Venezuela

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

And finally, Mr John Spellar.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

I would certainly have hoped that Andrew Neil’s recent demolition of Ken Livingstone had put to bed any claims that there had been general sanctions on Venezuela, rather than targeted ones on regime individuals. So I welcome Britain’s recognition of Juan Guaidó as the lawful President of Venezuela, and I welcome the announcement of the current aid effort. My hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) kindly referred to my call for a Marshall plan for Venezuela, so may I again urge imaginative and detailed plans for the rapid subsequent reconstruction of Venezuela’s economy and infrastructure? Are the Minister’s Department and the Department for International Development getting on with that work, and if not, why not?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I fully acknowledge the right hon. Gentleman’s point. He is very wise to be thinking ahead in this way, because the inevitable need for rapid delivery of resources can suddenly become apparent, and it is important that the world is ready to leap straightaway into action. As I said earlier, I have seen this through pledging conferences in various countries, and I have no doubt that there will have to be extensive multilateral assistance to help Venezuela to rebuild, after which I think they will be able to rebuild themselves; but a bit of pump-priming and basic food and medicine and the addressing of disease and malnutrition needs to start as soon as possible. As I said, first that will be multilateral; there will need to be a lot of UN effort, to which we are a major contributor. I am due to see my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development next week, having spoken to her on Monday, and I will convey, as strongly as I possibly can, the views of the right hon. Gentleman to ensure that she is aware of the sort of plan that may be necessary.

Venezuela

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Tuesday 29th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I will make some progress, but if I have time, I will give way later.

When I spoke about Venezuela at Chatham House in October, I described the demise of a once vibrant nation, charting, for the benefit of the hon. Member for Derby North, the many decisions that had been taken to prove that this was a Chavista-made crisis and not a US one. Since then we have seen no improvement; in fact, the situation has gone from bad to worse. The social implications are astonishing: four-fifths of Venezuelans are living in poverty. They are vulnerable to malnutrition and disease because of shortages of food and medicines. The poor are not just poorer—they are destitute. More than 3 million people have been driven to leave the country—10% of the population. In the UK, that would equate to almost the entire population of London. That massive exodus puts enormous pressure on neighbouring states, particularly Colombia, Peru and Ecuador. We applaud the remarkable generosity towards Venezuelan migrants of those countries, and that of Brazil and other countries in the region.

As well as punishing his own people, Maduro has damaged Venezuela’s reputation and relations in the region and the wider international community. Instead of diplomacy, he has chosen confrontation. He has deliberately sought confrontation through reckless border incursions by the Venezuelan security forces. He has cut off any means of diplomatic engagement, including by announcing Venezuela’s withdrawal from the Organisation of American States in 2017, and his conduct inexcusably threatens the peace process in neighbouring Colombia.

Under the Maduro regime Venezuela’s democratic institutions, including the judiciary, the national electoral authorities and local government, have been systematically undermined, while political repression and electoral malpractice have increased. The creation of an all-powerful Constituent Assembly in August 2017 was clearly a deliberate attempt to neutralise the democratically elected National Assembly. Over the past two years, election after election has been manipulated, culminating in a presidential election in May 2018 that few apart from the Government themselves considered free and fair. At Saturday’s United Nations Security Council meeting, which I attended, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Arreaza waved a copy of, and spoke passionately about, the constitution, yet it is Maduro who has trashed that constitution and Juan Guaidó who has upheld it.

The political Opposition have been suppressed and intimidated, their leaders have fled or been imprisoned, and we will never forget that the Opposition activist Fernando Albán was detained and then found dead beneath the windows of the national intelligence facility. Some leading Opposition leaders have been imprisoned, forced into exile or banned from holding public office. Maduro has cynically used his control of supposedly independent institutions such as the Supreme Court and the National Electoral Council to cement his position. There was global criticism of the May 2018 presidential elections, with allegations of electoral malpractice and the banning of Opposition parties.

Those actions, along with the recent brutal suppression of demonstrations in Venezuela, are symptoms of an increasingly intolerant Government turning to repression simply to cling on to power. Ironically, Maduro’s re-inauguration on 10 January might just have been a catalyst for change, but a clumsy attempt to intimidate the new president of the National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, by temporarily detaining him backfired spectacularly.

We know what has happened recently. During an Opposition protest on 23 January, Guaidó declared the May 2018 presidential elections fraudulent—and they were. Citing article 233 of the Venezuelan constitution, he declared himself interim President of Venezuela, and he was swiftly recognised by the United States and 12 Lima Group countries. As of this moment, 22 countries have recognised him as the interim President.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

Very briefly.

[John Spellar]

If we get Juan Guaidó as the full, proper President, he will still need to reconstruct the economy, which has been wasted by the Maduro regime. Will the Minister look again at my suggestion yesterday that we need a Marshall plan to get Venezuela’s resources up and running as quickly as possible so that it can, like post-war Europe, sustain itself?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

One of the blessings of Venezuela is that it has resources; its tragedy is that they have been exploited and destroyed by Maduro and his cronies. The right hon. Gentleman is right. We will look at anything to try to get those resources serving the needs of Venezuelans, who I hope will be able to return in their hundreds of thousands, if not their millions, to the country they have fled.

As my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary said in Washington on 24 January, the UK believes that Maduro is not the legitimate leader of Venezuela, and that Guaidó is the right person to take Venezuela forward. As I said at the UN Security Council meeting on Saturday, we will recognise Guaidó as constitutional interim President if new elections are not announced within eight days of that meeting. The sorts of actions called for by my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) will be addressed then, as we assess what needs to be done after the world comes together, as I hope it does, to point out and act on the fact that Maduro is not the legitimate President of Venezuela.

Venezuela

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

My right hon. Friend is right. This has significance across the world because large amounts of drugs are trafficked through Venezuela. Of course, one cannot tackle that problem with the Government of Venezuela because they are party to that inappropriate drug trafficking themselves. Therefore, the solution for the streets of Harlow when it comes to Venezuela is to deal with a legitimate Government who are prepared to tackle the problem head-on in Venezuela.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

After a proper ballot and, hopefully, the election success of Juan Guaidó— whose party, incidentally, is a member of the Socialist International—Venezuela will still face an existential crisis, with the Maduro legacy of economic meltdown, a collapsing oil industry, hyperinflation, food shortages and 3 million citizens in exile. Should not the UK, the EU and the international community be preparing a Marshall plan for the reconstruction of Venezuela?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

One of the tragedies of Venezuela is that it has massive resources of its own. If only they were properly used, invested in and managed, no Marshall plan would be necessary in the way the right hon. Gentleman suggests. The country would be able to take advantage of having some of the greatest oil reserves in the world.

Jagtar Singh Johal

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Tuesday 27th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

I certainly agree. The international rules-based system is being attacked at every corner, and those of us who believe in liberal democratic government should give no inch to calling out undemocratic practice, whether it be by a close ally, the Republic of India or the United Arab Emirates.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman, my fellow member of the Defence Committee, for giving way. Is not the crux of the matter that if India is so sure about Jagtar’s guilt and thinks it has assembled so much evidence, it should either let him free or—I hope this is what our Foreign Office is saying—bring this to a conclusion and bring the case to a trial? Otherwise, with over a year having gone by, it has not established a case.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

The right hon. Member makes a clear point. Since nearly day one in this case, state authorities in Punjab have been quite open that they believe my constituent to be guilty. They have conducted a trial by media, and they have made it quite clear that they expect him to be found guilty if a trial should ever take place. That clearly undermines the very principle of due process in the Republic of India, which should concern us all.

Yemen

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Tuesday 11th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Twigg]

The right hon. Gentleman has expressed that very well indeed, and I pay tribute to his sterling efforts on this issue. Unlike me, he has visited Yemen during the conflict. I think that what is really important—and I shall return to it in a moment—is for us to enable all the different parties to come together to undertake a peace process. That is surely something on which all of us can agree.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Should not the answer to the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) have been that President Hadi’s is the legitimate Government because it is the Government recognised by the United Nations Security Council? Were that not the case, the position would be entirely different, but is that not the clear position, which is being flouted not only by the Houthis but, very deliberately—and I hope that my hon. Friend will come on to this—by the theocracy in Tehran?

[Stephen Twigg]

Clearly, the United Nations Security Council recognises that Government, but I think that the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) made a very fair point in assessing the level of support that President Hadi actually has now in Yemen. I think that if we are to secure a meaningful peace process for Yemen, that will be determined on the streets of Yemen, not in the corridors of New York and votes in the Security Council. My right hon. Friend was right in saying—as did the hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt)—that the Security Council’s position is to recognise the Hadi Government, but what he said does not contradict the powerful point made by the right hon. Gentleman that the level of popular support for that Government in Yemen is at least open to question, to put it very mildly.

Let me now deal with the position on Hodeidah, which was raised earlier. When the Minister responds, will he tell us what is the British Government’s view of the coalition strategy there? Does he agree with me that in the light of the attempts to restore a peace process, to which I shall return in a moment, the coalition should halt its military offensive in Hodeidah so that peace can be given a chance in Yemen?

The American Congress has taken a strong line on recent events, and I encourage the British Government to reflect on that. Lawmakers in Congress have signed amendments which would provide for greater scrutiny of US arms sales and would make it a condition of ongoing US support for the Saudi coalition that the Secretary of State should certify that the coalition is supporting peace talks, improving humanitarian access and reducing the number of innocent casualties. Todd Young, a Republican senator from Indiana, has said:

“The actions of the Saudis in Yemen undercut our

—American—

“national security interests and our moral values—exacerbating the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.”

May I invite the Minister, when he responds, to agree with Senator Young in that regard?

--- Later in debate ---

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

rose—

[John Spellar]

rose—

[Stephen Twigg]

Three Members wish to intervene, and I will give way to them in the order in which I saw them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Twigg]

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for the role he has played on this issue over a significant period of time, and I absolutely share his view. I know there are different views about this in the House, and we had a fundamental difference of view on this in the Committees on Arms Export Controls in the previous Parliament, but I share his view, and I fear that our approach to this as a country undermines our credibility as a force for good in the control of arms around the world.

[John Spellar]

In my hon. Friend’s considerations in coming to that conclusion, does he give any weight to the tens of thousands of skilled aerospace workers, and their families and their communities, who depend on the military aircraft, let alone the whole aerospace supply chain which is vitally important for our industry? Should we not be thinking about them as well?

[Stephen Twigg]

My right hon. Friend is of course right to say that one of our considerations in having a policy on the defence industries must be the work for those who are in those industries, but we have not only signed up to a set of laws in our own country, in Europe and internationally on arms control. We have taken the lead in international forums, and those laws and rules have very little meaning if we are not prepared to enforce them, and enforce them consistently.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He brings to this debate his thoughts and experiences as the Chairman of the Select Committee, and he has served extremely bravely in combat zones in the past.

I am using Hodeida as just one example—

[John Spellar]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Mitchell]

I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman, my neighbour, in just a moment. I just want to finish this point. I am only using Hodeidah as one example of this crackers, crazy strategy whereby the Saudis are, to use my words and the words of the Minister, on a hiding to nothing. They are going to be humiliated. As for the Shia-Sunni divide, as referred to by the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby, who started this debate so well, the Iranians are scoring a cheap victory and will be laughing up their sleeves, and the Saudis are playing into the Iranians’ hands. That is what I wanted to say about the Saudi position, so I will now give way to the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar), who is my constituency neighbour.

[John Spellar]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. Will he address whether the Houthis are using their position to steal the food that is being brought in? They are using food as a weapon by depriving anyone who does not support them and making huge sums of money to finance their vicious rebellion.

[Mr Mitchell]

The right hon. Gentleman may well be right. There are no good guys in this appalling conflict. I am certainly not standing up for the Houthis, but he needs to address the military position that I have described, which is why the Saudis are on such a hiding to nothing. All that I will say on the Houthis is that I met President al-Sammad on my visit to Yemen, and it was probably a mistake for the Saudis to kill him in an air attack when he was one of the doves among the Houthis who might have assisted in the negotiations that I was describing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

Thank you for granting this emergency debate on Yemen, Mr Speaker, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), the Chair of the International Development Committee, on securing it. I will come to his powerful speech in a minute, but on this day of 9/11, especially at this time of day, we should all pause and pay our respects to the almost 3,000 innocent people killed in the attacks on New York and Washington 17 years ago today, including the 77 British victims. Our thoughts are especially with their families, friends and colleagues, for whom this day always brings such painful memories and to whom we owe a constant duty to fight the scourge of jihadi terrorism wherever it rears its head.

I also acknowledge an anniversary that the events of 2001 have naturally relegated in importance over the past two decades, but one that we should also remember. Forty-five years ago, Salvador Allende, the great reforming, democratically elected socialist leader of Chile, killed himself in the presidential palace in Santiago as the forces of General Pinochet approached to seize power and plunge Chile into 17 dark years of brutal military dictatorship.

In historical terms, this is a dark and painful day, and it is a dark and painful subject that we debate today, but I still thank the Chair of the International Development Committee for raising it, as he has so consistently and insistently. The last time we had an emergency debate on this subject back in November 2017, secured by the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), there was great media criticism because only around 30 Members were present to debate what is still accepted as the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. There may be slightly more Members in attendance today.

When I look back at debates on Yemen over the two or three years since we began to realise the enormity of this crisis, I see that there have been certain constants. The Chair of the International Development Committee, from whom we have just heard, has of course been a constant voice, insisting that wherever the blame for this conflict lies, and wherever our international alliances preside, the only thing that matters is stopping the violence and allowing the people of Yemen to get the humanitarian relief they need.

There have been other constants over the years: my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), who is here; the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield, who again made a powerful speech today; my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty); my great and esteemed predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn); and many others who I am sure we will hear from today and who have fought the long and often lonely struggle to give the war and humanitarian crisis in Yemen the attention they deserve, and to rightly condemn the Houthi rebels for their atrocities, their use of child soldiers and their firing of missiles into Saudi Arabia, but also to hold the Saudi-led coalition to account for its actions in this war. Those actions include the indiscriminate airstrikes that have killed thousands of innocent men, children and women; the systematic and targeted destruction of Yemen’s agricultural and food infrastructure; and the blockade that has stopped supplies of food, clean water and medicine, jeopardising millions of lives.

For those of us who feel as though we have been hitting our head against a brick wall these past three years, it is easy to feel jaded and to give up hope of ever forcing a change in the British Government’s policy or approach, because it seems as though no Saudi atrocity is too much and no Saudi behaviour cannot be excused so that the Government’s inaction at the United Nations and their lucrative trade in arms can be allowed to continue.

If we are becoming jaded, all we have to do is listen to the families of the victims of this conflict. They remind us all that if we do not continue campaigning for an end to this disastrous conflict and Britain’s support for it, their numbers and their pain will just continue to grow. I will put on record the words of Zaid Tayyib, a father of five boys from Sa’dah city, three of whom—Youssef, Ahmed and Ali, aged 14, 11 and nine—went on a school bus trip together a month ago, along with dozens of schoolmates.

Mr Tayyib was in the same street as the bus as it returned from the trip, which was when the Saudi missile struck. He rushed to the scene, despite his own pain and shock, to try to help the survivors. When he turned over the body of one young boy, with his blue UNICEF rucksack still on his back, he saw that it was his own 11-year-old little boy, Ahmed. Over the next few hours he discovered his two other children on the bus had also been killed, and he had to break the news to their mother. The hardest news to tell her, he said, was about their nine-year-old boy, little Ali. When Mr Tayyib finally discovered Ali’s body, he brought him home and his mother held him like any mother would hold a young child who had just come home from a trip. But with Ali she kept holding on to his lifeless body because she simply could not let him go.

That is the war we are supporting. That is the coalition we are arming. That is the handiwork of the Saudi crown prince, over whom this Government fawned so desperately when they welcomed him here in March.

When Mr Tayyib was asked what he thought of the international reaction to the death of his three sons and of the 37 other children killed in that Saudi airstrike, he expressed his shock at the silence of the international community with these poignant words: “It’s as if it was livestock that was targeted, as if it wasn’t children that were targeted, as if it wasn’t people who were killed.”

We owe it to Mr Tayyib, we owe it to his wife, and we owe it to the sons they have lost, and to the thousands of other innocent children who have been killed in this conflict, not to stay silent but to raise our voices ever louder in demanding again the same three things that the Opposition have consistently demanded for the past three years: first, an independent UN-led investigation of all allegations of war crimes in this conflict; secondly, the suspension of UK arms sales for use in this conflict until the investigation is complete; and thirdly, for the UK Government, at long last, to do their job as the penholder on Yemen at the UN Security Council and bring forward a new resolution obliging all sides to respect a ceasefire to allow peace talks and open access for humanitarian relief.

[John Spellar]

Many of my right hon. Friend’s points are extremely valid, and the Government should be undertaking them, but on shutting off plane sales to Saudi Arabia is she prepared, as her next visit, to go to the north-west to say to workers there, their wives and their families that we should shut their factories and destroy their communities? Is she prepared to do that? Because that is the logical consequence of what she proposes.

[Emily Thornberry]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for raising that very serious and very important point. I will put it as I have put it to many of those who work in these factories: no one who makes arms in this country wants those arms to be sold in contravention of national law and international law.

I appreciate that there has been a court case, and I appreciate that there is an appeal. I watched the court case carefully, and I feel that, from those parts of the trial held in open court, there is an overwhelming case that we should no longer be selling arms to Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately, half the case was held in secret court, in which we do not know what happened, so we do not know why the court came to its decision, which frankly, raises a completely different issue about the accountability of secret courts.

Ultimately, no one wants to do anything outside the law, and it is important for our arms industry that sales are done within the law. I know those workers understand that. I do not stand in the way of our arms industry; I stand in the way of our arms industry selling weapons illegally around the world. Frankly, I do not want our bombs and our planes to be responsible for this, and I am quite sure my right hon. Friend does not, either.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Tuesday 4th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I must say that I do. Venezuela enjoys the world’s largest proven oil reserves and it has the largest gas reserves in Latin America, but all of these are being squandered. It has had years of economic mismanagement based on outdated and misguided ideologies, and it cannot even provide the most basic necessities for its people. The country is facing rampant inflation. This is an example of how one man at the top of a country can destroy that country’s economy and prospects.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Clearly, a precondition for resolving the dreadful situation in Venezuela is an early end to the disastrous communist Maduro regime and a return to parliamentary democracy, but the desperate people of Venezuela—those in the country and the millions in exile—need food and medical supplies now. What are the Minister and the Department for International Development doing about that?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I have to say to the right hon. Gentleman that DFID has limited experience in Latin America. We would like to be doing more, and there has been the provision of humanitarian advice, but I would be the first to admit that that is not nearly enough to address the seriousness of the plight that Venezuelans face. As he rightly says, millions of people have left Venezuela and these problems are now affecting neighbouring countries in a serious way. We are working closely with the Lima group, led by the Peruvian Foreign Minister, to do what we can to try to change the disastrous situation in Venezuela.

Ahmadiyya Muslim Community

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Thursday 24th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Siobhain McDonagh]

I wish all the communities did get on as well as perhaps they do in Hounslow, but there are many incidents of Ahmadis experiencing persecution in the UK from other Muslim groups.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

I join other Members in paying tribute to the contribution the Ahmadiyya community makes in business and commerce and also very much in community affairs and public consciousness. But is it not also a problem that some of that hatred comes here from other countries? We have seen attacks on individuals—we have seen incidents in Glasgow and elsewhere, even if they do not lead to murder—as well as calls for boycotts on businesses owned by Ahmadis? Does my hon. Friend agree that the authorities should be cracking down on this and making it clear that it is totally unacceptable in this country?

[Siobhain McDonagh]

I completely agree, and local authorities need to look to themselves as well, because Ahmadis are also excluded from most SACREs— standing advisory councils on religious education—in English councils, so some of these things are very close to our respective homes.

The statistics on persecution against Ahmadis in Pakistan show that 260 Ahmadis have been killed and 379 have been assaulted for their faith, while 27 Ahmadi mosques have been demolished and 22 have been set on fire or damaged. Some 39 Ahmadi bodies have been exhumed after burial and 66 Ahmadis have even been denied a burial in a common cemetery—and all in a country with a constitutional right to freedom of religion.

Ahmadis in Pakistan live in constant fear that a baseless accusation will be made against them, with the consequences so often proving life threatening. This persecution is faced from cradle to grave, so I would like to describe the day-to-day reality for an Ahmadi living in Pakistan.

When a young Ahmadi in Pakistan attends school, they face immediate persecution. Take, for example, Farzana, a 15-year-old schoolgirl who gave Christian Solidarity Worldwide an honest and saddening insight. In her own words:

“A few of the children in my school knew that I am Ahmadi and what they did was to go and tell the other students, ‘She is Ahmadi, don’t play with her or eat with her, and stop treating her normally.’”

Her teachers encouraged this—this is what I find so hard to understand—and abused her, both physically and psychologically. Farzana says that they punished her, struck her with sticks and told her not to sit with the other kids because she is an Ahmadi and so is not allowed to do that. Farzana has now moved school as a result of her treatment. She has decided not to tell her new friends that she is an Ahmadi so that she is free from the persecution that she sees as inevitable.

Discrimination in education takes many forms, however, including nationalising all Ahmadi Muslim schools, expelling Ahmadi students based on their faith, and even the editing out of any Ahmadi Muslim’s contribution to Pakistan’s history. Take, for example, Professor Abdus Salam, a groundbreaking scientist famous for his work in the field of physics, for which he was awarded the first Nobel prize in Pakistan’s history. His faith has led to him being erased from the textbooks, which I remind the Chamber are rife with biases against religious minorities—and these are textbooks that we help to fund. There simply must be greater accountability by our Government and the Department for International Development to ensure that the vital educational projects that we fund continue, but without supporting intolerance, prejudice and hatred.

To return to Pakistan, an Ahmadi student may not even make it through education. In 2008, all Ahmadi students were expelled from a medical college in Faisalabad on the basis of their faith, while a local newspaper printed the headline, “We shall not allow admission in Rawalpindi Medical College of any student guilty of blasphemy”. For those young Ahmadis, their education and religion cannot co-exist side by side.

On leaving education, discrimination and persecution continue for Ahmadis in Pakistan when it comes to applying for a job. Even the rumour that someone may be an Ahmadi can destroy their opportunity of employment. For example, the civil and military services have placed restrictions on Ahmadis progressing to senior ranks.

Outside of work and education, the persecution for an Ahmadi in Pakistan is allowed to flourish in wider society. When an Ahmadi applies for a passport, they must state their religion by law. Anyone who self-identifies as a Muslim is required to take an oath declaring Ahmadis as non-Muslim. The reality, therefore, is that no Ahmadi can go to Mecca to perform the Hajj—one of the five sacred pillars of Islam. Nowhere else in the world are Muslims required to make such a declaration. How can a state be allowed to impose a religion on its citizens in that way?

For an Ahmadi in Pakistan, their persecution continues when they come to vote, which is particularly pertinent due to the upcoming elections in the country. An Ahmadi is prohibited by law to vote as a Muslim. They must either sign a declaration that they are not an Ahmadi or acquiesce to their status as non-Muslim, with a violation of that requirement punishable with imprisonment. That has effectively denied them the right to vote for nearly 40 years. What is more, the separate electoral list for Ahmadis is published and publicly available, enabling extremists to target, intimidate and harass the community. It is no wonder they face such persecution.

When legislators proposed reforms within the past year that could have changed the situation, outrage was sparked across Pakistan, prompting senior political and judicial figures to speak out, coupled with a mass violent rally. The reality, therefore, is that time is running out for an Ahmadi to be able to vote in Pakistan this summer.

Myanmar: Rohingya Minority

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Monday 16th April 2018 Westminster Hall

[Helen Jones]

My hon. Friend brings me on to my next point, which is that the UK Government continued funding even when the Burmese Government were not allowing the Rohingya to be defined as citizens of their own country.

We provided training for the Burmese military in democracy and human rights. Opinions differ on whether that was a good thing, but when I see that 67% of that funding came from the aid budget—money that should go to the poorest people in the poorest countries—it gives me pause. That training continued even as villages were being burned and looted and people were being killed in Rakhine. In fact, it did not cease until September last year. That told the Burmese military and the Burmese Government that we were not that concerned about human rights in their country and that we would do nothing to enforce those rights.

We were not the only ones at fault. In fact, while those villages were being attacked, the head of the Burmese military came to Brussels to give a speech. He toured arms factories in Europe, which again sent the wrong signal. It should have come as no surprise to anyone that, when the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army attacked police outposts and killed 12 soldiers in August last year, the reprisals were swift and brutal. The estimate of the number killed varies between 9,000 and more than 13,000, but there can be no true figures because there is no real humanitarian access to the area.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

It is understandable that there will be a reaction to a terrorist act—no one would condone terrorist attacks, particularly given the effect they have on civilians—but a basic principle of military law is proportionality. Has not the response of the military been grossly disproportionate? Along with the involvement of militias, does that indicate a degree of significant state planning waiting for an incident to provide an opportunity and an excuse?

[Helen Jones]

I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend, because the Burmese Government and the Burmese military have been ratcheting up tensions in Rakhine for years, sending more and more troops there. Their response was indeed disproportionate. Some 620,000 people fled their homes, and more are coming every day. There is clear evidence of the use of landmines, rape and the burning of villages. Indeed, we could all see the burned villages on our television screens. Most of those people are now in camps in Bangladesh.

While Bangladesh was very generous in opening its borders, it does not classify the Rohingya as refugees, meaning that they are denied some of their rights under international law, including the right to request resettlement in a third country. As the International Development Committee said in its very moving report, those camps are now at risk from cyclones and the monsoons. The camps are in an area prone to cyclones, but there are no evacuation procedures or shelters. The area around the camps has been deforested for fuel, weakening the ground. The camps are built of very flimsy materials. When the monsoons come, they are likely to overwhelm the sanitation systems in the camps. Sewage will flood the area, causing a health emergency. As the Committee baldly put it, people will die. That is why it is very important that the Government redouble their effort to convince the international community to give more immediate aid to stop that health disaster.

At the same time, we must be clear with the Government of Bangladesh that these people deserve to be recognised as refugees, for that is what they are. Bangladesh is building a new camp—an island camp, which those who saw it on “Channel 4 News” will agree looks much more like a prison camp—with the help of the Chinese. The fear is that they want to make conditions so appalling that the Rohingya will have no alternative but to return home, whether it is safe or not. It is clear that the Bangladeshi Government’s aim is to ensure that the Rohingya are repatriated. That may be a laudable ambition in the long term, but the Rohingya cannot return while violence continues in Rakhine, while they are not recognised as citizens of their own country and while there is no humanitarian access to monitor their return.

The Bangladeshi Government have signed a memorandum of understanding with the Burmese Government about the return of the Rohingya, but no one knows what it contains. While the British Government have rightly said that any return must be “safe, voluntary and dignified”, we need to persuade the whole international community to stick to that, because frankly the Burmese Government’s record on dealing with returnees is appalling. The Rohingya who were displaced earlier are still in camps that are in reality prison camps, which the UN Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs said display

“a level of human suffering…that I have personally never seen before”.

The Burmese Government are now building a new camp with money diverted, it is said, from World Bank aid. It, too, will be a prison camp. Last week, the Bangladeshi Government signed a memorandum of understanding with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees about returnees, including the right of humanitarian access, but Burma has not signed up to anything like that and there is no indication that it will change its mind.

[Helen Jones]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That will entail the things I have listed: cessation of violence, recognition of citizenship and the right of humanitarian access.

The gender-based violence that has been used by the Burmese military also needs to be dealt with. They use rape as a weapon of war. There have been credible reports of girls as young as five being gang raped; of pregnant women being attacked and the babies cut from them; and of other women seeing their children thrown into a well or into a fire before they too are led away to be gang raped. That is a level of barbarity that the world cannot and must not tolerate. Such barbarity can happen only when other people are seen as less than human. It is not, as Aung San Suu Kyi’s website said, “fake rape”. It is happening. It is a war crime and must be treated as a crime against humanity.

Not only does there seem to be little effort to collect evidence to prosecute those responsible for such crimes, but the health services on offer to the women involved are inadequate. Many of the services are situated in the middle of the camps in public view and are run by men, so women are reluctant to go to them. Few people there speak the women’s language. If we think how difficult it would be to describe a rape even in our own language, it must be much harder to try to describe it to someone who does not speak the same language. The UK rightly funds 13 women’s centres, giving help to more than 10,000 women and girls, but nearly half a million are in need of help, and a greater effort from our partners is needed to meet that need.

There are reports of gender-based violence within the camps and of women and girls being trafficked. It is significant that when Cardinal Bo from Burma and Cardinal D’Rozario from Bangladesh recently came here, they met our anti-slavery commissioner, because they are fully aware of what is going on in the camps. There are also reports of child marriages, sometimes driven by families in such absolute poverty that they can no longer care for their children, and sometimes by a system that gives food aid to family groups rather than to individuals. That piles tragedy upon tragedy for the people involved, and yet we seem to be reluctant to collect evidence of what has happened.

The UK sent two civilians to Bangladesh to advise on how to collect evidence of sexual violence, but where is the rest of the world? Time after time when such things happen, Governments shake their heads and say, “Never again”, but that is not good enough. We said it after Bosnia and after Rwanda. We keep saying it. Neither is it good enough to ask the Burmese military to investigate themselves. They have cleared the army of any crimes, even those we can see on our screens. In the end, the only way to deal with such crimes is to ensure that evidence is collected and that those responsible are brought before a court, because that is the only way to deter people in future.

It seems the world wills the ends but is reluctant to will the means. That is true of crimes against women and girls and also true of the aid given to those in the camps. Only about 34% of the $434 million required has so far been collected. That means that those in the camps are in conditions much worse than what the world generally recognises as suitable for refugees. They are there in high densities with less than 15 square meters a person. By last December a third of the latrines had failed and 90% of domestic water is contaminated with E. coli. There have been campaigns to vaccinate against cholera and measles, for which I am grateful, but diphtheria is now rife in the camps. When the monsoon comes the health crisis will be made worse because people are so closely packed together.

I am proud that this country pledged £47 million at the Geneva pledging conference and then added a further £12 million. People complain about aid, but I am hugely proud of my country when it makes such donations because it recognises common humanity. We must work to ensure that other countries step up. Since the attack in Salisbury we have shown that it is possible to use diplomacy to get our friends and allies to act together. The Government must turn their attention to ensuring that the wealthier countries in the world, those who came to the world humanitarian summit and members of the UN, step up to the plate to avert a tragedy in the camps. The UN must ensure that its agencies work together to provide services.

[John Spellar]

Have not the senior UN officials already declared that the actions taken against the Rohingya amount to ethnic cleansing, which is an offence in itself? Should they not act on the decisions they themselves have already made?

[Helen Jones]

Indeed, they should; my right hon. Friend is right. One of the things this tragedy teaches us, particularly when we are today talking about Syria, is that there are consequences to acting, but also consequences to doing nothing, and we ought to remember that. We now need to put pressure on Burma to accept an independent investigation into what has gone on in Rakhine. That is urgent because there are already reports that the military are bulldozing villages and destroying the evidence. The International Development Committee has suggested that that could be led by the International Commission on Missing Persons, and that is a good idea. I do not mind who does it, but it has to be done.

How do we put the pressure on? First, I hope that the UK Government will say clearly that it is right that the UN refers Burma to the International Criminal Court. I know it is argued that such a motion would be vetoed by Russia and China, but we need to be unequivocal about our position and we need to build support for it. Secondly, although the EU has imposed an arms embargo, there is no world embargo on selling arms to Burma, which is what we need to work for as a matter of urgency. We also need to take action by imposing sanctions on the Burmese military and members of the Burmese Government. Simply freezing their assets will not cut it, I am afraid; they do not have many assets here. However, making sure that firms could not work with firms controlled by the Burmese military would help. We need to do that along with saying that there will be no return for the Rohingya until conditions are safe, and until the recommendations of the Annan advisory commission have been implemented and there is full humanitarian access for the UN and other organisations.

In the longer term, the world needs to learn the lessons of this conflict. It is very easy to say, “Never intervene—never do anything”, but, as I said, there are consequences to doing nothing. If we watch while a particular ethnic group is targeted and violence increases, and we do nothing, we become complicit in that violence.

I end by explaining why we should be concerned about people half a world away: because they are human, as we are. As Cardinal Bo said:

“They are among the most marginalised, dehumanised and persecuted people in the world. They are treated worse than animals. Stripped of their citizenship, rejected by the neighbouring countries, they are rendered stateless. No human being deserves to be treated this way”.

They do not, and if we believe in common humanity, we should continue to do our bit to ensure that those responsible are brought to account, and make every effort to persuade our allies around the world to do the same.

British Nationals Imprisoned Abroad

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Tuesday 13th March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mark Field]

I will not, because I have very little time to make the speech I want to make.

UK nationals travelling abroad should ensure that they have sufficient travel insurance and read the FCO’s travel advice so that they can make informed decisions about the obvious risks in certain parts of the world. We offer help appropriate to the circumstances of each case. Our overseas staff assess individuals’ vulnerability and needs based on who they are, where they are and the situation they face. Dual nationality was mentioned; I will endeavour to ensure that there is a review of precisely what impact that has and revert to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston.

We work particularly hard to support those who are most in need of our help, and we intervene on behalf of families if British nationals are not treated in line with internationally accepted standards or there are unreasonable delays in procedures compared with the way nationals of the country concerned are treated. We are not, however, in a position to take decisions on people’s behalf, nor are we able to do everything that might be asked of us. As a matter of policy, we do not pay outstanding bills, including legal fees, as we are not funded to provide such financial assistance, nor does the FCO seek preferential treatment for British nationals. That means we do not and must not interfere in civil or criminal court proceedings, as was pointed out. It is right that we respect the legal systems of other countries, just as we expect foreign nationals to respect our laws and legal processes when they are here in the UK.

We have a clear policy that dictates how we engage in detention cases. We typically become aware of such cases when the British national involved agrees that the host Government may notify us of their detention. We then make contact or visit, where possible, within 24 hours. That did happen in the Johal case: as was alluded to, there was simply a delay in British authorities’ being made aware of his detention.

There are some 2,000 Britons in detention at any one time, the greatest number—approximately 400—in the United States of America. Our priority is always the welfare of UK nationals: to ensure that they receive food, water and medical treatment as required, and that they have access to legal advice. I know personally from dealing with the notorious cases of the Chennai Six and the group that was recently detained in Cambodia just how important that is.

The number of consular visits depends on the context of a particular case. Some have described those visits as a lifeline, and they may be the only visits a British national in detention abroad receives. Our assistance does not stop there. If a British national tells us they have been mistreated or tortured, our consular staff will, with their permission, do their best to raise concerns with the authorities and seek an investigation. To strengthen our support, we often work with partner organisations, of which the charity Prisoners Abroad is one example. Prisoners Abroad supports detainees and their families and helps to facilitate contact. If there is no family, it can help find detainees a pen-pal or send them books to read or study. It can also help with prisoners’ resettlement in the UK after release.

The death penalty exacerbates the anxiety for all those involved in consular cases where a British national is at risk of receiving or is in receipt of a capital sentence. Working to abolish the death penalty remains a key priority of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. It is an important part of our day-to-day work and that of all our diplomatic missions in countries that still carry out the death penalty. Our message to them is clear: we believe the death penalty to be unjust, outdated and ineffective, and it risks fuelling extremism. There are currently 15 British nationals on death row around the world. Irrespective of the reason for their conviction, we do all we can to ensure that the death penalty is commuted and is not carried out. As with all countries that retain the death penalty, we hope that the Government of India establish a moratorium on executions, in line with the global trend towards the abolition of capital punishment.

Let me turn to some of the specifics of Mr Johal’s case. Only this morning, his tenacious and hard- working constituency MP, the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes), who is here, was able to speak to our high commissioner in India, Sir Dominic Asquith. I was asked directly why consular officials have not been given private consular access. That is a matter of great frustration. We frequently requested private consular access when Mr Johal was first detained, but as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston will know, he has since been moved to the Nabha prison—a maximum security jail where, for security reasons, private visits are not permitted. I will write to Members who raised the issue of CHOGM, particularly the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Our understanding is that the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, will come to that conference. Will the Prime Minister raise this issue directly with him, and will the Foreign Secretary raise it with his counterpart from India?

[Mark Field]

I will try to ensure that that is done. The right hon. Gentleman will be well aware that these things rightly often have to be done on a private basis rather than through megaphone diplomacy.

Mr Johal’s case is well known to me and to senior colleagues in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Our staff have been working hard to provide assistance to Mr Johal and his family in the UK ever since his arrest in India in November 2017. I have met Mr Johal’s brother twice in the past six months, along with the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire. Since Mr Johal’s arrest, consular staff have visited him fortnightly. The Foreign Secretary spoke to his Indian counterpart about his case in November, and I raised it with the Indian Minister of State for Home Affairs on 11 January. Furthermore, various officials in our high commission have continued to raise concerns at the highest level. As Members pointed out, there are major concerns. Our high commissioner spoke to the Indian Foreign Secretary as recently as 7 March, and the basis of that conversation was relayed to the hon. Gentleman this morning.

I assure the House that we shall continue to raise this case at senior levels with the Indian authorities until the serious allegations raised by Mr Johal have been properly investigated. I recognise that this is a desperately difficult and distressing time for Mr Johal, his family and many in the UK Sikh community. I assure all hon. Members that his case remains a priority for me personally, and we shall continue to raise it with the Indian authorities as necessary.

Let me touch briefly on the case of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. I recognise that her husband is here today. We shall continue to approach that case in the way that we judge is most likely to secure the outcome that we all want—in other words, her release. I hope the House will understand that I am not in a position to provide a running commentary on each and every development in Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s case, save that I believe there needs to be a review of what happens in relation to dual nationals. I am not convinced that anything untoward necessarily happened here, but we need to try to review that issue.

I am unaware of the facts of the case of Mr Tsege, the British national in an Ethiopian jail to whom the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston referred, so I hope she will forgive me if I say I will write to her with full details of the issues she raised.

Understandably, much of this debate has related to Mr Johal. It is important to put on the record that India, as a partner in the Commonwealth and in many other ways, has a strong democratic framework that is designed to guarantee human rights. However, it also faces numerous challenges relating to its size and development, and when it comes to enforcing fundamental rights enshrined in its constitution and wider law, not least given the power of its states. Members are absolutely right to raise concerns about human rights in India in this forum and, as I said, I am happy for them to do so via correspondence. Because we share those real concerns, the UK Government are working alongside the Indian Government to build capacity and share expertise on the promotion and protection of human rights. I hope Members will understand that that is sometimes best done quietly and privately rather than through public pronouncements.

In conclusion, I thank the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston once again for her contribution.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

The hon. Lady has identified the hub of the matter, which is the fact that we cannot get a UN Security Council resolution through because it would be vetoed by China and Russia. However, she should rest assured that we are doing our level best to engage constantly in conversations with our Chinese and Russian counterparts in the Security Council. There was a presidential statement for the first time in 10 years just before Christmas, and I repeatedly raised the appalling treatment of the Rohingya with both the Burmese Defence Minister and the Minister for the Office of the State Counsellor in Nay Pyi Taw recently when I was attending the conference of the Asia-Europe Foreign Ministers.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

21. As the Minister’s remit covers Asia, may I ask how he is addressing a very serious issue? The Bangladesh and Myanmar authorities are pressing forward with plans to repatriate the displaced Rohingya population despite the evidence that most Rohingya are concerned about further persecution. What is the Government’s position on the repatriation of Rohingya to Rakhine state in those circumstances?

[Mark Field]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. There can be no question at the moment of a safe and dignified return for Rohingya from Bangladesh to Burma. When I was in Thailand last week, I spoke to the chairman of the new standing committee that will oversee the memorandum of understanding between the two countries in order to look at the whole issue of returns. We want people to be able to return. That is currently not possible, but we want to maintain pressure on both sides.