Action Plan on Human Rights and Democracy
Heather Wheeler Excerpts(8 years, 10 months ago)
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The Chair
Before we begin, I will briefly outline the procedure. First, a member of the European Scrutiny Committee may make a five-minute statement about the decision of that Committee to refer the documents for debate. The Minister will then make a statement of no more than 10 minutes. Questions to the Minister will follow. The total time for the statement and subsequent questions and answers is up to one hour. Once questions have ended, the Minister moves the motion for debate. We must conclude our proceedings by 7 pm.
Does a member of the European Scrutiny Committee wish to make a brief explanatory statement?
Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. It might assist the Committee if I briefly explain the background to the document and why the European Scrutiny Committee recommended it for debate on the Floor of the House.
The newly adopted EU action plan on human rights and democracy for 2015 to 2019 replaces the first such action plan, which covered the period 2012 to 2014. The newly adopted action plan, which is due to be reviewed in 2017, sets out the practical steps that the EU and its member states will take in the next four years to develop existing EU external action on human rights and democracy worldwide. It will be implemented by the EU External Action Service, the Commission, the Council, member states and the EU special representative for human rights.
The plan consists of five strategic objectives, based on five guiding principles and involving 32 actions. The principles broadly cover ways of improving the effectiveness and assessment of external EU human rights activities. One principle requires a focus on the most pressing human rights challenges for the action plan: combating discrimination; respect for freedom of expression and privacy; freedom of religion and belief; combating torture, ill treatment and the death penalty; promoting gender equality, women’s rights, children’s rights and economic, social and cultural rights; encouraging corporate social responsibility; and ensuring that human rights are upheld in migration, trade or counter-terrorism policies. The Government regard the document as broadly complementary to UK foreign policy, although they have taken some action on the division of competencies between the EU and member states in the plan’s implementation.
The European Scrutiny Committee recommended a debate on the document on the Floor of the House because of its evident interest to the wider House, specifically the Joint Committee on Human Rights, the Justice Committee, the Women and Equalities Committee and the International Development Committee. We shall now put to proof the Government’s position that the document is better suited to scrutiny in Committee because that affords a “longer and structured” debate. The European Scrutiny Committee requested a better and more detailed account of the document, which it had not received before this debate, and this debate can explore why.
The European Scrutiny Committee was particularly concerned that the Government have not deposited in the UK Parliament a related document, the 2014 “Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy in the World”, which is a record of how the EU has implemented policy in this area over the past year. It is therefore useful as a benchmark for the action plan, particularly in such areas as the EU’s review of its neighbourhood policy. That is crucial because the document not having been placed in the Library meant that the Committee could not do due diligence on the background of the paperwork. That is why we asked for a debate in the Chamber.
Since the debate recommendation, the European Scrutiny Committee has tagged to the debate its reports on transitional justice as an example of actions included in the action plan; on a Court of Auditor’s report on the effectiveness of EU funding of action to oppose torture and the death penalty in third countries; and on a new and increased proposed budget for the EU special representative. The Committee wanted the Minister’s assessment of whether he considers all the actions within the current action plan to be a good use of EU funding, and how the Government intend to monitor that. Those are matters of high prominence for many Members, so the Committee requested a debate in the Chamber.
The Chair
I call the Minister to make an opening statement. I remind the Committee that interventions are not allowed during the statement.
Mr Lidington
To take the second question first, that will depend in part on which spending programme we are talking about, because the decision-making procedures may vary a bit accordingly. The senior-level people in the EEAS and the Commission would have responsibility in the first place for drawing up proposals and allocating funding from the budget agreed by member states under the various headings of the European Union annual budget and multi-annual financial framework. Those positions by the institutions are subject to oversight by the European Union Political and Security Committee ambassadors in Brussels, and ultimately by Ministers in the Foreign Affairs Council and the European Council.
Decisions on foreign policy are taken by unanimity, as the hon. Lady knows, so every member state has a veto, but what would happen is that a paper might be brought forward by the High Representative on foreign policy that would describe the European Union’s external actions in relation to a third country, let us say for the sake of example Pakistan. There would probably be a human rights element to that, and there would be an indication of the spending that would be involved to fund the programme. Then the member states could agree or disagree. There would be a process of negotiation, and then the final plan would be signed off.
Clearly, subsequent monitoring and auditing will be important. To answer the hon. Lady’s first question, I am always looking for ways to extract better value for money; that applies as much to UK domestic spending as to EU spending. It is a duty on any Minister in any Government. There are always improvements that can be made. Often, when I have had to deal with auditors’ reports on some of the common security and defence policy missions, I have said that we need to bring pressure to bear to deal with the shortcomings revealed by the auditor’s report. I think that the European Court of Auditors, at its best, acts in the same way as the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee here. That is the principle—we should always be looking for ways to improve matters—but by and large, I think that this area of EU activity amplifies the human rights work that the UK would be trying to do bilaterally.
Heather Wheeler
If we are almost drawing to a close, I ask the Minister again whether, having given us all those answers, he is not as convinced as the European Scrutiny Committee that the measures ought to have a debate in the full Chamber, as there are so many areas in it of great interest across the House.
Mr Lidington
If my hon. Friend looks at the track record of the current Government and their predecessor coalition Government, she will see that many more debates on documents referred by the European Scrutiny Committee have been held on the Floor of the House than was the case under predecessor Governments. It is always a difficult balance for the Government to strike in terms of the allocation of parliamentary time and we feel that we are granting a fair share of the Committee’s requests for debates on the Floor of the House. I can remember a previous Chair of the European Scrutiny Committee saying to me that he could remember being told informally by the Whips in the life of a previous Government that he could have two Floor debates a year and that he should decide which two he wanted out of the many documents that came through his Committee. We have had a lot more than two.
Any Member of the House of Commons is entitled to attend and speak at the European Committees. I take my hon. Friend’s point that a lot of Members, one would think, might be interested in human rights questions, especially given the number of lobbying campaigns to which we are all subjected by different pressure groups on behalf of human rights defenders of various countries, but our colleagues do not turn up in those numbers. The opportunity is there for hon. Members to take part if they wish to avail themselves of it.
Middle East
Heather Wheeler Excerpts(8 years, 11 months ago)
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Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee) on securing this important and timely debate. I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
I want to take this debate in a slightly different direction. Our role in the middle east must be to support countries that provide full rights to Christians and protect the rights of all minorities. We must challenge those who seek to persecute minorities for their religious beliefs and practices.
A century ago, Christians made up 20% of the population of the middle east, but this figure has dramatically fallen to 4%. Christians face prison sentences and executions for practising their religion in many countries across the middle east, where hatred of Christians is ignored or encouraged. Daesh is carrying out a campaign of persecution against minorities in the middle east. At least 5,000 Yazidis have been murdered in Iraq since August 2014, with the advance of Daesh forces who have declared Yazidis to be devil worshippers.
The rise of Daesh has intensified the persecution of Christians in the middle east. Countless Syrian and Iraqi Christians have been murdered with methods including crucifixions and beheadings. Daesh has evicted thousands of Chaldean and Assyrian Christians from their homes in Mosul, and in other areas they have demanded that Christians either convert or pay a tax for non-Muslims. They have destroyed countless churches and Christian shrines, and have carried out ethno-religious cleansing of Christian minorities.
Any Muslim who converts to Christianity is considered to have performed apostasy—the conscious abandonment of Islam. In certain parts of the middle east, this is a crime punishable by death. Christians live in a threatening atmosphere in many countries in the middle east, including Iran, where there were hopes that the treatment of minorities would improve under President Rouhani. Christians in Iran continue to be arbitrarily arrested and they face abuse in police custody.
Elsewhere in the middle east, Coptic churches have been burnt in Egypt in recent years. Hundreds of Christian Coptic girls have been kidnapped and forcibly converted to Islam, as well as being victims of rape and forced marriage to Muslim men. There are no churches left in Afghanistan. In 2012, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia proclaimed that
“it is necessary to destroy all the churches of the region”.
Tom Tugendhat
I very much welcome my hon. Friend’s comments on the state of Christianity in the region. It is, after all, the crucible of Christianity, and where Jesus Christ himself emerged from the Aramaic communities of Syria, which have tragically been destroyed. There is, however, one glimmer of light—the United Arab Emirates, whose sheikhs have recently been building Christian churches. Is she planning to come on to that point?
Mrs Moon
During its visit to Iraq, the Defence Committee also went to Jordan. One of the things we were extremely pleased to hear from the King is that he has opened the Jordanian borders to all Christians. A large number of Christian refugees have been accepted there. That has caused him problems, but he is determined to accept them.
Heather Wheeler
I thank the hon. Lady very much for her intervention. Perhaps I should not call it a highlight of my first term in Parliament, but I had the great honour of meeting the King during my first five years in the House. He is the most amazing gentleman I have ever met, and I wish him God speed.
In stark contrast to such countries, the state of Israel remains committed to its declaration of independence pledge to
“ensure the complete equality of all its citizens irrespective of religion.”
Since Israel’s founding in 1948, its Christian population has increased a thousand-fold. Today, Christianity is practised by more than 160,000 Israeli citizens, and it is the largest religious community in Israel after those of the Jews and the Muslims. Israel is home to the holiest sites in Christianity, including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, where Jesus was crucified and resurrected; the Room of the Last Supper and the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem; and the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel, where Jesus practised his ministry. Though Christians are exempt from military service, thousands have volunteered and have been sworn in on special New Testaments printed in Hebrew.
The level of freedom in Israel is remarkable when one considers the oppression and persecution faced by citizens in neighbouring countries, including those under the Palestinian Authority in the west bank and under the oppressive rule of Hamas in Gaza. In 1950, 15% of the population in the west bank was Christian; now, it is less than 2%. A generation ago, as many as 80% of Bethlehem’s population were Christian. This figure has now decreased to 10% owing, it is said, to land theft, intimidation and beatings.
We must continue to work with Israel, a country that upholds the rights of minorities in this turbulent region and the only country in the middle east that shares our democratic values. I call on the Government to draw attention to the devastating decline in the Christian population in the middle east and to dissociate themselves from any countries that sanction minorities for their religious beliefs or ethnic origin.
Oral Answers to Questions
Heather Wheeler Excerpts(9 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Swire
The right hon. Gentleman knows as well as any Northern Ireland Member that a peace process is exactly that—a process—and one has to continue to work at it. His experience, and that of other Northern Ireland Members who have visited, is hugely useful, but in the immediate future we need to get the Havana peace talks back on track. There are then huge issues to address about accountability, impunity and all the other issues that he and I would recognise.
Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)
6. What further discussions he has had with his counterparts in EU member states on the issues relating to EU reform raised by the Prime Minister at the June 2015 European Council.
Byron Davies (Gower) (Con)
9. What further discussions he has had with his counterparts in EU member states on the issues relating to EU reform raised by the Prime Minister at the June 2015 European Council.
The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington)
Since the June European Council meeting, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and I have had further discussions with counterparts on the areas in which we want to see change in the EU: sovereignty, fairness, competitiveness and immigration. We will both continue to do so over the coming months.
Heather Wheeler
What changes does the Minister expect to negotiate at EU level to help the businesses and hard-working people in my constituency of South Derbyshire to succeed in an increasingly competitive global economy?
Mr Lidington
I think that the reforms that we are seeking to deepen the single market and make it easier for businesses to sell digitally and to sell services throughout Europe, the efforts that we are making to push for the successful completion of a free trade deal between Europe and the United States, and the work that we are doing to cut red tape in the EU should be of direct benefit to the businesses in my hon. Friend’s constituency.
Oral Answers to Questions
Heather Wheeler Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Hammond
The Government’s position on that is very clear. We believe that Britain will be better off in a reformed European Union. The British economy clearly benefits from access to a single market of 500 million people, but this is a democracy and we are very clear that there are areas in the way the European Union operates which have become unacceptable to the British people. We need to get reform in those areas in order to have the continued consent of the British people for our membership, and thus access to that vital single market.
Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)
3. What discussions he has had with the UK’s international partners on further steps to tackle ISIL in Iraq and Syria.
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Philip Hammond)
I attended a meeting of Ministers from the counter-ISIL coalition core group in Paris a week ago today. We discussed recent events in Iraq and Syria and progress in pushing back ISIL in Iraq since last summer. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister also discussed ISIL with world leaders during the G7 summit and announced plans for increased UK support to Iraq.
Heather Wheeler
I thank my right hon. Friend for his reply. Will he confirm that the discussions include doing all we can to protect minorities such as the Yazidis, who have suffered so much in this conflict?
Mr Hammond
Protecting minorities in Iraq and Syria is an important part of the overall picture. Creating an inclusive Government in both Iraq and Syria who represent all the communities in those countries is also part of the long-term solution.