Business of the House
Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Mary Macleod(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Hague
The hon. Lady raises an important issue for her constituents. I do not know what the prospects are of the consistent position she has called for emerging, but Treasury questions take place next Tuesday, 10 March, providing an early opportunity for her to raise the matter with Treasury Ministers. She will be able to pursue it with them by every other avenue. I think it unlikely that we will be able to have such a debate before Dissolution, but the hon. Lady has those opportunities to raise the issue.
Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)
My right hon. Friend will be greatly missed by the House. He has done outstanding work and left a lasting legacy on the issue of sexual violence in conflict. It is important to address issues relating to women and equalities. I ask him, perhaps as a parting gift, to urge all hon. Members to support the establishment of a Select Committee on women and equalities, so that we can carry on scrutinising these issues, holding the Government to account on them and ensuring that we make progress for women in this country and elsewhere throughout the world.
Mr Hague
I am very grateful for my hon. Friend’s remarks, and I pay tribute to her and the work she has done on preventing sexual violence. I have seen her working in her constituency and across London on this issue, and I know her work is appreciated by other London Members. As I mentioned earlier, I have a lot of sympathy with the case for establishing an equalities Select Committee of some kind. The establishment of Select Committees will have to be decided in the new Parliament. I add that the number of other Select Committees would have to be reduced by one in order to accommodate this one.
Business of the House
Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Mary Macleod(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Hague
We might not be able to have a debate before Dissolution, but I can tell my hon. Friend that investment in eye-related research by the National Institute for Health Research has risen over the past four years, from £7.1 million a year to £15.6 million. Although that is a small proportion of total research, the amount has doubled under this Government. The institute welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health, including eye care, so there is every opportunity to expand that research further in the coming months and years.
Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)
My right hon. Friend has done incredible work on sexual violence in conflicts, so he absolutely understands the importance of the issue of violence against women and girls. In this country, two women a week still get killed by a partner or former partner. Will he consider providing some Government time on Thursday 12 March, when we have sixth-form girls coming to shadow their MPs from all parts of the House—also supported by Mr Speaker —so that we can inspire the next generation to say no to domestic abuse and violence?
Mr Hague
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I congratulate her very much on all she has done to highlight this issue. I am delighted that the Backbench Business Committee has allocated time on the Floor of the House, not on 12 March but on 5 March, next week, for a debate to mark international women’s day. That will allow Members to raise issues celebrating the achievements of women but also about tackling violence against women. It is right that the House keeps that on the agenda, and I am determined to keep it on the international agenda. I welcome everything my hon. Friend does on this, including helping to bring people to the House to discuss these things on 12 March.
Business of the House
Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Mary Macleod(9 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Hague
I can assure the hon. Gentleman, and indeed the industry, that the Government are determined to ensure that the Infrastructure Bill is passed into law before our Session comes to an end in just over two months’ time, so I do not think there should be alarm in the industry about that. On the time for the debate, I made my point earlier and I do not want to add anything further to that at the moment.
Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)
Chiswick school in my constituency has done some excellent work in linking up students with local businesses, which is of course incredibly important in encouraging aspiration in the next generation, but there is often inconsistency in establishing such links in London and across the country. May we have a statement from the Secretary of State for Education to look at the progress being made in careers advice in schools and also to see how many schools have a business champion on their governing bodies?
Mr Hague
These are important issues, and the Government’s focus is on preparing young people for the world of work more effectively and ensuring that businesses are engaged with schools in meaningful ways. Governors have a very strong role to play in that. As my hon. Friend knows, on 10 December last year the Education Secretary announced the establishment of a new employer-led careers and enterprise company with a specific remit to build up all this work. The Education Secretary also gave evidence on this to the Select Committee on Education recently, and I am sure that there will be other opportunities to raise these matters in the House.
Business of the House
Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Mary Macleod(9 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Hague
That is something that can be raised with DWP Ministers at their regular questions. It is a perfectly normal subject for debate, and the hon. Gentleman may wish to pursue all the various means of obtaining a debate—through the Backbench Business Committee and so on—but I will bring this matter to the attention of the Ministers concerned.
Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)
Affordable housing is a major issue in London, especially in my constituency of Brentford and Isleworth. May we have a debate in this House about that matter and about how we can encourage Government and local authorities to ensure that we have enough affordable housing in planning applications?
Mr Hague
Again, there would be a good case for such a debate. As my hon. Friend knows, the national planning policy framework makes it clear that local authorities should use all the evidence available to them to ensure that their local plan meets the objectively assessed need for affordable housing in their area. The Mayor in London is currently revising the London plan to address a likely increase in the capital’s population and is proposing a minimum of 17,000 affordable homes per annum in the future. Again, as I have said to other Members, it is open to her to pursue a debate in all the normal ways.
Business of the House
Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Mary Macleod(9 years, 6 months ago)
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Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)
Yesterday I visited Chatsworth primary school with the aviation Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill), to hear about the impact of Heathrow airport on the learning and development of the young pupils, who spoke of suffering sleep deprivation because of the aircraft that arrive throughout the night. The Airports Commission is due to report next year, but it has said that the options are Heathrow and Gatwick. Will my right hon. Friend arrange a full and frank debate, in which we can discuss what is best for the United Kingdom and take account of the views of residents?
Mr Hague
My hon. Friend always speaks up strongly for her constituents on this matter. The impact on residents is of course one of the issues that the airports commission is considering in its review. It is crucial that we take long-term decisions on our aviation capacity that will keep Britain competitive for years to come. As she knows, the commission will make its final recommendations in the summer of next year, and I am sure that hon. Members will have many opportunities to make their views on this issue known and to represent the views of their constituents in the coming months.
Devolution (Scotland Referendum)
Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Mary Macleod(9 years, 7 months ago)
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Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)
As someone with a strong Scottish highland heritage, I want a fair settlement for everyone in the United Kingdom. Has my right hon. Friend received the commitment from all political parties that they will participate fully in the process?
Mr Hague
The Scottish process will be presided over by Lord Smith of Kelvin, not by me. The Cabinet Committee that I chair will ensure that the British Government feed in information as necessary and when it is requested by Lord Smith. I believe that all parties are committed to taking part in that process—the three main UK pro-Union parties, as well as the Scottish National party and the Greens. I welcome that.
Sexual Violence in Conflict
Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Mary Macleod(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Hague
The right hon. Lady is well aware of the importance of this issue because of all the work that she does. I hope that she will be heavily involved in all the work that we do next year, both personally and through the all-party parliamentary group. There are difficult issues for many countries to face in this regard, and we are trying to ensure that they face those issues by involving their leaders in what we are doing. That is continuing work.
It is very important for the Foreign Office to be sensitive to these issues in its consular work. The right hon. Lady will have seen the publicity about one particular case this week. The Foreign Office has apologised unreservedly for what happened, and, having looked into the case, I am satisfied that it is not representative of the normal work of the consular service, including its work in Cairo, where the incident took place. Our consular staff have been dealing with an average of five rapes and up to 25 sexual assaults a year, and the problems that arose in that case have not been apparent in others. Nevertheless, we will hold ourselves to high standards.
Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his leadership and progress on preventing sexual violence in conflict. It was excellent to hear about the global summit that will take place next June, which I think will give hope to women throughout the world. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that the Government have a cross-departmental taskforce to deal with this issue? I note that both the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for International Development are present, and I know that they consider it to be a top priority. It would be good for all Departments to work together, and to make it clear once and for all that sexual violence should not be tolerated.
Mr Hague
There is a living, breathing demonstration of the cross-Government work that is being done, in the form of not only Foreign Office Ministers but the Secretaries of State for the Home Department and the Department for International Development. Their work on the wider agenda is crucial. The Foreign Office leads the work on the initiative to deal with sexual violence in conflict, but I have already told the House how helpful the work of the other Departments is. There is also an inter-ministerial group on violence against women and girls, which is overseen by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. So the broad answer to my hon. Friend’s question is yes.
Foreign Affairs and International Development
Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Mary Macleod(11 years, 12 months ago)
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Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)
The Foreign Secretary has talked about opening embassies around the world. I congratulate him on that, because it is vital for the future growth, trade and investment of this country. Will he enlighten the House on how the Foreign Office is working with UK Trade & Investment to make sure that we bring more trade and investment back to Britain?
Mr Hague
Yes. Not only do the Foreign Office and UKTI work very closely together, but we provide UKTI with funding for specific projects, allowing it to expand its presence overseas in the same places where the FCO is expanding its work, with the additional personnel and posts that I am describing, to try to open markets and change policies in other countries so that British companies can gain access to their markets and UKTI can then help them to use that access. In the past year, the FCO and UKTI, working together, helped about 20,000 small and medium-sized enterprises to gain access, for the first time, to emerging markets around the world. That is a very important part of the economic revival of this country, and that effort must be further redoubled over the coming years.
The approach that I have described on India will help to expand our trade and investment relationship by helping British companies, and it will help to deepen our political links with state leaders across India. We are funding this expansion in relation to the emerging powers through the reallocation of FCO resources, the withdrawal of some subordinate posts in Europe, and the reduction over time of our diplomatic footprint in Iraq and Afghanistan, where security costs are considerable. We are doing that while making the £100 million per year of administrative savings by the end of the Parliament required by our spending review settlement, showing that it is what we choose to do with our resources that counts the most. I can also tell the House that next month we will publish the Government’s new White Paper on relations with the UK’s overseas territories.
Our focus on stronger political and economic ties with the growing economies of Asia, Africa and Latin America in no way comes at the expense of our role in the European Union or our alliance with the United States. We will never have a stronger ally than the United States of America. We make a vital contribution to each other’s security, and our co-operation in foreign affairs will always be one of the absolute pillars of our foreign policy. Nowhere has this been more visible in recent years than in Afghanistan. I pay tribute to all the British personnel who have lost their lives, including, sadly, in recent days, or have been injured serving our country there. We are in Afghanistan to protect our own national security by helping Afghans to take control of theirs.
The process of transitioning security control to Afghan forces agreed at the Lisbon summit in 2010 is on track; it is realistic and it is achievable. Transition has begun in areas that cover about 50% of the Afghan population and in 20 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. With the latest announcement this weekend, that will rise to 75% of the population and involve areas of all 34 provinces. In mid-2013, when the final stage of transition begins, the Afghan national security forces will lead security responsibility across the whole country and the international security assistance force will begin to move to a supporting role, focusing primarily on training, advising and assisting the Afghan national security forces. ISAF will be in a combat role until the end of 2014, when the transition process will be completed.
The main focus of the Chicago summit this weekend will be to agree a plan for the size, shape and funding of the Afghan national security forces beyond 2014. My right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary has announced that Britain will contribute £70 million a year from 2015 to fund the Afghan forces after ISAF’s combat operations end. That will be in addition to our leading the Afghan national army officer academy, which was announced by the Prime Minister last year. We will continue to support the Afghan Government’s efforts to achieve an inclusive, representative and sustainable political settlement through their reconciliation process, and to urge Afghanistan’s neighbours to support that objective.
The Prime Minister and I welcomed the Prime Minister of Pakistan to London last week for extensive discussions that illustrated the strength and breadth of our enduring partnership.
The European Union remains central to our prosperity, both internally through the single market and externally through its programme of free trade agreements. The European debate about growth and austerity has intensified in recent days. We should not artificially frame this as a choice. The Government have long pressed for a more growth-oriented EU policy to go alongside the necessary fiscal measures that are being taken at the national level, including in the UK. That work has been developed with our many allies in the EU, following the publication of the Prime Minister’s pamphlet “Let’s choose growth” more than a year ago. That policy has won the support of countries comprising a majority of the EU’s population.
The most recent European Council agreed a comprehensive growth agenda for the EU based on those arguments. The agenda is not about spending money that we do not have, which is the unsustainable folly that put this country in such difficulty; it is about expanding trade within the EU and beyond, lifting regulatory burdens and making structural reforms to European economies. Our future prosperity cannot be driven by Government spending or consumer spending, but will be created by earning our way in the world through trade and competitiveness.
Africa and the Middle East
Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Mary Macleod(13 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Hague
As I say, our response to this and other situations will be entirely based on the law of our land. If the hon. Gentleman can find any way in which we are treating Musa Kusa, or anybody else who has come from Libya, without respect to the laws of our country and without full co-operation with policing authorities or judicial prosecuting authorities, then he must tell me about it. In no way are we treating him in any way differently from accordance with our laws.
Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that matters in the Ivory Coast will be dealt with with some urgency because of the current heavy loss of life that has already taken place?
Mr Hague
Yes, absolutely. We have treated this with urgency all along. It was back in December that we called for Gbagbo to go. We have delivered a great deal of humanitarian assistance, which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development has put in place, not only for Côte d’Ivoire but for Liberia, since this has created a very difficult humanitarian situation in Liberia as well. All the time we have tried to respond to events and put in place the help that is necessary, and we will add to that urgency at the UN Security Council tomorrow.
Libya (London Conference)
Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Mary Macleod(13 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Hague
Yes. Yemen was not the subject of yesterday’s conference, although, as the right hon. Gentleman can imagine, it was the subject of some of our discussions in the margins. Certainly Secretary of State Clinton and I discussed Yemen, among other subjects, in the morning. We continue to look to the various parties in Yemen to settle their differences peacefully. We do not want to see civil conflict in Yemen or the collapse of all authority in Yemen, which really would raise the much greater spectre of a terrorist threat to the United Kingdom on a vastly greater scale than anything we have discussed in the House so far this afternoon. The British Government are heavily engaged in this situation and our ambassador in Sana’a, in particular, is doing an outstanding job in giving very good advice and conveying all the views of this country to the President and to the other various factions involved in Yemen. So we are doing our best to use our good offices to bring about a more peaceful situation there.
Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)
May I commend the work that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has done on Libya and the London conference? May I also commend the work of our armed forces, whose skill and expertise has meant that there has not been a single case of civilian injury, which is incredible? Can he confirm that we may use our armed forces to deliver humanitarian aid to Libya—if we are not already doing so—and thus make sure that we are supporting civilians as much as possible?
Mr Hague
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. We have not, so far, been using our armed forces to deliver humanitarian aid, although contingency planning done by various nations includes the ability to do that. However, it is better, if at all possible, to deliver humanitarian aid in a way that does not get that aid involved in the conflict that is going on in Libya. So we are trying to get that aid in by supporting other organisations and by some direct deliveries from our allies. As the Secretary of State for International Development made clear at his Department’s Question Time, that has enabled us to provide essential supplies for a very large number of people already.