Imprisonment of Catalan Leaders

Peter Grant Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

The legal framework of Spain is a matter for Spain. Its courts, as I said earlier, are open and transparent. Spain has a robust legal infrastructure that allows for right of appeal, and we support its infrastructure.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

Gràcies—thank you—Madam Deputy Speaker. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) for securing this urgent question.

It is all very well for the Minister to hide behind the constitutionality of what has been done, but could I gently remind him that some of the most unspeakable acts of evil that Europe saw in the 20th century, and that the United States and South Africa have seen, were constitutional and legal? Being constitutional does not make something either legally or morally defensible.

Many of these people are our equivalents. They are Members of Parliament, they are Government Ministers, they are the Speaker of the Catalan Parliament, whose only offence was to seek to implement the mandate they had been given by their people in a free, fair and democratic election. The question is not whether we think that Catalonia should or should not be independent; it is whether we, as parliamentarians, are prepared to stand up and defend the right of parliamentarians across the world to say things that Governments do not like and to implement the policies that their people have put them there to implement without fear of arrest and imprisonment.

Any political system—any constitution—that allows parliamentarians to be arrested for being parliamentarians is a constitution that is not fit for purpose and that needs urgent change. In the case of the constitution of Spain and of Catalonia, the only legitimate vehicle for that constitution to change is through the ballot box. While it is not for us to decide the future of Catalonia, as it is for nobody other than the people of Catalonia to decide that, I stand with the people of Catalonia—estic amb Catalunya—in their right to determine their own future and to do so in a free, fair and democratic process.

Does the Minister agree that the right of self-determination and the right to freedom of assembly are fundamental to the concept of modern human rights? Does he accept that sending armed police to break up peaceful demonstrations sets the wrong tone and is likely to inflame the situation rather than to encourage peaceful and legal dialogue? Will he even attempt to persuade the Government of Spain that the way to resolve this crisis is through the democratic political process and not through the criminal justice system? What conversations has he had with his Spanish counterpart, and with his counterparts throughout the rest of the European Union, to remind them that the founding principle of the European Union is that all peoples have the right of self-determination and that any state that impinges on those rights through the use of force should not be supported by this or any other democratic Government?

[Christopher Pincher]

The question of whether the referendum in Catalonia was legal is quite clear: it was not legal. It was marked down by the Spanish courts who said that it was illegal. The MPs who decided to use public funds for that illegal referendum knew what they were doing. They knew that they should not have done it. They knew that they were breaking the law. Therefore, they must accept that the law will be done.

In terms of the rights of people to assemble, the rights of people to protest and the way in which police action has occurred in Catalonia, as the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) said, I would encourage great care to be taken in the policing of these events. We, in our own country, know how very important it is to allow people to protest peaceably and then to encourage them to disperse in a similar way, so I would certainly encourage our Spanish friends to do that.

Have I had conversations with the Spanish Government and with the Spanish authorities here? Yes, I have discussed diplomatically with the Spanish ambassador the likely outcome of the court action that we heard of yesterday, and I shall be talking to him again, I am sure, in the next weeks or months.

US Troop Withdrawal from Northern Syria

Peter Grant Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

There is some sunshine in this terrible situation, and that is the establishment of the constitutional committee and the work of the special envoy, Geir Pedersen. It is important that when that committee is set up at the end of this month in Geneva, it includes comprehensive representation. That is clearly an issue in relation to what is currently happening in the Idlib governorate and the north-west of the country. Nevertheless, I agree with the hon. Lady on the importance of the involvement of women; my experience is that when that happens, better outcomes are procured. I hope very much that the committee will include proper representation.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

It is now just under four years since this House agreed to UK airstrikes in Syria, and it is worth reminding ourselves that, first of all, we were assured that that was part of a strategy that was expected to restore civilian transitional Government to Syria in about six months. The Foreign Secretary who gave that assurance is now Prime Minister, so he is in a position to do something about it, but the success of the airstrikes against an organisation that was accepted to be a grave threat to our lives and to our security could only be achieved because of the involvement of Kurdish soldiers on the ground. Those Kurds have paid a terrible price: around 11,000 of them lost their lives and several times that number were seriously injured. They died not only to protect their territory, but so that British troops did not have to die protecting our way of life. Will the Minister accept that the very least we can do in recognition of the debt we owe to the Kurdish soldiers is to give an assurance that we will not stand back and let things happen to them if we could prevent it?

[Dr Murrison]

I think I can give an assurance that the Government will do everything they can to resolve the situation. The hon. Gentleman would expect me to say that, as a Minister in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, I put my faith principally in diplomacy, which is what we are trying to roll out in relation to this situation. It is not pretty—it is messy, it is dirty, it is complicated, and it is sometimes very difficult to plot a sensible way forward, particularly as we are buffeted by events, but we will be quite clear that this is principally a fight against Daesh; it is a fight that we share with our Kurdish friends and allies, and we are shoulder to shoulder with them. We do not let people down, but we are also, I have to say, the victim of perhaps being rather less powerful than once we were in traditional terms, and we must be realistic about what we individually can achieve. What is undiminished is our ability, very often, to exert diplomacy for maximum effect. I like to think that we are extremely good at that, and we will deploy it, so far as we possibly can, in relation to this situation.

Sanctions Policy and Implementation

Peter Grant Excerpts

Thursday 3rd October 2019 Westminster Hall

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I did not expect to be called to sum up so soon. I will try to stick to the seven-hour limit that the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat), indicated. I congratulate him and his colleagues on the Committee on a couple of very thorough reports. I know that they are only two of a large number of detailed inquiries that they have undertaken, which have involved a lot of work from him, his colleagues and the Clerks and others who support the Committee—we should never forget how important their work is.

I will make a few general comments. When we are talking about sanctions, we should ask ourselves what they are for and why they are there. There are two kinds of sanctions: first, those that are imposed usually on countries or Governments because they are behaving in a way that we find unacceptable and secondly, those that we impose on individuals usually because they have been identified as a significant threat to the financial and economic stability of the United Kingdom or to the safety and security of our citizens.

It will come as no surprise to hear that I am not always happy about the decisions that the UK Government take about which countries are subject to sanctions and which are not, but that is a topic for a different debate. The principle should be that, if we know that a country is acting in breach of international law, we must use all the levers that we have. That certainly includes diplomatic influence, but we also have to be prepared to use financial and economic levers, if necessary, to bring even supposedly friendly countries into line. Sometimes we are too slow to exert financial pressure on countries that are designated as our friends, as opposed to those that are designated as neutral or potentially unfriendly.

When it comes to sanctions against individuals, the principle should always be that those who are involved in systematic human rights abuses or international crime, or those who are actively seeking to undermine democracy in their own country or anywhere else, will simply not be welcome, no matter how much money they are prepared to invest in our financial institutions or to pay the Government to buy their way in.

It is a sad irony, but a salutary lesson, that the first person to be stripped of substantial amounts of money about a year ago—a Russian lady or a partner of a known Russian individual—was here only because she had enough money to fast-track the UK immigration system. The rules allow people to come in with a substantial amount of money, because that is deemed to be of economic benefit, so she was able to come in more quickly than if she had not had billions of pounds with her. When it turned out that the source of those billions of pounds was extremely dodgy, enforcement action had to be taken.

That is a salutary lesson that when we look to make people welcome because of assets they bring with them, we have to be very careful—before we make them welcome—about where those assets have come from. And if there is a question about that, it is much better for to say, “I’m sorry. You wait outside until we are sure that it’s acceptable to let you come in.”

I will raise another issue that I know is not strictly covered within these reports and that is not strictly within the remit of the Foreign Affairs Committee. As the hon. Gentleman pointed out, sometimes the demarcations between Government Departments do not work particularly well, because criminals and those who wish us harm do not stick to attacking the functions of one Government Department, and sometimes a cross-Government approach is needed.

I do not think that there is enough recognition yet that one of the features of global capitalism is that the financial markets can be very deliberately manipulated by people who have at their control assets bigger than those of most countries in the world. Those financial markets can sometimes be deliberately manipulated for no other purpose than to wreck the economy of one or more countries because people have hedged financial bets on those countries being damaged.

We have certainly seen that happen in the past; it is the reason why a number of countries in Latin America had severe economic crashes in the past. I think that we would be naive to think that somebody is not looking at the United Kingdom right now and preparing to hedge the financial markets, effectively betting on the UK economy crashing. And if those people are also in a position to wield influence that makes it more likely that the economy will go down, then we have a very serious problem. So, although it is not within the strict remit of the hon. Gentleman’s Committee, I think it is an indication that when we start to look at the malign influence of Russian money in the City of London, eventually we have to start looking at the malign influence of other people’s money in the City of London, too.

My final comment is about when we leave the European Union. I thought it was very interesting that the sanctions report pointed out that effectively the Foreign Office—along with, I think, the rest of the Government—catastrophically underestimated how much very detailed technical work had to be done. It was not simply a case of, “We leave tomorrow, and we have a customs deal the next day, and everything’s fine.” Work that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office should have been doing to protect us from malign influences was not able to be done as quickly as it should have been, because the FCO had so many other things going on. Okay, that is a case of being wise after the event, but this issue should still concern us.

When we leave the European Union, there will be a question as to whether it will ever be credible or effective to have an entirely independent sanctions policy, because although the United Kingdom is—what?—the sixth or seventh biggest economy in the world, depending on how it is measured, if it imposes sanctions and nobody else does, those sanctions will not work. And if the other big players—the USA and the European Union—impose sanctions and we do not, we would then be in serious danger of falling victim to secondary sanctions, because if we do not stop our trade with sanctioned countries, the European Union or the United States of America will sooner or later start considering whether they should continue to trade with us.

So, although we have been part of a framework and any sanctions were imposed on an EU-wide basis, in practice we will have to keep talking to our European colleagues, even if and when we leave the European Union. That is because sanctions, and probably international sanctions, can effectively protect the unique institutions of the City of London, only if they are applied not only by the United Kingdom but by other major players as well.

I welcome the publication of these two reports. The timing of this debate is unfortunate, and in other circumstances we would have had a much greater attendance. I do not think there is a lack of interest in this subject; I think there is a great deal of interest. It is just that there are so many other demands on Members’ time just now. I hope that the Chair of the Committee will take back—on behalf of myself and indeed the whole House—our thanks, not only to his colleagues on the Committee but to all the Clerks and other staff who have helped to get these reports published.

Situation in the Gulf

Peter Grant Excerpts

Monday 22nd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I might be straying slightly from my brief as Foreign Secretary, but it will not surprise my hon. Friend to know that I support increased spending on our armed forces. We have to recognise that we had in many ways a golden period after the fall of the Berlin wall, when there was a peace dividend and we were able to reduce defence spending, but now we have to recognise that there are increased dangers in the world, both in the middle east and because Russia has become much more aggressive. I think that the Navy in particular has become too small, so I hope that whoever the next Prime Minister is will reflect carefully on what we can do to bolster our great Royal Navy.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

The United Kingdom is home to somewhere between 50,000 and 70,000 Iranian nationals and their immediate families, many of whom are here because of their opposition to either the current regime or its equally oppressive predecessors. In the current climate of extreme intolerance, what are the Government doing to ensure that those Iranian nationals, who are here legally and are innocent of any crime, are not victimised or targeted because of the crimes committed by the Government that they have escaped from?

[Mr Hunt]

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will let us and particularly the Home Office and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government know if he comes across any examples of that, because those Iranian nationals—the vast majority of them have now become British citizens—are extremely welcome and make a tremendous contribution to our country.

Jewish Refugees from the Middle East and North Africa

Peter Grant Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I am pleased to be able to contribute to this debate. I commend the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) for securing it. I also commend her not only for the content of her speech, but for the tone in which she delivered it.

In 2010, I had the great privilege of being present when Kate Adie was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of St Andrews. In her doctoral address, she surprised a lot of the media studies students in the hall by telling them that if they wanted to follow her career path—possibly with fewer attempts on their life than she had experienced—they should not do a degree in media studies but a degree in history. Her logic was very simple. She said, “How can you possibly hope to explain to people back home what is happening in a faraway country today if you don’t understand what happened in that country, and to it, in the past?” This debate, and particularly the opening speech by the right hon. Lady, has brought that comment home again, because it seems to me that too many people who speak very forcefully about what should happen to solve the problems in the middle east are either unaware of its history or—perhaps even worse—only aware of part of that history.

When we look at the recent history of Israel and of the Jewish people, it is very easy to be overwhelmed by the scale and the horror of what happened in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, and to lose sight of the fact that at any other time what was happening to Jews in other parts of the world would have been seen as a catastrophe on a global scale. That is because 850,000 people were forced out of the only homes they had ever known—homes that they could demonstrate their families had lived in for hundreds, and possibly even thousands, of years. An unknown number of people were killed—certainly hundreds, but probably thousands. By today’s standards, that was ethnic cleansing. Indeed, I would argue that by today’s standards that was a genocide and it deserves to be recognised as such. And those people who fled for their lives to try to escape from that genocide should be recognised as refugees, just as those people who are currently fleeing from Yemen, Syria and other conflict areas should be recognised, and looked after, as refugees.

One of the sad things in any conflict is that civilians always lose; they are always the ones who become refugees. And it is unusual for there to be an armed conflict where there is only one group of refugees; we almost always find that there are refugees from both sides. As the right hon. Lady forcefully reminded us, and as others have commented on, two entire populations of refugees were created as a result of the conflict in the middle east in the 1940s and 1950s. Both those populations deserve equal recognition; the members of those populations all had equal rights and they all suffered appalling losses and appalling treatment. All of their stories deserve to be heard and remembered.

As well as looking at what we need to do now to try, as far as possible, to restore the rights of all those who were persecuted in the past, we also need to look at what we should be doing differently now to stop such persecution from happening again. I liked the comment earlier that hatred against the Jews does not stop with the Jews, and eventually becomes hatred of somebody else. I think that is a lesson that we take too long to learn. When we allow hatred and persecution of any minority in a society to become normalised, that hatred and persecution very quickly spreads to a different minority, whether that minority is based on religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation or any other characteristic.

If we tolerate and allow people to demean, dehumanise and vilify anyone else because of their religion, colour or nationality, we are allowing the start of another process of persecution against a minority at some point. In welcoming today’s debate, and associating myself with a huge amount of what the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet said in her opening comments, I desperately hope that in 50 years’ time, there will not be some Parliament somewhere talking about a massive persecution against a population of refugees that happened because we did not do enough to stop it from happening in our world today.

Hong Kong

Peter Grant Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his question and I broadly agree with what has been said. I hope that the work of democracy and diplomacy will ensure that we are able to do our best not only to push back but to advise and express our deep concerns. We have only to look at the recent six-monthly reports to recognise the increasing buzz of concern on our side and indeed from many in Hong Kong in relation to this matter. In particular, the extradition treaty has engaged many in the business community, many of whom have felt broadly positive over the past 22 years. One of the messages we put to our counterparts in Beijing is that a strong Hong Kong is required for their own plans, whether on the belt and road or other economic initiatives, to be fully successful. Hong Kong’s unique legal system provides an opportunity for substantial capital markets. The great success of Hong Kong therefore relies on its high degree of autonomy being maintained.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) on securing this urgent question and I thank you for granting it, Mr Speaker.

Anyone who saw last week’s remarkable documentary by Kate Adie to mark the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre will not need to be reminded what respect for human rights means to the Government of China. Although people will say that China has moved on since then, it has not moved on enough even to admit that Tiananmen Square happened, never mind to apologise to the relatives of all those who were killed. Most people in China do not know that the weekend’s protests in Hong Kong happened because the Chinese Government made absolutely sure that they were not allowed to know about them. That is the extent of the ongoing repression of human rights in China and we should all be concerned that a similar repression of human rights will start to be inflicted on the people of Hong Kong as well.

Normally, under an extradition treaty, a person cannot be extradited for an offence that is not a crime in the country they would be extradited from. That will not apply in these circumstances, however, because China will not respect the terms of any treaty with Hong Kong. Also, a person cannot normally be extradited to a country where they would not get a fair trial, but does anyone seriously believe that that protection would be respected for anyone in Hong Kong? I welcome some of the assurances that the Minister has given, but will he say a bit more about what action the United Kingdom is taking just now—through the United Nations, for example—to ensure that all possible international diplomatic pressure is brought to bear, not just in Hong Kong but, more importantly, in China to ensure that this law never becomes effective? Also, given that China is one of the countries that we are supposed to be looking keenly towards for a trade deal, may we have an assurance that in no circumstances will the prospect of a trade deal allow the voice of the United Kingdom and our allies in Europe to be silenced when it comes to speaking up in defence of the rights of people to whom the United Kingdom continues to owe a legal and moral responsibility?

[Mark Field]

I thank the hon. Gentleman from the Scottish National party for his comments and I will try to answer his questions. It is obviously not my place as a Minister in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to comment on the specifics of trade deals other than to say that we will continue relentlessly to express any concerns about human rights with any country with which we are looking to strike a trade deal. That said, this is a particular circumstance because of the nature of the joint declaration. The hon. Gentleman rightly suggested that that document, which was signed by China and the United Kingdom in 1984, is now lodged with the United Nations and that is clearly one mechanism by which we could try to stand up for its terms. Back in 2016, there was a particular episode in which we thought the joint declaration was being abused and, if we feel that we are not getting the changes we are looking for on this extradition law, we will use whatever means we can.

The Hong Kong Government released a statement at 11 o’clock last night, Hong Kong time, noting the people’s right to freedom of expression and assembly, but insisting that the Bill would continue to its Second Reading on Wednesday. Chief Executive Carrie Lam reiterated that message on television this morning, again Hong Kong time, and we are obviously looking to try to ensure that the safeguards put in place over the next two or three days are as watertight as possible. However, this is an ongoing discussion and I hope the hon. Gentleman will recognise that we want to leave all our options open.

China: UK policy

Peter Grant Excerpts

Tuesday 7th May 2019 Westminster Hall

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I am pleased to have the chance to speak in this debate. China is the biggest country in the world—even with a properly scaled map, it is difficult to understand its scale—with a population twenty times bigger than the UK’s, and a land area two and a half times bigger than the whole of Europe. China is on its way to becoming the biggest economy in the world. Its potential as a partner for trade, cultural and educational exchanges is clearly enormous and the Government should rightly seek to explore such links.

As we have heard from a number of hon. Members, there is another, much darker, side to China that must be considered at the same time as potential deals, not just as an afterthought. China continues to operate one of the most authoritarian regimes in the world. For the majority of its vast population, the rights to express opinions, to participate in the democratic process, to read and write what they want, to believe what they want and to practise those beliefs, are at best severely curtailed and, all too often, completely absent.

A couple of hon. Members have spoken passionately and knowledgably about the persecution of religious minorities. Some of those minorities represent 1 million, 2 million or 3 million people. We are talking about the rights of a huge number of people. The Foreign Affairs Committee recently reported that credible evidence shows that over 1 million people have been held in detention camps in Xinjiang province simply because of their Muslim faith. They are not a danger to anybody, they are not criminals or terrorists, and they have not done anything wrong; all they have done is believe in something and seek to live in accordance with that. As the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) so eloquently expressed, Christian communities in China very often meet with the same persecution, as do other religious minorities.

The response of the Chinese authorities is similar to responses to such atrocities elsewhere. First, they deny that detention and persecution is happening. Then they say that although there may be some harsh treatment, it is reserved for people who are a danger to national security. Finally, they say that what happens to human rights in China is China’s business and nobody else’s.

We simply cannot give any credence to that assertion. Will the Minister give an assurance that China will not be allowed to put up a border against international and universal human rights? We have human rights because we are human, and it would be a denial of the universality of human rights if we allowed the prospect of trade deals or inward investment to silence criticism of China, or any country that shows such contempt on such a huge scale for what should be international norms of behaviour.

There are also concerns about the degree to which China does or does not respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other countries, including those nearby. As we have heard, we must remember that China’s history with other countries has not been happy. For an awful lot of the past 200 or 300 years, China’s experience has been one of other countries oppressing its people, who retain, unsurprisingly, a significant degree of suspicion and wariness of anyone who introduces ideas that differ from traditional Chinese culture and beliefs. However, China cannot be allowed to trample on the rights of its own citizens, or those of other countries, under the guise of protecting itself from external threats.

A potential downside to the rapid advancement of China’s home-grown technology industries is that it is now easily capable of causing significant harm to others, including the United Kingdom, should it wish to do so. We are not allowed to know how serious that risk is—apparently, we are not even allowed to know whether the National Security Council has considered it—but the United States has concerns, as do a number of other traditional friends and allies of the United Kingdom. Will the Minister confirm that those concerns will not simply be swept away or sacrificed at the altar of a preferential trade deal?

The belt and road initiative has been mentioned. Although there is no doubt that it could provide a way for the wealth generated by China’s economic resurgence to be more fairly distributed, we need to ensure that it is not used simply to make China’s neighbours more excessively reliant on China, to the extent that they almost become satellites or colonies. I am aware that this Parliament has not always had a proud story to tell in the history of colonialism, but it would not be in China’s long-term interests for its neighbours to become so reliant that they almost cease to exist in their own right.

Just over a month ago, the Foreign Affairs Committee published a thorough and worrying report that set out a number of concerns that need to be addressed when setting out our future relationship with China: the retrenchment of power in the hands of a small number of Communist party leaders, the persecution of religious minorities, the oppression of political opponents, the undermining of the international rules-based order, and the potential threat to the UK’s interests and security. Those concerns are important and must be kept in mind by those negotiating on our behalf.

The Government were very quick to surround themselves with red lines before beginning the Brexit negotiations. The Foreign Affairs Committee has, in effect, asked for some red lines to be set in our relationship with China. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to those. Above all, we cannot allow the Government’s desperation to land a trade deal with a major economic power to blind us to the substantial risks—both to us and to our way of life—if the wrong deal is agreed in haste and repented at leisure.

Exiting the European Union (Sanctions)

Peter Grant Excerpts

Monday 29th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman]

I was about to move on to Zimbabwe, Madam Deputy Speaker, so I am sure I can satisfy you.

On Zimbabwe, we have only limited sanctions that relate only to President Mugabe and the defence industries. The purpose of the sanctions is to improve the human rights situation in Zimbabwe, but how can they possibly be effective, given that Zimbabwe has a new Government? How can sanctions on a previous regime conceivably affect the new regime? That new regime has been described by some Zimbabweans as a new driver in an old taxi. The situation does not quite make sense.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

The hon. Lady may be aware that some of those widely believed to be responsible for human rights violations in Zimbabwe under the previous President are still closely associated with the new Government. Does she agree that if there is evidence that any of those individuals have committed serious violations of the human rights of UK citizens, who have been forced to flee Zimbabwe and come back to the UK as a result, they should also be subjected to sanctions, and that those sanctions should apply until such a time as the UK citizens have been given proper compensation through the courts?

[Helen Goodman]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. There has been a brutal crackdown on protests, with 2,354 violations of human rights, including 17 deaths and 17 rapes. I hope that the Minister will take that into account and tell us what precisely the Government will do to achieve change. I also want to know whether the Government’s policy on sanctions is being co-ordinated with the policy being run by the Department for International Development to tackle the drought. Obviously, one of the problems with sanctions is that, when we have sanctions against a country, delivering aid can sometimes be quite tricky, as knowing which transactions can pass through and which cannot can be complicated.

I do not know whether, as well as discussing the sanctions with the European Union, the Minister has been co-ordinating with the African Union. The current position is that Zimbabwe will not be allowed to rejoin the Commonwealth until it improves its human rights record, but will the Minister please tell us the co-ordination mechanism with the African Union?

That brings me to my final general point, which I also raised in our last debate on sanctions. How will we co-ordinate with the European Union after we have left? Everybody in this House fully understands that just one country’s sanctions cannot be effective. This only works when we have co-ordination internationally. Sometimes that co-ordination is at the UN level and sometimes, as in the case of these regimes, it is at the European level, but the Minister has not as yet been able to tell us what co-ordination mechanisms the Government are planning post Brexit. It would be interesting to know from him what he envisages, both in the scenario of leaving with a deal and in the case of leaving without a deal.

Saudi Arabia: Mass Executions

Peter Grant Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to raise this point. As a Government, we tend to attend internationally important trials in all countries, where of course it is permitted by the host Government. We have been denied access to trials in certain circumstances in Saudi Arabia. I think that defending human rights activists and NGOs is very important. To that end, our embassy is very active, and some of its engagement with the Government may not be popular with them, but that is what our embassies should be doing. They are defending justice, decency and human rights, and that is what our foreign policy is designed to do.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

These men could not have been convicted in any court worthy of the name, because a conviction that relies on evidence obtained through torture is no conviction. In the eyes of any law, these men were innocent: they were not executed; they were murdered for dissenting from the policies of the dictatorship that runs the country.

The Minister has listed a lot of things the Government have done previously that have made no difference. If anything, Saudi Arabia is going in the wrong direction. He has ruled out a fundamental rethink of our relationship with Saudi Arabia, and he has ruled out a fundamental rethink of our multibillion-pound arms trade with Saudi Arabia. Will the Minister tell us what else is left that the Government have not already tried, and which has failed to persuade these people that the regime does not belong in the 21st century?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

First, we do have to be certain about establishing the facts in these cases. I know that a lot of suggestions have been made about many things that may have happened with the 37, but before we speak with the authority of Government, we do very much feel obliged to establish all the facts first and to engage with the Saudi Government in doing so. On what can be done, I again go back to the point about growing international pressure. I hope that, by acting in concert with other countries, we can, perhaps on the back of these executions, make a difference to future policy and behaviour in the kingdom.

Exiting the European Union (Sanctions)

Peter Grant Excerpts

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I am pleased to have the opportunity to contribute to the debate. I support all the motions, because it is important that the sanctions that have been in place through the good offices of the European Union continue, at least in the immediate future. It would be a serious mistake for there to be seen to be any weakening of the United Kingdom’s commitment to use its economic powers to encourage, persuade and, if need be, apply intense pressure to Governments overseas to comply with the simple, basic principles of human rights.

Obviously, we would much prefer these decisions to continue to be made in full partnership with the European Union. Even if we reach a stage when they are not, in practice it will be very difficult for the United Kingdom to depart significantly from the policies pursued by the EU. If we try to impose sanctions that it does not impose, all that will happen is that the trade will be displaced to the much bigger economic power that is the EU. It is clear that if we do not adopt sanctions that significantly depart from those applied by either the EU or any other major economic power, there will be a danger that we ourselves will be sanctioned, having been accused of sanctions-busting. Notwithstanding the triumphalism about the fact that we can now have our own independent sanctions regime, the reality is that sanctions regimes must be co-ordinated by a wide range of countries and economic entities, because otherwise they simply will not work.

Before I deal with the specifics, let me say that the general principle that we would adopt is that sanctions should be targeted at the cause of the problem, and not at the victims. They should be targeted at senior figures in Governments, in the military and in corrupt businesses. People who are making money out of human rights abuses should find it extremely difficult to gain the benefits of that money. We therefore support the principles of asset-freezing, travel bans and bans from participating in contracts with UK businesses. We should target sanctions at those who cause the problems, while, as far as possible, trying to avoid making the plight of people in these countries even worse than it already is.

Let me deal first with Burma/Myanmar. There has clearly been an extremely disappointing change from what we all expected. During those heady days when Aung San Suu Kyi was released from prison, it looked as if the country would be able to retake its place as a democratic society, but since then it has all gone horribly wrong. In particular, the persecution of the Rohingya makes it clear that significant groups in Myanmar’s population are simply not recognised as citizens, and denial of citizenship effectively means denial of humanity. I know that I am not the only one who was seriously disappointed by the President’s complete failure to take any action, and her apparent inability, or unwillingness, to clamp down on what has properly been described as a genocide committed by her armed forces against her own people.

In Venezuela, we are also seeing a serious and worrying deterioration in standards of democracy, and the unwillingness of the rulers—whether recognised or not—to uphold the rule of law and principles of human rights. We support the fact that the sanctions will target arms sales as well as individuals who are known to be personally responsible for the most serious violations of human rights. However, we cannot support the heavy-handed United States-style sanctions which appear to have been designed to punish people simply for being Venezuelans. I find it hard to avoid the suspicion that they are Trump’s revenge on the people of Venezuela for exercising their democratic right to choose a Government who happen to be openly critical of the United States. It is important for us to recognise the rights of people in other countries to choose their own Governments, even if we disagree with them.

It must be said that it has not been among the finest moments of this Government when Members have openly cheered with delight the news that people in Venezuela have been facing starvation, simply because that starvation has been caused by failed policies that could then be thrown back at the Leader of the Opposition. To make cheap political points out of human misery—

[Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)]

Can the hon. Gentleman give an example of anyone in this House “cheering with delight” when people in Venezuela are starving? Let him give me one example. That was an outrageous comment.

[Peter Grant]

I shall be happy to get back to the hon. Gentleman, but if he is saying that there has never been a time when a Conservative Front Bencher has made fun of the Leader of the Opposition for the failure of the Chávez economic project and been met by cheers from Conservative Members, all that he needs to do is check the record. I am happy to do it for him if he cannot be bothered to do it himself.

[Mark Pritchard]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. An accusation—a very serious accusation—has been made by the hon. Gentleman about the Government Front Bench, and, indeed, about Conservative Back Benchers: that we have gloated at the suffering of the people of Venezuela. If he is going to make such a statement—an outrageous statement—he should at least back it up with evidence, or withdraw it.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

I think that the hon. Gentleman has made the point that he wished to make.

[Peter Grant]

rose—

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I refer the hon. Gentleman, courteously but firmly, to the speech I made at Chatham House outlining what I believe to have been the real reasons over the past 30 years for the collapse of the Venezuelan economy. It was an attempt to be as impartial and intellectual as possible. I think that he should withdraw the suggestion that we have no concern for the people of Venezuela, as that is what motivates our entire policy, which I am pleased to say is very much a cross-party policy, and it is one that he should support rather than criticise.

[Peter Grant]

I stand absolutely by my statement that there have been occasions in this House when Members on the Government Benches have used the failure of the economic policies of the Chávez Government as a direct jibe against the Leader of the Opposition, and those comments have been welcomed on the Conservative Benches. [Interruption.] I will now move on.

[Sir Hugo Swire]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman may well wish to move on, but he has just changed what he originally said. Can you inform the House how we can stop the Scottish National party making these wild accusations and get the hon. Gentleman either to substantiate his wild claims or to apologise to the House?

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

The right hon. Gentleman has put forward his view and corrected the statement. The fact is that it is up the hon. Gentleman to decide whether to withdraw the comment; he has chosen not to and he wishes to carry on.

[Peter Grant]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will move on to the plight of Guinea-Bissau, which we have heard described as one of the world’s poorest countries. It is not actually a poor country. If we look at the value of drugs trafficked through that country each year, we see that the GDP per person is massive. Unfortunately, that money comes from a trade that causes havoc and distress everywhere else. Guinea-Bissau is ranked 178th out of 188 countries according to the UN human development scale, making it one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world. The average male life expectancy is now just 47 years, in a country that was once seen as a beacon for the future of African development. It has been beset by attempted military coup after attempted military coup; almost no Head of Government has held office for more than a few years before being removed, sometimes forcibly.

The European Union, with the United Kingdom’s support, has made strenuous and sustained attempts to help Guinea-Bissau sort out its economic and governance problems, but all too often those efforts have had to be abandoned because it was simply not possible to ensure that aid was going to the correct people and places, because governance had collapsed to such a degree. That is particularly tragic for a country that is already one of the poorest in the world. It is impossible to apply sanctions that do not have some knock-on effect on citizens, but we have to support the imposition and continuation of those sanctions. The sanctions themselves are not enough. They are a necessary part of what has to be a much more concerted and ongoing attempt to give the 2 million people living in Guinea-Bissau at least a decent standard of living. In the 21st century, we do not want to see life expectancy continue to be just 47 years.

I fully support many of the comments that have been made about Iran. Not that long ago, there seemed to be grounds for optimism. It looked as through that country was moving towards greater openness and democracy, with participation by all citizens, but over the past few years the situation has gone backwards very severely indeed. Iran has now gone back to the old days on human rights abuses, some of which have just been catalogued for us. We know of the desperate plight of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has now been in prison in Iran for a number of years, and her treatment there has been utterly shocking. We can only guess at the plight of who knows how many other Iranian citizens who do not have Members of Parliament or Government Ministers, either here or elsewhere, to speak on their behalf. It is worth remembering, however, that until the 1970s Iran had a brutal dictator with whom the United Kingdom was quite happy to trade.

I want to finish by saying that although we support the use of economic sanctions in these countries, there are other countries with similarly appalling human rights records but for which to date there has been no suggestion that sanctions will be applied. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) can chunter away from a sedentary position, but I am not making a party political point, because this has been a characteristic of successive Governments of all parties. Saudi Arabia has the death penalty for homo- sexuality, yet the United Kingdom trades arms with that country. Israel, according to the UK Government, is in breach of international law, yet there is no proposal for sanctions against the Government of Israel.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. These other countries are not part of the debate. I have allowed the debate to be opened up a little, but I cannot allow us to go on a world tour.

[Peter Grant]

I conclude simply by saying that we support the continued imposition of economic sanctions against those countries that would oppress their citizens and deny basic human rights to the citizens of Myanmar, Venezuela, Guinea-Bissau and Iran. We would also like to see the UK Government applying similar sanctions and restrictions on those who oppress their citizens in other countries with which the United Kingdom seems quite happy to trade arms by the billion.