Gaza Border Violence

Lord Swire Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

Again, I am not responsible for the actions of the United States in relation to this. We have said what we have said about the embassy; it is not a move we supported. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary said yesterday that it was

“playing the wrong card at the wrong time”,

so our views on that are clear.

In response to other parts of the hon. Gentleman’s question, we think that the need to establish the facts of what has happened means that an independent investigation is necessary. The rights of all, both of Palestinians and of those who might be subject to violence from extremists who have come from Gaza and from those who operate under the rule of Hamas, have to be sacrosanct for everyone. I go back to a position I will speak about again and again in this statement: unless those on both sides understand the needs of the other, we will not get to a solution.

[Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend said that the blockade was only partly to blame for the bad government in Gaza—in that festering hellhole. But he must concede that one reason it is a festering hellhole and a breeding ground for terrorists is that each and every time there has been an attempt to improve the livelihoods of the Gazans, by doing something about their water, about their refuge or about their quality of life, Israel has blockaded it. That is the problem.

[Alistair Burt]

The restrictions on access to Gaza are clearly part of the pressure placed upon Gaza and people in it. The United Kingdom has made repeated representations to Israel about easing those restrictions, and we will continue to do so, but there are activities perpetrated by those who govern Gaza that add to the pressures there. Recently, there have been difficulties between different Palestinian groups in relation to energy, power and salaries in Gaza. I recently met people from the Office of the Quartet to talk about work that was being done on new power plants and on water purification plants. We will continue to support that work because it is one bright spot and we have to continue with that as we deal with the politics as well.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Swire Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

The House may not yet be aware, but there will be a UN Security Council meeting this afternoon or this evening in relation to this matter. The UK has already said that it supports an independent investigation into the circumstances of what has been happening, and we will continue to take that position.

[Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)]

The simple truth is that the realignment of power in the middle east between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and their now closer friendship with Israel in this increasingly Sunni-Shi’a divide has left the Palestinians marginalised, and in danger of being marginalised further. Will my right hon. Friend, following the 100th anniversary of the Balfour declaration, restate categorically the United Kingdom’s commitment to the Palestinian people and rule out moving the British embassy to Jerusalem?

[Alistair Burt]

In answer to the second part of my right hon. Friend’s question, as I have indicated, that is the United Kingdom’s declared position: we are not moving our embassy. On the wider issues, as we will discuss later, the United Kingdom’s commitment remains to a just settlement of this issue which recognises the need to respond to Palestinians’ concern at the same time as ensuring the safety and security, and the existence, of the state of Israel. That remains our position.

--- Later in debate ---

[Boris Johnson]

Of course.

[Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)]

After years of kleptomaniac behaviour by the Kirchner husband and wife team in Argentina, President Mauricio Macri is struggling to get the Argentinian economy back on course. Will the Foreign Secretary commit to helping Argentina and President Macri with the International Monetary Fund and other organisations?

[Boris Johnson]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, who knows a great deal about Argentina. I will be going there at the end of the month to pursue the current improvement in relations taking place between our two countries.

Future of the Commonwealth

Lord Swire Excerpts

Wednesday 21st March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Richard Graham]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right; today is an exciting day. I think it is called the continental free trade area. It brings together 21 African nations, so by no means everybody in Africa, but it is a huge leap forward. In a sense, I am leading on to that.

[Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Richard Graham]

I of course give way to the previous Minister for the Commonwealth.

[Sir Hugo Swire]

Does my hon. Friend agree that another reason to be optimistic is that the incoming President of South Africa was a major figure within the Commonwealth family? He believes in the Commonwealth, he gets it, he is coming to London and hopefully he will make South Africa a far bigger player in the Commonwealth family than has hitherto been the case.

[Richard Graham]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right; he will be very welcome here. The changes in southern Africa, both in Zimbabwe and South Africa itself, give us all hope that the direction of southern Africa is on a positive trend, in the sense that in both cases the changes have been done bloodlessly. I very much hope that South Africa will be a keen part of the Commonwealth again, and that perhaps next year we will be able to welcome Zimbabwe back into the Commonwealth family, which I am sure my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames) would welcome, too.

Although the Department for International Trade wants to see, precisely as both hon. Members have mentioned, the benefits of intra-Commonwealth trade spreading more widely across the Commonwealth and reaching forward to a world where free trade agreements could be more possible and practical, the biggest challenge to the ease of doing business is in the non-tariff barriers. At some point we must try to do more about the practical challenges to benefiting from cross-border trade in the way that Malaysia and Singapore, two far east Commonwealth countries, trade together over each other’s borders.

It is amazing that we have not yet made more progress—by “we”, I mean the Commonwealth in this context. I first started working on these issues with the then Minister for the Commonwealth, Lord Howe, a great champion of the Commonwealth since its birth. With Lord Marland leading the charge at the reinvigorated Commonwealth and Enterprise Investment Council—my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Sir Hugo Swire) is part of that team—we have the opportunity to help steer the Commonwealth in a more business-friendly direction that will advocate free trade.

The potential for our own free trade agreements in the United Kingdom means that during our period of leadership of the Commonwealth over the next four years, there is no excuse for not seeing a sea change in the number of free trade agreements and direct bilateral business being done throughout the Commonwealth.

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[Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)]

I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as deputy chairman of the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council.

I want to join in the congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham). My old friend is a stalwart proponent of all things Commonwealth. It is very good that we have Commonwealth debates from time to time. When I was the Commonwealth Minister at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, it became difficult, at times, to persuade officials and others of what an important opportunity the Commonwealth was, although people are finally waking up to that. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames): the Commonwealth cannot replicate the EU, but it is certainly a vital bolt-on part of Britain’s future, in terms of our economic and trading development.

The debate is timely, coming on the eve of the Commonwealth games, which will start in Brisbane shortly. I was the Minister when the games were hosted by the British Government and the city of Glasgow—the Labour city of Glasgow—which hosted them so well on behalf of us all.

As we look forward to CHOGM in just under a month’s time, I am sure there will be a huge turnout from Heads of State, not least because Her Majesty is entertaining at home. Indeed, I would not be at all surprised—this is all I will say—if there is an extremely high level of participation by all members of the royal family.

In the time remaining, let me give an unashamed plug for the work of the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council and the stalwart job our small team is doing. We will have 800 senior businesses in London, and we will hold a series of sessions, including on accessing modern financial services, easing the pathway for business and growth, harnessing Commonwealth technology and innovation, creating a new attitude to sustainable business, mobilising an export economy, and attracting inward investment. Those things are important not only to the United Kingdom, but right across the Commonwealth.

The combined GDP of the Commonwealth will reach $14 trillion by 2020. Intra-Commonwealth trade was $525 billion in 2015, and that is set to rise to $1 trillion by 2020. We have heard a lot of statistics today about what the Commonwealth stands for, but I believe they are worth repeating. The Commonwealth is currently a group of 53 countries. I echo the desire for Zimbabwe to return to the Commonwealth fold one day soon, after having been thrown out because of Mr Mugabe. In a rather different way, the Maldives exited itself from the Commonwealth, and I very much hope that it, too, will return to the Commonwealth family, where it surely belongs. There is a road to redemption, as evidenced by Fiji, which was out of the Commonwealth for a while but now plays an increasing role within it. I suspect it will play an even bigger role in the years ahead.

It is worth bearing in mind when we talk about the Commonwealth that we are talking about a quarter of the world’s GDP and a third of the world’s population, 60% of whom, as we have heard, are under 30. At 1 billion people, the middle class of India alone exceeds the population of Europe. These are huge numbers.

I think that the Commonwealth has a rosy future. We are looking forward to the business forum that will take place over three days from 16 to 18 April, just before CHOGM. I think that will set the pace for a good Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting. When it is all over, hopefully we will all congratulate ourselves, but that is when the real work begins. I hope that we can persuade colleagues in the Government to give the same attention to the Commonwealth after the Heads of Government meeting as they have suddenly been giving it in the last few weeks, in the run-up to that meeting.

Diplomatic Service and Resources

Lord Swire Excerpts

Tuesday 13th March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Richard Benyon]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. Later in my speech, I will talk about defence attachés and how we can copy the way that other countries do that better.

I have travelled to parts of the world where the Union flag might exist in the corner of an island state’s flag but there is no Union flag flying over anything that could resemble a high commission, embassy or diplomatic mission. All aid to the Pacific region was delivered through the EU; I could not find one sign of recognition of the sacrifice that the UK taxpayer made to provide that much-needed aid—it all had the EU mark on it.

Well before 2010, embassies were being sold off. They were bricks and mortar whose value in terms of influence vastly outweighed their real estate value. Our missions abroad were reduced and our diplomatic service language school was closed. After 2010, some good things started to happen: the language school was reopened; embassies that had been closed were reopened. But what that really meant was that our diplomatic missions abroad were marginally broader, but shallower too. I was in Mali just as we reopened our embassy there. An excellent ambassador arrived and she took over with a staff of one locally recruited driver. According to the FCO figures, there are now three FCO personnel there.

This year, the Government will spend £2.15 billion on the winter fuel allowance—a welfare element that we all support—but that is more than the £2 billion we spend on our foreign affairs budget. Let us compare how France and Germany—two similar-sized countries, both in the EU—manage their diplomatic services abroad. France spends £4.2 billion on its diplomatic service—more than twice what we spend on ours. As a country, it has a clear view that in order to maintain its P5 status it will stay true to its spheres of influence. Our 30-year bout of post-colonial guilt syndrome in this country, which may well have abated now, never seemed to have a parallel in the French psyche. France maintains a very clear involvement and commitment to countries in north and west Africa in particular, but also across the middle east. It maintains a much more permanent presence in areas where it has a history of influence.

[Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)]

I am listening closely to what my right hon. Friend is saying. I believe that even some former French colonies are represented in the French Parliament, unlike here. At the end of the day, it is worth remembering that France has Francophonie; they look with envy at the Commonwealth, which is an organisation that they are unable to replicate. They rather wonder at it. I very much hope that my right hon. Friend will mention the Commonwealth in his speech.

[Richard Benyon]

I certainly will. Our commitment to the Commonwealth is at the forefront of our minds, with the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting about to take place. There are some very important Commonwealth countries that we owe more attention to. We must see this as a very important part of our foreign engagement in the years ahead. There has not been a more important time for the Commonwealth to exist, and for the Government to have a clear strategy of supporting it both economically and using all the soft-power influence we can, to ensure that this wide variety of economies and countries united by a set of values can be a key part of our foreign engagement in future.

I do not know how many diplomats France deploys in the Central African Republic, Niger or Senegal, but I bet it is many more than the two we have in Lusaka, the two we have in Gaborone or even the seven we have in Harare, according to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office annual report and accounts.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon) on his excellent speech in opening this important and serious debate. I will not respond to what the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)—he is also my friend—said, other than to remind him of famous lines written in worse days: “To hell with the future and God bless the past, and may God in his mercy look down on Belfast.” I think that to characterise the situation with the European Union in the way that he did is not sensible or helpful to his constituents.

I will commence my remarks by paying tribute to the Foreign Office and all those who work there. What it now achieves on its very, very limited budget is exceptional. Generally speaking, the standard of our people and our representation abroad is astonishingly good, as my right hon. Friend made clear. I hope the House will acknowledge that, and thank those staff and praise them for their efforts.

I strongly endorse the words of my hon. Friends the Members for North West Norfolk (Sir Henry Bellingham) and for Ludlow (Mr Dunne) about military attachés. When I was Minister of State for the Armed Forces I used to interview every military attaché personally, because I believe it is a significant and important position within an embassy. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow said, military attachés are part of the golden currency and their role is far wider than just the military. In places such as the Gulf, Saudi Arabia, and particularly in the middle east where the golden currency is relationships, those military attachés play a vital role that should be seen—as indeed it is—not as a sort of job at the end of a distinguished career, but as a job for someone very much on the way up. It is an important part of our diplomatic effort.

It seems yet another act of self-inflicted British mutilation that, at a time when the risks and problems abroad are ever increasing, and when through a very poor decision this country has decided to leave the European Union and make our way in a complex and difficult world alone, we should so ill resource our Foreign Office. We must put that right immediately. Contrary to what most of the tabloid press believe, this country is not a superpower, and it is inevitable that our influence—already sadly but quite clearly on the wane—will further decrease as the realities of the folly of our exit from the European Union become clear. A middle-ranking power, for that is what we are, must work very hard indeed to protect and further its interests. It must burnish and sustain its alliances, networks and friendships to keep them in good working order, and above all in good repair, ready for the day when we need them for the big stuff. Such a day is today, and the Foreign Secretary, the Prime Minister, and all those concerned will be doing all they can to bring our allies and friends alongside us in the very difficult task that we have over the next 24 hours when dealing with the Russians.

[Sir Hugo Swire]

To continue that theme, if we are to have any credibility, and ultimately if we are to maintain our seat as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, is it not ever more important to stamp what the United Kingdom stands for around the world, and redouble our commitment to NATO and other organisations?

[Sir Nicholas Soames]

I completely agree with my right hon. Friend. He was a distinguished and successful Foreign Office Minister, and he has seen all these things in action. He is completely right: we will have to redouble all our efforts, call in all our chips, and work very hard to retain our influence and position on the world stage. That is an incontestable fact.

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[Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Bailey, for getting round to this knight, as Sir Lancelot may have said to Guinevere. I am delighted to join in this important debate this morning. I hope that it will not be the last we shall have on the subject.

I do not seek to replicate much of what my right hon. and hon. Friends have said. I just want to pick up on one or two issues, the first of which is our physical global imprint—our estate. I hope to go from here later to a lunch to congratulate James Stourton and Luke White, who have produced a magnificent book called “British Embassies: Their Diplomatic and Architectural History”. It is an extraordinarily good book on Britain’s overseas estate. Looking through it, it is possible to have one of two reactions—to giggle in bemused embarrassment at the awful post-colonial life that our embassies represent, or feel rather proud that we possess some of the finest properties, many of which, incidentally, were gifted to us by the then Heads of State of the host countries. That is something that other countries look on with envy.

In my four and a half years at the Foreign Office, I was pleased to open some rather small embassies that had been closed, in Asunción and in El Salvador, and a consulate in Recife, and so on. It was always a source of pride to be reopening embassies, however small, rather than going around closing them. I cannot think of a single example, in retrospect, about which we can say, “Gosh, weren’t we clever to sell X embassy: we are in much better accommodation now”—Madrid being one of the great disasters. I was rather involved in the Bangkok embassy site; the rationale for the sale was that it was inappropriately located and no longer fit for purpose, although, needless to say, we had just spent some huge amount of money on accommodation on that site. I note with horror what I have picked up on my various visits—that the Chancellery building in Paris, which will be well known to my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames), whose bedroom no doubt overlooked it for many happy years, is possibly going to be sold. What a ridiculous message it would send to Paris, at the heart of Europe, as we exit the European Union, to sell our Chancellery building on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré.

My right hon. Friend the Minister does an excellent job in the Foreign Office now. I do not know whether he sits on the body I sat on—the Foreign Office board, where many of these things are discussed. It strikes me, in my experience, that these things are never brought to the attention of Ministers. Perhaps they are brought to the Foreign Secretary, but on the whole they are decided by the permanent under-secretary and others—the mandarins within the Foreign Office. There is absolutely no doubt, to my way of thinking, that these are Treasury-led decisions. It is about saving money, not about looking at our global footprint and where we want to be represented.

In future, whenever there is any discussion, there is an oversight role here for the Foreign Affairs Committee, on which many hon. Members sit, to have a view on any proposed changes to the diplomatic estate globally, and not at the eleventh hour, when the decisions have effectively already been taken. I would like to see that change, and I would welcome the Minister’s view on that.

[Chris Bryant]

rose—

[Richard Benyon]

rose—

[Sir Hugo Swire]

I will take the hon. Gentleman’s intervention first, and then that of my right hon. Friend.

[Chris Bryant]

The Foreign Affairs Committee intends to do exactly as the right hon. Gentleman suggests. If I can correct one thing, I do not think the Madrid decision was made on a Treasury basis. The old building was difficult to maintain and was listed under Spanish law and all the rest of it, but we did move to the wrong place. I opened it, as it happened—the highest embassy we have in the world, I think, because it is in the highest capital in Europe and on the 75th floor, or whatever. It is virtually inaccessible to lots of people and it was a terrible mistake for us to move there. My biggest concern—

[Mr Adrian Bailey (in the Chair)]

Order. Interventions should be short and not speeches. I want to bring the Front-Bench spokespersons in at 10.30, so would everybody bear that in mind?

[Sir Hugo Swire]

I will take a brief intervention from my right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury.

[Richard Benyon]

I was in Panama just after we sold one of the few nice buildings in Panama City, on the main corniche, and moved the embassy residence to the suburbs. The ambassador said to me, almost with tears in his eyes, that he could have made a business case for the use of that building that would have allowed us to continue there. Does my right hon. Friend agree that such decisions are often taken with a short-term perspective, which results in a failure to understand not only the long-term business case, but the influence case?

[Sir Hugo Swire]

My right hon. Friend is clearly right. I see that on 21 February, in a topical question, I asked that there be a moratorium on any asset disposals until such a review is complete. That question was answered with tremendous agreement by the Foreign Secretary. Let us have a moratorium until we decide what our global footprint will be, and let us have no more selling off of properties until the Foreign Affairs Committee has some formal oversight role.

Another thing I campaigned for, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex touched on briefly in describing his experiences in Zimbabwe, is what I called “one HMG”. I should be interested to hear an update from the Minister on that. Over the years, many different Government Departments have crept into some of these places and have other organisations in many capitals around the world; they include the Scotland Office, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Department of Energy and Climate Change. Often, the ambassador does not have much control over some of these other organisations.

In some countries—I think Nepal was one—the head of the Department for International Development was a much more senior figure than our ambassador and would not kowtow to them. It is my view that, very simply, the individual who represents the British Government abroad is the ambassador, and everybody should work for the ambassador. There should be no discrepancy in employment, accommodation and so on, and where possible, all those other agencies should be brought under the British embassy or the British high commission and co-located on that estate.

That leads me to my next point: we are still shadow-boxing about the independence of DFID. Increasingly, as a lot of the Foreign Office is funded by overseas development money, that skews things and the lines are getting blurred. I wish at some point someone would have the bravery to say that DFID belongs back with the mother ship. We could have huge economies and savings, and greater alignment of British views and values overseas, by bringing it back to the mother ship. To anyone who says, “We can’t do that; all the non-governmental organisations will get too upset,” I say that I do not think the NGOs are in any position to do anything at the moment—at least some of them—and the stock rejoinder to them is, “Look, we stand by our pledge of 0.07% of GDP. That’s our answer. How we actually apply that is up to the Government, not the NGOs.”

We are about to see a major change to the European External Action Service, the force under Federica Mogherini. I always thought it to be pretty hit and miss around the world; it seemed to me very often that the head of the EEAS was always going off to the British embassy to find out the latest intelligence, but we paid a lot of money to the EEAS and a lot of our best people were employed there, on better terms than our own people locally. That is something we want to withdraw; I would be interested to hear the Minister’s views on how many British people who currently work for the EEAS will be pulled back into the FCO and where they will be deployed.

Overall, it seems to me that a major piece of work needs to be done—a major realignment of what the UK is seeking to do abroad. That involves the World Service, the British Council and different Departments of State; it involves redefining what we mean by soft power as well as ensuring that that soft power is backed up by a sufficient military capability. It is pointless to have soft power unless we have decent armed forces which, if necessary, can support that soft power. That is a fundamental piece of work that needs to be done, and I am not convinced that it is being done cross-departmentally or that it is being done by Ministers. I believe a Cabinet Sub-Committee should be set up without further ado to bring together all these competing demands on the Exchequer, to articulate what we expect from our superb diplomatic service—the envy of the world—to ensure that it is given the tools to do the job, and to better co-ordinate all the different parts of the state to that end.

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[Helen Goodman]

If we leave the European Union, we obviously cannot be the prime access point to the European Union. That stands to reason.

I will come to the soft power assets in a moment, but I just want to say something about the numbers. The Foreign Office budget reduction is slightly unclear. Is it 16%, 30% or 40% over the 10-year period? Whatever it is, it is quite a significant amount of resource. I realise that some of the Foreign Office budget has gone into the Department for International Trade and some into the Department for Exiting the European Union, but the smallest cut that one can glean from looking at the numbers is about 16%, which is none the less extremely large. It seems to me that it is difficult for the Government to project the global Britain role while at the same time reducing resources in the Foreign Office.

Turning to our soft power assets, we are all very proud of the World Service and pleased with the British Council, and we all think that the Commonwealth is a fantastic network. There is another soft power asset, which I think we should look at alongside those assets. I am talking about our universities and higher education. We have soft power assets in this country as well as overseas.

[Sir Hugo Swire]

Will the hon. Lady take this opportunity to applaud the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for the Chevening scholarship programme and the Commonwealth programme? These are hugely important ways of promoting the United Kingdom domestically to an international audience.

[Helen Goodman]

Yes, and of course the English language is the root of much of this.

However, I disagree with what was said previously in this debate about overseas aid. The Labour Government set up the Department for International Development as a separate Department in order that we could be absolutely clear that the aid budget had aid objectives—sustainable development objectives—and we have now agreed, on a cross-party basis, on the 0.7% target. We believe that aid has been much more effective and much better because it has not been jumbled up with other policy objectives. In my opinion, the foreign policy benefits from a good aid programme are greater than can be achieved when people try to go along to the Development Assistance Committee and fiddle with the rules, saying, “Oh, couldn’t we please put the hurricane money for the Caribbean into the overseas aid programme?” No. The reason why we get credibility and support from those countries that are receiving our aid is the very high quality of the aid, so I would certainly not wish to pull those two things together again.

One thing that is not very clear in the Foreign Office annual report and accounts is how the money is spent. In particular, it is not clear how the conflict, stability and security fund, which is the share of the budget going from the aid Department to the Foreign Office, is spent. I think the Government should be extremely cautious about merging those two.

I also think we need to put a question mark over the switch from Africa, Latin America and Asia to the European Union. Perhaps the Foreign Office simply does not have enough resource, in which case Foreign Office Ministers need to go back to their colleagues in the Treasury and make the case, but it seems to Opposition Members that if we want to develop our relationships across the globe, we cannot be cutting our resource in those other parts of the world. I submit that the switch of 50 people to the European Union will probably be quite a short-sighted change.

The question is really whether global Britain is a slogan or a policy. As the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs said, there is a risk that it is becoming a slogan rather than a policy. If Ministers need to bid for more money, so be it. We do not see holding to the current limit as necessarily a hard line. We should be investing in our relationships across the globe.

Maldives: Political Situation

Lord Swire Excerpts

Tuesday 6th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)]

I am extremely grateful to have secured this Adjournment debate on the topical and important issue of the current political situation in the Maldives. On 1 February, the full bench of the Supreme Court in the Maldives ordered the retrial of cases against nine political leaders, including former President Mohamed Nasheed, labelling their trials politically influenced. The Supreme Court also ruled that 12 Opposition MPs, barred from Parliament by the Elections Commission, must be allowed to retake their seats, thus handing the opposition a majority in Parliament, which has the power to impeach the President. 

The Maldives police service immediately announced that it would comply with the Supreme Court ruling. Over the next two days, President Yameen fired the police chief, fired his replacement, and installed a third police chief. On 5 February, President Yameen declared a 15-day state of emergency. Masked security officials broke through the doors of the Supreme Court and physically dragged the chief justice away and threw him in detention. Another Supreme Court justice was also detained and thrown in jail. Former President Gayoom, Yameen’s half-brother, was also detained.

The remaining three Supreme Court Judges then overruled the 1 February judgment, despite it being unconstitutional for a three-bench court to overturn the decision of the full bench. On 20 February, President Yameen petitioned parliament to extend the state of emergency by 30 days. However, the ruling party was unable to gain a quorum in Parliament. Just 40 MPs attended Parliament; a quorum demands 43, but President Yameen announced the state of emergency extension regardless. The prosecutor general has publicly declared the state of emergency extension to be unconstitutional.

Despite the state of emergency and a 10.30 pm curfew in Malé, daily anti-Government protests have spread across the Maldives and have now entered their fourth week. Riot police have severely beaten numerous protesters, hospitalising many. A total of 110 individuals have been arrested since the declaration of the state of emergency and 31 of these are being held without trial under state of emergency rules. There are growing divisions in the security services. Some 50 military and police officials are being detained either at their barracks incommunicado or in detention centres. Four Members of Parliament are currently in detention.

Why should any of this be of interest to the United Kingdom? I would like to make four points this evening; the first concerns radicalisation. President Yameen continues to collude with a network of radical Islamists in the Maldives who are suspected of carrying out 26 murders over the past few years.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

rose—

[Sir Hugo Swire]

I give way to the hon. Gentleman— I suspect that I know which angle he is coming from.

[Jim Shannon]

I think the right hon. Gentleman knows exactly which angle I am coming from. I congratulate him on securing the debate. He will be aware of the religious persecution that is clearly taking place in the Maldives. Some of my constituents went there on holiday. One was imprisoned and sent back home, because he took his Bible with him and read it. It is against the law for someone to read a Bible, be a Christian and practise their religion in the Maldives. Is that not another example of the human rights abuses carried out in the Maldives, in this case, against those of a religious and Christian belief?

[Sir Hugo Swire]

This is the great dilemma of the Maldives. It is, on the one hand, an Islamic country, but on the other it is host to many hundreds of thousands of people from around the world, on whom it depends and who should be free to practise their own religion, even if they are on holiday.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

President Mohamed Nasheed was the first democratically elected president of the Maldives, and he was elected after years of having been tortured and abused in that country’s jails by his predecessor. He was a great leader, famously closing the political prisons and holding his first Cabinet meeting underwater to highlight climate change. He was a truly progressive, secular leader in a democratic country. Does my right hon. Friend not share my tremendous sadness at how far this country has fallen at the hands of utterly corrupt and malignant forces?

[Sir Hugo Swire]

My hon. Friend is of course absolutely right and I shall go on to say something about this. I very much see the former President Mohamed Nasheed having a role in the future of the Maldives, along with others who have sometimes been his political opponents. My hon. Friend is absolutely right.

There have been murders of prominent liberal bloggers and journalists, too. In late September last year Her Majesty’s Government warned that terrorists were “very likely” to carry out an attack on the islands. I understand that this is also the current travel advice from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Allegedly, between 200 and 250 Maldivians are either fighting or have fought in Syria and Iraq. US Assistant Secretary of State, Alice Wells, claimed that the Maldives was the highest foreign fighter contributor per capita to the so-called Islamic State.

Much of the recruiting and radicalisation is promoted by websites such as Bilad al-Sham Media, and Facebook and other social media are more accessible than ever on the remote islands that make up the country.

My second point concerns the safety of our British tourists. The United Kingdom ranks third in a list of visitors to the Maldives in 2016, behind Germany and China, with 7.9% of market share and more than 100,000 visitors. This was an increase of 9.8% compared with 2015.

The Maldives economy remains a tourism driven economy in that it contributes more than 25% of the country’s GDP. While the tourism sector supplies more than 70% of the foreign exchange earnings to the country, one third of the Government revenue is generated from this sector. Tourism is also known as the leading employment generator in the country. In 2016, tourism contributed 36.4% to the Government revenue. But as a result of the current situation, the Maldives is facing financial ruin, with the tourism industry estimated to be losing $20 million a day since the start of the state of emergency. If the trend continues, it will lead to unemployment and dissatisfaction—to my way of thinking both active recruiting sergeants for radicalisation. With our tourists spread out over 115 square miles in 105 resorts it is almost impossible to guarantee their safety.

My third point concerns the Commonwealth. After 30 years of President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’s rule, it was President Nasheed who introduced democracy into the Maldives. From 1982, it was a welcome member of the Commonwealth family. It was President Yameen who took the country out of the Commonwealth in 2016.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way, and draw Members’ attention to my registered interests on the Maldives. Is the right hon. Gentleman going to draw some attention to the fact that the United Kingdom’s reach on the Maldives has declined somewhat because it has left the Commonwealth? What can we do to rebuild that relationship, working with the ambassador, who is based in Europe? What can we do to rebuild the relationship with the Government for the very reasons the right hon. Gentleman has outlined—to make the country more prosperous and, more importantly, to turn it away from what would be a terrible plight if his predictions came true?

[Sir Hugo Swire]

Indeed, and two of the neighbouring countries, Sri Lanka and India, are members of the Commonwealth. I will say later in my speech that, although I believe much needs to be done before the Maldives comes back into the Commonwealth, its proper place is back in the Commonwealth family.

President Yameen’s unconstitutional behaviour has seen him arrest three lawmakers and instigate a witch hunt of the families of his political opponents, including wives and children. President Maumoon and the justices at the supreme court have been charged with treason and bribery, and access to lawyers and family has been restricted, with reports of ill-treatment. Following the arrest of President Gayoom, all the leaders of the opposition political parties are under detention, or have been sentenced under similar trumped-up charges. The Government continue to defend their actions, claiming that state-of-emergency powers are applicable only to those who are believed to have planned or carried out illegal acts in conjunction with the 1 February Supreme Court ruling. That has led to increasingly politicised targeting of the opposition by security services.

President Gayoom’s daughter, Dunya, resigned last week as the state health Minister, and has herself now appealed for support from the international community. I hope very much that she will work with former President Nasheed and other members of the opposition, and that they will come together to chart a democratic future for the country—a future, hopefully, back in the Commonwealth family.

[Nick Herbert (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making a powerful case. Does he agree that a situation under the guise of a state of emergency in which judges are arrested, the normal business of courts is suspended, Members of Parliament are arrested and Parliament too is suspended makes a mockery of any notion of democracy, and, furthermore, constitutes an affront to human rights? Should not Members on both sides of the House of Commons condemn that action in the strongest possible terms?

[Sir Hugo Swire]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Unfortunately, there can be no pretence that democracy is alive in the Maldives at the moment.

The Maldives Government also continue to condemn foreign criticism of their actions—no doubt they will now be criticising my right hon. Friend for his intervention—asking members of the international community not to chastise them publicly, and to visit the Maldives to assess the situation on the ground for themselves. However, when a delegation of EU Heads of Missions did visit Malé, the Government refused to meet them. Similarly, members of a delegation from LAWASIA—the Law Association for Asia and the Pacific—were detained and deported on their arrival at the airport in Malé on Tuesday, 27 February, although they had informed relevant Government authorities in ample time of their intention to visit.

My fourth point concerns the possibility of regional conflict. In recent years, China has been sending more tourists to the islands and investing in the economy. In neighbouring Sri Lanka, we see China building a port at Hambantota, an 11,500-foot runway capable of taking an Airbus A380, and docks where oil tankers can refuel. That has caused understandable nervousness in India, and it is difficult to believe that the Indians will allow the Chinese to gain a similar foothold in the Maldives. It is also reported that the Japanese navy recently spotted a Maldivian-registered tanker, which allegedly is linked to President Yameen’s nephew, transferring suspected crude oil to a North Korean tanker, in violation of UN sanctions on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. It would be interesting to hear the Minister’s response to that.

I have seen the statement put out by the European External Action Service on 6 February and the Foreign Secretary’s statement of 5 February, but will Her Majesty’s Government now go further, building on the calls made on the Government of the Maldives by the International Democrat Union on 21 February? Will they call for the release of, and access to lawyers for, all political prisoners? Will they lobby for a UN-backed mission, led by someone like Kofi Annan, to go to the Maldives without delay? Will they call for free and properly convened elections later this year, to be overseen by an international body? Will they provide support and assistance in the wholesale reform of judges and the judicial system? Will they work with other like-minded countries to counter Islamic radicalisation in the Maldives? Will they raise the issue of the Maldives at the forthcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting here in London in April? Will they ask the opposition parties to provide a list of resorts owned by President Yameen’s circle, so that they can be publicised and boycotted in the event of none of the above happening? At the same time, will they put plans in place to increase targeted sanctions against the Yameen regime if the Supreme Court ruling is not fully implemented?

As we exit the European Union, this is a good opportunity for the United Kingdom to show that we have our own foreign policy, and are working with like-minded friends.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Field]

I will certainly do so. I have rather long list of things to raise with the ambassador, but I will do my level best to ensure that that issue is discussed.

The UK is also leading the international response, understandably. We helped to drive the EU Foreign Affairs Council conclusions on 26 February, which called for the state of emergency to be lifted. The Council announced that it would consider targeted measures if progress was not made. I also expect the UK to lead a statement of concern at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva later this week, as we did last June on behalf of more than 30 other countries.

On human rights more broadly, the Maldives has been one of the Foreign Office’s human rights priority countries for several years. We have regularly raised our concerns about human rights, in particular the threatened re-imposition of the death penalty, with my Maldivian counterparts, as have my Government colleagues. We will continue to fund projects that support efforts by Maldivian civil society to promote human rights, strengthen democratic institutions and advocate a greater role for women in public life.

We are deeply concerned by reports of increasing radicalisation in the Maldives and take them very seriously. We co-operate with the Government of the Maldives in the global fight against terrorism. Our view is that open and pluralistic societies are better placed to combat the underlying drivers of radicalisation.

My right hon. Friend was right to point out that the decision by the Maldives to leave the Commonwealth in 2016—an institution that was assisting it in addressing a number of these concerns—remains a source of deep sadness to us. We hope that in time the Maldives will return to the Commonwealth family by reapplying for membership, but clearly in its current state that cannot happen.

My right hon. Friend mentioned the safety of British visitors to the Maldives, and many of them are there as we speak. That is clearly an extremely important consideration for us. Nearly 100,000 British tourists visit the islands every year—not necessarily in the most built-up areas of Malé, but they are visitors none the less. He rightly pointed out that there are also significant numbers of Chinese and German tourists.

We regularly review Foreign Office travel advice to ensure that travellers have the latest information. We have updated it twice since 5 February, most recently on 21 February, following the extension of the state of emergency. Our current advice states that political unrest has to date largely been confined to the capital island Malé or to major population centres.

[Sir Hugo Swire]

I suspect that the majority of tourists do not go to Malé because it is only atoll in the entire Maldives that is dry. My point is that many atolls are many miles away from Malé and would be difficult to get to in a crisis. Further, the fighters who have gone to Syria and Iraq do come from the remote areas because, as I said, they have been radicalised through the mosques, the internet and social media. Just because tourists are not in Malé, which is the centre of unrest, that does not mean that there are no problems elsewhere.

[Mark Field]

My right hon. Friend makes a fair point. He can be assured that we will be asking our embassy and James Dauris, our excellent ambassador based in Colombo, to keep our advice under constant review.

Although few British tourists visit the major population centres, we advise those who do so that they should exercise caution and avoid any protests or rallies, but I will ensure that we give further thought along the lines of my right hon. Friend’s intervention. We have had no indication to date that any British tourists have been affected directly by the unrest or, indeed, that it has affected the resorts in which they stay or the functioning of Malé’s international airport. The safety of British nationals will always be our primary priority, and we shall continue to keep our travel advice under constant review.

The current situation in the Maldives is deeply worrying. President Yameen’s crackdown on media, judges and political opponents through the suspension of fundamental rights is unacceptable in any country that calls itself a democracy, and I shall make that argument when I see the Maldivian ambassador tomorrow at the Foreign Office. I know that he works closely with UK parliamentarians to promote his country in a positive light here in the UK, and I hope he will have heard many of the concerns that have been raised tonight, not least because they have been raised by parliamentarians who have the interests of the Maldives and its citizens close to their heart.

Colleagues will share my concerns at the sustained misuse of parliamentary process used to justify such measures. The members of the all-party British-Maldives parliamentary group, while understandably keen not to talk down the islands’ reputation, might usefully consider ways in which they could speaking out against the abuse. We shall continue to work, both bilaterally and with international partners, to urge President Yameen to end the state of emergency peacefully, to restore all articles of the constitution and to restore the proper functioning of Parliament, so that the people of Maldives can once more enjoy their full democratic rights and freedoms and live without fear or intimidation.

Question put and agreed to.

International Development Committee: Burma Visas

Lord Swire Excerpts

Wednesday 28th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his thoughtful contribution—as ever—and for his kind words about the intervention of the Foreign Office. I accept his view; I think it is direct retaliation. I would not like to speculate on whether there had been a personal intervention by Aung San Suu Kyi, but we may learn more in the days to come, and obviously we will discuss matters then.

I agree with much of what the hon. Gentleman said. I say to him: please rest assured that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development in particular is working very closely to try to reorganise programmes that we have in Burma to take account of many of his concerns. Above all, there is a sense that we want to keep the interests of the most vulnerable at the forefront of our minds.

As I mentioned earlier, we are one of the biggest single donors in this terrible crisis. We have also given money to both the Red Cross and the World Food Programme to provide assistance in the northern Rakhine—in other words, on the Burmese, rather than the Bangladeshi, side of the border. To be honest, given the very severe humanitarian impact that heavy rains and cyclones could well have on the population—we are heading into cyclone season within the next month or so—this is something that we will keep under very open review.

I may have also said this, but I was in Brussels on Monday deputising for the Foreign Secretary at the Foreign Affairs Council. At the Council, we agreed the conclusions initiating the work to introduce some targeted sanctions against elements of the Burmese military. This work is going on. Obviously, we are trying to do a lot at the UN. The hon. Gentleman will appreciate some of the difficulties we face in that regard, not least because of the potential veto of some of the permanent members of the UN Security Council, but we are also doing a lot at the EU level as well.

[Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)]

Having seen what has been going on in Rakhine, albeit a few years ago, I can say it is imperative that we continue to assist the Rohingya people in their hour of need. I urge the Minister formally to summon the Burmese ambassador to the Foreign Office to explain how seriously this House takes the fact that the Committee cannot go there to oversee what is the biggest bilateral aid programme in that country.

Those of us who have followed events in that country for some time now know that our policy was to support Aung San Suu Kyi where we could, and that we were always told that the problems were with the military. If it is now the case that she is no longer part of the solution, but is indeed in some way part of the problem, I think it is time to reassess our relationship with the Parliament in Naypyidaw, with the army in Burma, particularly with regard to the training and assistance that we have been trying to provide to make them a more democratically accountable military, and with the range of bilateral relations that we have had in that country. We simply cannot allow them to get away with this kind of behaviour.

[Mark Field]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his contribution. Obviously, he was a predecessor in the role that I now hold. This must all be very depressing, given the high hopes that we had during the period he was in office. I can imagine that after the visits he made to Burma at that time, there was a sense that, after decades of military rule, we were moving towards some sort of democracy. In many ways, to be absolutely honest, there are some lessons that we have learned. There was perhaps a small amount of democracy, but, as many will be aware, the Rohingya were not included in the census and they were not allowed to vote in the elections, and in many ways we are seeing elements that are the consequences of that, so there are great lessons to learn.

In relation to my right hon. Friend’s initial point about the Burmese ambassador, we will of course summon him, probably over the next week, to express our deep displeasure at his Government’s action.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Swire Excerpts

Tuesday 20th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

As I am sure the hon. Lady knows, Myanmar is not signed up to the International Criminal Court, but there must be no doubt about the gravity of what has taken place. Anybody who flies over northern Rakhine, as I did last week, will see literally hundreds of villages that have been burned or destroyed. Some 680,000 people have been displaced. This has been ethnic cleansing on an industrial scale and it may also have been genocide. It is vital that the evidence is acquired to determine whether any future prosecution can be mounted.

[Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)]

The recent extension of the state of emergency and the arrest of former President Gayoom and two Supreme Court judges has shown President Yameen tightening his grip in the Maldives and the further extinguishing of the democratic institutions there. Given the fact that at any one time there are literally thousands of British holidaymakers on those islands, and that until recently the Maldives was a welcome member of the Commonwealth family, will the Secretary of State agree to head up a mission there, or encourage the UN to establish one? The situation has the potential to bring China and India into an unwelcome regional conflict.

[Mark Field]

Like my right hon. Friend I am deeply troubled by the declaration of a state of emergency in the Maldives on 5 February and the accompanying suspension of fundamental rights. Last November in London, I met former President Nasheed, whose own time in office was turbulent, and we discussed the deteriorating situation. We will very much take on board my right hon. Friend’s suggestions.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Swire Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

I can tell the hon. Gentleman that the Minister for Africa has raised that very matter with the South African Government only recently.

[Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)]

2. What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Defence on the application of the Military Covenant’s duty of care to veterans living abroad.

[The Minister for Africa (Rory Stewart)]

I have not held full discussions with the Secretary of State for Defence on this subject. However, we feel deep respect for anybody who has served in the armed forces, and the Government have been pleased to put £770 million from the LIBOR fund into supporting veterans at home and abroad.

[Sir Hugo Swire]

Of course, we very much welcome that. According to the campaigning charity, ZANE: Zimbabwe A National Emergency, there are 600 former British servicemen—those who have served the Crown—and widows of servicemen living in considerable pensioner poverty in Zimbabwe. Does the Minister agree that although the financial responsibility is that of the Government in Harare, the moral responsibility lies also with us? With that in mind, will he commit to meeting the Secretary of State for Defence to discuss those people, and will he press the new Zimbabwean President, Emmerson Mnangagwa, to actually face up to his responsibilities to these people who are living in his country?

[Rory Stewart]

I will absolutely commit to meeting the Secretary of State for Defence on this subject. We have met my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames) and Lord Goodlad to discuss the matter. The prime responsibility for looking after veterans of the Zimbabwean army lies with the Government of Zimbabwe, so we will also raise the issue directly with President Mnangagwa.

Budget Resolutions

Lord Swire Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

I am delighted to join the Foreign Secretary in congratulating Prince Henry of Wales and Meghan Markle on their forthcoming marriage. However, I was disappointed that the Foreign Secretary did not feel it appropriate to acknowledge a recent sad event. I want to ensure that all of us in the House join in sending our thoughts to the families of all of the hundreds killed, including 27 children, and injured in Friday’s horrific terrorist attack on al-Rawda mosque in north Sinai. It is a brutal reminder that by far the biggest targets and the highest number of victims of jihadi terrorists are people of the Muslim faith, and that the inhuman evil that is Daesh, which worships no gods but death and publicity, must be wiped from the face of the earth.

For reasons lost in the past, Budget debates have often been the occasion for some degree of light-hearted exchange over the years. However, not least in the light of the events in Egypt and the serious situation in which we currently find ourselves as a country economically, diplomatically and militarily, I do not believe that levity is in order today. Especially when it comes to the Foreign Secretary, all the jokes have worn just a bit thin of late.

I am nevertheless glad that the Foreign Secretary is leading today’s debate. Back in March he acknowledged how rare that was, because never under David Cameron’s Government did a Foreign Secretary lead a Budget debate. In the first two Budgets under the new Prime Minister and Chancellor, however, the Foreign Secretary has been given that honour. Perhaps this is their way of dipping his hands in the blood, as the economic impact of his Brexit plan becomes ever clearer, or perhaps, to be slightly less Shakespearian, it is their way of rubbing the nose of a wild, carefree puppy in the mess he has made.

[Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Lady join me and the rest of the House in welcoming the announcement of two major pharmaceutical investments in the UK?

[Emily Thornberry]

Of course I welcome that, but I am concerned that we still have no answer from the Government on what will happen to the European body that currently regulates pharmaceutical trade across Europe. With no answer on that, it is difficult to be able to look at a long-term plan in that regard.

I was talking about the mess. We saw that mess last week in the Office for Budget Responsibility’s latest projections. Growth in the UK, which was already projected to be the lowest of all major economies, has now been cut again, in one of the biggest downgrades in our economic history. The truth is that it could be much worse. Let us face the reality. The OBR’s forecasts last week were still based on an optimistic assumption of Brexit.

The OBR said:

“Given the legal requirement for the OBR to produce its forecasts on the basis of current Government policy, we once again asked the Government to provide us with any detail on post-EU exit UK policies in relation to trade, migration and EU finances.”

Let us note two points about the OBR’s language, because Robert Chote is not one to use his words loosely. He said that he had “once again” asked the Treasury for its Brexit plan—presumably, he has been making that request for many months now. What he asked for was very simple but very shocking: he asked the Treasury for “any detail” about its plan. What did the Treasury do in response? According to the OBR, the Treasury sent it a copy of the Prime Minister’s Florence speech. How utterly pathetic. That was followed up with a bunch of documents full of aspirations and pipe dreams, with no detail and of no practical worth.

The OBR was left to conclude:

“We were not provided with any information that is not in the public domain.”

In other words, the organisation whose legal responsibility it is to forecast the future state of the British economy asked the Government what their plan was for Brexit and was treated just as dismissively as every Member of this House has been treated for the past 17 months. As a result, the OBR concluded:

“Given the uncertainty regarding how the Government will respond to the choices and trade-offs it faces during the negotiations, we still have no meaningful basis on which to form a judgment as to the final outcome and upon which we can then condition our forecast”.

Seventeen months on from the referendum, the OBR still has “no meaningful basis” on which to make a forecast about what Brexit will mean, either because the Government refuse to tell them, or because the Government cannot decide what kind of Brexit they want.

However, let us be absolutely clear about one thing: as dreadful as the OBR’s forecast for growth and the public finances is, it still assumes that there will be a deal on future trading arrangements between Britain and the EU. It has not even attempted to look at the consequences of a no-deal outcome on trade, employment and growth. Therefore, when the Economic Secretary to the Treasury responds at the end of the debate, will he address one specific question? The Government have said that they will conduct precautionary preparations for the prospect of a no-deal, cliff-edge Brexit. Can he please reassure the House that, as part of those preparations, the OBR will be asked to assess the likely economic and fiscal impact and to publish that paper as soon as possible, so that Parliament and the British public can fully understand the costs of that scenario?

--- Later in debate ---

[Emily Thornberry]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that question and I will come on to answer it if he will give me a moment.

Beside the specific proposals, there is a wider point of principle on defence spending, which takes us back to the question of falling growth. We on the Labour Benches have long argued that the way the Government meet the target to spend 2% of GDP on defence is wholly inadequate. Defence spending should mean spending on defence, not on Ministry of Defence pensions, as the right hon. Gentleman and the Select Committee have pointed out, or on any other items that the Government simply lump in to meet the target. We need to ensure, at a time when growth is being downgraded—we are dangerously close to a period of falling GDP—that the Government do not use that as an excuse to cut the armed forces budget, in effect treating the 2% figure not as a target but as a cap. If anyone thinks that is a fictional risk, let us take a look at the budget for international development.

I am told this is different but I believe it is not. The Budget speech in March this year was one of the first I can recall since coming to this House, under Chancellors from different parties, that made no mention of international development and our obligations to the poorest in the world. I believed at the time that it was a temporary aberration, but sadly it happened again last week. This time, the omission was far more serious. Say what you like about George Osborne—and I am sure the Foreign Secretary frequently does—at least when he used to cut the international development budget and keep it capped at 0.7% of GDP, he would stand in front of this House and announce that decision publicly. It is a disgrace, by contrast, that the Chancellor last week chose to cut £900 million from the overseas aid budget over the next two years but did not think it worth mentioning in his speech, let alone detailing exactly which projects and programmes will be cut in the world’s poorest countries as a result of the Government’s failure on growth.

[Sir Hugo Swire]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Emily Thornberry]

I gave way to the right hon. Gentleman once before. I am sure he will be able to cover any points he wants to make in his speech.

Across the world, this is a precarious time for investment in international development. The US Congress is battling to limit Donald Trump’s proposed cuts to foreign aid and the global fight against malaria, but still the only question is the size of the eventual cuts, not whether they will go ahead. Closer to home, the EU’s proposed 2018 budget includes a 6% cut in development spending, a cut that dwarfs any proposed increase in spending on humanitarian aid.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)]

Coming at a time when we are exiting the EU, this is a prudent Budget. Obviously, we would have liked to see more of our own special things in it, but that is the nature of a Budget. The problem for the Opposition is that, despite stresses in some areas, the British economy is performing pretty well on the whole, which is why the polls show that, even at this stage, the Conservative party is either level-pegging or ahead of the Opposition, which is a real problem for them.

Leaving the EU presents the United Kingdom with an opportunity to think about itself, to redefine itself and to decide where it wishes to go. It was US Secretary of State Dean Acheson who, in the aftermath of the second world war, famously said:

“Great Britain has lost an empire and not yet found a role.”

That was true. When we think about our withdrawal east of Suez and about throwing our lot in with the EU, an individual British role was in a sense submerged by those events, but it is now incumbent on us to talk Britain up and our constituents want us to do that. It may be a difficult challenge for some and, judging by some of the contributions from the Opposition tonight, that is not their inclination, but people want us to talk Britain up and to think about how we can reinvigorate our advantages. With one of the best militaries in the world, we have hard power. We are committed to NATO, and we encourage others to spend the amount of money that we are spending. We are a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Those things give us real global influence, and we should be proud of them and guard them jealously.

Increasingly, our soft power cannot be divorced from hard power; we need to use them both at the same time. We have our values, our parliamentary system, the work of institutions such as the British Council, our culture and our royal family. I say that at a time when the world is yet again focused on us due to the engagement of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

[Ms Ghani]

My right hon. Friend mentioned the British Council, which recently noted that one in seven world leaders studied at a British university. That presents a great opportunity for us not only to promote our universities, but to export our values overseas.

[Sir Hugo Swire]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I will come to that in a minute. When I used to travel around the world on behalf of the Foreign Office, it was fantastic to have the GREAT Britain campaign branding everything that the UK was doing.

On the subject of the Foreign Office, I note that the budget will be £2 billion in 2017-18 and then £1.2 billion in the subsequent two years. I have some nervousness here. I understand the arguments about official development assistance, but let us compare that with the Department for International Development’s budget in those years: it goes from £7.6 billion to £8.2 billion—I cannot quite understand how the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), who speaks for the Opposition, managed to regard that as a cut. I believe that the Foreign Office should own what the UK does abroad. There are too many departments in capitals around the world that do not dovetail with what the FCO is doing. I will leave it until another time to make the point again that the more closely integrated DFID is with the FCO, so much the better.

The Foreign Office needs to expand. We are obviously withdrawing from the European External Action Service—the Federico Mogherini-led overseas diplomatic corps of Europe—so we need to think about where we are going to re-resource our posts around the world. I believe in an international, rules-based system, and I believe in Britain’s role in it. I would also like the UK Government to lead on a new financial architecture. The Bretton Woods system is outdated and fails to recognise the emergence of countries such as China.

I want a properly resourced military that retains our amphibious capabilities and our peacekeeping role. I want the UK to engage better with the Commonwealth, and what better opportunity is there to restate our commitment to it than the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in London next April? I want the UK to recognise and recommit to our responsibilities to our overseas territories. I ask the Foreign Secretary whether we can press the OECD harder to look at the redefinition of aid and to consider why we cannot provide more aid to the overseas territories. Some of the calculations on middle-income countries are fallacious. Financial services are counted in those calculations, but the money does not go to individuals in those countries—the money often flows in and out. We should be able to fund our overseas territories properly.

I would like us to engage with the neglected markets of Latin America. I would like British companies to take advantage of China’s one belt system. My hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani) referred to scholarships, and we should boost the Chevening, Marshall and Commonwealth scholarship programmes, possibly bringing them together as one scholarship programme. We can continue to lead on climate change and on protecting vulnerable states—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I call Alex Cunningham.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Swire Excerpts

Tuesday 21st November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

On the contrary, I am sure that the whole House will join me in congratulating the Indian judge on his election. I am sure that the House will also agree that it is a fine thing that another common-law judge has joined the International Court of Justice.

[Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)]

I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as the deputy chairman of the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council. Does my right hon. Friend agree that a positive way of showing how a post-Mugabe Zimbabwe could be rehabilitated into the international community would be for it to attend the next Commonwealth summit as a rejoined member? To that end, will the Foreign Secretary begin to have discussions with his partners in the Commonwealth and with the Commonwealth secretary-general to ensure that there is a path to new membership for a post-Mugabe Zimbabwe?

[Boris Johnson]

My right hon. Friend rightly sets out what would be a fine and noble aspiration both for the Commonwealth and for Zimbabwe, but I must caution him that several steps need to be gone through before that can happen. There must be free and fair elections next year, and it then falls to Zimbabwe to apply to the Commonwealth secretariat and to make it clear to the Commonwealth and the world that Zimbabwe fulfils the criteria on human rights, rule of law and democracy that are necessary for Commonwealth membership.