Europe, Human Rights and Keeping People Safe at Home and Abroad

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I cannot answer the right hon. Gentleman’s question, but I can tell him that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is heavily engaged in that action and is trying to ensure that those affected are properly cared for and relocated in accommodation that is at least as secure and adequate as their current accommodation.

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend has rightly said many times from the Dispatch Box that President Putin is one of the few people in the world who can do a lot in this situation. With the attacks yesterday on some of the Assad stronghold areas that have not been touched before, what assessment has my right hon. Friend made of Russia’s involvement moving forward and whether we are looking at a new dimension? That area is quite close to some Russian bases.

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend is right, and the Russians will be making a constant calculation about how they can extract maximum leverage from their involvement in Syria while minimising their exposure. I suspect that some in the Russian high command and the Kremlin will have been deeply uncomfortable about the fact that yesterday those Daesh attacks were launched in areas that were previously thought to be under rock-solid regime control and close to Russian military facilities. That changes the calculus, but I hope it will add weight to our argument with the Russians that we need to work together to get a successful transition in Syria to a Government who are supported by all Syrians. We must then work together with that Government to defeat the evil that is Daesh.

Progress in our objective of defeating Daesh will only be possible if the barrel bombings end, if the cessation of hostilities is respected, if humanitarian access to besieged communities is granted and if all sides are prepared to negotiate seriously to achieve political transition.

So much for Syria. In Iraq, we will continue to support the efforts of Prime Minister Abadi to steer his country through the dangers it currently faces, and to deliver the political and economic reform the Iraqi people desperately need: national reconciliation, security, stabilisation of areas liberated from Daesh, and the provision of jobs and basic services.

We have always said that winning the fight against Daesh would take time, but we have no doubt of our ultimate success in Iraq, Syria and Libya. However, winning the hearts and minds of tens of millions of young, potentially vulnerable Muslims who see extremism as a credible response to the lack of opportunity many of them face will be a longer-term challenge for us.

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[Mr Hammond]

Yes, I can confirm that to the hon. Lady. I visited Algeria and the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East has visited Algeria. The Algerians are playing a role. That in itself is significant, because for many, many years Algeria took a rather isolationist, non-interventionist approach. As a neighbouring country, it is at risk from what is going on in Libya. It has recognised that and is engaging with the challenge. We are extremely grateful for the support that Algeria—with, as the hon. Lady says, its considerable experience of dealing with a major scale insurgency—is able to deliver.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Hammond]

I am just going to make a little progress, if my hon. Friend will allow me, as he has had one bite of the cherry already.

While we step up the fight against Daesh and Islamist extremism, the old challenge of state-based aggression has not gone away. To our east, Russia’s disregard for international norms, its illegal annexation of Crimea and its continuing destabilisation of eastern Ukraine are echoes of an era that, frankly, most of us thought had passed with the fall of the Berlin wall. They represent a clear threat to the stability of the post-cold war European security order, and, more widely, to the rules-based international system on which an open, free-trading liberal democracy such as ours depends.

As well as violating the sovereign territory of another country and undermining the rules-based system, Russia’s actions in Ukraine have led to the loss of more than 9,000 lives and the displacement of up to 1 million people from their homes. Responsibility for this human misery lies squarely at the door of the Kremlin. It is a direct result of a deliberate policy that seeks to deny the right of independent former Soviet republics to determine their own economic and political destiny. This Government remain clear that Russia must be held to account for its actions. We will work through the EU to keep up the economic pressure with hard-hitting and carefully calibrated sanctions. Those sanctions must remain in place until such time as Russia delivers on the pledges it made at Minsk. In the meantime, we will continue to provide non-lethal support and training to the Ukrainian armed forces. Building on the British military units already rotating through Poland and the Baltic states, we will announce at the NATO summit in Warsaw in June further measures to reassure our eastern allies in the face of this continuing aggression.

At the same time, we will engage with Russia where it is clearly in our national interests to do so. Russia, along with Iran, is one of the two countries that have real influence on the Syrian regime.

As members of the ISSG, they have the principal responsibility for telling Assad that it is time to go. We will continue to work with Russia on Syria and at the UN and to collaborate with it on counter-terrorism, where British lives are potentially at risk, but it will not be business as usual. All nations must know that we cannot and will not look the other way while the rules-based system is repeatedly violated. We look forward to the time when Russia rejoins the community of nations as a partner in upholding international rules, but our eyes are wide open and we know that it might be a long time coming.

As we said in the 2010 strategic defence and security review and again in 2015, Britain’s national security is indivisible from its economic security. We cannot keep people safe if we do not have a strong economy, and vice versa. As we have continued to deal with the economic legacy we inherited—bringing down the deficit and restoring sustainable growth to our economy—we have also been strengthening our diplomatic muscle in emerging economies in order to grow our trade and support jobs here at home. And those efforts are paying off. The state visit by China’s President Xi last year generated £40 billion of commercial deals, helping to create more than 5,000 permanent jobs in this country and more than 20,000 construction-phase jobs. During Prime Minister Modi’s visit in November, UK and Indian businesses agreed deals worth £9 billion. Inward investment from India in 2014-15 created more than 7,000 jobs and safeguarded more than 1,500 others. Since the UK’s free trade deal with the Republic of Korea in 2011, the value of UK exports to Korea has more than doubled.

While we seek to grow our links with the world’s emerging economies, however, our trade and investment relationship with the EU will always be central to our economic success story. As the House knows, the Government’s clear view is that Britain’s continuing prosperity is best served by our remaining a leading member of a reformed EU. Our membership puts us, the No. 2 economic power in the EU, inside the world’s largest single market, with a seat at the decision-making table. It is a market with 500 million consumers and a quarter of the world’s GDP and a market that buys 44% of Britain’s exports.

There is a world of difference between being inside such a market, with tariff-free access as of right, and being outside it, scrabbling around for a deal; between making the rules of the market to protect our interests and being governed by rules designed for the benefit and advantage of others. Our membership safeguards the pound and the Bank of England, and with the deal that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister negotiated in February, our membership keeps us out of Schengen, exempts us from ever-closer union and limits EU migrants’ access to our welfare system. It is the best of both worlds.

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[Hilary Benn]

Let me say first that damaging our economy and people’s job prospects is not my idea of a brighter future, and secondly that I hope the hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I do not follow him down the Canadian road. We know that it has taken Canada seven years so far to negotiate its own trade deal with the European Union.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

As a fellow Leeds MP—along with the hon. Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton), who is also sitting on the Labour Front Bench—I recognise, as we all do, how important a role the University of Leeds plays in our city in terms of employment and investment. Members of the leave campaign are going around with posters which say that all the money we contribute to the EU will go into the NHS. That is their policy, whatever the rights and wrongs of it may be. Does it not concern the right hon. Gentleman that, in that event, there simply will not be the investment in our higher education research that currently comes from Europe, and that, therefore, either those people do not care or it is a lie?

[Hilary Benn]

The hon. Gentleman has identified one of many inconsistencies in the arguments advanced by the leave campaign. It is noticeable that every single university in the country has spoken out about the importance to universities of research, the flow of ideas across Europe—never mind the world—and the benefits and the money that are gained because we have world-class universities. We should pay attention to them, to every single survey of industry opinion that has been conducted, and to all the other warnings and assessments that have been undertaken. It is no longer any good for members of the leave campaign, every time a view is expressed that is counter to their argument, to wave their hands and say, “Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they?”

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[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

It is an enormous pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore), who has entertained the House with a truly exceptional maiden speech. He spoke about his constituency with eloquence and about his predecessors with wit. Many of us remember his distinguished predecessor, Sir Raymond Powell. Indeed, I served in the Government Whips office opposite him and I can confirm to the hon. Gentleman that he was a distinguished butcher. The hon. Gentleman will discover, I hope, that his expectation of working with people across the House will be fulfilled. He will find that we on this side are the opposition and not the enemy, and I personally look forward to working with him. It is perfectly clear from his maiden speech that he will fulfil his expectations, just as his partner and his constituents would wish him to do.

The Queen’s Speech that we are discussing today is an authentic one nation speech. Social mobility is at its heart, and it makes clear the importance of capitalism working for everyone. It also puts some flesh on the bones of Prime Minister’s speech at last year’s party conference, which was one of the finest that he has made.

For the moment, Europe dominates our politics. Indeed, at midday on 11 June, Sutton Coldfield town hall will hold a debate between the noble Lords Heseltine and Ashdown on the one side and Nigel Farage and the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) on the other. I can tell the House that tickets for that great debate sold out faster than Glastonbury and all went within half an hour yesterday.

I want to make just a few brief points in the time available. I want a much greater focus in this parliamentary session on the importance of building new homes. It is virtually impossible for young people today to get on to the housing ladder in the way that my generation did, and dreams of a property-owning democracy are receding. However, homes must be built in the right places. Sutton Coldfield would suffer from the proposals of Birmingham’s Labour council to build no fewer than 6,000 new homes in the green belt. That is completely unacceptable, and we look to the Government to call that in at an early stage.

I propose three ideas for how we can make the house-building process easier. First, there must be more imaginative and considered inner-city developments, with more power for local communities and less for developers. Secondly, there must be more incentives to decontaminate land, which would have a huge effect on the availability of land for house building in Birmingham. Finally, I want a real effort to be made to bring to fruition the plans to build a garden city in the black country that could provide up to 45,000 homes, none of which would need to be built on the green belt.

This Queen’s Speech debate takes place against the background of an agonisingly difficult but ultimately catastrophic situation in the middle east. The four horsemen of the apocalypse continue to ride through what was Syria—a second-world country. I remind the House that in a country of just over 20 million, 11 million souls are now on the move—6 million within the country and 5 million outside. The hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Jo Cox) and I have produced a report under our joint chairmanship of the all-party political group on Friends of Syria, which benefits from considerable expert advice and input. Clare Short and I recently visited the Turkey-Syria border with some brilliant British Muslim charities, and I pay tribute to their bravery.

We must ensure that every child in a refugee camp and all those refugee children in Jordan and in Lebanon get an education, which should be paid for by rich European countries. Lebanon and Jordan are swamped by the number of refugees using their public services, and we must help out.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

On that point, it is perhaps worth reminding the House that if the UK took an equivalent percentage of people, 17 million people would be coming into the United Kingdom.

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right.

We must also keep refugees and migrants as close as possible to the areas from which they came. Few if any of these people want to recreate Syria in Europe; they want to return to the homes from which they were driven, often under gunfire.

The EU must cancel all tariffs on goods from Lebanon and Jordan. Industrial and agricultural goods are still subject to tariffs in some cases. No progress has been made on the EU’s 2011 proposal to have deep and comprehensive free trade agreements with those areas. We also need to encourage the international community to look ahead to the reconstruction of Syria. The Prime Minister has already made it clear that Britain will provide up to a billion pounds of support for reconstruction, which we must ensure happens as swiftly as possible. For how much longer will the international community tolerate the deliberate targeting of hospitals by Russian military aircraft, which have now hit more than 30 hospitals in Syria? Russia is a permanent member of the UN Security Council, but its shocking behaviour is an affront to international order and is almost certainly a war crime.

Finally, I want strongly to support what was said about human rights, and about the two key pieces of legislation in that respect in the Queen’s Speech, by the former Attorney General, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), and by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke). Let me just make it clear that ISIL will be relatively easily defeated militarily, but 90% of any defeat will be an ideological defeat, and that will be very much more difficult to achieve. We must show the same abhorrence of Islamophobia as we show of anti-Semitism.

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[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak about a Queen’s Speech that focuses at its heart on how to improve economic well-being and growth for everyone in the country. What I want to focus on today, however, is the security that we need to establish for this country with respect to events taking place in the world.

Let me start by talking about the international development project, which the Queen’s Speech commits us to once again. It is something that I wholeheartedly support not simply because of the moral obligation I believe we have as the fifth-richest nation in the world to help the poorest nations, but equally because, at the heart of it, is a true Conservative idea in the sense of investing for our own future and gaining from it. We benefit from the advantages of India, which now trades with us: a country into which we have poured much money over the years through the international development budget. Equally and fundamentally, however, there is the question of where the money is going in today’s hotspots around the world—although the term “hotspots” almost undermines the importance of what are areas of real human tragedy. We have put more money into, for instance, the refugee camps around Syria than all the other European nations added together.

We are talking about just 0.7% of income. People say to me, “That £12 billion should be spent on other things. It should be spent on repairing the roads, on improving schools, or on providing more nurses.” While all those items are laudable, I would argue that if we were to say, “That is it: we are going to give in to those demands, and we are not going to spend 0.7% in those areas”, the money would in fact disappear, because it is a percentage of income.

As I said earlier to my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), the proportion of people who have gone into refugee camps in Lebanon is the equivalent of 17 million people entering the United Kingdom. I am not saying that 17 million people are coming to the United Kingdom, but that gives some impression of the pressures that that country is under in dealing with such a huge influx of refugees.

It is absolutely right that a country like the United Kingdom is there to support countries such as Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. The House should be under no illusion: if we withdrew our support from them—along, perhaps, with other countries—they simply would not be able to cope with the refugee crisis that is enveloping them, and the refugees would go to the next place. They would move across the Mediterranean into central Europe, as, indeed, hundreds of thousands already have.

That is not an argument about the European Union, but between 40% and 50% of our trade is with European countries, and if those economies are struggling because of the influx of refugees, they simply will not have the economic capability to trade with us as they do now. That will inevitably lead to a strain on our own economy and a reduction in our GDP. The 0.7% that we will have saved by not spending the money elsewhere will suddenly become a 0.81% reduction in GDP, so the money will still not exist, and we will have turned our back on the poorest people in the world. We should not do that, because we are a proud nation that stands up and helps.

That, I think, is at the heart of the security aspect of today’s debate. It is not just about security at home, but about how the consequences of events throughout the world affect us at home: about how they affect the people in our constituencies. The cost of living and the prices that they pay in our shops are directly related to what is going on in the world. We cannot turn our back on those issues.

In the brief time that I have left, let me simply say this. We know that the Chilcot report will be published on 6 July, and last weekend we read articles in The Sunday Times about what might or might not be in it. Mistakes were made with Iraq. Mistakes were made when we went into the war, mistakes were made during the war, and mistakes were made after the war. That is going to be addressed, but we must not allow the report to be the shield behind which we automatically hide when discussing whether to intervene in other areas and other conflicts. The world is a dangerous place.

Mention has been made today of Libya, and of the extent to which the intervention there may have been catastrophic, but let us not forget that Gaddafi was on his way to Benghazi to slaughter those people. The idea that that would not have happened if we had not intervened, and the idea that Daesh would not now be in Benghazi in a state that had been wiped out by Gaddafi’s troops—who would then have withdrawn—is fanciful. There is living proof of that in Syria, where we did not intervene. So I hope that after the Chilcot report has been published on 6 July, it will not be used as a shield to prevent us from doing things elsewhere in what is indeed a dangerous world.