Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Lloyd Russell-Moyle

Tuesday 2nd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Jeremy Hunt)]

I start by paying tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), who stepped down last week. He served twice as Minister for the Middle East and was immensely respected and liked both in the Foreign Office, which does not happen with all Ministers, and in this House for his integrity, wisdom and kindness.

Tomorrow marks the third anniversary of the detention of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe in Iran. I know that I speak for the whole House in hoping that the Iranian authorities will see beyond the differences between our two countries and allow this innocent woman to come home and join her family.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Today is the 107th day of İmam Sis’s hunger strike. My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous) and I visited him in Newport East this weekend. He is one of 1,000 Kurds on hunger strike around the world, demanding that Abdullah Öcalan is allowed access to his lawyer and removed from solitary confinement. Turkey is a NATO member and has the highest number of MPs and journalists in prison in the world, following—

Yemen

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Lloyd Russell-Moyle

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

The hon. Gentleman’s point about landmines is very important. The UK has a lot of experience and fantastic NGOs that work in that area, and I am sure we would want to make them available to service the people of Yemen. The draft resolution does not talk about the future political framework, important though that is. That is really a stage for the next set of talks, which we hope will happen in January.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

I want to add my warm words about this agreement, which is a positive step forward. I am pleased that the Foreign Secretary mentioned not only Hodeidah but Ras Isa, because without opening up that fuel terminal, we will be unable to get food to the rest of the country. However, at Foreign Office questions, Ministers told us that they could not tell the House whether UK-manufactured weapons or planes were involved in the deaths of civilians and possible war crimes. The head of the independent office that he mentioned recommended, in his professional judgment, that arms sales should be suspended, but Ministers overturned that judgment. Will the Foreign Secretary now look again at suspending arms sales?

[Mr Hunt]

I do not know where the hon. Gentleman gets that information from, but it is not correct.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Lloyd Russell-Moyle

Tuesday 4th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I am unsure why the hon. Gentleman thinks that any of that is going to change, because the political declaration could not have been stronger in the commitments made to continue diplomatic co-operation between the UK and the EU. That is one of the first issues that European Foreign Ministers have raised in every single discussion that I have had with them, and there is total and complete unanimity.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

22. UK-EU diplomatic co-operation has been part of the successful Iran deal for the joint comprehensive plan of action and must of course continue post Brexit. The Secretary of State’s tweet yesterday cited the JCPOA and resolution 2231 in demanding that Iran cease testing missiles. However, the missile ban was deliberately excluded from the JCPOA and was not mentioned in resolution 2231. Is it now UK policy to dismiss the JCPOA and diverge from EU joint diplomatic efforts with Iran?

[Mr Hunt]

No, it is not. We strongly support the JCPOA, but we strongly condemn missile activity by Iran in the region, because it is extremely destabilising. Military activities in Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq are causing enormous problems for many people in the region, and we will not settle the issues in the middle east unless Iran starts to change its approach and act peacefully towards its neighbours.

Death of Jamal Khashoggi

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Lloyd Russell-Moyle

Monday 22nd October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I thank the shadow Foreign Secretary for her statement and I share the horror that she expressed so powerfully to this House, but I will say this: she will know that, in my position, she would not decide what actions to take until the investigation was complete. I simply say to her—[Interruption.] The investigation, which someone has talked about from a sedentary position, is being conducted at the moment by the Government of Turkey, and it is not yet complete. We do not yet have the results of that investigation. There is a great deal at stake that is very important for the people of this country, including counter-terrorism co-operation and the jobs of people who depend on trade with Saudi Arabia. So although I believe all of us in this House share the outrage that the right hon. Lady feels—if these stories are confirmed—we have to wait for that investigation, and I know she would do exactly the same if she was in my shoes.

I want to make this point about the three suggestions that the shadow Foreign Secretary made. First, the Magnitsky Bill is a very important piece of legislation. It cannot be enacted in this country until we have left the European Union, but we will certainly be talking to EU partners about how we can act collaboratively using EU structures. In fact, we have already had discussions about whether we should extend our sanctions regime to individuals responsible for human rights violations, which would allow precisely that to happen. But all these actions are far more effective when they are taken in concert with our European and American allies. Those are the discussions we are all having, but what we are all saying is that it would be wrong to make any decisions until we actually know what has happened. We have heard all sorts of media reports about these recordings, but to my knowledge none of us have actually seen transcripts or heard these recordings. The Turks say that all this stuff is going to be published. We do need to wait until we can see clearly the hard evidence as to what has happened. As I have made very clear this afternoon, if they turn out to be true there will be consequences and of course it will have an impact on the relationship with Saudi Arabia.

With respect to the other two points that the right hon. Lady mentioned, the situation in Yemen is heart-breaking. There is a humanitarian crisis at the moment—

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

There’s a war going on.

[Mr Hunt]

Indeed there is. I spoke to David Miliband about this when I was in New York for the UN General Assembly—perhaps that name is not supposed to be mentioned any more on the other side of the House. I urge the right hon. Lady to recognise that the faults in the crisis in Yemen go both ways. Saudi has made terrible mistakes, but missiles are also being fired from Yemen into Saudi—in fact, seven missiles have been fired at Riyadh—and the Saudi coalition is acting under the authority of UN resolution 2216.

Owing to our relationship with Saudi, we are able to press them hard to embrace a political solution, and that is what I did when I met the Saudi Foreign Minister on 27 September. I spoke to him about this on 16 August. I also met the Emirati Foreign Minister on 6 and 27 September to make that point. We are able to have that influence precisely because we have a relationship, but if we took the actions that the right hon. Lady suggests, our influence with Saudi and Emirates would be precisely zero, and the humanitarian crisis would most likely last longer.

The right hon. Lady talked about arms sales. The procedures we follow in this country, as she well knows, are among the strictest in the world. They were introduced by the late Robin Cook in 2000 and strengthened under the Conservative-led coalition in 2014. Far from selling arms left, right and centre, we do not sell to a number of large markets such as China and we do not sell to friendly Governments such as Lebanon, Libya and Iraq. In July 2017, the High Court ruled that our sales to Saudi Arabia were compliant with those regulations, but we keep the situation constantly under review, and that will include any implications that arise from the results of the Kashoggi investigation.

We are consistent in our championing of human rights across the world, but when I wanted to take action against Russia for the first ever chemical weapons attack on British soil, I was told by the Leader of the Opposition not to take action—action that was later supported by our European friends—but to return to dialogue. The difference between this side of the House and that side is not what we believe in, it is how we get there. It is our belief that British influence depends on British strength.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hunt]

I am sure that the university will consider doing exactly that if he is found responsible for the crimes that are being alleged, but obviously that would be a matter for the university. I take the hon. Gentleman’s point; he is saying what many hon. Members have said, which is that the accounts we have heard from Saudi Arabia as to why this happened do not seem to match the facts on the ground.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Secretary of State correct the record? I think he misspoke earlier when he said that the coalition Government had strengthened arms controls. The Committees on Arms Export Controls said in 2014 that there was a “substantive weakening” of the controls, and the Government themselves said that there was no material change.

The Foreign Secretary referred in his statement to the judicial review of arms sales to Saudi Arabia. The review said that the CAEC conducted the independent scrutiny, but the Secretary of State for International Trade refused to attend CAEC hearings last year. Will he attend CAEC hearings this year? The Foreign Secretary himself has said that the Saudi investigation into this murder is not credible, so why do the Saudis investigate their own war crimes in Yemen? Will the Foreign Secretary now demand a UN investigation into this rogue state? Will he also acknowledge that security information from this state is rarely useful, as a senior civil servant said today on the radio, and that we should suspend co-operation in that area?

[Mr Hunt]

It is for the Home Office to make its assessment of the usefulness of the counter-terrorism intelligence-sharing relationship that we have with Saudi Arabia. All I can tell the hon. Gentleman is that the information I have had is that it is important. With respect to his other comments, I was telling the House what I have been informed of in my briefing notes by the Foreign Office, but I am happy to write to him to explain why I said what I said.