (Dr Offord), who I know has stood up again for those whose human rights have been abused in Iran. He talked about the prisoners whom we have not mentioned—I do not wish to discuss their cases further today, because I know that their families have asked for them not to be discussed. However, he was right to point out that there are not just the two well-publicised cases of Nazanin and Kamal.

The hon. Gentleman also said that we should not relegate human rights in Iran for the sake of trade deals, and I agree. He also attacked the former Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw. I heard the interview on the radio this morning: the hon. Gentleman claimed that the former Foreign Secretary was defending the Iranian regime, but what I heard was a defence of the Iran nuclear deal, which I believe we should continue to support, while also putting pressure on the Iranian Government over their shocking human rights record. I believe that the former Foreign Secretary defended that nuclear deal and not the regime’s human rights record. Jack Straw is not here to defend himself today. Having worked with him as a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee during his entire time as Foreign Secretary, I know that he was an outstanding Foreign Secretary for this country. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman feels that he should be criticised in that way.

We had contributions, of course, from our Scottish National party colleagues and then Bob Blackman—sorry, the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman); I have been here long enough to know that I should not mention names—talked about the Jewish community in Iran. When I was in Iran 10 years ago, I had the privilege of meeting members of that community. There are still people from the Jewish community living in Iran, particularly in Tehran; I believe that there are about 20,000 Jewish people in Tehran and several synagogues, too. However, those synagogues are patrolled by Iranian police officers.

Having met members of the Iranian Jewish community, I know that they are living in constant fear; there is no doubt about that. I attempted to talk to the one member of the Majlis reserved for the Jewish community, knowing full well that he speaks very good English, but he replied to me in Farsi. He refused to speak to me in English; clearly he was frightened because he knew that others were listening to what he was saying to a westerner.

So Jews live in Iran but the situation is tragic. Many Jewish people of Iranian origin live in the United Kingdom and they still carry their Iranian culture and heritage with them. Indeed, as a child from a Jewish family myself, I was brought up knowing many such individuals, including one who shared chambers with my mother when she was at Middle Temple as a barrister. We had very close contact with them.

Then my esteemed colleague, Clive Lewis—sorry, I am doing it again; my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis)—made a contribution. He was a well-known journalist earlier in his life; he worked for the BBC in Leeds, which is how I first met him. He stood up for journalists and bloggers today—reporters who risk their lives every single day to tell the truth about what is actually happening in Iran.

My hon. Friend was right that democracy is not just about putting a cross on a ballot paper; it is about openness and freedom, including freedom of expression without fear. Yet we know that anybody who tells the truth about the human rights abuses and other cases of cruelty in Iran day to day is under attack and, even worse, under fear of arrest—they are often actually arrested and charged. That is simply not acceptable and it is certainly not democracy.

We know about the history of human rights abuses in Iran; some of those took place even before the creation of the Islamic republic, but the situation has certainly got a lot worse since. We also know that although Iran is a signatory to many human rights conventions, in practice it ignores or restricts them. A lot of the information and evidence about that comes through the UN special rapporteur to Iran and other human rights experts.

For example, as we have already heard this morning, we know that Iran regularly—indeed, all the time—discriminates against and actively oppresses religious minorities: not only the Jewish community but the Christians and Zoroastrians, too. As we have also heard, Iran executes the highest number of people per capita in the world and the second highest absolute number of people.

In 2013, Iran elected a moderate candidate, Hassan Rouhani, as President. However, in spite of the thesis that he wrote while at university in Glasgow, we have seen no significant human rights improvements in Iran since he arrived. In many respects, the situation has become a lot worse. We know—it has been pointed out again today—that the revolutionary guard acts independently of the so-called “moderate”, President Rouhani. The revolutionary guard and similarly conservative state agents regularly use the state apparatus to undermine reformist opponents and anyone who is seen as threatening to the interests of those agents.

Domestic laws and the penal code in Iran tend to define crimes in broad and vague terms; often Iranian people do not know exactly what constitutes a criminal violation, and that violates human rights law. In 2016, Freedom House stated that

“The judicial system is used as a tool to silence critics and opposition members”.

We also know that Iran uses executions to strike fear in the country and to deter socio-political unrest.

As the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet pointed out, Iran executed about 1,000 people in 2015. It has already been said that that is the highest number per capita in the world. According to the United Nations, since Rouhani took office 2,400 executions have taken place in Iran, which is double the number in the same period—about four years—prior to 2010. President Rouhani himself has said that he supports the process of judicial executions and described executions as “God’s commandments”. Currently, there are 5,000 people on death row in Iran for drug offences alone. Iran does not announce all executions officially so the number of executions could be a lot higher than we realise. There are not only public executions in the towns and cities of Iran but mass executions in jails that often go completely unreported.

I want to make a few comments about juvenile executions. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which came into force in 1992, prohibits the use of the death penalty for offences committed by those under the age of 18. Iran is a signatory to a number of treaties, including that convention, which it signed in 1994. It is therefore legally obliged to treat everyone under the age of 18 as a child and any crimes they have allegedly committed as the crimes of a child. Moreover, article 91 of the Islamic penal code, which has been enforced since 2013, grants judges the discretion not to apply the death sentence to children who do not understand the nature of their crimes. However, Iran is still no closer to abolishing the death penalty for children.

In conclusion, I ask the Minister what more the Government can do to secure the release of Nazanin Zahari-Ratcliffe and Kamal Foroughi, and the two other dual nationals currently being held in Iran. I also urge the Government not to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal; instead, they should continue to press the Iranian Government on their record of human rights abuses. I hope that the Minister will give us some reassurance when he sums up.

British Prisoners in Iran

Fabian Hamilton Excerpts

Tuesday 18th July 2017 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq), who has secured this timely debate and has never given up on behalf of her constituents—especially Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who is serving that terrible and immoral sentence in the dreadful Evin jail in Tehran. She gave us a comprehensive account of how her constituent happened to be convicted and of her appalling treatment by the Iranian authorities. She was passionate, as always, and she has fought hard for her constituent, who has been denied justice for the past 14 months in detention in Iran.

We have also heard contributions from the hon. Members for Henley (John Howell), for Strangford (Jim Shannon)—he was passionate as always—and for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena), and from my new colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel), who pointed out that he had received 100 emails from constituents and that the situation really was Kafkaesque. He is absolutely right. I hope the Foreign and Commonwealth Office takes his advice and presses the Iranian Government at least to allow the medical care and attention needed.

We know that Iran does not recognise dual nationality—we have heard that many times this afternoon. It will not allow our diplomats to see dual nationals who are imprisoned in Iran. The Iranian Government view dual nationals with intense suspicion. That is an historical situation, and the United Kingdom is viewed with even more contempt owing to its historical interference in the country. The BBC’s Persian service is loathed by Iranian officials. As we know, dual nationals are barred from holding Government positions. The imprisonment of dual nationals has been seen by many as a way of extracting political and financial gains from the countries that dual nationals share their citizenship with.

The Financial Times says:

“These arrests are part of the tense power struggle between those who would like to get closer to the US and those who are scared of any impacts of that on Iran’s domestic politics…The goal seems to be spreading fears to undermine the government of Rouhani in western states’ eyes and foreign businesses.”

We know that the Government restored full diplomatic relations with Iran in September 2016, but Kamal Foroughi’s son, Kamran, has criticised the United Kingdom for doing so without pushing harder for his father’s release as part of the diplomatic normalisation process. I wonder whether the Minister will comment on that.

In April 2017, Amnesty International criticised the Foreign Secretary for his lack of action over Nazanin. Kathy Voss of Amnesty International was quoted in The Daily Telegraph as saying:

“It’s baffling that the Foreign Secretary still hasn’t had a single meeting with Nazanin’s family who are of course sick with worry about her.”

Nazanin was arrested, as we have heard, by the revolutionary guards at the airport on 3 April 2016, just before she was about to return to the United Kingdom after a family visit. They accused her of fomenting a soft overthrow of the Islamic Republic—a notably common and broad definition of crime—but her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, claims that his wife is being held to be used as a pawn by the Iranian authorities in exchange for unspecified political and financial deals in the UK. He has mentioned in the past that he has been approached by unspecified Iranian officials with offers for Nazanin’s release. That is shocking, and I wonder if the Minister could comment on it.

The United Kingdom Government, as we have heard, have not publicly called for Nazanin’s release. However, they have stated that they have raised their concerns with the Iranian Government. The shadow Foreign Secretary said on 9 September 2016:

“It is no longer good enough for Downing Street and the Foreign Office to ‘raise concerns’ about this case. It is time for them to demand answers.”

Let me conclude with the words of Richard Ratcliffe, Nazanin’s husband, quoted on 2 July:

“I don’t think the [UK] government has been protecting us; they have provided consular assistance and they have expressed concerns…but in terms of criticising her treatment and saying it’s abuse, they’ve never said that this does not meet the minimum legal standards, that it’s not a fair trial. That this is a nonsense. She’s obviously not important enough yet.”

I want to remind Members here that Roya Nobakht and Bahman Daroshafaei are also British dual nationals in jail in Tehran.

Oral Answers to Questions

Fabian Hamilton Excerpts

Tuesday 11th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I hope to hear briefly from Fabian Hamilton from the Front Bench, because I want to get through two more questions.

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

As the Government celebrated their victory in the High Court over arms sales to Saudi Arabia, the number of people affected by the cholera epidemic in Yemen passed 300,000. Humanitarian workers now face the agonising choice of whether to use their dwindling food supplies to feed those children suffering from malnutrition or those infected with cholera. In that context, will the Minister tell the House why the Saudi-led coalition continues to use British bombs to attack farms, food factories and water plants?

[Alistair Burt]

Yesterday’s court judgment was unequivocal in stating that the United Kingdom had fulfilled its obligations on controlling the arms trade. The work being done with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on its response to international humanitarian law was fundamental to that judgment. The situation in Yemen remains a humanitarian disaster. The United Kingdom is actively involved in seeking to do all it can. The cholera outbreak is currently claiming some 6,500 new cases every day. I am pleased that the Department for International Development is fully engaged and is trying to do all it can to mitigate these actions.

Yemen: Political and Humanitarian Situation

Fabian Hamilton Excerpts

Wednesday 5th July 2017 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Moon. I join in the congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty). He has been a powerful advocate for immediate action in this terrible and appalling conflict, which reduces many of us to tears when we hear its shocking details. Because time is limited I shall not be able to go through some of the brilliant contributions that we have heard this afternoon, but I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend’s disappointment in the lack of action by the Government. He is, of course, angry with the parties themselves, who have perpetrated and continue the appalling conflict.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) made an important intervention about how vital and urgently needed the UN resolution is, and said that Britain’s role on the Security Council could enable us to secure it. I hope that the Minister will address that. My right hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) mentioned the Committees on Arms Export Controls, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) among others. It is vital that the Committees, which are essential and on which I have served in the past, should be reconvened as soon as possible. It is essential to keep a close eye and a rein on the weapons that are being exported, and on those to whom they are being exported legitimately.

Yemen is the site of the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, according to the United Nations. It is the “forgotten war”, according to Amnesty International. We have heard about the massive cholera outbreak of recent weeks, in which 250,000 people have already been affected. That should shame us all. Forty-five per cent. of the population are under 15 years old, and 21 million people in the country, or approximately 80% of the population, are in need of assistance. That is more than in any other country, according to the United Nations. We have the power to do something about that, and are failing to do it, which should shame us all.

I want to consider our involvement in the conflict. According to Oxfam and the House of Commons Library, since 2015 the UK Government have approved arms export licences worth £3.3 billion. Yet at the same time we have pledged just £139 million in humanitarian aid from the 2017-18 Budget. We could do much more, and could do considerably less about supplying those arms. The Labour party strongly believes that Britain must immediately halt arms sales to Saudi Arabia and focus on negotiating a ceasefire. A Labour party press release from April stated:

“As it stands, the British-Saudi relationship is damaging to the people of Saudi Arabia, Britain and the wider Middle East, and helping to export insecurity to the rest of the World”.

Yemen, as we have heard from a number of speakers, is dependent for almost all its food, fuel and medical supplies on the port of Hodeidah; 80% of all imports to the country arrive via that major port, in a densely populated area controlled by the Houthis. The Saudi-supported army of the official Yemeni Government continues to threaten to take the port by force, and other hon. Members have mentioned that that could have an even more serious consequence in relation to the breakdown of society and the humanitarian disaster currently encapsulating the country.

I will conclude by quoting the concluding remarks of a paper of 11 December 2015 by Professor Philippe Sands, QC, Professor Andrew Clapham and Blínne ni Ghrálaigh—great minds in international law—for Amnesty International, Oxfam and Saferworld:

“In the current circumstances we can be clear in concluding what the UK is required to do to bring itself into full compliance with its legal obligations: it should halt with immediate effect all authorisations and transfers of relevant weapons and items to Saudi Arabia, pending proper and credible enquiries into the allegations of serious violations of IHL and IHRL that have arisen and that could arise in the future, as addressed in this opinion and the sources here referred to.”

That is consistent with the policy of the Labour party. I hope that the Minister can at least address that important conclusion in a legal opinion.

Kurdistan Region in Iraq

Fabian Hamilton Excerpts

Tuesday 4th July 2017 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I congratulate the hon. Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti), the chair of the all-party group on the Kurdistan region in Iraq, on securing the debate. He has taken over a very important position in a group that has had a profound effect on this Parliament over the 10 years of its existence. I was involved in the group in its early days, and I was privileged to travel under its auspices to Irbil on two separate occasions. It helped to inform me and ensured that Labour Members—many of my colleagues also visited—are well informed about Kurdistan and what it has to offer the world.

Like many right hon. and hon. Members, I have many Kurdish constituents—now naturalised British citizens—who bring with them the history of their nation and region. They are mostly from Iraqi Kurdistan, but some are from Syria, Turkey and, of course, Iran. In his opening remarks, the hon. Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke said that Kurdistan cannot be subjugated, and he talked of a resetting of relationships with Baghdad—not through a universal declaration of independence, like former Rhodesia, but through the referendum that will take place on 25 September. He urged the United Kingdom to send official observers to the region for the referendum.

The hon. Gentleman and others also alluded to the bravery of the peshmerga. When we see their operations, the work they have been doing, their fighting and the bravery they have exhibited, we cannot but admire them. He also mentioned the issue of the unfair assessment of visas for Kurdish people—especially those injured in war—who hope to come to the United Kingdom. I hope the Minister will address that issue in his winding-up speech. The hon. Gentleman also said that the United Kingdom and the Kurdistan Regional Government have a lot in common. That is something that struck me when I was there on my two visits.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Tyneside (Mary Glindon) said she was delighted by the liberation of Mosul, and appealed to the Government to provide clinical psychologists and psychiatrists to help with the trauma of Daesh’s rape victims in the city. I hope the Minister will tell us a little more about that.

The right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon)—I hope he does not mind my addressing him as my right hon. Friend—with whom I visited the region in 2011, I think it was, talked about the thriving civil society, the religious pluralism, the tolerance and the defence of each other’s rights, which he, I and many other Members found on our visits to Kurdistan. He said something that I was not aware of: Jews once made up 17% of the city of Sulaymaniyah. It would be nice to see Jewish people returning to that city and other parts of Kurdistan. Like the hon. Gentleman, I remember being told that if Iraq recognised the state of Israel today, tomorrow we would have a consulate in Irbil—such is the Kurdish people’s admiration for the Jewish people.

We were told at the time that the Anfal brought the Kurdish people closer to the suffering that the Jewish people underwent during the second world war with the holocaust. They understood what that meant, because they had suffered a genocide themselves. My right hon. Friend ably led the Kurdistan genocide taskforce in 2013, which resulted in the United Kingdom Parliament’s recognition of the Anfal genocide. I recall speaking at that conference myself. We heard from a young man—he is still a young man—who as a child witnessed the genocide in Halabja. He was there hiding in a basement, watching his family, friends and neighbours dying from the poison gas attack. It is one of the most moving things I have ever heard since my election to this House 20 years ago. It was absolutely extraordinary—I hope we never have to hear such testimony again. That is another reason why the people of Kurdistan deserve and need our support.

My dear hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Tracy Brabin), who has done so much good work since her election to this House in the by-election nearly a year ago, talked about the 1.5 million people internally displaced by war in Kurdistan, and said that the Kurdistan Regional Government receive very little help from the Government of Iraq. The fall in oil prices has affected the Kurdish economy, as many hon. Members said. She said that we must try to offer post-traumatic stress counselling to those who have been affected.

My hon. Friend also made an important point about something that those of us who have been to the region also noticed very strongly, especially in comparison with other countries in the same region: the Kurdish people’s very strong culture. I remember visiting a school in Sulaymaniyah and watching young people dancing the most joyous dance to the most extraordinary music in the most wonderful costumes—something that would not go amiss in one of the films she mentioned. Why not? Kurdistan bills Sulaymaniyah and its other cities as a hub for film-making in the region. Turkey has a vibrant film industry, as she rightly pointed out, so why not Kurdistan too? It would be lovely to see that. It is a most extraordinary culture.

The hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), who, as he pointed out, is the first British MP of Kurdish descent, talked about the referendum. He said that since 2014 Kurdistan has been almost completely cut off from central Government funding in Iraq. He rightly mentioned the problems relating to holding the referendum, but he was optimistic that there will be greater stability in the region, not the reverse. I certainly agree.

The hon. Member for Aldershot (Leo Docherty), who is welcome in this debate—I welcome him to the House—is a former director of the Conservative Middle East Council, and therefore has considerable knowledge of the region. He was also an Army officer and fought in Iraq. He brought his wisdom and experience to us. He said, very importantly, that the viability of the state of Iraq has already been called into question. He mentioned the political significance of Iran’s Shi’a dominance in the region, against which Kurdistan is a bulwark. He also said—I definitely agree with him, having voted against the invasion of Iraq in 2003—that UK interference in Iraq has not been entirely successful.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman talks about the United Kingdom’s role in Iraq and interference. Does he agree with me about what happened post-2006? The Government of Mr Maliki came in with the backing of the Shi’a blocking vote and conducted the persecution in Anbar province. The United Kingdom Government should have disassociated themselves much earlier from support of the Maliki Government, rather than doing so many years later. That persecution of the Sunnis led to the havoc we see in Iraq now.

[Fabian Hamilton]

That is entirely why I voted against this country’s participation in the invasion of Iraq. Yes, it resulted in the deposing of the dictator Saddam Hussein, but it also resulted in some of the appalling things to which the hon. Gentleman alluded.

As we have heard, the Kurdish minority in Iraq numbers more than 6 million, which is about 20% of the population of Iraq. Mutual suspicion and acrimony between Baghdad and the Kurdish autonomous Government have led to the Kurdish Regional Government’s announcing the independence referendum that is to take place on 25 September. No outside Governments are in favour of the referendum, which it is widely believed will create more instability in the region. I beg to differ.

The UK Government assist the Government of Iraqi Kurdistan in fighting ISIS and helping with refugees, for which we are all profoundly grateful. Iraqi Kurdistan and its army, the peshmerga, have been very beneficial and helpful, and extremely brave in fighting ISIS in Iraq over the past three years. A January 2015 report of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee—the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon was a member of the Committee at the time—stated:

“It is for the Iraqi people to decide their future, but it appears to us that a looser federal model, permitting greater self-governance by its diverse mosaic of communities, offers best hope for Iraq remaining united and sovereign. Highly centralised rule under a ‘strongman’ in Baghdad will never work.”

I certainly agree.

Iraq’s neighbours—Turkey, Iran and Syria—all oppose secession, fearing that separatism will spread to their own ethnic Kurdish populations. We can understand that, but none the less should all believe in the right of peoples to self-determination. European Union Foreign Ministers have acknowledged the right to nationalist aspirations for Iraqi Kurdistan, but cautioned against “unilateral steps” that threaten the unified state of Iraq. The United Nations will not involve itself in debates concerning independence, and the only country that seems to be warming to the idea of independence is the state of Israel.

Human Rights Watch estimates that between 50,000 and 100,000 people were killed or disappeared during Saddam Hussein’s Anfal campaigns between 1987 and 1989, with 2,000 villages destroyed by Saddam’s regime by 1993. So, finally, I want to state the Labour party’s position on the referendum. We believe, as I am sure all in the House do, in the right of self-determination for peoples living under oppression. The Kurdistan Regional Government, it could be argued, are not a group of people living under oppression, but they are in an invidious and difficult position and have been for many years, especially in the light of that history.

The Labour party will recognise the result of the referendum if we are convinced that it is conducted openly and honestly, and freely and fairly—that, of course, will require international observers—and if the borders of Kurdistan are agreed and recognised internationally. Perhaps the Minister will comment on whether the United Kingdom Government, of whom he is a well-respected Minister, would consider doing the same in such circumstances.