European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Boris Johnson

Tuesday 4th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

Just one second. In Brussels, they think we have nothing left in our tank and that we want to do a deal at any price. As we all think about this vote and what we are individually going to do, and thinking about the attitude in Brussels towards us, now is the time for us to show them that they grossly underestimate this country and this House of Commons and our attachment to our liberties. There is an alternative. There is another way. We should not pretend, after two years of wasted negotiations, that it is going to be easy, but it is the only option that delivers on the will of the people and also, I believe, maintains our democratic self-respect as a country. That option is obvious from this debate, and from every poll that I have seen. We should go back to Brussels and say, “Yes, we want a deal if we can get one, and yes, there is much in the withdrawal agreement that we can keep, notably the good work that has been done on citizens.”

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

When you went to Russia, did Lavrov give Ukraine back?

[Boris Johnson]

My hon. Friend, from a sedentary position, compares the European Union to Lavrov and Russia. I think that that is an entirely inapposite comparison. These are our friends. These are our partners. To compare them to Russia today is quite extraordinary.

We should say that we appreciate the good work that is being done to protect the rights of citizens on either side of the channel, but we must be clear that we will not accept the backstop. It is nonsensical to claim that it is somehow essential to further progress in the negotiations. The question of the Irish border is for the future partnership, not the withdrawal agreement. It was always absurd that it should be imported into this section of the negotiations. We should use the implementation period to negotiate that future partnership, which is what I believe the Government themselves envisage—and, by the way, we should withhold at least half that £39 billion until the negotiation on the new partnership is concluded.

Iran Nuclear Deal

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Boris Johnson

Wednesday 9th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

I am grateful for the right hon. Lady’s point that there is no merit in any reckless and counterproductive attacks on the United States today, and I am sure that she will continue that spirit when the President makes his visit in July and trust, too, that she will communicate that to the rest of those on the Labour Benches and, indeed, to the Labour party in London. She made a good point when she said that the Iranian Government and the Iranian people have not walked away from the deal. They remain in compliance, and it is our duty, as the UK Government with our European partners, to help them to remain in compliance and to assist in the survival of the JCPOA.

To be fair to the US Administration, they have decided that there is another way forward. They have decided that the limitations that they see in the deal—the sunset clauses, Iran’s malign behaviour in the region and the problem of the intended Iranian acquisition of intercontinental ballistic missiles—can be met by bringing all the problems together and having a big negotiation. The UK Government have long taken a different view that the essence of the JCPOA was to compartmentalise—to take the nuclear deal and solve that—but the President has taken another view. It is now up to Washington to come forward with concrete proposals on how exactly it intends to bring the problems together and address them collectively. Our posture should be one of support in that endeavour, although, as I say, we have been sceptical about how that is to be done.

As for North Korea, the whole House will want to wish the President of the United States every possible success in his endeavours and convey to him our admiration for the vigour with which he has tackled the matter.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend will know from his work that US leadership has often been a force for good in the world, and although many of us still support the leadership that the United States shows around the world, many of us are worried by their withdrawal from this deal. We are perhaps, however, a little more concerned by the malign activity of the Iranian regime, its theocrats, its acolytes and its useful idiots around the world, who have encouraged it and supported it in the media and in the region. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is incumbent on us, as good Europeans and good internationalists, to work with partners around the world and around the region not just to encourage a new approach to a peace process in Iran, but to encourage the Iranian regime to change, to become a good neighbour, not a malign influence, and to cease threatening our friends and allies, such as the other countries in the region and, of course, Israel?

[Boris Johnson]

My hon. Friend is entirely right to point out that, as Members on both sides of the House will agree, Iran is a malign actor in the region. There is no question but that Iran has been a seriously disruptive force in Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. He is also right to point out the cardinal importance of the Iranian people in the discussions. Ultimately, the effort behind the JCPOA was to give them the prospect of the economic benefits of participating in the global economy in exchange for denuclearisation. That is still the fundamental bargain to be struck.

Government Policy on Russia

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Boris Johnson

Tuesday 6th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on Her Majesty’s Government’s policy towards Russia.

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Boris Johnson)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) for raising this important matter. Although he asks a general question about Russia, let me immediately say that there is much speculation about the disturbing incident in Salisbury, where a 66-year-old man, Sergei Skripal, and his 33-year-old daughter Yulia were found unconscious outside The Maltings shopping centre on Sunday afternoon. Police, together with partner agencies, are now investigating.

Hon. Members will note the echoes of the death of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006. Although it would be wrong to prejudge the investigation, I can reassure the House that, should evidence emerge that implies state responsibility, Her Majesty’s Government will respond appropriately and robustly, although I hope that hon. Members on both sides of the House will appreciate that it would not be right for me to give further details of the investigation now, for fear of prejudicing the outcome.

This House has profound differences with Russia, which I outlined in the clearest terms when I visited Moscow in December. By annexing Crimea in 2014, igniting the flames of conflict in eastern Ukraine and threatening western democracies, including by interfering in their elections, Russia has challenged the fundamental basis of international order.

The United Kingdom, under successive Governments, has responded with strength and determination, first by taking unilateral measures after the death of Litvinenko, expelling four Russian diplomats in 2007 and suspending security co-operation between our respective agencies, and then by leading the EU’s response to the annexation of Crimea and the aggression in Ukraine by securing tough sanctions, co-ordinated with the United States and other allies, targeting Russian state-owned banks and defence companies, restricting the energy industry that serves as the central pillar of the Russian economy, and constraining the export of oil exploration and production equipment.

Whenever those sanctions have come up for renewal, Britain has consistently argued for their extension, and we shall continue to do so until and unless the cause for them is removed. These measures have inflicted significant damage on the Russian economy. Indeed, they help to explain why it endured two years of recession in 2015 and 2016.

As the House has heard repeatedly, the UK Government have been in the lead at the UN in holding the Russians to account for their support of the barbaric regime of Bashar al-Assad. The UK has been instrumental in supporting Montenegro’s accession to NATO and in helping that country to identify the perpetrators of the Russian-backed attempted coup. This country has exposed the Russian military as cyber-criminals in its attacks on Ukraine and elsewhere.

As I said, it is too early to speculate about the precise nature of the crime or attempted crime that took place in Salisbury on Sunday, but Members will have their suspicions. If those suspicions prove to be well founded, this Government will take whatever measures we deem necessary to protect the lives of the people in this country, our values and our freedoms. Though I am not now pointing fingers, because we cannot do so, I say to Governments around the world that no attempt to take innocent life on UK soil will go either unsanctioned or unpunished. It may be that this country will continue to pay a price for our continued principles in standing up to Russia, but I hope that the Government will have the support of Members on both sides of the House in continuing to do so. We must await the outcome of the investigation, but in the meantime I should like to express my deep gratitude to the emergency services for the professionalism of their response to the incident in Salisbury.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Tugendhat]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is good of you to have accorded this urgent question.

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s tour of the world and of the various abuses from Russia that we are dealing with at the moment. Though it is, as he rightly says, too soon to point fingers at Moscow regarding what happened in Salisbury, it is quite clear that we are seeing a pattern in Russian behaviour. Indeed, BuzzFeed’s Heidi Blake, a journalist who has been researching this subject intensively over a number of years, has come up with 14 deaths that she attributes to Russian elements, and there are others who have pointed this out. Only today, Shashank Joshi, a researcher at the Royal United Services Institute, indicated that murder is a matter of public policy in Russia today. My right hon. Friend’s ministerial colleague, the Minister for Europe and the Americas, was also absolutely right to criticise the murder of Boris Nemtsov only recently.

We are seeing a pattern of what the KGB would refer to as “demoralise, destabilise, bring to crisis and normalise”, so does my right hon. Friend agree that Russia is now conducting a form of soft war against the west, that its use of so-called fake news—more often known as propaganda and information warfare—is part of that, and that this requires a whole-of-Government response, which his Department is best placed to lead?

[Boris Johnson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who is indeed correct that Russia is engaged in a host of malign activities that stretch from the abuse and murder of journalists to the mysterious assassination of politicians. I am glad that he mentioned Mr Nemtsov, as in December I was privileged to pay tribute to his memory at the site of his murder on a bridge in Moscow.

It is clear that Russia is, I am afraid, in many respects now a malign and disruptive force, and the UK is in the lead across the world in trying to counteract that activity. I must say to the House that that is sometimes difficult, given the strong economic pressures that are exerted by Russia’s hydrocarbons on other European economies, and we sometimes have difficulty in trying to get our points across, but we do get our points across. There has been no wavering on the sanctions regimes that have been imposed by European countries, and nor indeed will there be such wavering as long as the UK has a say in this.

A cross-Government review is an interesting idea that I will take away and consider. As my hon. Friend knows, the National Security Council has repeatedly looked at our relations with Russia, which are among the most difficult that we face in the world. I assure him that we will be looking at it again. We must be very careful in what we say because it is too early to prejudge the investigation, but if the suspicions on both sides of the House about the events in Salisbury prove to be well founded, we may well be forced to look again at our sanctions regime and at other measures that we may seek to put in place.

Syria: De-escalation Zones

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Boris Johnson

Monday 26th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Tom Tugendhat]

Thank you for your patience, Mr Speaker. I am extremely grateful.

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s response to the urgent question. May I share with him the disappointment that I am sure many Conservative Members feel as a war continues and Stop the War does not protest outside the Russian embassy, but stays silent about the brutality that we are seeing?

My right hon. Friend rightly said that Britain should be at the centre of this process. May I ask him what conversations he has had with Minister Zarif and Minister Lavrov over the last few days, given that Minister Lavrov was instrumental in first blocking and then delaying the UN process? May I also ask him whether it is true that both President Macron of France and Chancellor Merkel of Germany have spoken to President Putin of Russia? What contact have we had with Russia over the last few days?

[Boris Johnson]

I can certainly tell my hon. Friend that we are directing all our conversations and all our energies to getting the Russians to accept their responsibilities. I cannot go into the details of the contacts that we have had with them over the last few days, but suffice it to say that we believe that it is overwhelmingly in their interests to begin a political process. I feel that if they do not do that, they will be bogged down in this conflict for years, perhaps decades, to come. There is no military solution. There are 4 million people in Syria whom Assad does not control, and whom the Russians do not control either. We are therefore exerting all the influence we can to bring the process back to Geneva, where it belongs.

Oman, UAE and Iran

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Boris Johnson

Monday 11th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for the spirit in which she poses her questions. I can tell her that in Tehran I met Vice-President Salehi, the head of the Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani, the Speaker of the Majlis Ali Larijani and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and had long discussions with President Rouhani. In each of those conversations, I repeated the case for release on humanitarian grounds, where that is appropriate, of the difficult consular cases that we have in Iran, and that message was certainly received and understood. However, as I said to the House, it is too early to be confident about the outcome.

The right hon. Lady asked about the plan in Yemen, and she will understand that the plan certainly was until last Saturday that Ali Abdullah Saleh would be divided from the Houthis, which seemed to be the best avenue for progress. Indeed, Ali Abdullah Saleh was divided from the Houthis, but he then paid the ultimate price for his decision to go over to the coalition. We are left with a difficult and tense situation, and what we need to do now, the plan on which everybody is agreed, is to get Hodeidah open, first to humanitarian relief, to which the Saudis have agreed, but also to commercial traffic, too.

I heard the right hon. Lady’s question about the use of the UN Security Council. Resolution 2216 is still operative, but as penholders in the UN we keep the option of a new Security Council resolution under continuous review. It is vital that all parties understand, as I think they genuinely do in Riyadh, in Abu Dhabi and across the region, that there is no military solution to the disaster in Yemen. There is no way that any side can win this war. What we need now is a new constitution and a new political process, and that is the plan that the UK is in the lead in promoting. As I said to the right hon. Lady, we had meetings of the Quad last week, again last night in Abu Dhabi, and we will have a further meeting in early January.

As for the UK’s role in Syria, the right hon. Lady asked about the Astana process and whether it would be acceptable. Our view is that if there is to be a lasting peace in Syria that commands the support of all the people of that country, it is vital that we get the talks back to Geneva. I believe that that is the Labour party’s position. Indeed, I believe it was also the Labour party’s position that there could be no long-term future for Syria with President Assad. If that position has changed, I would be interested to hear about that. However, our view is that it is obviously a matter for the people of Syria, and we will be promoting a plan whereby they, including the 11 million or 12 million who have fled the country, will be given the chance to vote in free, fair, UN-observed elections to give that country a stable future.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

I must pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for the amount of effort that he has put in in the region—not only in the UAE and Oman, which are of course great friends of ours, but in Iran, where the situation is of course very difficult. He listed many of the people he met and kindly told us what he asked of them, so will he perhaps enlighten us as to what they asked of him?

[Boris Johnson]

I can summarise it by saying that what they really want is the kind of diplomatic energy and leadership that, as I was trying to explain to the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), the UK is supplying particularly in Yemen, where an appalling, catastrophic conflict has been going on for three years. The conflict is a scar on the conscience of humanity and, as she rightly said, we are penholders at the UN. We have a duty to Yemen, and we are in the lead on trying to bring the sides together to advance a political solution. As I told the House earlier, one of my reasons for going to both Oman and Iran is that we cannot ignore the role of those countries in advancing the cause of peace in Yemen.

Zimbabwe

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Boris Johnson

Wednesday 15th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

I renew my tribute to the campaigning of the hon. Lady. She has been tireless over many, many years and has spoken passionately, accurately and perceptively about this subject, as she has again today.

It is too early to comment on the outcome of these events, or to be sure exactly how things will unfold. The situation is fluid, and I think it would be wrong for us at this stage to comment specifically on any personalities that may be involved, save perhaps to say that this is obviously not a particularly promising development in the political career of Robert Mugabe. The important point is that we—including, I think, everyone in the House—want the people of Zimbabwe to have a choice about their future through free and fair elections. That is the consensus that we are building up with our friends and partners, and I shall be having a discussion with the vice-president of South Africa to that effect later today.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s statement. Has he by any chance asked our own military command to engage with the chief of the general staff of the Zimbabwean armed forces, and encourage him to put troops back into barracks and allow a democratic process to take place?

[Boris Johnson]

We are certainly encouraging restraint on all sides. In common with our international partners, we are urging all sides in Harare to refrain from violence of any kind.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Boris Johnson

Monday 13th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

As I said in answer to the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury, I will be talking directly to Richard Ratcliffe about that issue on Wednesday.

Briefly, on consular protection, every day in some part of the world, a UK national or a dual national is detained, and I pay tribute to the consular work that the Foreign Office does across the world. A huge amount of work has been done on behalf of the constituent of the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) by my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench, who have met members of her family repeatedly and will continue to do so until we solve the problem.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

I am very glad that the Foreign Secretary has made his statement today. However, does he agree that this poor woman, who is separated from her child, is being used a political football, not only—sadly—here, but in Iran, where the Iranian revolutionary guard is effectively fighting with the Khomeinite authoritarian regime in its own way? Would he consider calling upon people in our system who may be able to talk to the mullahs, perhaps asking the Archbishop of Canterbury, or indeed the Holy Father, to speak on behalf of this woman and seek to broker her release?

[Boris Johnson]

My hon. Friend speaks with great insight about the situation in Iran, and I assure him that no stone will be left unturned in our efforts.

Counter-Daesh Update

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Boris Johnson

Tuesday 7th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

I can certainly say that the Government are, of course, calling for the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe on humanitarian grounds, and we will continue to do so. I can confirm that several Ministers, including the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), have met Mr Ratcliffe several times. I have just had a note from Mr Ratcliffe saying that he welcomes the clarification that we made earlier today and would like to meet, so I look forward to doing that. The hon. Lady wants to secure the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. Indeed, we all want to secure the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. If it is possible in the course of my trip to Tehran to meet the hon. Lady’s constituent, of course I will seek to do that. I cannot stand before the House today and guarantee that it will be possible, but I will certainly do my best to ensure that it is so.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

I welcome the Foreign Secretary to the House today, and I welcome some of the clarification that he has made of his comments at the Foreign Affairs Committee last week. His errors in his choice of words—however unfortunate they may seem—are, to be fair, entirely secondary and perhaps even tertiary compared with the crimes committed by the Iranian regime over nearly four decades of Khomeinite authoritarianism.

Will the Foreign Secretary now take this opportunity to address the threat that Iran poses to UK interests in the region and to address whether, after 40 years of instability and tyranny, we need a wider review of Iran policy? From holding British citizens hostage to failing to allow embassy staff to bring in secure communications: will the Foreign Secretary please explain to the House why he believes in maintaining normal diplomatic relations with the country that sponsors Hezbollah, arms Hamas, sends weapons to rain down on Riyadh and props up the murderous Assad dictatorship? How can that qualify as a nation with which we should have friendly, diplomatic relations?

[Boris Johnson]

My hon. Friend is right in the sense that Iran certainly poses a threat to the region and is a cause of instability. As he says, we can see that in Yemen, in its influence with Hezbollah, in Lebanon and in Syria. There is no question but that Iran needs to be constrained. But to throw out all diplomatic relations and abandon all engagement with Iran would be a profound mistake; I must tell the House my honest view about that. It slightly surprises me that my hon. Friend should take that line because the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—the Iran nuclear deal—was an important diplomatic accomplishment, and it is still extant. It is still alive, and it is in part an achievement of British diplomacy over the past few months that it remains, in its essence, intact. We intend to preserve it because it is the best method that we have of preventing Iran from securing a nuclear weapon.

As for severing diplomatic relations entirely, that takes us to the question that so many Opposition Members have asked today. How can we secure the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe unless we are willing to get out there and engage with the Iranians diplomatically in order to make an effort to secure her release? That is what we are doing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Boris Johnson

Tuesday 17th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

We are continually monitoring Russian activity in that sphere. I can tell the hon. Lady that the Russians have been up to all sorts of mischief in many countries, but so far we cannot yet pinpoint any direct Russian cyber-attacks on this country. [Official Report, 14 November 2017, Vol. 631, c. 2MC.]

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give the House an assessment of the impact of the Criminal Finances Act 2017 on Russian relations? Following on from the question asked by the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), perhaps he will assure me and others in this House that this Act will be used to prevent corrupt, human rights-denying and human rights-abusing Russian oligarchs from using London to launder their ill-gotten gains?

[Boris Johnson]

I can tell my hon. Friend that only yesterday, at breakfast, I met Vladimir Kara-Murza, a distinguished leader of the Russian Opposition and a journalist, who paid tribute to this country for being one of the few European countries to implement what is, to all intents and purposes, a Magnitsky Act. People on this side of the House can be very proud of the role they have played—in fact, people on both sides of the House can.

Korean Peninsula

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Boris Johnson

Tuesday 5th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

I join the right hon. Lady in the sentiments she expresses about the victims of terror across our continent over the summer months. There is a lot in her reply with which I agree, and she is certainly right to commend a measured tone in these things. In her focus on Washington and the pronouncements of Donald Trump, it is important that we do not allow anything to distract this House from the fundamental responsibility of Pyongyang for causing this crisis. It is a great shame that there should be any suggestion of any kind of equivalence in the confrontation—I am sure she did not mean to imply that—and it is important that we do not allow that to creep into our considerations.

The current situation is so grave because it is the first time in the history of nuclear weaponry that a non-P5 country seems to be on the brink of acquiring the ability to use an ICBM equipped with a nuclear warhead. This is a very grave situation, which explains why we are told, and we must agree, that theoretically no options are off the table, but it is also essential—the right hon. Lady is right about this—that we pursue the peaceful diplomatic resolution that we all want.

In the history of North Korea’s attempts to acquire a nuclear weapon over the past 30 years there have been flare-ups and crises, and then they have been managed down again. We hope that in the UN, with the help of our Chinese friends and the rest of the international community, we can once again freeze this North Korean nuclear programme and manage the crisis down again. I share the emphasis on peaceful resolution that the right hon. Lady espouses.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s statement. I associate myself very much with his hopes, but I should lay out some of my concerns.

I find myself, for the first time, talking in this House about nuclear weapons that may be used, because we are talking not about a state but about a family cult with a kingdom. This is a very different type of relationship between the leaders and the led. It is a country that is prepared to see its people starve and is perfectly happy to see them literally eat grass. We are not dealing with a rational actor. That imposes an enormous amount on Her Majesty’s Government, of course, and on partners in the region.

I particularly welcome the Foreign Secretary’s conversation with the Chinese. What indications are there that they are prepared actually to apply the sanctions to which they have agreed? At the moment, the indications are poor. As we are one of the few nations with an embassy in Pyongyang, what assistance is our ambassador there giving to other members of the Security Council? This is a time for as much openness as possible among allies, in order to manage a very dangerous situation. Perhaps I may ask a more specific question, given the proximity of our relationship with the United States: will the Foreign Secretary mention the presence, or otherwise, of British troops serving alongside American troops in South Korea and Japan? Will he discuss whether those embeds are in any way operationally involved in the American chain, and whether or not they would be? This is a moment for the Helsinki example of the 1980s. I very much hope he can find a way for the supports to Kennedy and Khrushchev to be seen today.

[Boris Johnson]

I thank my hon. Friend for his compendious question. He rightly says that we are one of the few countries to have an embassy in Pyongyang—we are the only P3 country with an embassy there. As such, we are determined to keep that embassy going, and I hope the House will share our determination to keep it going, along with support for other P5 countries, and for other western interests in that city and in North Korea. Let me pick out his most important question; I do not wish to comment on British forces’ operational activities. I think he is really driving at the question of whether the Chinese have yet played all the cards they have in their hand. China controls 93% of North Korea’s external trade. It is a simple fact that North Korea is wholly dependent on imported oil. In the end, the Chinese do have much further to go on this. There are ways in which they can tighten the economic ligature; they can make more of a difference. The question in their minds is whether they can do that without incurring serious political convulsions within North Korea. We think there is room for further Chinese effort. We are working with our Chinese friends to persuade them to do this. To be fair to the Chinese, I must say that they have shown a much greater willingness than they have hitherto to understand the threat that North Korea poses and to take action. To that extent, the Chinese should be commended.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Boris Johnson

Tuesday 11th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

I completely share the hon. Gentleman’s zeal and passion. The UK has in fact been in the lead on this for several years now, and we will continue to push the agenda, not just at the G20, as the Prime Minister did, but at the IWT summit that we will host in October 2018 in London.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend talk a little about his strategy on this issue, because the link between the illegal wildlife trade, smuggling, people trafficking, and lawlessness and violence in many countries is extremely real? Addressing the illegal wildlife trade may seem esoteric, but it is not: it is about the stability of many nations that are firm partners of the United Kingdom.

[Boris Johnson]

My hon. Friend is right: this is far from esoteric. It not only touches the hearts of millions of people in our country—as the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) said—but helps to cause increased human misery. The same people are involved in trade in drugs, arms and people, worth up to £13 billion a year, and we are playing a major part in frustrating that trade.