(1 month ago)
Commons ChamberMay I welcome the Foreign Secretary to his new position, since this is the first time that we have met across the Dispatch Box since we swapped sides? I welcome all his team, especially the hon. Member for Lincoln (Hamish Falconer), who was previously a respected and effective official in both the Ministries in which I served as a Cabinet Minister.
I urge the Foreign Secretary to avoid any suggestion of some sort of international legal-moral equivalence between a terrorist murderer and the elected head of a democratic state. In any question of an arms embargo, I remind him that just a few weeks ago, British arms and military personnel were defending our ally Israel from missiles launched by Iran.
Let me begin by welcoming the right hon. Gentleman to his position. It is great to see him where he is, and not on the Government Benches. He will know that these are very serious issues, and that the test under criterion 2c is whether there is a “clear risk”. That is based on very careful assessments of the law. He would expect me to pursue that with all sobriety and integrity, and that is what I intend to do.
The Foreign Secretary will get full support from the Opposition in imposing open registers of beneficial ownership on the overseas territories.
Can I ask the Foreign Secretary to pay special attention to Sudan, which is suffering the largest displacement crisis in the world? There is clear evidence of ethnic cleansing once again in Darfur, and the human misery that I saw on the border with Chad earlier this year was among the most harrowing that I have ever seen.