Commonwealth Day

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow the former Minister, the hon. Member for North West Norfolk (Mr Bellingham). I completely agree with his remarks on Sri Lanka and the CHOGM. I will not refer to what I said in the previous debate; people can read Hansard tomorrow to see what I said.

It is important that we recognise the enormous potential in the Commonwealth, but, as the report published by the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs at the end of last year made clear, the Commonwealth is currently failing to realise that potential. The report also criticised the Government and stated that

“the FCO’s rhetoric about the importance of the Commonwealth is not being matched by its actions.”

I exempt the hon. Member for North West Norfolk and the former Minister in the Lords, Lord Howell, from that criticism, but there is an issue with how the Government, including Departments such as the Department for Education, collectively work with Commonwealth institutions and organisations. More could be done to build on the Commonwealth networks, to which the Chairman of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway), referred in his intervention.

We also criticised the past closure of diplomatic missions, particularly in the Pacific, Swaziland—I have personal experience as a former Voluntary Service Overseas teacher in Swaziland—and Lesotho. There is a question on how seriously our current approach accounts for the fact that we no longer have diplomatic representation in a number of Commonwealth countries. Those countries may be small, but they are politically significant in an organisation that works through consensus.

There is also a question about the BBC World Service, which we referred to in our report. The Chairman of the Select Committee and I visited the World Service’s excellent new facilities this morning.

In the time left to me, I will address the role of the Commonwealth and the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association in building capacity and developing democracy. I declare an interest, because the CPA sent me on a capacity-building mission to the Maldives in November 2011. Sadly, within three months there was an engineered coup in which the democratically elected President, Mohamed Nasheed, was removed. His successor, President Waheed, embarked on various measures in an assault on democracy, including the harassment and arrest of members of the Opposition. Former President Nasheed had to seek refuge in the Indian high commission, and, having left the high commission, he was recently arrested. That is all part of a ploy to try to stop a truly democratic election from taking place.

That is shocking to me, because my discussions with members of that country’s embryonic democratic institutions in November 2011 convinced me that there was a role, which the FCO facilitated, in helping to build a committee structure, in training and in democracy-building. All that is being set back by the events of the past year and a half. I hope the CPA and the British Government will continue to press for a truly free and fair election in the Maldives and for a democratic outcome that is acceptable, not just to the people of the Maldives, but to the democratic values of the international community.

FCO: Human Rights Work

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful to be called early, Mr Havard. I begin by taking up the question on Russia, which my friend the Chairman of the Committee, the hon. Member for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway) left us with. The chairman of the Duma international relations committee, Alexei Pushkov, was on “Newsnight” yesterday, and I am sure the Minister will have been shown a transcript of what he had to say. He said—I am paraphrasing, because I do not have a transcript—that Blair and Brown were hostile to Russia and raised questions on human rights and other matters, but that David Cameron’s attitude was different and the British Government have a new approach. Will the Minister clarify the Government’s position, given that there have been discussions with the Russian Foreign Minister and Defence Minister in London in the past week?

Is there a new approach that downgrades human rights concerns about events in Russia and ignores the murder by polonium on the streets of London of a man with connections with Russia and the UK? We also have outstanding issues, which date back to the harassment of our ambassador in Moscow, and I understand that harassment of British diplomats is ongoing. There are also issues relating to the British Council. To coin a phrase, has there been a reset of relations with Russia, such that human rights and concerns of a bilateral nature are no longer on the agenda, or is Mr Pushkov mistaken? I hope he is, but it would be interesting to hear from the Government whether that is the case.

The second thing I will talk about is Sri Lanka. I have a long-standing constituency interest in Sri Lanka, because many of my constituents fled from the terrible violence of the Sri Lanka civil war. I also have many constituents who came to Britain several decades ago and did not flee from that war. They are happily settled in the UK and have a different narrative to tell. I am increasingly concerned that there is a policy to remove people back to Sri Lanka following the civil war’s end when we do not have the necessary guarantees about the human rights situation and the treatment of those individuals on their return. In our Select Committee report on the matter, we referred to concerns of that kind, as well as to the policy and relationship of the FCO and the UK Border Agency on decisions about the human rights situation in Sri Lanka and the forced removal of Tamil people living in the UK. The Government have recently had to respond to a freedom of information request from an organisation called Freedom from Torture, which I understand raised some further concerns.

When the Select Committee raised the issue, we were told that there are no credible allegations on the torture of individuals who have been returned to Sri Lanka. We were also told that the Government do not yet have substantiated evidence that people who have been returned have been mistreated. We asked about the processes they go through, how they check, who they speak to and how they gather information. A substantial section of the Government response refers in passing to those issues, but I will not quote it now. Do the Government still believe that there are no credible allegations? Are there still no substantiated cases where there is evidence of mistreatment?

I understand that in response to a freedom of information request, which was issued on 6 February this year, it was suggested that a number of people who had been forcibly returned to Sri Lanka have been subsequently given asylum, or at least a leave to remain of some kind, in this country. How many of those are Tamils who were returned due to concerns about their mistreatment? I have been told—I do not know whether it is correct—that there are either 13 or 15 people in that category. It would be helpful to know how many of those allegations of torture were found to be credible, because that information is not in the public domain.

Given that we have concerns about what is happening in Sri Lanka—about the treatment of opposition figures and journalists, and about the very large military presence in the north of the island—is our Government’s position still the same, as regards the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting that is supposed to be held this year in Colombo? Some other Commonwealth countries —no doubt this will be debated later this afternoon—have said that they will not send their Prime Ministers or leaders at a higher level. Canada has made its position on that clear. Is it still the British Government’s position that it is too early to judge? If so, what criteria will need to be met before our Prime Minister attends that Commonwealth meeting?

Finally, I want to raise a general point about the need for human rights issues to be at the centre of the approach to such matters internationally. I was concerned when the UK Border Agency and the Home Office started to have a lead role on some of these issues. Potentially, there is a downgrading of the concerns that are expressed by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other organisations that look at those matters worldwide. If the approach in Government is that policy priority is given to economic benefits—or other matters, but that human rights issues are subservient—and if we have a policy that is driven by the desire to keep down the number of foreign nationals coming to the UK, that raises concerns about how we will deal with people who are at risk of persecution, torture, and even their lives, because other criteria are being given priority by the Government. I hope that that is not the case, and I will be grateful to hear the Government’s response.

[Sir John Stanley (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

I am pleased to follow the present Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway), and his predecessor, the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes). I very much endorse the comments of my hon. Friend, when he said that the Government would do well to acknowledge that there is an inherent conflict between the Government pursuing their legitimate commercial interests, on one hand, and also standing up fearlessly for human rights on the other. The same point and representations have been made by the Committees on Arms Export Controls, which I chair, and the Government would do well to acknowledge that inherent conflict, rather than expressing a position of trying to pretend that no such conflict exists.

I say to the Minister that I shall raise a number of points, and I entirely understand that he may not have the time or information to reply to them immediately at the end of the debate. I will be very glad to receive replies subsequently in writing, if he so wishes.

I want to start with China, which remains a one-party, totalitarian, police state. Rightly and necessarily, it continues to feature in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s list of countries of concern with regards to human rights. As the FCO’s human rights report reminds us, when there were calls in China for a “Jasmine Revolution” to follow the Arab spring:

“Public order and security bodies detained and harassed lawyers, bloggers, human rights campaigners and other activists, without allowing them recourse to their legal rights.”

Very considerable numbers of human rights activists are in jail, including, of course, the immensely courageous Nobel peace prize winner, Liu Xiaobo, who is still in prison serving an intolerable sentence for the so-called, catch-all offence of “subversion”.

I want to raise a particular aspect of human rights in the context of China, and it concerns the Government’s policy on arms exports. China is rightly subject to an arms embargo. However, in the latest figures published by the Government on the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills website, for the third quarter of 2012, the Government have stated that they approved arms export licences for components for military electronic equipment; equipment for the use of military communications equipment; military communications equipment; military electronic equipment; and technology for military communications equipment. Will the Minister explain how it is that when the British Government have signed up to the EU arms embargo on China, they are still none the less approving military arms export licences to China for the type of equipment that, on the face of it, could be used for internal repression and the violation of human rights?

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South and the hon. Member for Ilford South, I want to discuss Russia, which is rightly listed as a country of concern by the FCO. From my perspective and that of most, if not all, in the House, under President Putin, human rights in Russia are going backwards, not forwards—particularly in the area of the freedom to express, the freedom to criticise and the right of peaceful protest. The laws that are now being put through the Duma, which is controlled effectively by those who support President Putin, are particularly concerning. The laws include, for example, fines for unsanctioned demonstrations and measures to oblige NGOs to register as “foreign agents”.

I noted with interest and concern what the mould-breaking former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said about the new Putin laws in a recent BBC interview:

“The common thread running through all of them is an attack on the rights of citizens.”

In the face of those new laws being passed and an increasingly hostile environment to basic human rights in Russia, will the Minister, in his reply, give us any assurance that the British Government will do all they can to protect British nationals in Russia, and, in particular, locally employed staff of organisations such as the British embassy, the British Council and those who are working for international human rights NGOs in Russia?

The country that probably has the worst human rights record in the world—indeed, this is stated in the Foreign Office’s human rights report—is North Korea. The previous Labour Government took what I considered to be an entirely justified step—we were one of the first European countries to do so—to re-establish a diplomatic presence in Pyongyang in order to give us the possibility to exercise some degree of leverage on human rights issues, among other things, in the capital, and also to provide a point of contact for human rights and humanitarian NGOs working in North Korea. With the arrival of Kim Jong-un as the “supreme leader” of North Korea—that is how he styles himself—we have in recent weeks and days seen an alarming escalation of hostile actions and statements. We have seen a ballistic missile test. We have seen a nuclear explosion. We have seen the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea claiming nullification of the armistice that ended the Korean war in 1953. We have seen the cutting of the hotline to Seoul. Very recently, a public statement was made that North Korea was ready for “all-out war”.

In light of the dismal and concerning developments that I have set out, are the British diplomatic staff reporting a reduction in their ability to further the human rights agenda and objectives of the British Government in North Korea? Can the Minister assure us that the Government will do all that they can to support our embassy and NGOs in North Korea in the extraordinarily important and difficult human rights and humanitarian work that they do?

I now come, with considerable regret but absolutely no apology, to an area that I think that I have raised in every one of these debates since they were first initiated—Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. As with my previous contributions, I emphatically do not do so in any one-sided or partial manner. The Hamas rocket attacks into Israel—I have been to the communities in Israel where those rockets have landed—are wholly unacceptable and totally intolerable. Indeed, I regard Hamas as a disgrace to the Palestinian cause and a very serious impediment to the Palestinian wish to achieve proper democratic progress towards an independent and viable Palestinian state.

That said, the Israeli Government cannot escape the criticism that they encounter, both within Israel to some extent and more widely internationally, for the relentless and continuing violation of basic Palestinian rights. I consider the FCO to be entirely correct in including Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories as a country of concern in its human rights report.

[Mike Gapes]

Does my friend agree with me that the formation of a Government in Israel today is a chance for a renewed emphasis on and impetus for the restarting of negotiations that will lead to the two-state solution that is the only viable way to deal with this conflict?

[Sir John Stanley]

I agree with my friend that that is an opportunity, but to be wholly frank and honest, I have grave doubts about whether it will be seized, because I fear that since the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin, there simply has not been a majority in the Knesset that is really willing to embrace the concept of creating a separate, independent, viable Palestinian state.

In recent years, we have seen the Israeli Government ending the movement of Palestinians between Gaza and Israel, turning Gaza into one of the biggest prisons, de facto, in the world. We have seen the relentless and continuing removal of Palestinian families from East Jerusalem, with the clear political objective of preventing East Jerusalem from ever becoming the capital of a Palestinian state. We see the continuation of the intolerable violation of Palestinian human rights on the west bank. To expose that, we need go no further than the Israeli NGO—I stress that it is an Israeli NGO—B’Tselem in its last annual report. It said:

“In the West Bank, two and a half million Palestinians live under Israeli military occupation while settlers live in enclaves of Israeli law within the same territory. Individual acts of violence by extremist settlers periodically capture the headlines, and discriminatory and inadequate law enforcement is indeed a concern. However, the major human rights violations result from the settlements themselves: their extensive exploitation of land and water, the massive military presence to protect them, the road network paved to serve them and the invasive route of the Separation Barrier, which was largely dictated by the settlements.”

Having made many visits to the British consulate-general in Jerusalem, I am well aware of the sterling and excellent work that is done by the Foreign Office from the consulate- general in trying to support and uphold Palestinian human rights in the occupied territories. However, in my view, a step change will be needed in the Israeli Government’s policy towards the Palestinians and towards the occupied territories if we are to see a genuine improvement in human rights. Does the Minister see any such prospect? From where I sit, and having seen the human rights deterioration taking place over so many years, I fear that we are moving to a position in which Gaza continues for the foreseeable future as one gigantic prison, East Jerusalem becomes an area where house after house belonging to a Palestinian family is taken over by the Israelis and, sadly, the west bank loses the possibility of becoming the core of an independent Palestinian state and becomes what I can only describe as a middle-eastern version of a Bantustan. Perhaps I am being too gloomy. I hope that I am, but I fear that I am not, given the progress of events.

I now come to a different part of the world and a different human right. I want to raise the case of Colonel Kumar Lama, a Nepalese citizen who came temporarily to the UK and who has now been arrested in the UK on the grounds of allegations of torture, committed not in Britain but in Nepal and committed not against British nationals but against Nepalese nationals. I wish to inform the House that although I have no registered interest to declare, I am the chairman of the all-party Britain-Nepal group.

I am raising this issue not because I want to take any position or make any comment on Colonel Lama’s specific case, but because it calls into question some very important human rights policy issues for the Government. In his letter to me this week, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has said that the arrest of Colonel Lama has been carried out to fulfil the UK’s obligations under the UN convention against torture. I cannot believe that Colonel Lama’s case is an isolated one. I cannot believe that Colonel Lama is the only foreign national in the UK against whom allegations have been made of torture committed against non-British nationals in foreign countries. Surely there must be scores and possibly even hundreds of others in the same category, so the key policy issue that I have to put to the Minister is this. Will he now confirm that, in the light of the Colonel Lama case, the British prosecuting authorities and the police will now arrest, in fulfilment of the UK Government’s obligations under the UN convention against torture, all other foreign nationals in Britain against whom there are allegations of torture committed against non-British nationals in foreign countries? That is the central policy question the Colonel Lama case raises. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

The key human right of freedom of expression embraces, in my view, freedom of speech, a free media and freedom to demonstrate peacefully. Freedom of expression is becoming ever more important in this electronic age, which gives Governments who are so minded greater and greater ability to suppress human rights and human rights activists. It enables Governments to combine unprecedented access to information acquired electronically with an unprecedented ability to carry out surveillance electronically.

I shall turn from freedom of expression generally to developments in that key human right in the Commonwealth. I am glad to say that we seem to have achieved a breakthrough on freedom of expression as far as Commonwealth countries are concerned. The first declaration of Commonwealth principles, made in Singapore in 1971 and followed by a repeated declaration of the principles 20 years later in the 1991 Harare declaration, was a major step forward in human rights for the Commonwealth, but in neither the Singapore declaration nor the Harare declaration were Commonwealth countries able to agree on including freedom of expression as a key Commonwealth principle and human right.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Swire]

Yes, I can confirm that I have been doing a lot of work on that issue. I was the first Minister from Europe to go to Rakhine; I went to Sittwe and five different camps, and ever since then I have been raising the issue of the Rohingya people.

My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway), the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, asked a number of questions about Burma, including about the sanctions against Burma. The EU Foreign Affairs Council will review the sanctions against Burma in April. We have always said that the outcome of that review will depend on the progress that the Burmese Government have made against the benchmarks set out in the council’s conclusions of 12 January, including the need for meaningful progress on reconciliation with armed ethnic groups.

My hon. Friend also asked about political prisoners in Burma, which is another issue I have raised repeatedly with the Burmese. Independent experts estimate that there remain about 240 political prisoners in Burma, and we welcomed the announcement by the Burmese Government that the International Committee of the Red Cross has access to all jails and prisoners. We also welcomed President Thein Sein’s announcement on 7 February that the prisoner review mechanism will contain civil society leaders and Members of Parliament. We really want to see that happen.

On the issue of Rakhine, which was mentioned earlier, I have just told the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) about my work there.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley) raised the issue of Russia and the whole question of Mr Magnitsky. Yesterday both my Foreign Secretary and the Minister for Europe met the Russians and raised these issues with them repeatedly. As is well known—my right hon. Friend will know it if he has read the papers today—the Foreign Secretary met Russia’s Foreign Secretary Lavrov yesterday, and we will continue to raise these issues and bring those responsible for Sergei Magnitsky’s death to account. We also raised concern over the new measures restricting freedom of expression and putting pressure on civil society. It is worth saying that we fund a number of projects to support Russian civil society, and we continue to meet and provide support to those who are subject to harassment. I give an assurance that we will continue to do all we can to protect British nationals and our staff in Russia, as my right hon. Friend asked us to do.

[Mike Gapes]

On the issue of Russia, will the Minister give way?

[Mr Swire]

I must continue. All right, I will give way.

[Mike Gapes]

I am very grateful to the Minister for giving way. Can he just say on the record that the remarks by the chairman of the Russian Duma’s international relations committee on “Newsnight” yesterday were wrong?

[Mr Swire]

I did not see those remarks, so I will go and study them and then get back to the hon. Gentleman.

The 2011 report also highlighted the progress that we have made against our six specific human rights priorities. These priorities are: torture prevention; the death penalty; women’s rights; freedom of religion or belief; freedom of expression online; and business and human rights. In 2011, we saw significant strengthening of our focus on torture prevention through the publication of torture and mistreatment reporting guidance and the strategy for the prevention of torture, which we understand is the first such national strategy in the world.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling raised the issue of Colonel Lama of Nepal. As the Minister with responsibility for Nepal, I know about the particular incident and I just say that the Government are very mindful of our obligations under the UN convention against torture, and every case will of course be subject to the due process of the law.

In 2011, we also reviewed our death penalty strategy, and we continue to pursue abolition, restriction, or—at the least—adherence to international minimum standards. The long-term trend is positive and we judge that the number of countries now carrying out executions has dropped by half since the mid-1990s.

Since publication of the 2011 report, the Foreign Secretary has launched the preventing sexual violence initiative to strengthen and co-ordinate international efforts to prevent and respond to atrocities involving sexual violence, and to break down the culture of impunity around such crimes. As I speak, the UN Commission on the Status of Women meeting is in its final sessions and we hope for a more positive outcome this year. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for International Development and other ministerial colleagues have been active in lobbying for a strong set of agreed conclusions. Incidentally, I very much welcome my hon. Friend’s campaigning work to end female genital mutilation.

As the Minister with responsibility for human rights, Baroness Warsi has made freedom of religion or belief a personal priority. She hosted a cross-regional meeting of Ministers in London in January to build political momentum to combat discrimination against people based on their religion or belief. We also remain a strong supporter of freedom of opinion and expression, not least on the internet. We speak out on countries that oppose or abuse this right, pressing them to uphold their international obligations. As the Committee knows, we played a leading role in supporting the development of the UN guiding principles on business and human rights, which were endorsed by the UN in June 2011. We have developed a strategy to implement and promote those principles.

In February 2012, we published our updated national action plan on UN Security Council resolution 1325 on women, peace and security, which highlighted work in Afghanistan, Iraq and the middle east, as well as in the UK’s own security operations. We became the first country to publish human rights guidance for our overseas security and justice sector work, and we reviewed and improved our already robust arms export controls.

In April last year, the Foreign Secretary announced an additional £1.5 million in funding for human rights projects, with particular emphasis on the countries of concern covered in the 2011 report. We have also made changes to the ways in which we bring in external expertise, which I think was one of the recommendations of the Foreign Affairs Committee, to inform and challenge our policy formulation.

The Foreign Secretary’s human rights advisory group has met twice yearly since it was first established in December 2010. This group of experts has brought valuable challenges to us on many human rights issues. We consulted the group on criteria for deciding the countries of concern for the 2012 report. We intend to report fully on the methodology used in the coming report. The report will be published in April and we look forward to the Committee’s response. I hope that the report will be published in hard copy too; I shall ensure that the comments by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling are taken on board.

We should never be complacent about human rights. No matter what progress is made, there remain huge challenges all over the world. We shall remain steadfast in support of human rights and democracy in the middle east and north Africa as difficult transitions take place. The Arab partnership initiative will help us to do that.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling, the hon. Member for Islington North and my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South raised a number of issues involving Bahrain. I am well aware of the Committee’s interest in Bahrain and the middle east. We welcome the national consensus dialogue that has begun and encourage all parties to remain engaged. However, the ongoing tensions are of concern, particularly the events around the 14 February anniversary. We condemn violent acts by any side, which will only hinder efforts towards reform and reconciliation. We remain supportive of the reforms underway and encourage Bahrain’s Government to show renewed energy in implementing them.

We will continue to focus on countries where we have not seen any improvement in human rights and democracy, such as Iran, where the regime continues to violate human rights with impunity.

Hon. Members mentioned North Korea, and we are concerned about the situation there. We take every opportunity to try and influence North Korea’s Government and work to improve the lives of vulnerable groups. However, given the lack of progress, we will co-sponsor a resolution in the current session of the Human Rights Council to recommend that the UN establishes a commission of inquiry into human rights abuses there.

We share the Committee’s concern, particularly that of the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes), about human rights in Sri Lanka—we might discuss that in the debate following this one—not least relating to disappearances, political violence, free expression and judicial independence. More needs to be done, particularly on political settlement, accountability and reconciliation. It is worth putting on the record again that the Government have yet to make a decision about attending this year’s Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting. We look to Sri Lanka, as with any other CHOGM host, to show its commitment to upholding the Commonwealth’s values. All Commonwealth member states have agreed the Commonwealth charter setting out these values, which was signed by Her Majesty the Queen, as Head of the Commonwealth, earlier this week. I look forward to debating these and other issues later this afternoon.

We acknowledge the Committee’s strong interest in deportations with assurances. We firmly believe that we should be able to deport foreign nationals who are engaged in terrorist-related activities, but we will not deport someone if there are substantial grounds for believing they will face a real risk of torture in their home country, or where the death penalty will be applied. We recognise the considerable interest in the House in our DWA arrangements. Although there is no statutory requirement to lay memorandums of understanding before the House, the Government will, of course, continue to notify Parliament by written ministerial statement when new MOUs are signed and to place copies in the Library.

Both Syria and the Sahel, mentioned by the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood), remain high on the Government’s agenda. We condemn the ongoing human rights violations and abuse in Syria in the strongest terms. We call on all sides to put an immediate end to the violence, to respect international humanitarian and human rights laws, and to pursue a genuine Syrian-led political transition. We will continue to do all we can to help bring to account those responsible for human rights violations and abuses. The International Criminal Court should play a role in this.

We are encouraging partners in the Sahel region to build their capacity to tackle terrorism in a human rights-compliant manner. Allegations of human rights violations by members of the Malian armed forces are of concern. In line with Security Council resolution 2085, those responsible for violations and abuses must be held accountable. The UK has pledged 40 trainers for the EU training mission to the Malian armed forces, three of whom are civilians who will provide human rights training.

This has been a constructive debate. I have left a number of issues that I would dearly love to address, not least the situation in Israel and with the Palestinian authority, and the hope we all have in President Obama’s visit there shortly. However, there is a time limit in this debate. If any questions remain unanswered, I will be happy to write to hon. Members who asked them.

Syria

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Wednesday 6th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

No one can give any guarantees. This is why a political and orderly transition should happen in Syria. There are certainly terrible weapons, chemical and biological, in Syria, which is why it is important to be clear that there is no military-only solution, whatever one’s point of view on the situation. Those chemical weapons are best safeguarded through a peaceful transition. That is what we need to keep arguing for. Without giving additional assistance to the moderate elements of the opposition, however, we would reduce rather than enhance the prospects for an orderly transition.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Is it not the case that it would be more secure, and more in our interests, to introduce a no-fly zone than to arm the opposition? We can keep control of the equipment in a no-fly zone, but we cannot do that if we hand it over to jihadist groups. Is it not also the case that the United States Administration and some neighbouring countries, including Turkey, are against the introduction of a no-fly zone, which means that we are unable to introduce one?

[Mr Hague]

Let me make it clear that I have not announced the arming of the opposition. This is different; it is about increasing the assistance that we give the opposition in the form of non-lethal equipment. The hon. Gentleman is putting the case for an external military intervention, rather than a move to any policy of support for the sending of lethal equipment to Syria. There is a respectable case for that, but as I said earlier to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Meg Munn), it would require the willingness of a large part of the international community, almost certainly including the United States, so that we were not making a false promise of safety to people. Syria continues to have strong air defences with very modern equipment, and the implementation of a no-fly zone would be a very large military undertaking. It is important for those who advocate it to bear that in mind.

Syria: anti-Government Forces

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Swire]

No one is talking about intervention of that sort, but I ask the hon. Gentleman to reflect on the fact that in Syria there are now 4 million people in need of urgent assistance, 2 million people have been internally displaced, and 900,000 refugees are in need of assistance in neighbouring countries. The instability that that is causing in Syria is evident for all to see, but the instability that it is causing in the region is, in the long term, as much of a worry.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Minister clarify what forms of non-lethal force multipliers will be given to help an already well-armed opposition which is being supplied by some Arab countries, and which has captured many arms supplied by Russia and Iran to the Assad Ba’athist-fascist regime?

[Mr Swire]

My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary was tempted to list them during his interview on “The Andrew Marr Show” yesterday, but resisted doing so. As a former Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the hon. Gentleman will understand that the proper place for the Foreign Secretary to list them and state policy is right here in the House. He will be doing just that later this week.

Kurdish Genocide

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Thursday 28th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House formally recognises the genocide against the people of Iraqi Kurdistan; encourages governments, the EU and UN to do likewise; believes that this will enable Kurdish people, many in the UK, to achieve justice for their considerable loss; and further believes that it would enable the UK, the home of democracy and freedom, to send out a message of support for international conventions and human rights, which is made even more pressing by the slaughter in Syria and the possible use of chemical arsenals.

You will have noticed, Mr Deputy Speaker, that I do not stand in my usual place in the Chamber. I deliberately chose to sit next to my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) today, because in this Parliament I think no one has done more than he has for the cause of the Kurdish people and recognition of the genocide—indeed, he chairs the Kurdish Genocide Task Force.

As the horrors of the holocaust pass beyond living memory, there is a danger that we drop our guard—that we believe such terrible events are safely sealed in the history books and that they could never happen again—but the truth is they already have happened again. Genocide did not end with the fall of the Third Reich in 1945. In the Srebrenica genocide in 1995, 8,000 Bosnians were murdered en masse; in the Rwandan genocide in 1994, more than 500,000 people were killed in just 100 days; and between 1960 and 1991, during the campaign of persecution unleashed by Saddam Hussein against his own people, singling out the Kurdish community, more than 1 million people “disappeared”, with most presumed dead, murdered by Government forces. Yet only the first two have been recognised officially as genocide. No international criminal tribunal has been convened to investigate the extermination of the Kurdish people, nor has there been an international campaign to bring those responsible for those atrocities to justice, and the British government have not formally stated that the actions of Saddam and his lieutenants constituted genocide. That must be put right.

To many people, the plight of the Kurds in Iraq remains unknown. The demonisation, the internment camps, the gassings, the mass graves—those are images that take us to the darkest depths of the 1940s, not the 1980s, yet Saddam Hussein and the Ba'athist regime carried out these actions. The Iraqi Kurds endured a systematic military programme of discrimination, demonisation, removal and death. So-called “men of battle age”—a definition that included tall, strong boys as young as 12—were rounded up, and thousands of women and children vanished. Strong evidence shows many were taken to internment camps, where they were executed or died from malnutrition and torture. When coalition forces entered Iraq looking for weapons of mass destruction, they found instead mass graves and the thousands of bodies that they were concealing—men, women, and children, all killed for nothing other than their ethnicity, their bodies hidden from the eyes of the world.

This year is the 25th anniversary of the final act in that persecution: the Anfal campaign—literally translated, it means “the spoils of war”. That last and best known phase took place in 1988, when more than 182,000 Kurds are believed to have died—182,000 men, women and children systematically wiped out. In all, more than 2,000 Kurdish villages and towns were destroyed, including the town of Qla Dizeh, which along with its 70,000 inhabitants was literally wiped off the map. Let me put that in context: that is enough people to fill Wembley stadium twice over, or, if compared with the horrors of the September 11 attacks against the USA, 60 times the 3,000 innocents killed on that terrible day. Yet even that was not the worst of it.

On 16 March 1988, Iraqi planes bombed the town of Halabja with mustard gas and, some suspect, other nerve agents such as sarin and VX. Five thousand civilians died in incredible agony that day, and estimates suggest a further 7,000 were injured or suffered long-term illness. For years afterwards, many babies were born with deformities, and even today, if you visit Halabja as I have done, Mr Deputy Speaker, you will see mass grave sites, and the basements of bombed buildings remain contaminated.

For me the events hold a personal significance. I am proud to be the first British MP of Kurdish descent. It was the persecution of the Kurdish people that brought my family to the safe haven of Great Britain. I remember, as an eight-year-old boy, standing with my mother in Baghdad international airport watching my father attempt to flee the country, boarding a plane to the safe haven of Britain. The night before, he had been tipped off that the regime was planning to come for him. As the plane taxied towards the runway, we watched in horror as an army vehicle stopped the plane and soldiers boarded it. It was only later that we discovered that they had taken the man sat right next to my father. That was the life of a Kurdish family in Iraq—waiting for the knock on the door in the middle of the night, knowing that they could be coming for you, living in fear.

In 1988, as news of Halabja reached the Kurdish community overseas, we all waited for the media to take notice. In a box in my attic, I have some of the first photographs to get out of the region. As hon. Members can imagine, they are horrifying. Yet Saddam's spin machine had gone into overdrive—no gas had been used, they said—and the first western journalists did not visit the area until more than a week later. What confronted them was truly terrible. Writing in The Guardian, David Hirst described the scene:

“The skin of the bodies is strangely discoloured, with their eyes open and staring, where they have not disappeared into their sockets, a greyish slime oozing from their mouths and their fingers still grotesquely twisted. Death seemingly caught them almost unawares in the midst of their household chores. They had just the strength, some of them, to make it to the doorways of their homes, only to collapse there or a few feet beyond. Here a mother seems to clasp her children in a last embrace, there an old man shields an infant from he cannot have known what.”

Even after that there was still scepticism from many, yet that was just the culmination of a decade-long campaign against the Kurdish people, the final stage of the regime's attempts to wipe out the Kurdish people in Iraq. Saddam had unleashed all the resources of a modern, industrialised state on the Kurdish population of his own country. His forces used chemical weapons, concentration camps and aerial bombardment—all methods that were last seen during the second world war. If it was not genocide, one has to ask what would be?

The crime of genocide was brought into law to prosecute those put on trial at Nuremberg. The word comes from the Greek for race and the Latin for killing. The literal meaning is clear, but legally it requires the aggressor to have pre-planned the destruction of a national group. In its investigation, Human Rights Watch was clear that that was the case:

“This crime far transcended legitimate counterinsurgency and includes the murder and disappearance of tens of thousands of non-combatants due to their ethnic-national identity.”

The fact that some of the atrocities took place during the Iran-Iraq war or during a time of uprising have led some to argue that they were war crimes or crimes against humanity, but I disagree. There is no doubt that atrocities were committed in the conflict, but what occurred in Kurdistan—the mass killing of civilians, including women and children—was not a conflict; one side could not and did not fight back. And it was not random violence; it was the planned destruction of the Kurdish population.

Prior to requesting this debate, I launched an e-petition calling on the Government to recognise formally the genocide against the people of Iraqi Kurdistan, and as of this morning it had attracted nearly 28,000 signatures. At 10,000 signatures, it received a response from the Government:

“It remains the Government’s view that it is not for governments to decide whether a genocide has been committed in this case, as this is a complex legal question. Where an international judicial body finds a crime to have been a genocide, however, this will often play an important part in whether we will recognise one as such.”

However, without international pressure it is unlikely that an international judicial body would begin a prosecution in order to provide that “important part” that the Government require.

There is also the fact that many of those responsible, including Saddam himself, were tried and executed for other crimes before an international court could intervene on the question of genocide. However, in March 2010 the Iraqi Supreme Court ruled that the 1988 operations were genocide, four years after Saddam was executed for crimes against humanity. There is no doubt now that he should also have stood trial for genocide.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way and apologise for being a couple of minutes late for the start of his speech, which caught me out. I think that he is making a very strong case. Other Parliaments, such as Norway’s, have already said that in their opinion there was genocide, so the British Government need to reconsider their position.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He is absolutely right, and I am coming to that point in my speech.

The Iraqi Supreme Court has ruled that the 1988 operations were genocide. Earlier this year the Norwegian Government, as we have just heard, recognised the Anfal campaign as genocide, stating that the judgment in Iraq, in accordance with international law, justified that decision. Sweden followed, with the Swedish Parliament stating that, based on research, statements from organisations and the 2010 judgment in Iraq, it was legally able to make that declaration. In the Netherlands, we have even seen a Dutch citizen successfully prosecuted for his part in the genocide: Frans van Anraat was tried at The Hague and charged, among other things, with selling chemicals knowing that they were to be used for genocidal purposes. Such a charge required the court to decide whether the Anfal campaign was indeed genocide. Unsurprisingly, it agreed that it was. Therefore, there exists a judicial decision in Iraq, a decision at The Hague and the decisions of other nations to support a declaration that the Kurds were subjected to genocide. The United Kingdom can act to make it clear to the world that this Government recognise the genocide committed against the Kurdish people.

Beyond the legal arguments there is another important dimension. The United Kingdom carries enormous moral weight around the world. I am proud that Britain is at the forefront of the international community when it comes to protecting human rights and standing up to regimes that threaten their people and their neighbours. That is why we must be at the forefront of this argument.

Death Penalty (India)

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Thursday 28th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend referred to the fact that the Indian authorities have recently started to execute people again. Clearly, that was in the context of a terrorist attack that caused many lives to be lost. The precedent has been set, however, and there is now a real danger that many people who had been given a death sentence that had not been applied, and their families, will undergo a period of great difficulty and stress. That applies to many communities in India and not just the Punjabis.

[John McDonnell]

Exactly. I am sure that other Members will raise the question of what is happening with the Dalits and other groups.

The eight-year moratorium lulled us into a false sense of security. Naively, many of us thought that although India retained the death penalty on the statute book the continuation of the moratorium was an indication that it would eventually be abolished once and for all. Unfortunately, that was a naive judgment and our hopes were dashed in the spring of last year when reports emerged that the Indian Government were moving to execute Balwant Singh Rajoana and, possibly, to authorise the execution of Professor Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar. That caused widespread concern among the Punjabi community in the UK, across many of our constituencies and across the world.

I want to refer to the two cases, as they have been prominently mentioned in the media and carry immense significance around the world, the Rajoana case for its historical context and the Bhullar case because it is almost now a symbol of the injustice meted out to so many Sikhs in recent decades.

Let me deal first with Balwant Singh Rajoana, a former member of the Punjabi police. He has publicly acknowledged his role in the killing of the chief Minister of the Punjab, Beant Singh, in 1995. He has refused to defend himself and refused legal representation, and he has not asked for mercy. However, Sikhs and Sikh organisations in gurdwaras have appealed for mercy on his behalf, and urged the Indian Government to appreciate the context of Balwant Singh’s actions and the feelings of the Sikhs at that time and now.

Balwant Singh was party to killing Beant Singh, the chief Minister of the Punjab. We now know that Beant Singh personally commanded the police and security forces in the killing and disappearance of possibly more than 20,000 Sikhs—men, women and children. Faced with the failure of the Indian authorities to take action against the former chief Minister for his crimes against humanity, Balwant Singh and a co-conspirator took the law into their own hands. Nobody, including Balwant Singh, claims that he is innocent of the killing, but Sikh organisations, human rights lawyers and human rights groups are urging the Indian Government to take into account the context of his actions, the scale of the human suffering that the Sikhs were enduring at the time, and the anger that young men such as Balwant Singh felt at the failure of the Indian state to bring to justice the chief Minister responsible for the atrocities against the Sikhs in the Punjab. On that basis, they plead for understanding and mercy on Balwant Singh’s behalf and that the death penalty is avoided at all costs.

If Balwant Singh Rajoana symbolises the suffering of the Sikhs in that period, Professor Bhullar symbolises the injustice meted out to Sikhs, to be frank, over the years at the hands of the Indian police and the judicial system. Professor Bhullar came to the attention of the Punjab police because he investigated the abduction and disappearance of a number of his own students. The disappearances were linked to the Punjab police. The resultant persecution of his family, with the disappearance of his own father and uncle and others, led him to flee to Germany for asylum. Tragically, the German authorities believed the assurance of the Indian Government that he would not face the death penalty, and he was returned to India.

The German courts have now ruled that that deportation was wrong. Professor Bhullar has been in prison for 18 years. He has been convicted of involvement in an attempted political assassination solely on the basis of a confession, which he retracted, with not one of more than 100 witnesses identifying him at the scene, and on a split decision of the court judges. In split decisions in India, the practice of the courts is not to impose a death penalty, but Professor Bhullar has been sentenced, held in solitary confinement for eight years and, despite his deteriorating health, his plea for mercy has been rejected. Despite a further petition to the Supreme Court, the fear is that the Indian authorities could move to execute him at any time. This is a shocking miscarriage of justice waiting to happen unless we can intervene effectively.

The fears for Balwant Singh Rajoana and Professor Bhullar prompted the launch of the Kesri Lehar campaign last year. Our fears were compounded when on 21 November India ended its moratorium on the death penalty and executed Ajmal Kasab. In December the United Nations voted for the fourth time for a resolution calling for a global moratorium on executions; 111 countries voted for the moratorium, but India voted against. That is another clear indication of its intent at that time to return to the implementation of the death penalty.

A further execution by hanging took place on 9 February this year. There is a real risk therefore that, with more than 40 people now on death row in India, with 100 more sentenced to death each year, many more executions are likely to follow unless action is taken.

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[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr Hugo Swire)]

I congratulate the hon. Members for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton) on securing this debate. We have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) and the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden), and I look forward to hearing the contributions of other hon. Members from both sides of the House.

Let me state clearly from the outset that the Government strongly support the worldwide abolition of the death penalty. We believe that the death penalty undermines human dignity, that there is no conclusive evidence of its deterrent value, and that any miscarriage of justice leading to its imposition is both irreversible and irreparable.

It is for those reasons that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office supports projects throughout the world that campaign against the death penalty. We continue to work actively towards global abolition, in line with our strategy for the abolition of the death penalty, by raising the issue bilaterally and through the EU and the UN. I believe we are closer to achieving that goal than we have ever been. In its most recent report, Amnesty International reported that 70% of the world’s countries have abolished the death penalty in law or practice. As we have heard, only 21 countries carried out executions in 2011. That is the second lowest number on record, and a third less than a decade ago.

In line with that trend, the biennial UN resolution against the death penalty has attracted increasing support each year since the first resolution in 2007. In December last year it received 111 votes in favour out of 186, which was a record. The United Kingdom played an important part in that through lobbying by diplomatic missions and ministerial contacts, and that should be applauded.

The death penalty in India is a complex issue and continues to be the subject of much debate across Indian society. India has a strong democratic framework that guarantees human rights within its constitution, as well as a functioning and independent judiciary. It was disappointing, however, that India’s de facto moratorium on the death penalty, which had existed for more than eight years, ended with the hangings of Mohammed Ajmal Kasab and Mohammad Afzal Guru last November and February this year respectively. Kasab and Guru were convicted of very serious crimes—involvement in the Mumbai attacks in 2008, and the 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament—and it is important to remember the impact that such acts of terrorism have on the people of India.

During my recent visit to India I visited the Taj hotel in Mumbai, one of the targets of the 2008 attacks where at least 31 people were killed. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister visited the Taj memorial and the police memorials commemorating the victims of the Mumbai attacks, and the issue was brought home to me when, exactly a week ago when I was still in India, 14 people were killed in a bomb attack in Hyderabad. Having just spent three days with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, and seen the optimism and opportunities across India, such attacks are a shocking reminder of the terrorist threat that we face. That is why we are working more closely than ever with our colleagues in the Indian Government to combat that shared threat from wherever it emanates.

[Mike Gapes]

I agree with the Minister’s remarks about the impact of terrorism in India and elsewhere. He referred to his visit to India with the Prime Minister but did he, the Prime Minister, or anybody else from the Government take the opportunity to discuss the death penalty during that visit?

[Mr Swire]

If the hon. Gentleman will bear with me, all will soon be revealed.

It remains the British Government’s long-standing policy to oppose the death penalty in all circumstances as a matter of principle, and I hope the Indian Government will re-establish a moratorium on executions in line with the global trend towards the abolition of capital punishment. When I was in Delhi last week, I reiterated the British Government’s position on the death penalty to India’s Foreign Secretary, Ranjan Mathai, the permanent under-secretary equivalent at the Ministry of External Affairs. We will also raise our concerns about the death penalty at the EU-India human rights dialogue, which we hope will take place soon.

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[Mr Spellar]

I am slightly astonished at that.

[Mike Gapes]

Is it not a fact that, when countries have the death penalty—for example, the United States—the British Government must seek an assurance that it would not apply? Otherwise, the courts in this country will never allow anybody to be extradited to countries when there is a risk of the death penalty. The Home Office has had problems over many years in getting people out of this country because of the bad human rights records of many countries around the world.

[Mr Spellar]

I thank my hon. Friend, the previous Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, for that clarification. That is exactly my understanding of the position, and it is useful that he has made it clear.

The Minister said that he raised his concerns with senior officials during his recent visit to India. However, will he clarify the concerns expressed to the Indian authorities by others on that visit and by the Foreign Office elsewhere? Were those concerns raised by the Prime Minister during his visit to India, which included a visit to Amritsar?

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) rightly stated, the number of countries using the death penalty has gone down. As the Minister said, 70% of countries have either formally or in effect renounced the death penalty. The commitment of countries around the world was shown clearly by the vote in the UN on a moratorium. It would be a significant step for India, as a major player on the international scene and the world’s largest democracy, not just to reinstate the moratorium formally, which would be welcome, but to abolish the death penalty. India is poised to play a major role in world affairs in the coming decades and such a move would considerably enhance its authority.

Europe

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Wednesday 30th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I am going to make a bit of progress, because I have not yet exhausted the list of the coalition’s achievements.

First, on banking union, we understood from the start the case for a single supervisory mechanism for the eurozone. We were clear that that we would not participate in it—and we are not participating. We suggested that the European Central Bank would be the best institution to take on this role—and it is taking it on. Crucially, we said we wanted safeguards for the single market—and we got them. The outcome of those negotiations was of fundamental importance, and it is proof that fair arrangements between eurozone and non-eurozone members can be achieved. That is a good precedent for the future, and it is something of a contrast with previous negotiations when the previous Government gave up £7 billion of our rebate for nothing in return.

On the multi-annual financial framework, we approached the November European Council open to reaching agreement. The deal on the table was not good enough, and that is why we could not accept it. We were not alone: the Dutch, the Swedes, the Danes, the Finns and the Germans were all in the same position. We have established a group of 12 like-minded member states to push for urgent action on EU growth, and we have expanded that alliance, which advocates completion of the single market and less regulation. We have secured the first ever exemption of the smallest businesses from new EU proposals from 1 January this year, and we have persuaded the European Commission to review the body of EU legislation to identify existing obligations from which those businesses could be exempted.

As the Prime Minister said last week in Davos, we want Europe to succeed not just as an economic force but as an association of countries with the political will, the values and the voice to make a difference in the world. When that political will is there—

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Foreign Secretary give way?

[Mr Hague]

In a few minutes, given that I have taken a lot of interventions already.

When that political will is there, we can make a decisive difference. That is clear in foreign policy. We have led the way with France on EU policy on Syria, and with France and Germany on sanctions on Iran. The flagship EU anti-piracy operation is hosted not at an EU operational headquarters—something that I have always opposed—but at the UK’s Permanent Joint Headquarters in Northwood.

Those are some of things we have achieved so far. Looking briefly at the months ahead, a number of important issues are on the agenda. The multi-annual financial framework will be discussed again at next month’s Council. We are working closely with all our European partners—

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mike Gapes]

rose—

[Mr Hague]

I will give away again in a few minutes.

We are working closely with all our European partners—those who are like-minded and those who are less so—to achieve a deal that is right for the UK and right for the EU. Our objective for EU spending within that framework remains clear: we want to see spending reduced and we will insist on at worst a real-terms freeze and at best a cut. The UK abatement is not up for negotiation, unlike under the previous Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hague]

I will give way again in a moment, but the hon. Gentleman is a bit far down the queue.

On competitiveness, Britain has great advantages: one of the most competitive corporate tax rates in the world, Europe’s largest venture capital community, tax breaks for early-stage investment, and entrepreneur visas so that the brightest can come to the UK. We want the EU to help its members to succeed in the global race.

[Mike Gapes]

In his long list of achievements, the Foreign Secretary referred to like-minded partners. Will he take this opportunity to welcome the election of the new Czech President, Milos Zeman, who is a strong, fervent pro-European, which means that the Czech Republic now has a pro-European President and that the Government have lost one of their few allies in the former President of the Czech Republic, Mr Klaus?

[Mr Hague]

Of course I congratulate, and the Prime Minister will be congratulating, the new President of the Czech Republic. However, the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic said last week:

“The scepticism of the British public is understandable...British voters’ feeling of remoteness from EU elites in Brussels is right. EU competitiveness is a Czech priority as well.”

So it is interesting to hear from the Czech Republic.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Hendrick]

The right hon. Gentleman knows that none of the money offered by the IMF was used by that Labour Government. It was there as a back-up.

The Conservatives do not want a social Europe, with working time protection, holiday rights and health and safety regulation. The single market is about the free movement of goods, capital, services and labour. The right of workers to move around freely in the European Union is as important as the rights of capital, goods and services to do so. I have always supported the free movement of people whose countries are members of the EU. With the imminent accession of Romania and Bulgaria, we should seek to extend full rights to workers and not object to their having equal freedoms to other Europeans. Some 50% of the Polish people who originally moved to the UK following their country’s accession have now returned, because of the economic condition of our country under the current Government. The rest are making a valuable contribution to the British economy.

We know that every country’s economic fortunes are cyclical. Our economy is bad at present, in part because of the irresponsible policies of the current Government, but it will get better at some time in the future. Therefore, it is important that we continue to take workers from other countries; after all, 2 million Britons work elsewhere in the EU.

[Mike Gapes]

My hon. Friend mentioned people returning to Poland. In part, that is because, as a consequence of Poland’s membership of the EU, its economy has been growing much faster than ours.

[Mark Hendrick]

That is right. Many Poles are returning to Poland with money in their pockets and are growing businesses there. The Poles will be customers for many goods and services produced in this country, so these events are mutually beneficial; there is not one-way traffic in respect of who benefits.

The European Union is not simply a one-way transfer of sovereign powers; it is about pooling sovereignty, so the sovereignty that resides centrally is worth more than the sum of the constituent parts. That gives the European Union power in what is a global economy, so we can ensure that we get the best deals in trade and can project our influence in a world increasingly dominated by economic powerhouses such as the United States and China.

As 50% of our trade is with the EU, exiting the single market would have devastating consequences for our economy. In other areas, such as justice and home affairs, we have had great success; the European arrest warrant is one example of that. When the current Government or a future Government set out their shopping list for renegotiating competences and our relationship with Europe, Labour Members need to put our case for a social Europe and a Europe of security, where justice and home affairs measures play a crucial role in ensuring international co-operation to fight common enemies, such as drug trafficking and terrorism.

My right hon. Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary says this is about arithmetic. That is true, but it is about much more than that. It is about geography, too—after all, Britain is in Europe—and it is about culture and history, because we are a European nation. Let us play our role in strengthening a united Europe for all the peoples of Europe.

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[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Prime Minister’s speech last week was much delayed, much anticipated and over-hyped. It is already clear that the blip in the opinion polls is much less than he had hoped for. I therefore look forward to the internal debate in the Conservative party over the coming two years, and to the Prime Minister continuing to try to appease and assuage the egos of many Conservative Back Benchers.

I want to consider the so-called five principles and aspects of the Prime Minister’s speech. He said that

“we…need to address the sclerotic, ineffective decision making that is holding us back.”

Much of that sclerotic decision making in the EU happens because of unanimity rules. Can we therefore take it that the Prime Minister has called for more qualified majority voting? Conservative Back Benchers are shaking their heads, but Ministers cannot tell us the answer, because they do not know what the negotiating position will be.

Similarly, the Prime Minister questioned whether we can justify an ever-larger Commission, but the Commission gets larger because of EU enlargement and the accession of more member states. If the Prime Minister does not wish the Commission to become larger, the long-standing policy of successive Governments for further European enlargement has presumably been ditched. Alternatively, is the Prime Minister arguing that there should be a limit on the number of commissioners and saying that there might be future circumstances in which there is no British commissioner? We do not know the answer to that question because, again, the Government are unable to tell us.

[Mr Redwood]

Does the hon. Gentleman recollect that the Labour Government sold the pass on the number of commissioners by saying that not every state should have one? Perhaps that was one of the few sensible things they did to drive home the point that the Commission is a European government, not a representative government.

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[Mike Gapes]

Why did the Prime Minister not give more information in his speech rather than putting up the straw man and attacking the EU for increasing the number of commissioners relentlessly, when that is in fact a consequence of our previous enlargement policies?

The Prime Minister said that the European treaty laid the foundations of ever-closer union among the peoples of Europe. It is interesting to note that he did not point out that British Conservative negotiators of the Maastricht treaty insisted on keeping the phrase “ever-closer union” because they deemed the words to be vague and therefore something they could live with.

The Prime Minister made a number of other criticisms, including an assertion referred to by the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman). The right hon. Gentleman said:

“Put simply, many ask ‘why can’t we just have what we voted to join – a common market?’”

I campaigned and voted no in 1975, in my misguided youth. At that time, the Wilson Government, like the previous Heath Government and pro and anti-European campaigners, said the vote was about more than a common market, namely political union and other aspirations for co-operation. Whatever position the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk took in 1975—I do not know whether he was old enough to vote at the time—it is not true that we had a referendum and joined an organisation that was just about trade. It was more than that. I could go on to comment on other aspects of the Prime Minister’s speech, but I will not because of limited time.

It is clear that instead of addressing the economic crisis that confronts the whole of this continent, and the wrong, misguided austerity economics that is creating tens of millions of unemployed people and the immiseration of millions in many European countries, we in this country are now going to have an obsession with the minutiae of a probably unrealisable renegotiation about unrealisable repatriation powers. We need Ministers to go to Brussels and argue, in all the forums of the European Union, for different economic policies. In the meantime, we need Ministers to bring in different domestic economic policies to again achieve growth, prosperity and jobs in this country.

The economic policies we are pursuing here are potentially leading, as we now know, to a triple-dip recession. We have a massive trade imbalance with the European Union, which is partly due to the failures of our domestic policy, but is being compounded by the wrong economic policies being pursued by the austerity programme within the eurozone. As a result, the Government’s British economic strategy—export-led growth to get us out of the situation we are in, presumably capitalising on the benefits of the devaluation of the pound that has been going on for some months—is not getting us the growth we need, partly due to domestic reasons and partly due to problems in the eurozone economy. There is a very good paper by Simon Tilford from the Centre for European Reform—I do not have time to quote it, but I recommend that hon. Members read it—about the problems confronting our country partly because of the wrong policies within the EU’s economies.

We need to have concerted economic plans for recovery in the next five years, not concerted plans to create economic uncertainty and damaging policies that will reduce the amount of inward investment into the UK economy. The Government have taken a dangerous leap in the dark, creating enormous uncertainty for anybody who wishes to plan to invest in this country. They are putting jobs and prosperity in Britain at risk, and in time they will come to regret it at the next general election.

Syria

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Yes, we have very much made that point and my hon. Friend is correct to bring it up. We have made it very clear to the National Coalition that we would expect any future Government of Syria to join and to adhere to the chemical weapons convention and the biological and toxin weapons convention. In all the conversations we have had with the national coalition, its horror of the chemical and biological weapons that all the evidence suggests have been amassed by the Assad regime is very clear. I hope that one thing that will happen in a future Syria will be the destruction and disposal of those weapons.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

The United States has said that there is a red line if the Assad regime uses chemical weapons, but when the Foreign Secretary meets the Secretary of State designate, Senator John Kerry, as I think he will shortly, will he impress on the US that red lines should relate not just to chemical weapon use, but to the other crimes being carried out by the Assad regime?

[Mr Hague]

Yes. Our horror at the prospect of the use of chemical weapons should in no way mitigate or minimise our horror at the brutality across the board of the Assad regime. The United States has so far adopted very similar policies to the ones I set out to the House and is also engaged in the humanitarian relief and the provision of similar types of equipment to the Syrian Opposition. Of course I will discuss this in great detail with Senator Kerry over the coming weeks. Nevertheless, it was quite right that the United States—and we joined them in this—sent a particularly strong message to the regime about the use of chemical weapons. It may be that the communication of such a strong message helped to inhibit the use for now of such weapons, so it is right that we send a particularly powerful message on that.

Commission Work Programme 2013

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Monday 7th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

The way this works, as the right hon. Gentleman will know from when he held my position, is that the Commission, under the treaties, has the right to initiate legislation, but even in the post-Lisbon world, the rotating six-monthly presidency chairs the various sectoral Council meetings and working groups, and has considerable influence in determining the relative priorities given to particular measures. A presidency may choose to try to fast-track a particular measure, and use its diplomatic resources to seek early agreement on it; it may place another measure, about which it cares less, on the back-burner. There is negotiation between the presidency and the Commission in that respect.

The Government have long argued for the Commission to come forward with measures to help boost growth, through agreements with important trading partners, and by strengthening and deepening the single market. I am sure that the House will welcome the news that, last month, the European Union successfully concluded a free trade agreement with Singapore, which will create new opportunities for United Kingdom businesses, particularly in the export of services, green technologies, automotive, electronic and pharmaceutical items, and medical devices. There are also opportunities to bid for public procurement contracts in Singapore.

We will continue to work on many more such agreements. I hope that it will be possible to conclude the proposed EU free trade agreement with Canada in the coming weeks, to open negotiations between the EU and the United States by the summer, and to take forward free trade negotiations with Japan. We will also continue to support efforts to achieve EU free trade agreements with India, Malaysia and other countries.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

On free trade agreements with the United States, does the Minister agree with me and with many commentators that the chances of the European Union getting effective agreement with the United States will be significantly less if the UK is not part of the negotiation, and that it is in the UK’s interests that the European Union is able to negotiate effectively with the United States and other countries, which would not be possible if we were outside?

[Mr Lidington]

I have always taken the view that if the United Kingdom were to walk away from the table, the most ardent and most influential champion for free trade and open markets would be removing itself. I am quite clear in my mind, particularly with the pressures that we can observe globally for protection rather than free trade, that it is important that we continue to bring our influence to bear within the European Union and within other multilateral organisations to promote greater freedom of trade across the world.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Cash]

For the simple reason that we would have achieved the same results had we put in place our own operation through our own legislative system. Furthermore, there are many examples of the European arrest warrant being used to convict innocent people in absentia, including someone in Staffordshire who was recently convicted of a murder that they could not have committed because they were serving in a restaurant in Leek at the time. There might be some advantages to aspects of the co-operative arrangements, of which I am in favour, but that does not mean that the panoply of powers associated with the European arrest warrant is justified.

The Government have expressed reservations about certain proposals, but the key question is: what are they actually able to do about this? We can express reservations and argue against the proposals, but the qualified majority voting system operates in such a way as to prevent us from exercising our much-vaunted influence. I have to say to the Minister and the Government—and through them, I hope, to the Prime Minister in relation to the speech that he is about to make—that if that influence cannot be effective, it is worthless.

I have considered the evidence that has accumulated over the past 40 years since we came into the European Union. I wished you a happy new year earlier, Mr Speaker, but we must also remember that it is the 40th anniversary of our accession to the European Union, through the European Communities Act 1972. This is a time for serious reflection. It is a time not only for mere reform but for a fundamental change in the relationship. There is a disconnect between the legislation that is going through the House, in relation to the implementation of sections 2 and 3 of the Act, and what is being offered to the British people in manifestos.

[Mike Gapes]

The hon. Gentleman talks about a new relationship and mentions a free trade arrangement. Does he accept that, if the United Kingdom were to leave the European Union and simply have a free trade relationship with what would be the remaining 27 states after Croatia had joined, we would be in a similar position to Norway, in that we would have integration without representation? We would have to pay in and comply with the EU rules without having any say on how they were being formulated.

[Mr Cash]

I have great respect for the hon. Gentleman, who has been vociferous on European matters for a long time, albeit on the other side of the agenda from me. He might be interested to know that the Norwegians are now getting restless and using their arrangements within the European economic area to challenge directives. I heard only a few hours ago that that was happening.

[Mike Gapes]

That is just one instance.

[Mr Cash]

Yes, but that one instance demonstrates a principle. For 15 years, I have been advocating that we use the “notwithstanding” formula, and when my party was in opposition, we agreed that we would do so. If we were to use it just once now we are in government, it would send out an appropriate signal. Unfortunately, however, that is not happening. We hear about aspirations and reservations, and that it would be a good idea to change the relationship and to repatriate powers, but I have very little confidence that we will achieve anything when it comes down to it. Even more dangerous is the raising of expectations only to have them dashed by reality. As Churchill said, offering something to the British people but not fulfilling that promise is the best way to ensure that they will no longer trust us.

There are many aspects to this work programme—including a proposal for a European public prosecutor’s office, which I was glad to hear the Minister say we will not accept—but I shall not go into other matters this afternoon because they are so numerous and because others wish to speak. Let me simply make the point that we are now at a threshold and that there is no turning back. Messrs Barroso and van Rompuy, unelected as they are, have thrown down the gauntlet to the British people. They have said, “We are going to have a federal system,” yet it is unthinkable that this country would get involved in federal arrangements, be they in the eurozone or indeed in the European Union as a whole. We must have a clear strategy; we must have a fundamental change in our relationship. What goes with that has to be a return to the British people of the right to determine the legislation that they voted for in general elections. That is the principle on which this House was founded, and that is the principle on which we have to stand.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Tuesday 4th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I gently say to the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash), who has now left the Chamber and for whom I have the highest regard, that it is a courtesy to remain within the Chamber until all exchanges on the question posed have been completed. I feel sure that the hon. Member for Stone is as interested in everybody else’s opinions as he undoubtedly is in his own.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

12. What recent reports he has received on the humanitarian situation in Syria.

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)]

The humanitarian situation in Syria is dire. We have provided £53.5 million of assistance so far and are urging others to increase donations to the UN appeal.

[Mike Gapes]

Forty thousand dead, 2.5 million internally displaced, 200,000 refugees and, yesterday, more people killed in Syria by the Ba’athist regime than were killed in the whole of the Gaza conflict. President Obama has talked about “serious consequences” if Assad uses chemical weapons. Why are there no serious consequences already from the international community about what is going on in Syria, and what does President Obama mean by “serious consequences”?

[Mr Hague]

The hon. Gentleman is familiar with the policy we have pursued towards Syria. There is no military solution in Syria; we are seeking a peaceful, political and diplomatic solution. We continue to do that, while recognising the new national coalition of the opposition, giving it increased but non-lethal assistance and delivering humanitarian aid on the scale I have described. I want to reiterate what President Obama has said—that any use of chemical or biological weapons would be even more abhorrent than anything we have seen so far. We have made it clear that this would draw a serious response from the international community. We have made that very clear to representatives of the Syrian regime and have said that we would seek to hold them responsible for such actions.