European Union (Referendum) Bill

John Baron Excerpts

Friday 8th November 2013 Commons Chamber

A consultation would also reveal that, as the CBI has argued in its report, going it alone through the WTO would reduce market access through increased tariffs on UK goods and services. Refraining from entering into any formal relationship with the EU and simply relying on the WTO rules is not a model that would assist Britain in achieving the global trading role to which we aspire and which we have enjoyed historically.

[Mr Baron]

I have great respect for the right hon. Gentleman, but I suggest that he does not keep referring to the CBI. After all, it was the organisation that suggested that there would be dire consequences if we did not join the euro.

On the right hon. Gentleman’s wider point about trade, much smaller countries at the heart of Europe, such as Switzerland, do not just survive but thrive outside the EU on the basis of trade. I suggest that he reflect on that, because he is talking down our ability to negotiate trade agreements with the wider world, and doing so is not justified by the evidence or facts.

[Mr Hain]

I disagree with the hon. Gentleman, he will not be surprised to hear. Norway and especially Switzerland are small countries. Britain is a big country, with an historic global role in trade, diplomacy and defence. The idea that we will be a kind of Norway with nukes seems to be no prescription for Britain’s future, holding its head high in the world.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Baron Excerpts

Tuesday 29th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Yes, it absolutely undermines the process of peace. The threat of nuclear proliferation in the middle east, which is what the Iranian nuclear programme presents to the world, is of course a major danger to the future of the middle east, just as we are trying to make progress in the middle east peace process and to bring together a peace conference on Syria. It is deeply unhelpful across the board.

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

Given that reciprocity has been a sticking point in previous nuclear talks with Iran, with, perhaps, opportunities missed by both sides, what thought has been given by the west to making a gesture of good will as a first move, perhaps with a relief of sanctions—time-limited if necessary—given that such a move might reinforce the hand of the moderates within the country?

[Mr Hague]

Substantive changes in our policy on sanctions will require substantive changes in Iran’s nuclear programme, of course. Negotiations took place in Geneva on 15 and 16 October and a further round of such negotiations is now planned for 7 and 8 November, the end of next week. We welcome the improved tone and posture of Iran in those serious negotiations, but it will have to take serious and real steps for us to be able to reciprocate.

Middle East Peace Process/Syria and Iran

John Baron Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Of course the expansion of settlements on occupied land, which is illegal and which I think we are all clear about in this House, does not assist Palestinian economic development, as the hon. Lady’s question implies. This again underlines the importance of the talks now taking place to resolve final status issues—to resolve the issues of borders and security and refugees. Their success would mean these problems could be brought to an end. So the current position does not help Palestinian economic development. Finding new ways to assist that development, alongside these efforts on the peace process, is worthwhile, but success in the peace process will be needed for that to have a lasting tangible effect.

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

May I also thank the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) for his work at the Foreign Office and his professionalism and courtesy? I congratulate the Foreign Secretary on the appointment of the chargé in order to help build relations, but we should try to minimise the preconditions when talking to the Iranians, as they can often get in the way. There were no preconditions—or very few—when we were talking to Sinn Fein and the provisionals in Northern Ireland back in the 1980s. We need to talk to our enemies in order to make peace, not to our friends. May I also suggest that every opportunity should be taken to explore the other conflicts in the region in which Iran has its finger, because it will offer up many opportunities for progress in the region if we can at least go some way towards normalising relations?

[Mr Hague]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his comments. We have not set preconditions, as he can see from the number of discussions I have had with the Iranian Foreign Minister already, but we do want concrete actions to go along with words, and we do want to proceed on an agreed reciprocal basis in improving the functioning of bilateral relations. I hope that improved functioning can lead to discussion on a wider range of subjects, and my hon. Friend has mentioned some of those that could be included. We will be exploring that over the coming weeks.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Baron Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

The right hon. Gentleman may recall that the vote was on whether to have a further vote. The proposition that the Government put to the House was to have a second vote if military action was to be contemplated. That motion was defeated—Opposition Members voted against having a second vote. That was the decision of the House.

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

In welcoming the Prime Minister’s clear assertion that we will not be involved militarily in Syria, may I urge the Government to go the extra diplomatic mile? Precisely because we are not agreeing with Iran, and because it is a participant in that vicious civil war, I suggest we should lobby for its inclusion in any forthcoming peace conference, including at the G20.

[Mr Hague]

If I may say so, few questions today have reflected a rather cheery view of Iranian diplomacy on those matters. Iran has been actively engaged in assisting widespread murder by the Assad regime and has not so far expressed its support for the outcome of the first conference in Geneva—the creation of a transitional Government—let alone contributed to a second conference in Geneva. The role Iran is prepared to play, rather than our attitude towards Iran, is crucial.

Arms to Syria

John Baron Excerpts

Thursday 11th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House believes no lethal support should be provided to anti-government forces in Syria without the explicit prior consent of Parliament.

I should like to thank the Backbench Business Committee for agreeing to support the motion and to thank other colleagues across the House for supporting it. Matters of war and peace are extremely serious, whether we are talking about direct intervention, the provision of lethal support or, in this case, the narrower matter of arming the Syrian rebels. They therefore involve serious decisions for the Prime Minister—or for any Prime Minister. Lives are at risk, and while we accept that no decisions have been made on this matter to date, it is appropriate that such decisions should have the support of Parliament.

In many ways, the debate on this matter has already been a success. When we first discovered that the Government were seeking to lift the EU arms embargo, there was no statement from the Government; we discovered it for ourselves. Initially, there was some confusion. There was certainly no clarity as to whether Parliament should vote to authorise any arming of the rebels. At first, there was talk of consulting, and there were hints and indications. These were confirmed in media exchanges only three or four weeks ago, when colleagues on both sides of the House who support arming the rebels advocated that Parliament would not be bound by any such vote and that no such vote was required before a policy to arm the rebels was decided upon and executed.

Through the efforts of parliamentarians on both sides, and through the general debate on the matter, we have achieved greater clarity. The Government have firmed up on their promises over the past couple of weeks, culminating in the Foreign Secretary’s unambiguous statement to the House yesterday that any such decision would be subject to a vote in this place before such a policy was executed. That is definitely a positive move, and we now have greater clarity than when we first started this journey. That is very welcome.

I want to make a further point about parliamentary oversight. Having opposed the interventions in Iraq and Libya, and observed the morphing of the mission in Afghanistan into a nation-building programme, I sympathise to a large extent with the view that Parliament sometimes comes late to these decisions. We debated and voted on the question of Iraq as the troops were on the start line. When the mission in Afghanistan morphed into one of nation building, it was suggested—although not promised—that we would be in and out without firing a shot, but 440 lives later we are still counting the cost. The vote on Libya took place almost as the jets were leaving the airfields, so there are lessons that need to be learned on the parliamentary scrutiny of these important decisions.

Many Members believe that this debate is of paramount importance, because we fear the consequences of arming the rebels. There are no easy answers in regard to the bitter and bloody civil war in Syria—atrocities are being committed by both sides—but I and others would caution against the UK getting more closely involved from a military point of view. If humanitarian concerns are uppermost in people’s minds, which I do not doubt for a moment, it beggars belief that anyone could suggest that pouring more arms into the conflict would not add to the violence and suffering. The United Nations Secretary-General was absolutely right to say that there could be no military solution to the conflict. That is why putting more arms into the conflict would not be helpful.

[Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon) (Con)]

Could we be sure, if we were to arm the rebels against Assad and Hezbollah, that we would not be supporting al-Qaeda or creating a Shi’a-Sunni cross-border conflict, and that we would not be supporting a proxy war between Russia and the west? Is it worth the risk?

[Mr Baron]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. One of the problems with this conflict is that there are extremists on both sides. On the rebel side, for example, we know that al-Nusra has close links with jihadist and extremist groups including al-Qaeda. The Government have not been able to answer the question about how they would track and trace weapons to ensure that they did not fall into the wrong hands. We need to remember that in that part of the world weapons are tradable assets. Very little escapes the bazaar. Given that the situation on the ground is fast moving and fluid, it would be nigh-on impossible to ensure that such arms did not fall into the wrong hands.

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that things have moved on a great deal since we voted for or against the intervention in Iraq? That was a mess, and many people are now sorry that they voted as they did. It is important that we should be able to work out what is happening and make the decision ourselves. This should not be a decision for the Government.

[Mr Baron]

I take on board what my hon. Friend has said, and I agree with him in large part. There is a deficit of trust on these issues, partly courtesy of the Iraq decision but also because of Afghanistan. That is why it is even more important for Parliament to express its view. We should not be bounced into a decision simply because we are heading into a recess.

We need to learn from our mistakes in other respects as well. For example, we armed the mujaheddin in the 1980s, and we armed Saddam Hussein when he attacked Iran. Some of those weapons were eventually pointed against us. Many of the weapons supplied to Libya have ended up in Syria and northern Mali. We have made mistakes on this front, and we must learn from them.

[Mr Brooks Newmark (Braintree) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend at least acknowledge that doing nothing also has a cost, and that if we do nothing, two things will happen? The Assad regime will continue to try to slaughter its own people into submission. Where 12 months ago there were hardly any Jabhat al-Nusra on the ground, there are today perhaps 5,000, 6,000 or 7,000, and if we continue to do nothing, we create the space to allow more and more jihadis to come into the ground. If we support the moderate opposition, that will stop the flaking off from the Free Syrian Army to Jabhat al-Nusra.

[Mr Baron]

I take on board what my hon. Friend says, but I think it does him no service to try to create the impression that those of us who suggest that we should not arm the rebels are insisting that we do nothing. It is actually quite the opposite. I think there is an awful lot that we could be doing—on the humanitarian front and on the diplomatic front. I will return to the issue in a minute or two, if my hon. Friend will bear with me. I will allow him in again, if he wishes to come back to me.

If I had another concern, it would be that, as has been hinted at already, the civil war in Syria is in many respects a proxy war being fought out at different levels—whether it be Sunni versus Shi’a Muslim; the old Persian gulf rivalry of Iran versus Saudi Arabia; or indeed the west versus Russia and China. The risk of pouring more weapons into this conflict and of pouring more fuel on to the fire is that we not only increase the violence within Syria but extend the conflict beyond Syria’s borders in very large measure. That would be a mistake of historic proportions.

Returning to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr Newmark) about doing nothing, I would suggest that there is a lot more that we can do, particularly on the humanitarian and diplomatic fronts.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Newmark]

rose—

[Mr Baron]

I give way first to my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin).

[Mr Jenkin]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and I am listening carefully to what he is saying. Has he considered the risk of how this debate and his motion will be interpreted? The arms are pouring into Syria from the Sunni factions in Qatar and Saudi, and the Russians are pouring weapons into Syria, yet we seem to be sending the message that we will do nothing for the other side—the forces of democracy and freedom. Is that the message that my hon. Friend wants to send, because it may inadvertently be the message that the Russians will understand from this debate?

[Mr Baron]

I think my hon. Friend does himself a disservice by misunderstanding the stated intention of this debate. It is not that we should do nothing; it is that we as a Parliament should have a say and that our explicit authorisation should be given before any arming of the rebels. We are not making a decision today about whether we should or should not arm the rebels. The motion is very clear that no decision should be made about arming, or, rather, that no policy should be implemented about arming

“without the explicit prior consent of Parliament”.

That is an important distinction. Let me move on, because the issue has been raised before.

The argument is often made that we are to do nothing. Well, there is an awful lot more we can do. On the humanitarian front, for example, why are many refugee camps desperately short of basic amenities? Britain has done more than its fair share—I do not deny that for one moment—but the bottom line is that there are still desperate shortages, so we could do even more there. On the diplomatic front, most people would accept that there can be no military solution to this problem in the longer term; there has to be a diplomatic solution. Why, then, as is presently the case, is the west trying to exclude Iran, a key player in the region and within the country, from the forthcoming peace talks being arranged by the Russians? Time will tell when those talks take place, but there is no doubt that there is an intention at the moment to exclude the Iranians, which is nonsensical.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and for introducing this debate. Is he aware that the UK’s humanitarian assistance to the Syrian crisis currently runs at £348 million, and is already the single largest funding commitment ever made by the UK in response to a humanitarian disaster?

[Mr Baron]

I am aware that we are leading the field when it comes to humanitarian relief. My response was really aimed at those who suggest that because someone does not believe in throwing more weapons into the conflict, they are advocating doing nothing. There is a lot more that can be done, even taking into account the assistance we are already giving. It cannot be denied that a number of these refugee camps are desperately short of basic amenities. As I say, more can be done on that front, despite the aid we are already putting in.

[Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

I am conscious that there is a categorical difference between humanitarian aid and arming rebels against a Government. Irrespective of whether we support the rebels in their aims, the reality is, according to the Commons Library brief, that doing so might be an act of aggression under article 2(4) of the UN convention, so it might be illegal for us to do it anyway.

[Mr Baron]

I take on board my hon. Friend’s points. With law—international law in particular—one can find lawyers to substantiate both sides of an argument. I therefore tend not to focus too much on international law, although I have a sneaking feeling that we will return to the subject later on.

[Sir Malcolm Rifkind (Kensington) (Con)]

Quite right too!

[Mr Baron]

I hear what my right hon. and learned Friend says. That is why I think it is important that we focus on the practical and moral implications of such a policy.

In answer to colleagues’ points about doing nothing, I think that history provides a guide to what we should do. The last decade would suggest that trying to promote democracy and human rights, which is the Government’s stated objective, by force of arms can often be counter-productive. If we look at north Africa and parts of the middle east, we see the seeds of democracy stuttering into life where we have committed relatively few resources. If we look at Iraq and Afghanistan, however, it is not such a rosy picture, despite the huge cost in lives and treasure.

If we wanted to go back further, we could look at our interventions since the second world war. They have had a tendency to have an embedding effect—to reinforce the existing regimes. It is no coincidence, I put it to the House, that communism has survived longest in those countries where the west actually intervened—Cuba, Vietnam, North Korea, even China. We have to be careful about our interventions.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned North Korea. Could we for the record confirm as a matter of fact that it was not the west that intervened in North Korea? It was actually the United Nations that was involved in defending the Koreans against aggression from the north and from China.

[Mr Baron]

To a certain extent, but the hon. Gentleman well knows that both sides put in forces up to the 38th parallel. Yes, the northern forces attacked, but the bottom line is that both sides—including the UN—put in forces initially. Putting that to one side, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not detract from the point that interventions have tended to have an embedding effect, particularly in the other examples I provided. We have to be very careful about intervention.

As an aside, I certainly believe that we need to make greater use of soft power—the ability to coerce and persuade by non-violent means—which can often be more effective and cost-effective than conventional hard power. It saddens me to say this, although I will do so while the Minister is in his place, that we are making cuts to our soft power capability, including the BBC World Service, the British Council and, indeed, the Foreign Office itself. We need to ensure that our military are up to the mark—one is not saying anything else—but the emphasis in the past was too much on hard power. We should better nuance our approach to foreign policy, particularly in this information age.

In conclusion, I am conscious that the debate has been over-subscribed and I look forward to hearing the contributions from hon. Members. It is terribly important that we put a marker in the sand, saying that Parliament must be consulted and that no lethal interventions can take place

“without the explicit prior consent of Parliament”.

That is not to prejudge the decision itself, but the principle is there. I welcome the fact that the Government have in recent months been on a little bit of a journey on this, particularly given the indications they gave at the start, which contained no conclusive confirmation that a vote would take place before any arming of the rebels. I welcome the development and I welcome the efforts of colleagues of all parties—and indeed this debate—in helping to crystallise that fact. I very much look forward to hearing the debate that follows.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Malcolm Rifkind]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point, but I do not think that a no-fly zone is practical. It could not be legitimised by the Security Council and would involve massive attacks on Syrian air defences, which would essentially mean Britain, America and other countries going to war. That would not be appropriate or justified.

On a humanitarian basis, quite apart from any other argument, the Syrian opposition deserve weapons to protect their own communities. This time next year, 200,000 men, women and children will have been slaughtered in Homs, Aleppo and the various other centres that the Assad regime is trying to recontrol. From that point of view, such an approach is a consideration.

My second point goes straight to the comments made by the hon. Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick). I hope that we are all agreed that a political solution will ultimately end the conflict, but to have a political solution requires getting people to Geneva who are willing to make the compromises required. On what possible basis should Assad contemplate such an approach when he has refused all along to contemplate not just his own demise but any transitional Government or any new Government involving the Syrian opposition? He has ruled that out entirely. At this moment, he is even less likely to be interested in that argument.

The hon. Gentleman talked about escalating new arms supplies from Russia or Iran, but the one thing the Syrian Government and Assad regime do not need is more arms. They are satiated with arms and they have been supplied with them for the past two years. Assad knows that supply from Russia and Iran will continue for as long as he needs them, but on top of that he has Hezbollah militia fighting with his forces. That is foreign intervention and, incidentally, it shows the weakness of the Assad regime that it could not recapture the small town of Qusair by itself a few weeks ago but had to get several thousand Lebanese Hezbollah militia—

[Mr Baron]

Will my right hon. and learned Friend give way?

[Sir Malcolm Rifkind]

I have given way twice already, I am afraid—[Interruption.] But as it is my hon. Friend, I will give way.

[Mr Baron]

I appreciate the fact that my right hon. and learned Friend is being so accommodating and I shall keep my question short. Can he answer the practical question that the Government have so far been unable to answer? How does one track and trace the weapons going to the rebel cause to stop them falling into the wrong hands? Up to this moment, that answer has not been supplied.

[Sir Malcolm Rifkind]

Let me go straight to that point. It is perfectly fair, but I do not think it is as convincing as my hon. Friend clearly believes. First, if we provide the weapons that the Syrian moderate secular opposition want and of which they are desperately short—they are the only people who do not have such weapons as the jihadi nationalist extremists and the Assad regime already have them—on what common- sense grounds should we anticipate that to any significant degree, the Free Syrian Army, for the first time given proper means of defending themselves and advancing their cause, should wish to hand them over to the jihadi nationalists who already have them and are their sworn enemies? Jabhat al-Nusra is not even part of the Syrian National Coalition. Of course, we cannot exclude the possibility that the odd weapon might go in that direction, but to rule out providing them on those grounds alone seems unwise and unreasonable.

The broader point is that if Assad knows that he not only has Hezbollah forces fighting for him, which he needs to advance on Homs and Aleppo, but has been promised Iranian revolutionary guards and if he has the weapons, what possible reason would he have to be prepared to reach a compromise that involves his sharing power, never mind giving it up? When hon. Members who take a different point of view say that we must have a diplomatic solution, I agree. When they say that lots of things can be done on humanitarian grounds and through diplomatic initiatives, I utterly agree. They know as well as I do, however, that in the middle of a civil war, diplomacy by itself will not deliver the results required. Why should it? That happens only when both sides to a civil war realise that they cannot get military victory by themselves and therefore must compromise.

At this moment in the conflict, the Assad regime has no reason to come to such a view. It is not short of weapons and it is not short of fighters from other countries—Lebanon and Iran—so such an approach will not succeed. By all means, let us say that this is not our war and that it is all terribly tragic. By all means, let us accept that events will go on as they have been, but hon. Members must not kid themselves that anything that relies on diplomatic initiatives alone, without the real pressure that strengthening the secular opposition would provide, has even the remotest prospect of bringing peace and preventing the continuing slaughter of tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of innocent Syrian men, women and children over the months and years to come.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Ottaway (Croydon South) (Con)]

Given that the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and the Leader of the House have given firm pledges about having a vote before arming any rebels, the motion is somewhat academic. With everything that is going on in the middle east at present, I mean no disrespect to the Minister when I say that I regret that we are not having a wider debate on the middle east, possibly with the Foreign Secretary replying.

The concern arose when the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary said yesterday said that there was possibility that they would have to act without having time for the House to express an opinion. I think that that is not an unreasonable position, and I for one trust the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary to make the right decision if they find themselves in those circumstances.

[Mr Baron]

May I respectfully suggest that my hon. Friend could not be further from the truth when he says that this is an academic debate? Quite the opposite. There is a clear showing that the Government have moved some way since we first discovered that they were lobbying for the arms embargo to be lifted. No assurance was given in the early days, as illustrated by the fact that there were media exchanges where proponents of arming the rebels were clearly making the point on the Governments behalf that they were not confined by a vote in this place. This debate, plus the efforts of parliamentarians on both sides, have been useful in getting clarity from those on the Front Bench.

[Richard Ottaway]

I have no wish to quarrel with my hon. Friend. What I was saying was that the motion was academic. The debate is very important. On his second point, the words that the Foreign Secretary used yesterday were almost identical to the original words used by the Prime Minister.

A number of criteria must be met before we intervene in these situations. We must be clear that the situation has been properly thought through. The first criterion should be that we should not intervene unless it makes a difference to the lives, prosperity and security of the Syrian people. When we examine that closely, it is a hard ask. It is increasingly unlikely that we will move to a situation where President Assad is forced out. He has the support of Iran and Hezbollah and Russia, who are using as a justification for their support for Assad their concern over the interpretation of the Libya resolution. They argue that there was a generous interpretation of that resolution and the bombing campaign went too far. I see that as a diplomatic excuse on their part. The Russians are concerned for two primary reasons. One is that, with an eye to Chechnya and the Muslims at their back door, they do not wish to offend their Muslim community and they do not want to lose their port on the Mediterranean.

The second criterion that must be met is that we ask ourselves whether we have exhausted all diplomatic solutions. Hopes must rest on the Geneva conference but optimism is fading. The earliest that the conference will take place is in September. I agree with others when I say that I believe Iran should be present at such a conference. I wish the Secretary of State for the United States and Mr Lavrov on behalf of the Russians well in trying to set an agenda. The most likely outcome is a rehash of the Annan plan and that President Assad will stay in office. That may turn out to be the least bad option.

On this point, I detect that the Government have changed their position. At the outset it was a precondition that President Assad should go. Of late, speeches by the Foreign Secretary and the Minister in the House of Lords have dropped that requirement. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm when he winds up whether it is a pre-condition that Assad should go as part of any negotiated settlement, or whether he accepts that we may yet have to work with him.

Thirdly, we have to ask ourselves whether there are military operations that we can sensibly undertake that will make a difference. The region is in turmoil. It is no longer the regime versus the rebels. The rebels are split into good rebels and bad rebels. Chemical weapons have clearly been used, although it is not clear by whom. The concern now, and it may well be the reason why the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary set out the option to take action without consulting the House, is that those chemicals stocks may fall to the rebels. I would be grateful if the Minister, in his winding-up speech, could confirm his assessment of the risk set out by the Intelligence and Security Committee the other day and what steps he will be taking if there is a threat that they may fall into the wrong hands.

On the military side, where do we go from here? I for one do not think that throwing a few cases of rifles into the rebels’ hands will make a difference. As many have pointed out, the Saudis and Qataris are already supplying a large number of weapons. If we supply more sophisticated weapons, that will produce a response from Russia, which has pledged to match like for like. However—this is important—it might be the only way we can bring Assad to the negotiating table, so to that extent I agree with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind).

--- Later in debate ---

[Alistair Burt]

No, not yet.

We are also providing technical assistance for the protection of civilians. That includes advice and training on how to maintain security in areas no longer controlled by the regime, on how to protect civilians and minimise the risks to them—including in respect of helping the opposition counter regime forces as they attack towns under opposition control—and on co-ordination between civilian and military councils, and on how to maintain security during a transition.

Amending the arms embargo on Syria in May also supported these aims. As the Prime Minister has said, lifting the arms embargo on the Syrian National Coalition sent a powerful signal that there is no moral equivalence between Assad on the one hand and the legitimate representatives of the Syrian people, recognised by over 130 countries, states and other entities, on the other. It also increases pressure on the regime to negotiate seriously. We now have the flexibility to respond in future if the situation continues to deteriorate and if the Assad regime refuses to negotiate.

Let me come to the nub of the motion, just to be clear once again to the House. As my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary said yesterday in his statement to the House:

“On the question of any future lethal support—arming the opposition or intervening militarily ourselves—the Government’s position has not changed. No decision has been made, and any decision would be put to the House on a substantive motion.”—[Official Report, 10 July 2013; Vol. 566, c. 379.]

And as he said in the House on 18 June:

“We certainly would not want to pursue any aspect of our policy on this issue against the will of the House of Commons. That is neither feasible nor desirable, so of course we have made clear that there would be a vote. I have also made it clear that we would expect it to be before any such decision was put into action.”—[Official Report, 18 June 2013; Vol. 564, c. 746.]

[Mr Baron]

I absolutely applaud the Minister and I have great respect for his being absolutely clear. I agree that there has never been any change to the policy or the wording of the view that no decision has been taken, but I suggest with great respect that there has been movement by the Government on the assurances in the wording of the motion since it first travelled this journey. I urge the Minister to look back at what was said initially when many of us in this place urged the Government to put such a motion to a substantive vote.

[Alistair Burt]

Well, I do not believe so. Let me comment on something that is at the nub of this: the long shadow of Iraq. I am convinced that when this Government took office we were very well aware of the deficiency in trust felt in the nation on account of that. My sense is that, particularly in respect of the area my portfolio covers, in the last two or three years both the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary have repeatedly updated the House on circumstances as they have arisen. They have been very conscientious in doing that. The National Security Council was created precisely to try to find a structure that could address the concerns about foreign policy decisions that people had felt in the past. I believe that right from the beginning as the UK considered all its options—and I repeat, despite whatever I have said, that all options remain on the table—both the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister have been very keen to ensure that the House has been engaged, because ultimately this is an issue of trust.

That leads me on to the point made by the right hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Sir Andrew Stunell) and my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway) about the possibility of something being sneaked through in the recess. The hon. Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) also talked about that. The whole point of what the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary have been doing has been to generate trust in the House. If the Government were to do something and then seek retrospective support in respect of an issue where Members felt we should have come before the House in advance, that trust would be broken, which would run contrary to what the Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister wish to convey. It may still be the case, of course, that emergencies arise that require the Head of Government to have the flexibility to make decisions in the national interest, as the House would expect, and the debate on Iran some time ago indicated that no hands should be bound. The clear intention of what I am saying and what the Foreign Secretary has sought to do, however, is that the Government want to keep the confidence of the House by going this extra step. So there is no question of our trying to use the recess or another opportunity to do something, because we would then have to come back to the House—and what would be the House’s reaction? I have tried to make clear the intention on which the Government are determined to act.

In the brief time available, I wish to cover one or two more of the questions raised, including those about Geneva and President Assad put by the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas), who spoke for the Opposition. I know that you are very generous to us, Mr Speaker, so if I stray for one minute, having taken an intervention, I hope you will kindly let me do so.

My hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Andrew Bingham) said that many people were asking what is in our national interest. Importantly, whether a decision is made to arm or not, there is a UK interest that needs to be considered. Let us make no mistake: whether we continue on our current course or do something different, we are involved. As a permanent member of the Security Council, we have an interest in promoting peace in the most conflict-ridden areas. It is to the discredit of the international community that that has not been possible, but that has not been due to any sparing of effort on our part at the United Nations. The conflict has been spilling over into neighbouring areas, as we have seen with Hezbollah and Lebanon. As my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr Newmark) said, if empty space is used, that is where a threat to and an attack on the United Kingdom can come from. We know that people are going out there to be radicalised, and that will come back to bite us as well. Whatever is done—whatever decision is taken—nobody in this House can escape the fact that there is British interest in Syria. Accordingly, our main interest is in closing this down and ending the conflict. This is not a plea from me to arm; I am saying that unless the conflict is ended, British interests will continue to be further damaged.

Iran clearly has an interest in this. It did not accept Geneva I. Who knows what is possible, but Iran’s interest is noted and is there. The removal of Assad is not so much a precondition from the United Kingdom; this is not the UK’s involvement in negotiations. It was clear from the beginning that this issue is difficult for an opposition that is being killed daily by Assad’s regime, but the practicalities now are that there are no preconditions if people can get to a position to negotiate that we want.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Baron]

This has been a well-informed, well-attended and useful debate, in which the wording of the motion has been paramount. Since we first discovered that the Government were aiming to lift the EU ban on arms exports, the Government have travelled some way. There was a lack of clarity at the start of the journey, as illustrated by the fact that very recently—only a few weeks ago—Members who are in their places in the Chamber today were appearing in the media believing that the rebels should be armed and expressing the view that Parliament did not need to give its explicit prior consent. We have that clarity now and I thank the Minister for it. I also thank Members on both sides of the House for pressing for clarity from the Government.

Let me turn briefly to the specific issue of whether or not to arm. There has been no answer to the charge that more weapons would mean more violence and more suffering, to the charge that it would be nigh on impossible to track and trace weapons to stop them falling into the hands of extremists on the rebel side or to the charge that if one pours more weapons into the conflict and adds more fuel to the flames it could extend the conflict beyond Syria’s borders. Most who have spoken would agree that more can be done on the humanitarian and diplomatic fronts.

I urge all Members to support the motion, regardless of their views on whether we should arm. I for one will not press it to a vote, but I would fully understand colleagues who might wish to do that given the strength of feeling on the issue. I urge all Members to support the motion, if they can.

Question put.

European Union (Referendum) Bill

John Baron Excerpts

Friday 5th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Alexander]

I will not give way, because I want to make progress. The Conservative approach to Europe undermines the prospects for growth, because, as my hon. Friend has just made clear, it creates unnecessary uncertainty that could undermine investment, because it risks Britain sleepwalking to the exit of the European Union precisely when the economic benefits of membership are most needed, given the stagnating economy. At least we have the courage to acknowledge that membership of the European Union is vital to the economy of the United Kingdom, not least because of the benefits of free trade and integration in the world’s largest trading bloc.

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. He is a reasonable fellow, but what he does not seem to grasp is the fact that this debate—this issue—is about the principle of a referendum, not the relative merits of in or out. He also seems to fail to understand that this is about trust between politicians in general and the British electorate, given that too many promises have been broken in the past, including Labour’s promise of a referendum when it came to the EU constitution and Lisbon. Why will the Labour party not trust the people on this issue?

[Mr Alexander]

Why does the Conservative party not trust the Conservative Prime Minister? When will it release the Downing Street One? That is the question. He is sitting on the Front Bench like a hostage, not a leader.

Let me address the hon. Gentleman’s point. He was generous enough to describe me as a reasonable fellow and I return the compliment. As a reasonable fellow, he will be keen to defend and protect the jobs of his many constituents who work at places like Ford’s Dunton technical centre. I am sure that he is concerned for those jobs. Perhaps when he has the opportunity to speak he will explain to them why the European chief executive of Ford has said:

“All countries should have their sovereignty, but don’t discuss leaving a trading partner where 50pc of your exports go… That would be devastating for the UK economy.”

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman’s constituents will be very interested in that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Denham]

No, I will make a little more progress.

Why has this situation come about? Why has supposedly the most powerful politician in the land come begging his MPs to support a private Member’s Bill? The Prime Minister’s position on the issue seems clear enough. He made a speech in January in which he said that after the next election, if there is a Conservative Government, he would aim to renegotiate our relationship with the EU, with an in/out referendum by 2017, come what may in those negotiations. That might not be wise—there is absolutely no guarantee of any negotiations being clear by 2017—but it is certainly a clear position, and it came from the Prime Minister.

Why was that not good enough for the Conservative Members who have turned up today? Of course, many of them just want to leave the EU. They do not care when, as long as it is as soon as possible, and they do not trust their own Prime Minister. As soon as the Queen’s Speech was published, they were after him. The hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) was first off the mark, moving an amendment regretting the failure to mention a referendum Bill in the Queen’s Speech. He was very clear why one was needed. He wrote in The Daily Telegraph:

“The Prime Minister made a historic pledge to the British people during his January speech,”

but

“where the Prime Minister’s pledge falls down is its believability.”

Let me repeat that:

“where the Prime Minister’s pledge falls down”—

this “historic pledge”, let us remember—

“is its believability.”

What an extraordinary statement! The reason we are here today is because the majority of Tory MPs do not believe that a historic pledge made by their own leader is believed by the British people. That is the only reason we are here, and that is why the Prime Minister is humiliated by these proceedings today.

[Mr John Baron]

I am afraid the right hon. Gentleman quotes very selectively from that piece. Having written it, I will correct him for the record. What I went on to say was that the issue was believability, not because there is an issue between the Prime Minister and his Back Benchers, but because the issue has been between politicians in general and the electorate, because far too many promises in the past have been broken, particularly by the Labour party and the Liberals, at every single general election. If the right hon. Gentleman is going to quote me, he should please do it correctly.

[Mr Denham]

I quoted absolutely verbatim from the hon. Gentleman’s article. Let me respond to his further point. I would expect a Conservative MP to say, “You can’t really believe what Labour MPs say”, and I would expect Labour MPs to say, “You can’t really believe what Conservative MPs say.” That is what we do here in this House. It probably does not do us much good with the general public, but that is what we do—we throw these things about. What I do not expect is a Conservative MP to say, “You can’t believe a Conservative Prime Minister,” and that is what the hon. Gentleman did. The Bill has arisen from the decision of Conservative Back Benchers—

[Mr Baron]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. It had better be a point of order, Mr Baron.

[Mr Baron]

It is a point of order Madam Deputy Speaker—or I hope it is. I seek your guidance. I have been misquoted by the right hon. Gentleman. [Interruption.] I promise the House that I have been directly misquoted. [Interruption.] I wrote the piece, so I seek your advice, Madam Deputy Speaker, on how one can correct the misquoting by the right hon. Gentleman.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

The issue is a matter for debate, as the hon. Gentleman knows. I believe his name is down to be called in this debate and he will have ample opportunity at that point if he feels that the record needs to be corrected. I think he is experienced enough to know that these matters tend to be a point of debate rather than a point of order.

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[Martin Horwood]

I do not think I had better. I am really looking forward to seeing the variety of different Conservative positions being expounded in the remainder of the debate, and if I give way to everybody—[Interruption.] Somebody is telling me to keep it short, and I think that the best way to do that is not to give way on every point.

The Bill also needs to deal with a problem relating to the franchise. Some 1.4 million British citizens reside elsewhere than in the UK, but according to the terms of the Bill the referendum will be based on the Westminster franchise. As far as I can tell, that has only about 19,000 registered overseas voters, so more than 1 million Britons, whose lives will be fundamentally affected by this change—they are British passport holders resident in other parts of the EU—will be disfranchised in this referendum. By this formula, the Bill will give votes to Cypriot and Maltese citizens living in this country, because under the Westminster franchise Commonwealth citizens have the vote, but it will not give the vote to French, Italian or German citizens. So there are a lot of inconsistencies, and this issue has not been debated at all so far.

The House of Commons Library briefing also raised the question of whether or not the Bill is even legally binding. Even the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) has conceded that this parliamentary vote would not bind its successor Parliament and further parliamentary votes, probably on secondary legislation, would be required to give effect to the referendum in any case.

[Mr Baron]

The hon. Gentleman has now made one of the longest speeches. May I ask him, with all due respect: could he please cut it short, if only because a long list of Members also wish to speak?

[Martin Horwood]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his advice, which should probably have come from the Chair rather than him. There is a slight problem, however, as most of my time has been taken up responding to interventions from his colleagues, so perhaps he should encourage them to be a little quieter.

The problems continue. The uncertainty that the Bill creates for business is clear, even if we make a number of big assumptions about the referendum process: first, that the Conservative Front Bench will not change its position between now and 2017, but having changed it three times in two years, that is a big assumption; secondly, that the timetable for the referendum does not have to be changed in any case, although we may find in 2017 that we are in the middle of a renegotiation or treaty change process resulting from changes in the eurozone, and at such a juncture, it would be nonsense to hold a referendum, as another referendum might be provoked in only a matter of months or years, so we would not really know what we were voting for in those circumstances; and finally, if the political landscape had not completely changed in any case we might have a different Government with different priorities and there might be a recovery in the European economy, and we may find votes for the UK Independence party subsiding and that Europe is not quite such a big priority—it is not a terribly big priority for most voters according to existing polls—so the idea of spending yet more hundreds of hours of parliamentary time banging on about Europe might not seem quite as appealing.

Even if all of that is true, and we move towards a referendum by 2017, that still condemns British business and British jobs to four years of uncertainty—what a message to send to investors. The CBI is quoted in the Independent newspaper, i, this morning, and raises the problem of the uncertainty caused for British business:

“British businesses don’t want to find themselves at the margins of the world’s largest trading bloc operating under market rules over which they have no influence.”

That is the prospect that we are going to live with, unresolved, apparently for up to four years. That is one of the problems with the Bill. This morning, The Daily Telegraph, I think, quoted the leader of the Norwegian Conservative party, who pointed out that the supposed solution of the UK trying to have a status more or less equivalent to Norway’s was worse than being in the EU. Norway pays hundreds of billions of euros to the European Union for access to the single European market, and finds out about the rules through so-called fax democracy.

There are many, many problems with the Bill, which does not really resolve the main question. It is, as we all really know—rather like Harold Wilson’s Bill in the 1970s—about papering over the cracks in the Conservative party itself. It will not really work. The Prime Minister has spelled out a reasonably modest set of ambitions for renegotiation that will never satisfy many of his Back Benchers, who clearly want to use a much more ambitious and unilateral agenda for negotiation as something that will provide them with an excuse to campaign for exit.

UK businesses have access to free trade in the world’s largest single market, worth nearly £11 trillion in gross domestic product, with over 500 million consumers. One in 10 British jobs are linked to the single market. Some £495 billion-worth of British trade is with other EU member states. To put that in jeopardy—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Baron]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. With the greatest respect, would you remind Members that this is a debate about the principle of a referendum, not the relative merits of being in or out of the EU?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I can see frustrations building up in the Chamber. I think that Mr Horwood is trying to give us an encompassing view of why the referendum may be good or bad. I am sure that even he recognises that a lot of people wish to speak, and hopefully we can move on. In the meantime, it is Martin Horwood.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) on securing this Bill. He has consulted widely on the Bill’s make-up, which has done him and it credit. I am sure that he will prove that we can address the issue of Europe and still do well, even when representing a marginal seat. Many commentators do not realise that although Europe, as a subject on its own, may rank only 10th or 12th in people’s order of preferences, it is very much entwined with our conversations about the economy or immigration. That is a fact, as we know when we knock on the doors in our constituencies.

The Bill is absolutely right and long overdue. As many hon. Members have said, the public have been waiting for too long to express their view on whether the UK should remain a member of the EU, because the EU has fundamentally changed since we first joined it in 1973. We were told then that the emphasis was on free trade, but it has since morphed, bit by bit, into one of ever-closer political union—a process that has resulted, over a period of time, in the salami-slicing of our sovereignty.

[David Simpson]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Baron]

I am going to crack on and be quick. I want to speak for just a couple of minutes because I am conscious that other Members want to speak as well. I hope the hon. Gentleman will forgive me.

The EU is now seen as too meddlesome in our everyday lives, too burdensome for our businesses, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, and too costly for our taxpayers. Yet the political establishment in this country has, in essence, closed ranks over the past 30 years and denied the people their say. That is fundamentally wrong. They have not had a genuine choice about this at any of the general elections of the past 30 years or so. This arrogant and somewhat condescending approach by the political elite has not gone unnoticed by the electorate. I therefore congratulate the Prime Minister on being the first political leader to offer an in/out referendum; I am convinced that other leaders will follow suit. I also thank him for listening to his Back Benchers, the party faithful, and, most importantly, the country as a whole in embracing the idea of a referendum in the next Parliament and legislation in this one. This party has moved closer to the electorate, and it is now up to the other parties to decide whether they are going to step up to the plate.

Legislation is terribly important because it is more believable than election manifesto promises. There is a deep public scepticism when people hear promises being made by politicians about the EU, because too many have been broken in the past. They remember Blair’s promises on the EU constitution and Lisbon, when a referendum never materialised. They remember—or are constantly reminded, I should say—of Liberal Democrat promises at every general election on the need for a real referendum, which, strangely, never materialise even when they share power.

[Martin Horwood]

rose—

[Mr Baron]

No, I have spoken for too long already.

In conclusion, I take issue with the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr Denham), who is no longer in his place. He claimed that, because I had suggested that this historic pledge by the Prime Minister was unbelievable—I have great respect for the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart), but I am afraid she was absolutely wrong about this—I was somehow criticising the Prime Minister. Let me make it absolutely clear for the record that, having congratulated the Prime Minister on his January speech, I then went on to say:

“However, where the Prime Minister’s pledge falls down is its believability. British voters are deeply sceptical of politicians making promises on Europe: too many have been broken in the past.

People bitterly recall Labour’s broken promise…on the EU Constitution…and they also remember…the Liberal Democrats’ 2010 Election manifesto.

Passing paving legislation in this parliament for a referendum in the next would be a concrete way of demonstrating serious intent.”

That was what I said in the article that the right hon. Gentleman took out of all context.

This is an issue not of trust between the Prime Minister and his Back Benchers—I have no doubt we will get an in/out referendum in 2017—but of trust between politicians in general and the electorate, for understandable reasons given our lamentable record in keeping good our promises.

This brings us to the nub of the issue. What will Labour and the Liberals do? Will they support this Bill? Will they honour past promises to the electorate? Will they allow the electorate their say, or are they still stuck in the mindset of the previous political establishment, which could not trust the electorate with this issue? Time will tell, but I say this to them: ignore the electorate at your peril. I suggest that they do what is best for the country and I predict that the Labour party in particular will change its position on this issue before the next general election.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Baron Excerpts

Tuesday 18th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

The tragedy is that two groups of people have been separated for far too long, and the efforts that need to be made to bring them together have foundered constantly. The problem of children taking to the streets and throwing stones and the Israeli defence forces having to respond will not be settled until we have the overall settlement on which we are working so hard to support Secretary Kerry, as my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary mentioned a moment ago.

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

6. What his policy is on the possible inclusion of Iran as a participant in the forthcoming Geneva conference on Syria.

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)]

No decision has been made on participation. Our priority remains to see a diplomatic process in Geneva that succeeds in reaching a negotiated end to the conflict, but we will have to be prepared to do more to save lives and pressure the Assad regime to negotiate seriously if diplomatic efforts are to succeed.

[Mr Baron]

Politicians should leave no stone unturned in the pursuit of a diplomatic solution. Does the Foreign Secretary therefore understand widespread concern that we are not giving diplomacy the best chance if Iran, a key player in the region, is excluded? Will he do what he can to encourage its inclusion?

[Mr Hague]

It is of course important that the conference in Geneva brings together sufficient groups and powers to agree a sustainable settlement of the conflict in Syria, but it is also important to have the ability to start from common ground. That is what was agreed at Geneva last year—that a transitional Government should be created, with full Executive powers, formed from regime and opposition by mutual consent. We have seen no evidence that Iran agrees with that agreement, which we made with Russia and others. In the absence of such agreement, it is hard to believe that Iran would play a constructive role at the Geneva negotiation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hague]

There are two main aspects to that. One is to meet the International Atomic Energy Agency’s transparency requirements, some of which I mentioned in detail when answering the urgent question in the House yesterday. That includes addressing the issue of the heavy water reactor at Arak and meeting the requirements for information across a wide range of matters that the IAEA has set out. The other thing is to respond constructively to the offer from the E3 plus 3 that has been on the table since February, and which would allow us to make a very significant start to defusing the tensions over the nuclear issue and resolving it. The new Administration in Iran will be judged on those two things.

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

T5. The BBC World Service is a trusted source of impartial news for hundreds of millions of listeners across the globe, yet the FCO is cutting its budget by about £2 million. Given that history suggests that soft power is far more effective at promoting democratic values than force of arms, will the Foreign Secretary reconsider this ill-judged and rather short-sighted decision?

[Mr Hague]

The cut I announced last week was three quarters of 1% of the World Service budget, having not passed on any of the reductions in departmental budgets for the past two years. That is much smaller than spending reductions across the rest of the public sector in the UK, and I believe that a well-run organisation can take a 0.75% change in its budget. Of course by transferring the funding of the World Service to the licence fee in future, we will remove this problem of the World Service being affected by departmental budgets at all.

Iran

John Baron Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

It has to be recognised that Iran has brought its isolation and economic sanctions upon itself, through its own actions. However, the British people have no quarrel with the people of Iran. Our dispute is over Iran’s nuclear programme. It will be difficult to create the atmosphere to address constructively with Iran all the other issues in the middle east that the right hon. Gentleman has quite legitimately mentioned without settling the nuclear issue. That is the central point. That is not just the view of the UK; we must remember that the E3 plus 3 include China and Russia, and our negotiating position is agreed with them. We are all agreed that the Iranian response has not been adequate or realistic so far. A change in that situation would unlock the opportunity for us to work together on other issues, and for Iran to be treated with the respect that the world would owe it as a major nation in its region. That is all there for the taking if we can resolve the nuclear issue.

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

It is generally accepted that both sides have made mistakes in regard to this relationship, and that no one’s hands are clean. Given that the election of President Rouhani offers a chink of light, what confidence-building measures is the Foreign Secretary considering? For example, will the Foreign Office seek the necessary assurances in relation to our embassy, in the hope that one day we will be able to reopen it? If not, what other measures is he considering?

[Mr Hague]

We do have conversations with the Iranians, and we will of course be very much open to conversations with the new President and his team. As has been mentioned, they are still some way from taking office, and we do not know who the other Ministers in the new Government will be, but, yes, we will be open to conversations with them. Those conversations can and should include the circumstances in which embassies can be reopened, but after what happened last time, we would need to be very confident of any assurances before we were able to reopen our embassy in the short term. There is an offer on the table from the E3 plus 3 on the nuclear issue, and it will remain on the table over the coming weeks.

Iraq War (10th Anniversary)

John Baron Excerpts

Thursday 13th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas]

I welcome that intervention. We need to recognise that a threat is made up of the capability to use weapons and also the intention to use them. What Hans Blix made very clear at that point was that there was not, as far as he could see, any intention to use them. What he wanted to find out was what else there was.

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Caroline Lucas]

I will give way shortly. Let me make a little more progress.

I keep coming back to the importance of MPs—ourselves—scrutinising the decision-making process that took place at the time. In that context, I was surprised and disappointed when, back in March this year, the Foreign Secretary, for whom I have a great deal of respect, wrote what was intended, I think, to be a confidential letter to members of his party, telling senior members of the Government that they should not be drawn on the controversial issues that drew the UK into the Iraq war. They should, he suggested, wait until Chilcot had reported, but that of course might not be until the next election—who knows? We are still waiting after five years, and in any case, Chilcot does not have a monopoly on the issue, and I doubt whether he or his team would want one.

I turn now to what went wrong. There is plenty of evidence that shows that the case for war set out by the Blair Administration in 2003 was deeply flawed. Intelligence was misused, concerns expressed by experts were suppressed, and the legal and political position was misrepresented. From this arises the belief among many journalists and members of the public as well as Members of this House that they were misled into supporting the war in Iraq. In fact, when one reads the documents and listens to the testimony, it is hardly far-fetched to call it a conspiracy.

In brief, Tony Blair decided to join the US in invading Iraq and removing Saddam Hussein. He knew that the British people and their representatives were dubious about the wisdom of this, to say the least, so he used every opportunity to twist the evidence to isolate his critics and encourage his supporters. Britain was indeed spun into war. This is the foundation of the familiar position that many former war supporters now take. Often they will say, “If I had known then what I know now, I would not have supported the war”, but is that enough? Does that really explain what happened?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak in this important debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) on securing it.

It has been 10 years since we invaded Iraq, yet the experience still casts a long shadow, and lessons from the period are still relevant today. Perhaps the most important lesson is that the war threw into stark relief the importance of basing our foreign policy decisions on firm evidence. The intelligence on Saddam Hussein’s WMD and his links with al-Qaeda, which was used to varying degrees as justification and a pretext for hostilities, was infamously described by Tony Blair as “extensive, detailed and authoritative”. In reality, it was anything but. We now know that we went to war on a false premise; there were no WMD. The British intelligence community failed to approach the Iraqi material with its customary thoroughness and consequently allowed space for the Government to mould the evidence to suit their purposes, with disastrous results. Indeed, sections of the intelligence community became the mouthpiece of Government rather than their ears and eyes, and that must never be allowed to happen again.

We learnt only the after the event the extent to which No. 10 and Foreign and Commonwealth Office spin doctors were on the inside of the drafting process for the September 2002 dossier and strongly influenced it. The then chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, John Scarlett, was in regular touch with Alastair Campbell. A unit within the FCO, the communications information centre, promoted the case for war. This resulted in possibilities becoming probabilities and indications becoming judgments. One spin doctor wrote the first full draft of the dossier, at John Scarlett’s invitation, a full day before John Scarlett produced his own first full draft. This evidence has come out only subsequently, often having to be extracted like teeth from the Government through freedom of information requests and other means.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

I agree with the points that the hon. Gentleman is making. Is not the biggest criticism of this whole sorry episode that having made the decision to go to war, the Government spent more time falsifying information to make the case for it than planning for the subsequent occupation, which has been a complete catastrophe?

[Mr Baron]

I certainly think that the post-war reconstruction was a shambles that led to a serious civil war and many casualties.

I have highlighted the detail with regard to the role of spin doctors and the FCO in the drafting of the dossier because that detail is important. When Tony Blair recalled Parliament, we were encouraged to believe that the dossier accurately reflected the assessments of the intelligence community. We now know that this was inaccurate. The dossier upgraded or exaggerated assessments made by the JIC, while intellectual ownership of the dossier did not reside with the JIC alone. Indeed, the final dossier was not even approved by the whole JIC. Yet that September we were led to believe that the account was that of the intelligence community, and that was a false impression.

[Andrew George]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very important point. Parliament needs to be reassured that we can get back to evidence-based policy making rather than policy-based evidence making, which appears to be the direction in which the civil servants went. We need an independent civil service that is capable of independently providing politically neutral evidence on which Parliament can assess these matters.

[Mr Baron]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. For many of us, the lesson from all this is that we must be wary of Government spin when we are addressing foreign policy issues, in particular; instead, we must focus on the evidence.

Bringing this up to speed, I suggest that in the case of Iran, for example, no intelligence service, whether American, British, Israeli or any other, has yet been able to publicly produce any hard evidence, as opposed to circumstantial evidence, that the Iranian leadership has decided to build a nuclear weapon or is taking that course. Nevertheless, that has not prevented our policy makers from painting a very different picture, and tensions are running unnecessarily high as a result.

The Iraq war is also a reminder that interventions often produce unintended consequences that can turn out to be counter-productive to our interests. A woefully inadequate post-war reconstruction ushered in a vicious civil war, as other Members have outlined. Studies estimate that many hundreds of thousands died in Iraq as a result of the invasion. In fact, Iraq became a honeypot for extremists worldwide. In a bitter irony, al-Qaeda only gained a foothold in Iraq after Saddam’s downfall and then proved difficult to eradicate. Minorities suffered as well. The Iraqi Christian communities, resident for centuries, have suffered immeasurably in the wake of the invasion.

[Mr Leigh]

I have since visited the Christian communities and heard the harrowing tales of what has happened to them. Is not what happened in Iraq a lesson for future action in Syria?

[Mr Baron]

My hon. Friend and I are very like-minded on this. We have a very bad track record of considering the consequences of our actions in relation to minorities within these countries. Syria is a good example, in the case not only of the Christians but of the Alawites.

Today, Iraq looks into the abyss because of economic failure, sectarian violence and political turmoil and corruption. Prime Minister al-Maliki, having centralised power, is a tentative supporter, to say the least, of President Assad, and a new wave of sectarian unrest seems imminent. That is one example of how unintended consequences can come back and bite us when we do not think these things through carefully.

Furthermore, there is little doubt that the removal of Saddam Hussein fundamentally altered the regional balance of power. We tend to forget in this House that we supported Saddam Hussein in Iraq’s attack on Iran. At that time, there was an approximate balance of power in the region. In effect, by taking Iraq out of the equation we ourselves created a regional superpower in the shape of Iran, the consequences of which we are still living with today.

I also suggest to the House that the invasion ignored the lessons of history. Interventions have a tendency to support, reinforce or have an embedding effect on the existing regimes. Looking back at history, communism, for example, has survived longest in those countries where the west has intervened militarily, such as China, Vietnam, Cuba and Korea. Meanwhile, the neo-con dream of establishing a sort of liberal democracy in Iraq lies in tatters. Democracy is taking root in north Africa, in regions where the west has put in very little support, not in Iraq or Afghanistan, where the cost to the west, particularly to this country, has been very high in terms of lives and treasure.

Meanwhile, as we have heard, our intervention has radicalised elements of the Muslim world against us, not only in regions of the middle east, but on the streets of this country. Scandals such as Abu Ghraib reinforce this alienation. As has been mentioned, Dame Manningham-Buller, the former head of MI5, said that the invasion “increased the terrorist threat” and

“spurred some British Muslims to turn to terror.”

We are still living with the consequences of this radicalisation, as very sad recent news has highlighted.

One scratches around for positives from this period. Perhaps there are a few. If al-Qaeda was one of the reasons for the invasion, it is now abundantly clear that the Iraq war was a 19th-century colonial-style solution to a 21st-century terrorist threat. There is no point invading countries if we are chasing extremists and terrorists. Instead, our efforts against international terrorism must be much more nimble and nuanced. They must reflect the flexibility of the terrorist threat itself, focusing on intelligence and operations, supporting friendly Governments in their anti-terrorist endeavours and applying properly resourced special forces. Indeed, there are encouraging signs that we have learned lessons from that period. We must also better focus international aid on the poverty and grievances that al-Qaeda and others have all too readily fastened upon in the past.

Perhaps—I am coming to an end—there is a more general lesson to be learned. We failed at the time to carry the international community with us, and in doing so I would suggest that we lost the moral high ground. The view adopted by the US and the UK at the time was that might is right. This sets a dangerous precedent. The coming decades will see the emergence of at least regional superpowers—or even global superpowers—that might be eager to flex their muscles. Our invasion of Iraq will make condemnation of any future aggression by others less effective. The invasion showed international law to be no guarantee of sovereignty or, indeed, security. This in itself may have encouraged some countries to seek other guarantees.

If there is a positive, it is perhaps that this war may have served to lay to rest, once and for all, the view that the British electorate would instinctively support politicians advocating intervention or war. I would suggest that Blair was never trusted thereafter. As our Prime Minister considers possible responses to Syria, he would be wise to reflect on that. In conclusion, let us hope that these lessons have been learned, for the sake of future generations.

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[Mark Simmonds]

If I may move on, I want to make a few comments about the Chilcot inquiry because it has been one of the consistent themes in the speeches of Members so far and I am sure that other Members will comment on it as well. It is vital that we learn the lessons of the conflict. That, of course, is the fundamental and primary remit of Sir John Chilcot’s Iraq inquiry.

[Mr Baron]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mark Simmonds]

I want to make a little progress and then I will give way.

The inquiry is a complex and substantial task and it is considering an eight-year period. When he set up the inquiry, the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), described its scope as “unprecedented”, and Sir John has said that its final report is likely to exceed 1 million words.

The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion asked when the process will be completed and the report published, and the short answer is that it is up to Sir John and his team. The inquiry is independent of the Government, although I assure the hon. Lady and other hon. Members that the Government are co-operating fully with it. Indeed, the Foreign Office alone has made some 30,000 documents available, which gives a further idea of the scale of the work. Those doing the inquiry have indicated that they intend to begin what is called the “criticism phase” of their work this summer. That will give individuals who may face criticism in the report the chance to make representations to the inquiry. Thereafter, the inquiry and Sir John will have to assimilate those representations into the final report. I do not have a definitive time scale for when that final report will be published, but it is essential that Sir John Chilcot and his colleagues do that work in a thorough and professional way.

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[Mark Simmonds]

That is part of Sir John Chilcot’s remit, and we must wait for the report to come out before the UK Government will comment on that.

[Mr Baron]

Is my hon. Friend at least able to accept that we went to war on a false premise and there were no weapons of mass destruction?

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[Mark Simmonds]

Those are all matters that Sir John Chilcot will be looking at, and I am sure my hon. Friend would prefer there to be an independent inquiry looking at what happened, rather than a Government inquiry. We have made a conscious decision not to comment on the decision to go to war until the inquiry has reported, but as I have said, I recognise that it was a decision of huge significance.

[Mr Baron]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mark Simmonds]

I want to make a little progress and I will be happy to give way later. We must not get into a position of prejudging the inquiry’s conclusions, but I am sure that—quite rightly—that will not prevent other Members of the House from having a full and frank debate as they put their views on the record this afternoon. I would also find it helpful to hear the views of Members on where Iraq might be in 10 years’ time, as well as reanalysing events that took place a decade ago. We should look forwards as well as backwards.

The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion rightly set out some of the enormous challenges that Iraq still faces. Most visible and acute is the terrorist violence that continues to kill all too many people all too regularly, and I discussed that when I visited Baghdad in January—indeed, when I was in Baghdad a series of car bombs went off. In the past three months we have sadly seen an increase in such attacks, and the UN estimates that more than 1,000 people—mostly civilians—lost their lives in May alone. We continue to condemn utterly such acts, and almost all the Iraqi people believe that such violence has no place in their country’s future.

There are other longer term difficulties, and many fundamental political issues remain unresolved with no settled agreement on how power is to be shared. Ethnic and sectarian divisions remain, often exacerbated by those elsewhere in the region—particularly in Syria, as others have mentioned. Over the past six months, those factors have led to protests in west Iraq, and to disputes between Iraq’s political leaders that have prevented them from taking the decisions the country needs. That political deadlock holds back Iraq’s stability, and in turn its development. As has been rightly pointed out, public services and standards of living in much of Iraq remain poor, and corruption and bureaucracy are also problems that must be faced. As we consistently point out, Iraq’s human rights record remains a source of concern, from the Government’s increasing use of the death penalty to the recent removal of licences from some media stations.

[Mr Baron]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. He is being generous, for which he is to be commended. May I take him back to the Chilcot inquiry? Probably like a lot of other Members, I have submitted evidence to that inquiry and we wait to hear its results. One thing Chilcot cannot do, however, is manufacture WMDs from his report. Given that the main pretext for war was WMDs, will the Minister at least accept the prima facie case that we went to war on a false premise because there were no WMDs?

[Mark Simmonds]

My hon. Friend makes the same intervention as five minutes ago. It may be that the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) wants to contribute to the debate and address that point, but I am not going to.

Syria (EU Restrictive Measures)

John Baron Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

It remains absolutely clear that the UK objective is to seek that political solution. That is why my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary is on his way to Jordan today to take part in talks. The UK has made no decision on the release of any arms or any lethal weapons to any part of the conflict. The purpose of seeking to lift the arms embargo is to increase pressure on the regime and to give the moderate opposition a sense that it has extra backing, but no decision has been made on sending any arms into the conflict.

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

The Minister has rightly spoken of the atrocities committed by Assad and acknowledged the atrocities committed by rebel forces. Will he expand on the links between certain groups of rebel forces, such as al-Nusra, and al-Qaeda? Will he give the House an up-to-date sitrep on that?

[Alistair Burt]

Yes, indeed. Al-Nusra has declared some allegiance to al-Qaeda, which is one of the reasons why the United Kingdom has no contact with it. From what we know, there are a variety of different groups opposed to the regime and there are loose links between many of them. However, those in the National Council, with which we are working most closely—it has evolved in the past two years—do not want to be connected with those who have an allegiance elsewhere. They have declared their principles and values, which is why we wish to work with them. It is true that a variety of forces are now ranged against the Assad regime, but in seeking to support some of them, the House should recognise that there are those with good values who deserve to be supported as they seek to protect civilians against the barrage from the regime.

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[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

I suggest to my hon. Friend the Minister that Syria is a melting pot for a proxy war that is being fought out either directly or indirectly at various levels, whether it is Sunni versus Shi’a Muslims; the west versus China or Russia; concerned minorities within the country, such as Alawites and Christians, against what could follow; or Iran versus Saudi Arabia. It is a crossing point for conflict, and I urge the Minister and the coalition Government to think carefully before they pour more arms into a conflict that could not only escalate the violence within the civil war, but lead to an escalation of an arms race beyond Syria’s borders which, at the end of the day, could be a mistake of historic proportions.

History is very important. Our track record of arming groups or individuals is not good, no matter what anybody says. We armed the mujaheddin, and there is a fair chance that a good number of those weapons were used against us. We armed Saddam Hussein and supported him in his war against Iran—again, some of those weapons were probably pointed at us. History is important because it teaches us that if we support, arm and intervene in regimes, civil wars and conflicts, often what we are trying to remove or put right becomes embedded even further.

Look at our efforts since the second world war to take on communist regimes around the world—in Korea, China or Vietnam. Despite western interventions, those regimes are essentially still in place. If our goal is to create a sort of stability and liberal democracy of our making, we have only to look at what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, where democracy is not flourishing, despite the high cost in lives and treasure. It is flourishing in north Africa and other regions of the middle east where the west has played a much more minor role.

I urge the Government to think carefully before going down the road of arming the rebels. The Minister was right to say that that is not the narrow debate we are having tonight, but he must accept that we are debating an EU Council decision made on 28 February which is up for renewal—or certainly revisiting—on 1 June, and he cannot deny that the Government have been flying kites on this issue. We are therefore right to raise it on the Floor of the House tonight, particularly given that the decision will be revisited shortly—on 1 June, I understand.

I ask the Minister to consider one or two other points. We do not know much about the rebel forces, but we do know that some are linked to al-Qaeda and some have committed atrocities. Tracking and tracing weaponry that we put into Syria because we would deal only with the moderate elements is beyond the capability of any western Government, unless we had troops on the ground to monitor the situation more closely, and I am sure the Minister will not suggest that course of action.

There can be little doubt that the more weapons we put into a conflict, the more the violence escalates. The idea that we can put weapons into a civil war and not inflate or escalate the violence beggars belief. Of course putting more weapons in will increase the violence. That is why Oxfam and a number of charities that have people on the ground have come out publicly in the past week or two to say, “Do not do it. Do not go down that road, because bad things will happen.” There is already a humanitarian crisis in Syria. Pouring more weapons into the conflict cannot do any good; it can only escalate the violence within the country.

In the minute I have left, I urge the Government instead to focus on diplomacy. Diplomacy has not yet run its course. We have the conference suggested by the Russians, which we should pursue to the very end. We should also do what we can on the humanitarian side, where more can be done. Hon. Members have made a number of suggestions that we should explore, and my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Mr Walter) made the point that we could do more from a humanitarian point of view.

One last time, I urge the Government to refrain from exploring the view that we should arm the rebels. Syria is the crossing point of a conflict that arming the rebels could escalate. We could be very sorry for what follows.