Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Sarah Wollaston(10 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Hague
No, we have not set out a particular figure, because that is for discussion with member states in the future. There needs to be a discussion about how we handle these things. In the long-term future, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, across the House we are strongly in favour of the enlargement of the European Union, but the next member state to join the EU is quite some years away in all probability. These are things that need to be discussed in the context of the whole future of the EU.
Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)
7. What recent progress has been made on negotiations on reform of the common fisheries policy.
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)
The UK has recently secured important reforms to the common fisheries policy. We have banned the wasteful practice of discarding edible fish, decentralised key decisions on managing fisheries from Brussels to groups of national Governments, and introduced legally binding measures to end overfishing. This is tangible progress towards a more competitive and flexible EU.
Dr Wollaston
It is right that we move to end the scandal of discarding healthy fish. It shows how renegotiation within the EU is possible. Will the Foreign Secretary join me in paying tribute to the leadership of my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon) in his success in those renegotiations, and perhaps even set out for the House what further negotiations a Conservative Government plan?
Mr Hague
My hon. Friend is right to pay tribute to our hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon). This is an important negotiating success. It shows that decision making can be decentralised away from Brussels, producing at the same time a more sustainable and successful policy overall. That decentralisation and the greater accountability to national Parliaments are important aspects of the changes we want to see in the European Union, as the Prime Minister set out in his speech a year ago.
Iran and Syria
Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Sarah Wollaston(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Hague
I am encouraged by some of the response, and I pay tribute to the work already done by the Government of the Netherlands to push this idea; we will work closely with them. I think that there is a lot of support for this at the UN, and we will be very determined about it, so yes I am encouraged by some of the initial reaction. Now that the Syrian National Coalition has made its decision in principle about attendance at the Geneva II talks, we will start going into these sorts of issues in more detail with it.
Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)
The Foreign Secretary referred in his statement to the re-emergence of polio 14 years after its eradication. This terrible and entirely preventable disease is a threat beyond international boundaries, so surely it is in Iran’s self-interest to support access for humanitarian and, crucially, medical aid across Syria. Will he reassure the House that that point will be stressed in his ongoing negotiations with Iran?
Mr Hague
Yes, I will. That is a very good point, and we will certainly pursue it with Iran and all other neighbouring countries. A comprehensive polio response, led by the WHO, is intended to reach 22 million across seven countries in the next seven months, and a regional polio control centre is being established in Amman in Jordan, but we need all the countries in the region to contribute, including Iran, and we will pursue that point with it.
GCHQ
Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Sarah Wollaston(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Hague
Well, yes, it does mean those things. It means that the legal framework is properly applied and what the agencies do has to be targeted, necessary, proportionate and authorised. It also has to be for the purposes set out in the relevant Acts of Parliament in the interests of national security, the country’s economic well-being or the prevention of serious crime and the protection of the country from it. These are the purposes of our intelligence agencies—and they stick to them.
Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)
Is the Foreign Secretary absolutely confident that, if a member of staff working at GCHQ had real concerns about wrongdoing among colleagues, the channels exist for that member of staff to have their concerns heard without needing to go to the media?
Kabul Conference
Debate between Lord Hague of Richmond and Sarah Wollaston(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Hague
That is a lot more subjects than I can deal with at this stage of proceedings. I mentioned earlier that one of the objectives in the programmes adopted at the conference yesterday is to create 500,000 more jobs in agriculture. There are four priority programmes in agriculture and the provision of access to safe drinking water, so a tremendous amount of work is contained in this. If the hon. Gentleman studies the communiqué and the statement of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development about our development work, he will see that the issues that he raises are all being addressed.
Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)
In the drive to tackle corruption in Afghanistan, will my right hon. Friend say a little more about what steps are being taken to disrupt the drugs industry, which does spread its tentacles very directly to our streets?
Mr Hague
Yes, the British Government continue to give a lot of resources to counter-narcotics work—£26 million in the current financial year. We support programmes for growing alternative crops in Afghanistan. I was interested to note in Herat on Monday that saffron is being grown on a wide scale and brings a much larger income to the farmer than the growing of opium poppies. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime has reported a 22% fall in opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan in the last year.