Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 13th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

Our priority is to secure the safe return of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, and all other political considerations are entirely secondary. The only other thing we have to bear in mind is the safety and wellbeing of the other consular cases in Iran, and that is very important.

I said to the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) that I am seeing Mr Ratcliffe tomorrow. I am in fact seeing him on Wednesday.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

As an ardent Churchillian, does my right hon. Friend accept that this has not been his finest hour? Before the Opposition make too much of that, however, may I urge them to avoid headlines such as that in The Independent online, which says, “Boris Johnson should resign if British mother stays in Iranian jail” for “even one more day”? The Iranian regime plays politics with hostages. Does my right hon. Friend agree that if they believe that they can get rid of a British Foreign Secretary by jailing a hostage for longer, they will jail that hostage for longer? That link needs to be broken, not reinforced, by the Opposition today.

[Boris Johnson]

I think the whole House would agree that there is nothing more important than the safe return of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and, as I say, the protection of all other consular cases in Iran, and that trumps all political considerations in this country.

Yemen

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 7th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

I thank the hon. Lady for her remarks. The first and most important thing is to try to ease any impact of the blockade in relation to humanitarian access. I returned to the fact that missiles flow into Yemen through ports and through other areas. The firing of those missiles puts innocent civilians at risk, both in and outside Yemen, and it is not unreasonable to seek to ensure that that does not happen. We stand by those who want to take such measures to prevent that action from happening, while at the same time ensuring that there is appropriate access for humanitarian and commercial supplies. The commercial supplies feed people, as well as the humanitarian aid, and they are therefore essential.

Since the events at the weekend, and as part of the Government’s approach, DFID has made representations because we want to ensure that the UN agencies that we fund have that access. But of course, the situation is particularly difficult in the immediate aftermath of an event that could have had catastrophic consequences, including for UK citizens, has that missile landed on Riyadh airport. The hon. Lady is right, however, to concentrate on the blockade. We will do all we can to press the point that we have to find a way through for increased humanitarian and commercial access.

On the arms control issue, the House knows that this matter is extensively trawled over by the Department and that we have a rigorous arms control regime in place. Every request for support is dealt with on a case-by-case basis. The Government were recently successful in the legal action in relation to that, but that does not stop us being very careful about any supplies. The important thing is to end the conflict, and that is what the United Kingdom is devoted to. However, too little attention is given to the fact that there are two sides to this conflict and that it could come to an end tomorrow if the Houthis and those who support them would agree to the negotiations that are necessary to end it, so that Yemen can at last emerge from a period of some years in which the people have not been well regarded by those who purport to govern them, to give them the chance they deserve.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Have the Government made an assessment of the current political convulsions in Saudi Arabia? If so, might there be implications for the situation in Yemen?

[Alistair Burt]

Well, if the House has 20 minutes—[Laughter.] In an ever-fascinating region, to add to what we know about what is happening in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia at the moment would take a little while. Recent events in Saudi Arabia include Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman consolidating his already strong position by taking action at the weekend on corruption as part of his efforts to drive Saudi Arabia forward. He believes that the “Vision 2030” plan—the economic and social advancement of Saudi Arabia—cannot be achieved without dealing with corruption, which is so widespread across the region. The decision that certain individuals had to be arrested and questioned about their activities has had a clear impact.

The relevance to Yemen is limited, but there is no doubt about the impact of the missile strike on Saudi Arabia, in addition to the missile strikes that already take place. The House does not always concentrate on the number of civilians in Saudi Arabia who have lost their lives as a result of missiles from Yemen. My right hon. Friend is right that the combination of the two factors means that we have to work even harder to try to find a negotiated solution, which is what all parties now seriously want.

Counter-Daesh Update

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 7th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

I had completed my point, but I shall make it again. It is a great shame that in seeking to score political points, the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) is deflecting blame, accountability and responsibility from where it truly lies, which is with the Iranian regime. It is towards releasing Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, not blaming the UK Foreign Office, that we should direct our efforts.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

May I appeal to the Foreign Secretary, even at this late stage, to adopt a more realistic policy on the outcome in Syria? It was always the case that if Daesh was going to lose, the Iraqi Government were going to win in their territory and the Syrian Government were going to win in their territory. We have not seen any sign of a third force of 70,000 moderate fighters. Will he accept the fact that, unpleasant though it is, it is better to recognise that the regime is going to persevere in Syria? That is a price that we have to pay for the elimination of Daesh.

[Boris Johnson]

My right hon. Friend speaks on this matter with great wisdom. We must accept that the Assad regime does now possess itself of most of what we might call operational Syria. That is a reality, but it has not won. It does not possess all of Syria. If it wants the country to be rebuilt, it knows that that can be done only with the support of us in the UK and those in the European Union and the United States. That is the leverage that we hold, and that is how we hope to get the Assad regime and the Russians to engage in a proper political process.

Catalonia

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I do not share the hon. Gentleman’s view of how Britain should take an interest in the internal affairs of Spain. Talks for Spain are an internal matter. This is, indeed, a legal matter. We held an independence referendum, but it was within the law; in the case of Spain, it was not. In respect of UK citizens, I believe I am right in saying that we have had no reported consular problems, and I obviously hope that that remains the case.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

May I just take up that point? Is it not a cause for celebration, first, that at least no violence has erupted of a significant nature in Spain? Secondly, is not the way in which we handle independence questions—whichever side we are on in relation to Scottish independence—a cause for satisfaction and an example to others?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

Obviously, there were scenes on television of some acts of violence, and they are not the sort of things we want to see, but the fundamental point is whether this declaration of independence or the referendum were legal, and they were not.

On the comparison between Scotland and Catalonia, no two situations are alike, and each needs to be considered in its own legal and constitutional context. What is clear is that, in this case, the vote and subsequent actions in the Catalan Parliament were neither legal nor constitutional.

International Freedom of Religion or Belief Day

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 26th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Robert Courts (Witney) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. May I join the chorus of congratulations for the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on securing the debate and making such a passionate speech about his cause? He is a tireless campaigner on this issue and many others, and I thank him.

This is an extremely timely debate, particularly in the light of International Freedom of Religion or Belief Day tomorrow. I congratulate the APPG and the hon. Gentleman on their report. I have looked through it. Hon. Members who have had a chance to look at it will have seen on page 6 or 7 a picture of the memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin. If anyone has not had a chance to visit that memorial, I recommend they do so, because it is an extraordinarily moving experience that really illustrates everything we are talking about today. You start at ground level and descend into the centre of the memorial, as you are overwhelmed by the blocks on either side, which of course is deeply metaphorical for the horror that overwhelms societies—Europe in this century, and many other places, sadly, throughout the world today—when we see such religious intolerance. It is an extremely moving experience. The ground is also worthy of note, because it has bumps, to symbolise the bumpy path that all countries have to go down on the way to religious tolerance.

I dwell on that for a moment to echo the comments made by a number of Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), about recognising that it was not so long ago that we had religious intolerance in this country. The hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) quoted Elizabeth I’s famous saying that she had no desire to have windows into men’s souls. Without going into a history lesson, Elizabeth I was really speaking out of political expediency rather than religious tolerance, as Catholic emancipation was still to come.

Indeed, it was only the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 —the Duke of Wellington’s last great battle, as it were—that enabled Catholics to stand as Members of Parliament. That ought to give us all pause. In 1834, the whole Palace burned down, which means that very few Catholic MPs sat in the old Palace of Westminster and the vast majority of Catholic MPs served in the same Chamber that we all serve in. To me, that brings home that religious tolerance in this country is a relatively recent phenomenon. That tradition now is happily long standing, but it was not always so.

Around the world, there is so much more work to be done in so many areas. That is a reminder for us all that religious tolerance is not just a moral absolute, although clearly it is the right thing to do, but has a practical benefit as well. As my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) said, religious tolerance so often leads to political intolerance. If we have freedom of religion and expression of any religion or none, we also tend to have free, prosperous and stable countries, and we see much less of the violence that has sadly blighted so much of the world and continues to do so today.

I will dwell in these short remarks on some of the areas around the world today where much more work needs to be done. One example is Egypt, which the Foreign Office has made a human rights priority country, as I hope the Minister will confirm. Daesh continues a campaign against Christians in that country. There were the Palm Sunday attacks only recently, where two churches were attacked, 44 people were killed and many, many more were injured and maimed. There is perhaps some promise in the fact that so many people from other faiths rushed to help in the course of those attacks, showing that tolerance is always there, in the human spirit. However, we need to work and use our good offices as much as we can in this place to ensure that Governments around the world allow people to do what, in my view, they naturally do, which is to allow others to worship in their own way.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way and sorry that I cannot stay for the whole debate. We have talked about the work done in this Parliament and by the APPG and my hon. Friend—I call him my hon. Friend—the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). Does he agree that the fact that the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia has felt it necessary to make remarks about turning away from extreme interpretations of Islam is a measure of the importance of keeping up pressure on the human rights front on Governments that, until now, have been excessive and repressive?

[Robert Courts]

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for that excellent intervention and I entirely agree. There is a real job that we can do in keeping up the pressure. It just shows that when we do that, results can be achieved.

Another country about which there is much concern in this country and around the world in respect of human rights is Iran. President Rouhani took office in 2013, and we have seen an increase in the persecution of religious minorities—people imprisoned because of their faith—and an increase in harassment and arrests. Of course, that causes enormous concern to all of us in the House. There has also been an increase since the elections earlier this year.

[Andrew Rosindell in the Chair]

The situation of Syria and Iraq has touched all of us in the House and, indeed, the entire country. I have met in my constituency in west Oxfordshire the six families whom we have settled. Of course, the situation has a special impact when one has met families and children who have had to flee their home and their country and find and make a new home elsewhere. It is also a fresh reminder to us—we have already touched on this—that religious intolerance is not just between faiths, but inside faiths. It has occurred between Christians, between Protestants and Catholics, in our own culture and among the different strands of Islam, which we have also touched on today. When we hear about the abduction, torture, rape, loss of property, destruction of property and forced conversions in Syria—500,000 Christians have been forced to flee that country, and I think I am right in saying that 230 are still in captivity—we realise how much there is still to do in that country before we can see a happy and tolerant place where people are free to practise their religion as they see fit.

I welcome all the work being done in the House by the APPG under the chairmanship of the hon. Member for Strangford, and everything that the Government are doing. I am pleased that freedom of religion or belief is integral to everything the British Government do, and I thank the Government for all that they are doing. Of course the Minister will freely acknowledge that there is more to do—it is perhaps trite for me to say so—but I want to put it on the record that there is much more to do throughout the world. We all recognise that freedom of belief or religion and, indeed, the freedom to have none at all is the foundation of everything that we are in this House and in this country, and we must do all that we can to ensure that the blessings of tolerance are spread further throughout the world.

Raqqa and Daesh

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The Minister of State is an extraordinarily busy and conscientious bee, and I feel sure that I speak for the whole House in saying how delighted we are that he represents us on these important occasions in all sorts of different parts of the globe.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Does the Minister accept that the reason why bombing Daesh in Syria was so much more controversial than bombing it in Iraq is the same as the reason why there have been so many more RAF airstrikes in Iraq than in Syria? Namely, we want the ground forces of the Iraqi Government to win in Iraq, but we claim not to want the ground forces of the Syrian Government to win in Syria. Does he accept that the outcome of the welcome squeezing out of Daesh in Syria is down to a combination of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces and Syrian Government forces, whether we like it or not? The 70,000 so-called moderates are now well and truly dominated by Islamists, and as the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) said, we ought to be careful about whom we support.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I remind the Minister that we are in injury time, and that is at least in part because questions and answers at Foreign Office questions are always longer. As a Clerk of the House once said to me, “Mr Speaker, I think that Ministers tend to feel that they’re addressing not merely the House but the world.”

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I warmly thank the Foreign Secretary for suggesting that he and I should visit the BBC Monitoring Service at Caversham Park before the crazy decision is implemented next year to sell off the site and break our link with the similar American operation there. Will he remonstrate with his officials, however, on the grounds that 45 minutes for a walk-through on a Thursday is not long enough for him to see what is going on there? Given also—[Interruption.]—that the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee cannot accompany us, should the visit not be altered?

[Mr Speaker]

Emotional intelligence has a premium.

Iran

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Will the Government dust off the files marked “Cold war containment” and try to get the message across to our American friends and allies that a policy of containment while repressive societies evolve is the best way to deal with countries like Iran?

[Alistair Burt]

Again, I thank my right hon. Friend, who has long experience of these matters. If there is a colleague in the House associated with the cold war, it might, indeed, be my right hon. Friend, for his considerable knowledge, and, if I may say so, the occasional activity associated with it, which are a subject of his memoirs. His point is right. The world went through an awful time in the cold war, as some of us will remember and others will not. The world teetered on the brink of nuclear disaster, and was only pulled back by sensible decisions and the bravery of people in very difficult circumstances. We feel we have moved forward by trying to get the agreements we need. We know where the threats are in other parts of the world where an agreement has not been possible: there is no JCPOA in the far east, and we worry about the consequences of that.

I repeat what I said earlier about the United Kingdom’s position: the fact that this hard-won deal dealt with an aspect of the relationship between Iran and the rest of the world in a manner that could be verified and enabled us to move on, notwithstanding the fact that there were other issues, was really important. If we are not to see a return to cold war, we should look for the opportunity to make that engagement, and be honest in our relationships with each other on things we cannot agree on, but always try to find a way through without isolation and cutting contacts, as that only requires a climb-down at some stage in the future to find a way to re-engage.

Korean Peninsula

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

I hope the hon. Gentleman will be reassured to learn that I had long conversations last night with our Swedish friends—as he knows, they also have an embassy in Pyongyang—in addition to various other European colleagues.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

May I urge the Foreign Secretary to cheer up a bit and to cast his mind back 53 years to 1964, when red China, led by Mao Tse Tung, who was every bit as much of a murderous maniac as the current leader of North Korea, was about to acquire nuclear weapons? May I ask my right hon. Friend to face up to a couple of hard facts? First, he is clearly right to say that North Korea is determined on this path. Secondly, he is clearly right to say that China could stop it, but probably will not do so. Thirdly, if North Korea is determined to get nuclear weapons, it will get them and, what is more, we will deter it from using them. That is what happened with China, which we are now looking at as our friends, although it used to be led by exactly the same sort of regime.