Business of the House

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Barry Gardiner

Thursday 26th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

As my right hon. Friend knows, the Secretary of State for Health will make a statement on this matter shortly, and there will be opportunities for her and other Members to ask him questions. This is an important issue, and she, as a local Member of Parliament, will take a close interest in it. I think it would be best for the House to wait to hear what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has to say before we consider what further debates on mandatory reporting might be necessary.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Later this year, the world will turn its attention to the conference of the parties in Paris in December and, before that, to the conference on sustainable development goals in September. In July, the conference on the financing of development, which is perhaps more important, will take place in Addis. Does the Leader of the House agree that it is important that we have a major debate on that conference in this Chamber in Government time, and that the Treasury should be represented at such a debate to explain to the House precisely what it will be doing to ensure the success of the sustainable development goals and of the United Nations framework convention on climate change in December?

[Mr Hague]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about the importance of that whole sequence of conferences later this year. I remember agreeing, as Foreign Secretary, to give assistance and advice to France on the hosting of the Paris meeting, because we in this country have so much expertise on these issues. This is a matter for the Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Department for International Development, so it would primarily be for them to take part in any such debates. The Treasury’s role is to help to supply the money, as is so often the case. I certainly hope that there will be debates on the matter, but I anticipate that they will now have to take place in the next Parliament. The Backbench Business Committee has a few remaining days in this Parliament, as I have announced, but it would be a matter for the Committee to decide whether we had a general debate on these or other issues.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Barry Gardiner

Thursday 12th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend raises a very important issue. The Health and Safety Executive is working with the industry to try to reduce the number of accidents across agriculture. It delivers an annual programme of safety and health awareness days targeted at small and medium-sized farms, and it works at the European level on improvements to the design and maintenance of agricultural machinery. This is an important issue and there are still too many deaths and injuries in agriculture. A debate would allow us to consider what else could be done. There is a good case for such a debate.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House consider a debate on the funding of political parties, or perhaps he will explain why he believes that 10,000 individuals giving £10 each to a political party is an affront to democracy, but a single donor giving £100,000 to a political party—the right hon. Gentleman’s party—to shoot 500 pheasants is an exercise of civic responsibility?

[Mr Hague]

We have had many debates on party political funding over the years. They have often generated a great deal more heat than light from all sides. We are all able to make our points in such debates and I remind the hon. Gentleman that 69% of all Labour’s donations under its current leader have come from trade unions. In any debate, that is a point we on this side of the House will certainly want to make.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Barry Gardiner

Thursday 5th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I understand from the Department for Transport that this European traffic management system is meant to be a major improvement in safety on the railways. We already have one of the safest railways in Europe, and this is expected to make the network even safer. Where it is installed, it will apparently use the metric system, but when drivers operate in areas of the conventional system, their speedometers will automatically switch to imperial measurement. My hon. Friend will be relieved to hear that. In the UK, the drivers of trains and the signallers will not be required to convert units between imperial and metric. They will be able to concentrate on driving the train.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Next month, the European Commission will publish its INDC for the contributions on emissions reductions towards the Paris conference of the parties in December. Unfortunately, INDC stands for intended nationally determined contributions. What progress has the Leader of the House made in ensuring that there will be parliamentary scrutiny and accountability of the European INDC? Given that it is supposed to be nationally determined, what element of the European INDC will be allocated to the UK, and how? How is Parliament going to address these issues at a national level as it should do in contributing towards the COP?

[Mr Hague]

We have just had Energy and Climate Change questions. I was not here for all the questions, so I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman or others raised this issue. In any case, as he says, there are further announcements to be made. I am sure my colleagues at the Department of Energy and Climate Change will want to keep the House informed one way or another. For all the reasons I have given about the constraints on our time in the remainder of the Parliament, I cannot make any commitment to the hon. Gentleman on how the House will consider this. He makes a good case, however, and I will make sure that those Ministers are conscious of what he says; I am sure they will want to keep us informed of this country’s commitments.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Barry Gardiner

Thursday 22nd January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend has successfully drawn attention to his early-day motion. There are of course rules that apply in this country to former Prime Ministers and Ministers for two years after leaving office regarding the need to seek approval for business appointments. After that, we rely very much on the good judgment of those former Prime Ministers and Ministers. That is the current situation, and we should look to them all to exercise that good judgment.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

At the beginning of this Parliament, the Government signed up to 20 biodiversity targets. Most of those had to be completed by 2020, but three were due to be completed by 2015. One of the targets concerns coral reefs, and the right hon. Gentleman will know of the importance of the Pitcairn Islands in that regard from his days at the Foreign Office. May we have a statement on the Government’s policy on putting in place a marine protected area around the Pitcairn Islands to protect and restore those coral reefs?

[Mr Hague]

The hon. Gentleman raises a very important issue and I am certainly familiar from my work at the Foreign Office with the relevance to it of Pitcairn. Marine protected areas have been introduced in other seas around our overseas territories, including around the Chagos Islands; indeed, from memory, I introduced such an area around the South Sandwich Islands. So we have made a lot of progress on this issue, and it will be up to my hon. Friends at the Foreign Office to answer any questions on it or to make a statement, working with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. I will refer to them the hon. Gentleman’s question and request for an information update.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Barry Gardiner

Thursday 11th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

These are important issues. Hon. Members from all parties have strong views for or against fracking, and on the policies necessary to carry it out correctly. There will be questions to the Department of Energy and Climate Change next week, so that is the earliest opportunity for my hon. Friend to raise the matter further in the House.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The Leader of the House will have noted the recent report from the Environmental Audit Committee, on which the Government have a majority, which supported the Labour party’s policy for a national framework for low emission zones to combat air pollution. I know there is pressure on Government business and that the Leader of the House will be reluctant to make time for such a debate, but could he perhaps just announce from the Dispatch Box now that the Government also agree with the Labour party’s policy on air pollution?

[Mr Hague]

I think the Ministers responsible might get a little anxious if I made off-the-cuff announcements about changing Government policy on the spur of the moment, so I will resist the hon. Gentleman’s kind invitation to do so. It is open to him—as I have said to other hon. Members, particularly in relation to a Select Committee report—to pursue the case for a debate with the Backbench Business Committee. That is partly what Backbench Business and Westminster Hall debates are for, so I encourage him to pursue the matter in that way.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Barry Gardiner

Thursday 27th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I agree that accountability on these things is important. As always, on these and other matters, my hon. Friend speaks up well for the interests of his constituents. It is open to him to pursue a debate—either an Adjournment debate or a Backbench Business debate—on these issues.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The Royal Society’s report on resilience to extreme weather has just been published. As the Leader of the House will know, it has highlighted that by 2030, 800,000 properties—over 300,000 more than currently—will be subject to extreme flood risk as a result of climate change, even with the additional spending the Government are trying to make available up to 2020. May we have a debate on this important matter and report?

[Mr Hague]

I agree that it is an important report. The hon. Gentleman referred to increased spending. We have announced a record capital settlement of £2.3 billion over the next six years to tackle flooding, and we are spending £171 million on maintenance alone. However, as he said, such reports forecast that the problem will intensify over the coming decades, so there is a good case for considering these matters in the House. I cannot promise that the Government will provide such a debate immediately, given all the other pressures, but the hon. Gentleman could pursue the matter with the Backbench Business Committee and with Ministers at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs during Question Time.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Barry Gardiner

Thursday 30th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I was hoping that we were going to hear about the Leader of the House’s judo and other exercise regimes, but there might be more of that anon—who knows?

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

May we have a debate on wildlife crime? The Leader of the House will know that two days ago Natural England published a report showing that of the 47 hen harriers that it has tagged with transmitters over the past seven years, only four are thought still to be alive. That shows that there are serious problems and I think that the House should debate them.

[Mr Hague]

That is a very important concern. Indeed, as chair of the Government’s committee on animal health issues, including wildlife, I feel very strongly about it. We fund the wildlife crime unit, which of course is intended to tackle these problems, so Ministers are very conscious of the issue, and they will have been further reminded by the hon. Gentleman raising it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Barry Gardiner

Wednesday 10th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend is right. It is not about any individual or party or election; it is a far more long-term decision than that. In my experience all over the world, other nations regard the United Kingdom with admiration, and sometimes even with envy. If Scotland voted yes, people all over the world who share our values and count on our contribution to peace, stability and human rights would be disappointed, while those who do not share those priorities and beliefs would be quietly satisfied. That is another thing that we must all bear in mind.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

At the end of last month, my constituent Mr Krishna Upadhyaya was “disappeared” in Qatar. He had been arrested by the secret service there because he was investigating the human rights abuses of workers who were building the infrastructure for the 2022 World cup. I thank the Foreign Office for its help in securing his release, but what action will the right hon. Gentleman take to speak to the Qatar ambassador about the disgrace of his having been arrested in the first place, and about the treatment of those who are preparing those facilities?

[Mr Hague]

The hon. Gentleman has raised an important case. He is right to say that the Foreign Office has pursued it and has achieved some success in doing so, as we will do in any parallel cases in the future. I know that the embassy and the Foreign Office will want to follow up these matters, but that is for my successor as Foreign Secretary to determine, so I will draw his attention to the hon. Gentleman’s question, and ask him to write to the hon. Gentleman about it.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Barry Gardiner

Thursday 17th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

That will be a very important time for the people of the whole of the United Kingdom. The decision will be made by the people of Scotland. The debate will go far beyond this House and will be conducted on the airwaves and doorsteps of Scotland. Many hon. Members will join that debate in September, and that is probably the appropriate place for it to be conducted.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

One of Britain’s most eminent scientists, a fellow of the Royal Society and the principal of Jesus college Oxford, Lord Krebs, last week published a report that said that, given the Government’s spending plans, two thirds of our flood defences will be inadequate. May we therefore have a debate on the preparation for winter floods in the UK, so that the new Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs can find a new ingenious form of words or some new outrageous statistics to justify what the Government are doing?

[Mr Hague]

Those are important issues. The hon. Gentleman will know that over our period in government we have spent more on flood defences than was spent in the equivalent period before. I believe that there were many questions about this issue at Environment, Food and Rural Affairs questions today, because it is an important topic. I know that my right hon. and hon. Friends at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will be interested in what he has to say and in the work of Lord Krebs. I cannot offer an additional debate, but the opportunities to discuss this matter with DEFRA Ministers will continue.

Gaza

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Barry Gardiner

Monday 14th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend is quite right about that and that was why I was saying earlier that the cycle of violence has got worse. He is right that, even between ceasefires, a large number of rockets have been launched against Israel, although usually in between ceasefires they have been launched by other groups and not necessarily by Hamas. What distinguishes a period such as this one is that Hamas is engaged in large-scale rocket fire against Israel, which it could control and prevent. He is right to sound a cautionary note about what will happen after any ceasefire and that further intensifies the message that reviving the peace process is very important.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Israel’s right to defend itself, of which the Foreign Secretary speaks, is not an unconstrained right, yet Israel’s response has been unconstrained. It has been disproportionate and wrong. Heavy bombing in a densely populated area with 100,000 civilians, causing the death of 170 people, a third of them children, is not self-defence; it is barbarism. What leverage does the Foreign Secretary have and will he now apply it to make the Israeli Government reappraise this barbaric and unproductive strategy?

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) spoke about the polarising aspects of this issue and there are passionate feelings about this and about what is happening to people in Gaza. As I said earlier, we must also remember that many hundreds of rockets have been launched indiscriminately against people living in Israel, and rather than refining our value judgments each day, are concentrating on bringing about an agreed ceasefire and urging all sides to abide by international humanitarian law. I think that that is the right thing to continue to do.

Ukraine

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Barry Gardiner

Tuesday 13th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

That is a very important point, and it relates to part of the importance of further expanding the OSCE special monitoring mission. We might also deploy—and we are in favour of deploying—a civilian EU mission to advise on judicial and police reform, but what my hon. Friend is talking about is very much the job of the special monitoring mission. We are supplying further monitors from the UK, with the capability to build up to having 500 monitors in total. Their objective reporting will be very important in the coming weeks to international understanding of the situation.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Both the current Government in Kiev and the Foreign Secretary in his statement have pointed out that the referendum in Donetsk region was vitiated on the grounds that no valid register of electors is available. That being the case, how do they propose to hold valid presidential elections in the region on 25 May?

[Mr Hague]

Of course the register is available to those authorities holding the legal presidential elections in the vast majority of the country.

[Barry Gardiner]

indicated dissent.

[Mr Hague]

Of course it is true. The election observation mission, which I visited last week, is satisfied with the arrangements so far in 23 of the 25 regions of Ukraine. In Donetsk and Luhansk the picture is mixed—I think this is what the hon. Gentleman is driving at—and in some parts of those two regions the legitimate civil authorities have not been able to make preparations for the elections. That remains the case with 12 days to go, so Ukraine is faced with having a presidential election in which the vast majority of people in the country will be able to take part—but not all of them, thanks to Russian intervention.

Ukraine

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Barry Gardiner

Tuesday 4th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

The issue should be raised vigorously in the Council of Europe. I welcome the decisions made by Conservative colleagues in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. There are Russian representatives in other political groups of the Council of Europe, and all political groups from Russia are, in one way or another, approved by the Kremlin. Opposition Members may therefore wish to attend to those matters. I hope that members of all parties in the Council of Europe will pursue the matter vigorously at their forthcoming part-sessions.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The Foreign Secretary has rightly welcomed the vetoing of the legislation downgrading the Russian language in Ukraine, but he will understand that the fact that the Parliament was prepared to pass and propose such legislation caused severe concern to the 20% of the population in Ukraine who are ethnically Russian. What further measures does he believe the Ukrainian Parliament should take to give reassurance to that part of the population that they are not under threat?

[Mr Hague]

That is a matter for the Ukrainians. As hon. Members understand, it is for the Ukrainians to decide in their country, but I put it to Ukrainian Ministers yesterday that, in addition to consolidating the veto of the legislation, they should think about crafting a new language law that represents the consensus in their country, and the long-term protection and upholding of the rights of minority languages in Ukraine. They are in the midst of a desperate crisis—we must understand that—but I hope they take that proposal seriously.

Sri Harmandir Sahib

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Barry Gardiner

Tuesday 4th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

The interaction between the move from a 30-year rule to a 20-year rule and the way Departments treat their files after 25 years raise interesting questions, as it would make the 25-year rule rather a moot point. That is why there is value in the further review I have announced today to ensure consistency across all Departments and to ensure that lessons that need to be learned from when documents have been withheld or published can be learned collectively across the whole of Government. I encourage my hon. Friend to await the outcome of that review for a definitive answer to his question.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The Foreign Secretary has been at pains to stress that the advice given by the British military adviser was not, in fact, followed and that it would therefore be inappropriate to take responsibility for Operation Blue Star and to issue an apology for it. None the less, it was countenanced to give advice; indeed, advice was given about how to storm the holiest site in Sikhism. Is that not something that the Foreign Secretary should apologise for?

[Mr Hague]

I go back to my earlier answers. I think it is fair to put it this way. If any of us, in any part of the House, thought that Britain had contributed to serious or unnecessary loss of life elsewhere in the world, it would be right to acknowledge a mistake and to say that the country apologises for that, but when the country clearly does not have responsibility for it, that is a different context. We have to go on the facts, and I think the facts are clear. Of course, the hon. Gentleman is really asking us to judge to a finer degree the decisions of Ministers at the time, which I feel, 30 years later and in a different Government, is very hard to do and could be unfair. I therefore stick to what I said earlier on this.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Barry Gardiner

Tuesday 22nd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Of course, we absolutely do not agree with any such remarks. My hon. Friend is quite right to give the date, because those remarks were made well before the President of Egypt took office as President. We welcome, since he took office, his maintenance of the peace treaty with Israel and the work that Egypt has done, including engaging with Israel, to try to succeed in bringing about a ceasefire in the Gaza conflict that we saw a few weeks ago. We will continue to judge the President by his actions in office.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

T2. At the global conference that the Foreign Secretary was good enough to host last week in the Locarno rooms, Christiana Figueres, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, made it clear that a settlement in 2015 would as much reflect national legislation as define it. What steps is his Department taking in bilateral arrangements with other countries to promote that national legislation?

[Mr Hague]

We do a great deal of that in our bilateral relations. This work was started under the previous Government—I pay tribute to that—and it continues in the current Government. I think we are foremost among Foreign Ministries in promoting the recognition of climate change and the need to act on it within other countries around the world. We have done a lot of that in China and do a lot of it in Brazil and many other emerging economies, so that work has the continued energy that we have all put into it over the past few years.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Barry Gardiner

Tuesday 29th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I refer my hon. Friend to the answer that I gave a moment ago.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The Foreign Secretary will be aware that 90% of the species for which the UK has responsibility reside outside the UK in the overseas territories. They are therefore not the responsibility of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs but of his Department. Given that that 90% are his responsibility, can he assure the House that he is spending nine times as much as DEFRA on protecting biodiversity?

Middle East and North Africa

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Barry Gardiner

Tuesday 26th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

We can be fairly confident that the transitional national council very much wants to use the telecommunications equipment that we have given it as telecommunications equipment, as it is doing. It would not be productive to divert that into other things. The other equipment that we have given is body armour, and it is quite difficult to use that in any way other than to save life.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

On 18 March the Prime Minister said:

“The resolution helps to enforce the arms embargo, and our legal understanding is that that arms embargo applies to the whole of Libya.”—[Official Report, 18 March 2011; Vol. 525, c. 623.]

That has been reinforced by the Foreign Secretary today. Can he therefore tell us what active measures NATO forces are taking to stop the supply of any arms to the rebel forces from outside Libya, or is it in fact the truth that NATO is the military wing of the rebel forces in a civil war?

[Mr Hague]

The NATO operations, in which ships of many nations are involved, including those of our own Royal Navy, are dedicated to enforcing an arms embargo on the whole of Libya. They are positioned in order to do that, so the hon. Gentleman can be confident that they are doing that.

Africa and the Middle East

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Barry Gardiner

Monday 4th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

No, I think that the high moral ground is retained by basing all our actions on what is legally correct, as we have done in our handling of the whole Libya crisis from the United Nations resolution downwards, and in the handling of these individual cases. When somebody with such a long association with the regime wants to leave it, and by doing so damage the regime, I think that it is right to assist them in doing so. Additionally, it can only be a good thing to discuss with such a man the situation in Libya and the middle east, and gain his insight into it. It can also only be a good thing that any prosecuting authorities that wish to speak to him and get more information from him can do so. I see no downside in doing what we have done with him over the past few days.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Will the Foreign Secretary confirm that among the restrictions that he proposes to remove is the freezing of Musa Kusa’s assets? That will mean that a man who has engaged in the most despicable acts, both abroad and in the exploitation of his own people, and who has built up his assets on that basis, will be able to enjoy the fruits of those acts.

[Mr Hague]

The hon. Gentleman makes a number of assumptions in his question. I will not necessarily take issue with those assumptions. However, where we have placed asset freezes and travel bans on individuals purely because they are members of a regime, as is the case with the European Union asset freezes and travel bans—we are not talking here about United Nations Security Council travel bans—when an individual ceases to be a member of that regime, it follows that a change in those restrictions should be discussed; otherwise there would be no incentive whatever for members of the regime to abandon its murderous work. When the situation changes and the reasons the restrictions have been placed on an individual change, of course the restrictions should change as well.

Libya and the Middle East

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Barry Gardiner

Monday 7th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Yes, we continue to look at other options on top of the asset freeze and the measures we have already taken. My hon. Friend will be familiar with the measures we took to stop the delivery of what has added up to about £1 billion in bank notes to the Gaddafi regime. We continue to look at other ways to reduce the financial flows to the Gaddafi regime that might be used to support the violence and attempts to suppress the civilian population’s protests, of which we have all heard and some of which I have described. We will certainly be looking at that kind of measure.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Who, if anyone, did the diplomatic mission believe it had arranged to see, what did it think was the agreed agenda, and why were the missionaries issued with multiple identities and passports?

[Mr Hague]

As I have explained, the missionaries were to make contact with opposition groups in Libya in order to assess the humanitarian situation there, and it will be necessary to have further diplomatic presence and diplomatic contact in order to do that. I am not going into further operational details about that for entirely obvious reasons: other missions sometimes take place in other parts of the world. The mission under consideration met the president of the national council that the opposition have formed, and that is the basis for further contact between the United Kingdom and those opposition groups.

BBC World Service

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Barry Gardiner

Wednesday 26th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I pointed out how the growth of some services is taking place—I mentioned earlier how the use of the online service in Russia has grown by 121% in the last 12 months. As the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) was saying a moment ago, the services of the BBC World Service cannot be preserved in aspic—they must change—and Opposition Members must understand that.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Given that two of the greatest strengths of the World Service were to speak truth to the powerful and to broadcast hope to the poor and downtrodden, does the Foreign Secretary not see even the slightest irony in the fact that in the week when he introduces swingeing cuts to the World Service, the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, who is sitting next to him, has given a second chance to Rupert Murdoch?

[Mr Hague]

They are two entirely unrelated issues. Does the hon. Gentleman not see the slightest irony in the fact that having left this country on the brink of bankruptcy, Opposition Members now complain that we are doing something about it?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Barry Gardiner

Tuesday 14th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I hope, Mr Speaker, that I dealt with that in answer to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind). I stress that we are taking a twin-track approach to the Iranian nuclear programme. One of those tracks is sanctions, and we agreed in the European Union at the end of July a strong and wide-ranging set of sanctions that puts additional pressure on Iran over its nuclear programme. The other track is to remain open to negotiations about that nuclear programme. It is on that twin track that we must concentrate now.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

16. What recent discussions he has had with the UN High Representative for Human Rights on the situation of Tamils in detention camps in Sri Lanka.

Gaza Flotilla

Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Barry Gardiner

Wednesday 2nd June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Yes, that is very important. It is important that the proximity talks turn into something much more than proximity talks. Turkey has become very active diplomatically in the whole region, and in a very welcome way; in our proceedings this afternoon, we have referred several times to the role of the Turkish Foreign Minister. Turkey has tried hard in recent years to bring Syria and Israel closer together and it has sometimes come within an ace of bringing permanent peace between the two countries. In general, Turkey has played a very constructive role in the region, and I am sure that she will want to do so in future.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The unauthorised boarding of a vessel in international waters by armed combatants is normally referred to as piracy. The Foreign Secretary is a Yorkshireman noted for his blunt speaking. Will he not use that word on this occasion?

[Mr Hague]

The blunt Yorkshireman has been converted into a Foreign Secretary who weighs his words carefully, dramatic transition though that may be. As we are advocating a prompt, independent, credible and transparent investigation and inquiry, in the terms that I have put forward, it is important for us to be prepared to see what it produces before feeling that we need to add any other language to how I have expressed things today.