Counter-Daesh Update

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

It is vital, for all the people of Iraq and Syria, that we get as much stability as possible. It is incredibly important that we work with the Kurds and the Iraqis to ensure that, where there are differences, they are sorted out or negotiated. Indeed, we should work with both Turkey and Kurdish forces to make sure that they both accommodate each other and that they understand there is often a common need for them to work together, or certainly that it is in their common interest to defeat Daesh and al-Qaeda.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

I, too, am grateful to the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. Like him, I would like to put on record our condolences to the family, friends and colleagues in uniform of the late Lance Corporal Brodie Gillon. He is right to say that she was identified as having had a stunning career so far, and it is sad that her best days in that career will no longer be realised.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to ask a few questions, if I may. First, is it the Government’s intention, at some point after the recess, to lay before the House an updated threat assessment, following the statement that the Secretary of State came to give in January, after the drone strike by the United States that killed General Qasem Soleimani?

On cyber-recruitment, which has affected my own constituency, and Daesh funding, I appreciate that this setting is not the place for it, but, similarly, can we get a bit more information for the House—I am not sure, but perhaps through the Defence Committee—on exactly what the Government are doing to tackle online recruitment and to strangle off the funding mechanisms that keep them going? The whole House will be concerned to hear what the Secretary of State had to say about attacks on diplomatic personnel and diplomatic infrastructure. Again, at some point, it would be useful to get more information on that.

More broadly, on Syria, which of course continues to break all our hearts when we see the ongoing war there, I have asked the Government previously why they have not taken action to remove British citizenship from the first lady of Syria and members of the Assad family, some of whom are living here in the city of London. I know the Secretary of the State will get up at the Dispatch Box and say he cannot discuss individual cases—that is entirely right—but can he at least tell us if, within the Government, serious consideration has been given to removing their British citizenship? I appreciate that that is not always simple, because sometimes having that citizenship can give us a judicial angle to pursue them in the courts.

Lastly—this is a more broad question—are we to take it that the integrated review is now fully back up and running, and when can we expect its publication?

[Mr Wallace]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I am happy to publish, probably in the autumn, a threat assessment—I will probably put it out as a written ministerial statement in the Library—to give him an update. If that is all right, I will do it for Iraq and the region as well, because I think it is in everyone’s interests to get a sense of the threat that our allies, and also our troops, face.

On cyber and recruitment, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. This is the age when a terrorist in Syria can reach out to his constituents, radicalise them in their own bedrooms, and target them with everything from glamorous glossies to how to make bombs. We have, unfortunately, seen that unfold on our streets. That is why—this comes from my old days as Security Minister, so it many have changed its name; if so, I shall write to him—we set up RICU, or the research, information and communications unit, in the Home Office. Its job is potentially to spot this type of publication, working alongside the police and the counter-terrorism internet referral unit, and then go directly to the internet service providers and ask them to take down the material. If memory serves me right, it has taken down hundreds of thousands of pieces of material.

Daesh is definitely very, very clever at using that medium. That is why, some two to three years ago, one of the methods of the counter-Daesh military response that we were using in Iraq and Syria was to target the media operations as much as some of the actual fighters, because those media operations are used to radicalise people who have never been to Syria. It is also appalling that Daesh now often targets those who are the most vulnerable in our homes and our societies because they are all it can recruit. We see too many people who are displaying mental health issues as well.

On diplomatic infrastructure, it is no secret that forces linked to Iran are interested in destabilising Iraq and effectively poking the stick as provocation. That is why the Government believe that the best solution is absolutely to de-escalate the situation. We do not work with the Iraqi Government to try to escalate the problem; we work with them to try to bring people to justice. Only recently, the Iraqi Government did indeed follow up work that we had been doing, and the Americans had been doing, on some suspects, and made a considerable number of arrests. It is not straightforward for the Iraqi Government sometimes, but we do not blame them for that—we recognise that this is a difficult area. Certainly, our messaging to the wider regional actors is that destabilisation helps no one. We would definitely condemn any attacks on our diplomatic infrastructure, which is of course the same infrastructure that delivers international and foreign aid.

On the issue of Syria and citizenship, in every case that I ever dealt with in taking away citizenships, I found, first of all, that it is nearly always a last resort. It is done where we cannot find another way of bringing someone to justice, or where they pose such a threat at a certain threshold. Every case is looked at based on a whole combination of factors, including the intelligence case, the threat and so on. In a sense we are agnostic. It would not just be about people posing a threat from Daesh, but people who pose a threat around a range of characters. Sometimes it is possible to keep them out of the country through an immigration bar—by just saying, “You can’t come here.” It is sometimes necessary to strip someone of their citizenship in order to keep us safe. I can give the hon. Gentleman an assurance that when I was in the Home Office, it was, in effect, based purely on the threat that appeared before us, whether or not it was from a regime or from a terrorist organisation. The factors in that were balanced.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Monday 6th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

My hon. Friend is right—but the review was slowed down, not entirely paused, during the covid pandemic. We did continue to work on it in the Ministry of Defence. Last week I gathered the chiefs of all the services and the head of defence intelligence together to hear about the threat and the doctrine of our adversaries, and about how the chiefs are going to deliver a solution to that threat. That is my starting point for the integrated review. It is not the budget or the bureaucracy; it is the starting point for meeting the threat and the demand on our forces, and for ensuring that we give the men and women of the armed forces the best equipment and capability that they deserve.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

May I send the best wishes of the Scottish National party to the Veterans Minister on the birth of his new child?

Will the Secretary of State outline what assessment the MOD has made of the threat picture in the Arctic, the high north and the Greenland-Iceland-UK gap, and what capability will be needed to meet those future threats?

[Mr Wallace]

I fear that I have only a few seconds in which to answer that. I am very happy to meet the hon. Member to explore the last part of his question because it is significant and we are working on a strategy to reveal just how we are going to meet those threats. He is absolutely right that a number of nations including Russia —indeed, even China—are very keen on what they are going to do in the Arctic. The danger is that the environment is damaged and that we end up against traditional geographical rivalries that could tip conflict in that direction.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

The Secretary of State is absolutely right. Let me be clear: I want him to get the review and the capability right, but I am concerned, following what I think might have been the Tower of London away day that he and other defence officials went on, that there is going to be a pivot to the eastern Pacific, which is again going to leave us weaker in an area closer to home where the threat picture is growing, and where bad actors and the activity of bad actors are certainly increasing. Can he assure us that we will not be spread so thinly as to be sent far abroad while we leave our own defences closer to home wanting?

[Mr Wallace]

The hon. Member asks a logical and proper question. I can assure him that we will not abandon one threat to meet another. We work incredibly hard with our Scandinavian and Nordic colleagues—some in NATO, some not—through the joint expeditionary force. We regularly plan, and NATO itself acts, in that area. Only recently a US and UK naval flotilla went into the Barents sea—the first time for many years—to ensure that we dealt with the growing threat from that side of the Russian flank.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Monday 16th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

The hon. Member raises a really important point about how we treat allegations of sexual assault or misconduct in the armed forces. He will be aware of the Wigston report. We will look to do an independent review of that one year on, which I think will satisfy some of the recommendations of the charity he mentioned.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

May I echo the Secretary of State’s remarks about Lance Corporal Gillon, and go a bit further and thank all the uniformed and non-uniformed staff serving in his Department? We lean on them quite a bit, but we will be leaning on them even more over the coming time. In that vein, when it comes to coronavirus, I am happy to set aside the political sparring that we would normally have. Given that many veterans will fall into the category of those most vulnerable and at risk of contracting coronavirus, can he update the House on his Department’s strategy for supporting them?

[Mr Wallace]

Veterans, like the rest of the wider population, will of course come under the current central Government plans for dealing with coronavirus via the NHS. However, my Department—not only people working in the Department, but the serving personnel—will have its own measures in place to ensure that we perform our duty of care towards that workforce. As the hon. Member says, many in that workforce are the very people we will be relying on in future to deal with the coronavirus outbreak. Therefore, it is particularly important that our Ministers keep a close eye on their health.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

I welcome what the Minister has to say on that. Can he give the House an assurance that he will move every mountain in government to work in particular with the charitable sector that supports veterans and their families as coronavirus becomes a bigger issue? More broadly, as we approach the integrated defence review, will he assure us that this pandemic will lead to a broader, more total defence concept of thinking, so that, unlike with the 2015 strategic defence and security review, pandemics are seen not to be low-risk but higher-risk, and we should have better preparedness for them?

[Mr Wallace]

As to the hon. Member’s point about the veterans community and keeping an eye on them, my hon. Friend the Minister for Defence People and Veterans is engaged with a whole range of those stakeholders on a daily basis. I cannot recommend enough the work he does in that area. Like him, I am a president of a Scots Guards association and, through that, keep an eye on some of the veterans in Lancashire who we have to cover that area. On the hon. Member’s broader point about coronavirus, we have lots of work to do. We will assess what we can deliver on the ground as we go, and I assure the House that we will leave no stone unturned in making sure we mitigate the impact on society, using all defence assets.

Middle East: Security

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

My right hon. Friend makes the serious point that Daesh has not gone away. Indeed, it is posing a threat to us here in the United Kingdom and Europe and also within region. We are working incredibly hard with the Iraqi Government to try to see in what ways we can remain in theatre to deal with that, and I know that the Prime Minister spoke recently to the Iraqi Prime Minister, including on that subject. At the same time, in Syria, we are focused on the force protection of aid workers and everybody else in the region, ensuring that people are safe and that people who are travelling there do so with the right advice. It would not be right for me to comment any further on what we are doing operationally in Iraq and elsewhere in the region, as to do so may expose our forces, but we are alive to the fact that among the groups of people most likely to exploit destabilisation are terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and Daesh.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. We on these Benches of course hold no candle for General Soleimani or, indeed, for the actions of the Iranian Government, but I would simply say to the Secretary of State that it is not anti-American to question and press the Government on what they are doing in relation to their closest ally. He says that the US is confident that General Soleimani had co-ordinated the 27 December attacks and was planning further attacks, but how confident is he that that is correct? There is certainly no consensus on Capitol Hill among congressional leaders that that is the case. The Secretary of State mentioned that he had seen intelligence that had perhaps convinced him, but have the UK Government done their own legal analysis of whether the strike was lawful? I ask him simply: does he believe that the strike was lawful? And why has it taken four days for the Government to convene the National Security Council, given the gravity of the situation we now face?

On UK forces, the Secretary of State tells the House—this is the killer paragraph—that all training has been “suspended” and “contingency planning” is going on, which can be taken to mean planning to leave Iraq, so can it be taken as read that there is now no active fight against ISIS in Iraq because of the actions of the President of America?

On de-escalation, will the Secretary of State mount the most robust and unapologetic defence of international law and order? Does he agree with the International Committee of the Red Cross that the threat to target cultural sites, as made by the US President, would be unlawful? Will he work to ensure that the UN Security Council can finally step in and do its job? Will he condemn the fact that the Foreign Minister of Iran has been prevented, against international law, from taking part in UN proceedings? On the JCPOA, I welcome what the Secretary of State has to say, but we really need some detail as to how he will get the plan resurrected with Iran and the United States.

We hear a lot at the Dispatch Box about the international rules-based order, but our closest ally is ripping it up before our eyes, whether we like it or not. I ask the Secretary of State to be unapologetic in standing up for it and to mount the most robust defence of it—America is a close friend, and that is what a close friend should do. If the Secretary of State does that, he will have the support of those on the SNP Benches.

[Mr Wallace]

The hon. Gentleman asks some good questions. First, we would of course condemn any attacks on heritage sites, and we recognise that they would be against international law. My counterpart, Mark Esper, the US Defence Secretary, has already clearly said that the US will not target heritage sites. If anyone were to do that, no matter whether they were friend or foe, we would of course call them out.

We observe and support the international rule of law, of course, which is why we support UN article 51 on the inherent right of a nation to defend itself. How a nation takes those sometimes very difficult decisions is, first, a matter for that nation and the intelligence and evidence it has in front of it at the time. I cannot speak for what the United States had in front of it at the time it made that decision; that is a matter for the United States Law Officers and, indeed, the President of the United States. What I can say of the intelligence that I have seen is that there is definitely a case to answer on the cause of self-defence. That is not me speaking for the United States; that is a matter for the United States. Every single leader has a very difficult challenge. They are the ones responsible for the decisions they make at the time, based on the information that is available to them.

I cannot expand further on the basis on which the United States made that decision. However, I know that the hon. Gentleman supports the inherent right in article 51 for a nation to defend itself. It is part of international law, and the UK Government defend a nation’s right to take that action if it is in accordance with article 51.