UK Relations with Qatar

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

It is a pleasure, as ever, to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Henry. I congratulate the hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) on securing the debate, which is timely for a number of reasons, and on the way he set out his case. He did so in a fair degree of detail, which I will not bother Members by repeating. He highlighted the importance of Qatar as both a trading partner and a security partner for the United Kingdom at this time. That relationship is important, but it will never be simple or straightforward.

Before I go any further, I too should remind Members of my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Last year and the year before, I was part of a delegation to Qatar funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and I serve as chair of the all-party parliamentary British-Qatar group.

Let me pick up the point the hon. Gentleman made about the conduct of such delegations. As chair of the all-party group, I led the delegation in February last year. There has never been any restriction on the movement of any member of the delegations of which I have been part. I can say with some feeling, having led the second delegation, that MPs and peers have a tendency to wander off, talk to people and do their own thing. That was certainly the case—I might even have been guilty of it once or twice—when we visited the workers’ villages that were built by Qatar to accommodate migrant workers engaged in construction contracts, particularly for Qatar 2022. Those were illuminating moments. Those people did not always give us exactly the same message as the one we were given by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or anyone else with the group, but there was certainly no restriction. It was also clear to those of us who were part of the delegation that the migrant workers we engaged with felt uninhibited and free to tell us about their experiences.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the problem with the blockade is that those very workers were probably the first to suffer from it?

[Mr Carmichael]

There might be other contestants for the claim of being the first, but those workers are certainly a significant interest group that will be affected. Qatar has been measured in its response to the blockade—I will come on to that—but at an economic, political and strategic price.

Notwithstanding the fact that I regularly raise a number of issues with the Qatari Government, my engagements with them, both as a member of delegations and as chair of the all-party group, have always been positive, open and frank. As the hon. Member for Southend West indicated, we have seen significant progress in areas that are important to Members across the party divide. I think in particular of the progress on labour rights. The eventual abolition of the kafala system, which did not come easily, was a significant piece of progress in that regard. We should pay tribute to the people—particularly those in the trade union movement in this country—who have worked hard and sometimes had to deliver very difficult messages, but have stuck with it and never compromised in their dealings with the Qatari Government.

[Bob Stewart]

The right hon. Gentleman mentions trade unions. Are there trade unions in Qatar?

[Mr Carmichael]

No, there are not. I acknowledge the progress that has been made, but as I said, as a Member of this House, I feel able to engage with the Qatari Government and point to the areas where I think we can do better, of which there are a number. The hon. Member for Southend West said that it is amazing what can be done without lecturing. Right hon. and hon. Members who know me will know that I am not averse to a bit of lecturing from time to time, and our friends in the Qatari embassy and the Qatari Government have had the benefit—if that is the word—of that experience. I am open about the way I deal with them, but when we in this country lecture others about union rights, labour rights and human rights in the most general terms, it is always worth us doing so with a bit of humility.

I am always mindful when I speak to the Qataris about the need to improve rights for people in the LGBT+ community that I am a 52-year-old man who lives in a country that, in my lifetime, has seen the legalisation of homosexuality and the abolition of capital punishment. There are shocking and shameful examples of the standards of labour rights we have enforced in our country—I think of incidents such as the one involving the cockle pickers at Morecambe bay a few years ago. I am quite prepared to lecture, but I always do so in a spirit of humility, remembering that we in this country do not always meet the high standards that we set ourselves. That is relevant because the discussion will move on now that the kafala system has been abolished, and we must ensure that high-level agreements and Government commitments are actually enforced by the companies and contractors that employ people on the projects concerned.

In the time that I have been engaged with Qatar and it has engaged my interest as a politician, I have seen significant progress, but I am always at pains to say that I want it to do a lot more. I am quite happy to engage and work with it, to make the case for change and to explain the benefits that will come from that. The law of unintended consequences may well come to operate—the blockade, about which we will no doubt continue to speak, may actually hasten the process of modernisation, the increase in democratisation and the improvement of human rights in Qatar. As we look towards 2022, that will only accelerate.

There has been a lot of international scrutiny—a lot of it quite negative—of labour conditions in Qatar. The Qataris have made big changes in that respect, but there will be other issues. The one I always raise with them is the position of the LGBT+ community, and we should look to them to make progress in that and other areas. There is, though—I speak as someone who is completely uninterested in football—a really exciting story to be told about Qatar 2022, which will be the first Arab World cup. Phenomenal resources have been committed to it. Before the debate, the hon. and gallant Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) asked about the construction of the stadiums. Constructing entirely air-conditioned stadiums is a remarkable feat of engineering. At the conclusion of the World cup, a number of those stadiums will be dismantled, removed from Qatar and given to countries that would not, if left to their own devices, have the resources to build a stadium of that sort.

[Bob Stewart]

Having visited, my concern was about how anyone could play football in such great heat. Presumably there is a fix for that.

[Mr Carmichael]

That is where the air conditioning comes in—that is why I say it is quite a remarkable feat of engineering. Having been brought up on the west coast of Scotland, where my antipathy to the game was originally instilled in me, I find the idea of requiring air conditioning to play football difficult to get my mind around. The Qataris understood that even holding the tournament in their coolest time of the year, February, as I believe they will do, would still be beyond what most teams would expect, so they are going to quite remarkable lengths. It will also be probably the most compact World cup we will have seen. The infrastructure to be put in place to get teams and officials from one venue to another is an exercise from which we could take some lessons.

I am encouraged by progress in changes in the law and by the existence within Qatar of organisations such as the National Human Rights Committee. The hon. Member for Southend West spoke at some length about the blockade against Qatar currently in place by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt. We must acknowledge that the allegations made by those countries in June are very serious. It is not my job, nor, I would suggest, that of any hon. Member, to be some sort of apologist for a Government. If there is evidence that the allegations made by the blockading countries have substance, we should take that seriously and Qatar must be accountable.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that Saudi Arabia has been named in documents from the United States Government —and, I believe, from the UK Government —as being potentially involved in fostering radicalisation in the UK. Does he agree that while any allegations against Qatar must be independently investigated, perhaps the Saudis are not in the best position to claim the moral high ground?

[Mr Carmichael]

The moral high ground is not an easy place for anyone to occupy in the region, and I do not think it helps us to stand there. However, there have been significant allegations in the past against the countries I listed, right the way back to 9/11 and earlier. I hesitate in picking up the bone that the hon. Gentleman has generously thrown me, because I do not think that the United Kingdom’s best interests will be served by picking a winner in the conflict. If we are to have a role, it should be to use our good relations and influence with all the various actors to somehow find a way to allow everyone some meaningful engagement with Kuwait, which seems to be the mediator of choice, and as a consequence perhaps find a way to step back from the brink.

In relation to the allegations that have been made and the 13 demands that came from the Saudi-led coalition in June last year, little hard evidence has come forward. The allegations about support for Islamist groups seem to be conflated with support or funding for Islamic State. That would be serious if it were proven, but in fact we see no evidence of that. It would be somewhat strange, shall we say, for Qatar to be funding IS while hosting the al-Udeid airbase and given the other ways in which it co-operates with us. I do not feel qualified to judge, but I observe in passing that Rex Tillerson said that the list of demands would be

“difficult for Qatar to meet”

because of that lack of evidence.

I am conscious of the passage of time, so I will finish by drawing the House’s attention to an opinion piece from the Financial Times on 19 April headed “The continuing blockade of Qatar makes no sense”. It points out first the most recent ratcheting up of the conflict, with reports about Qatar being turned into an island instead of a peninsula by Saudi Arabia’s excavating a Suez-style canal on the land border, and various unpleasant things being put into that canal. It is a good, measured piece that I commend to all those who have an interest in the region. It concludes:

“Short of volunteering for vassal status it is difficult to see what more it”—

Qatar—

“could do, beyond some gestures. Rather, the onus should be on the states that created the crisis to bring it to an end.”

It goes on:

“Toning down the rhetoric would be a start. Lifting the blockade incrementally should be the next.”

When the Minister responds, I would like to hear what he thinks the United Kingdom can do, inevitably working with the United States, which has a well-documented significant interest in the region. I think President Trump has spoken about some sort of discussion at Camp David later this year, and I hope that would be helpful. Frankly, Qatar being at odds with its neighbours has an impact beyond its border and those of its neighbours. It leaves us in a situation where the Gulf Co-operation Council, the most important body in the region and the means by which we western nations should seek to engage with Gulf countries, is unable to operate in the way it is intended to. For a region as important to us as the Gulf, for all manner of reasons—economic, trade, security—that is surely where our interest as a country must lie. In looking at our relations with Qatar, we must identify what our interest is and how we might further it and go beyond it in the wider interests of the region.

Gaza: UN Human Rights Council Vote

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Monday 21st May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

I understand the force of the hon. Lady’s response; she is always honest about all these things. I would point to what we said in the explanation of the vote, which clearly raises questions about Israel’s conduct. We seem to be one of the few Governments prepared to consider both sides of these dreadful incidents, and that is why we want to find the truth about what happened.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

The United Nations commission of inquiry will be mandated to look at all violations of international law and calls for co-operation from all relevant parties. How do the Government see that as being unbalanced?

[Alistair Burt]

Mention was made of Israel’s activities a number of times throughout the resolution. There was no mention of Hamas, when it appears to be clear that there was engagement and involvement by Hamas, although no one knows how much. That is a vital part of the investigation, but there is no confidence that it would be part of it.

Yemen

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Tuesday 24th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin]

The hon. Lady is right to say not only that these discussions are ongoing, but that they must be pursued with enormous urgency. I can assure her that the work that the special envoy is engaged upon has that urgency at its heart, and involves the UK wholeheartedly backing the way in which he is taking forward engagement with all the parties to pave the way for further steps.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

I am sure I was not the only person who was struck by the Minister saying that we would be a candid friend to the Saudi-led coalition. With one third of the 16,847 air- strikes hitting non-military targets, surely we have now come to the time for a bit more candour and a bit less friendliness. Continuing to sell arms to Saudi Arabia is like giving more booze to an alcoholic; it is something that no proper, true or candid friend should be doing.

[Harriett Baldwin]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to highlight the important role that the UK can play in being able to use the strong relationship that we have to raise these difficult decisions and difficult issues more effectively. For example, most recently, in March, during the visit of the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Prime Minister was able to raise exactly these serious UK concerns about Yemen.

Burma

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Thursday 15th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

I think it is unfair to suggest that they have no defenders, although I accept that, understandably and rightly, the focus has been on the Rohingya, who are a larger group that has been excluded from that society as being stateless. The Hindu, Buddhist and Christian groups that are being persecuted—the Buddhists within Rakhine, rather than in Burma as a whole—have at least some citizenship rights.

We will do our level best. I know that my hon. Friend is aware of our work in relation to freedom of religion and belief. We feel very strongly about that issue, and not just in the context of Burma. One of our slight concerns relates to the other things that are happening in that part of the world. We are seeing the deterioration of human rights in Sri Lanka, and even in Thailand. There is suddenly a sense of the Buddhist community being against the Muslim community permeating in areas beyond the Burmese borders. That, I think, could lead to a calamitous state of affairs.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

As the Minister has reminded us, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar has described the conflict as having “the hallmarks of genocide”. It is therefore imperative that everything is done to bring the various actors to justice at its conclusion. The Minister was right to mention the challenges that we face in seeking that end, but there is an immediate issue. The best and most compelling evidence that will inform any future prosecutions is to be found now. What are the Government doing to ensure that every piece of evidence for future use is sought and acquired?

[Mark Field]

The right hon. Gentleman can be assured that we are doing our level best to ensure that there is a full collation of all the evidence to which he refers. We must be patient and recognise that this is a painstaking process. I wish that we could move more quickly to meet concerns about the process of dealing with genocide or crimes against humanity, but we are collecting the evidence very patiently and painstakingly and, when the moment arises, we shall be able to return to that process.

Labour Reforms: Qatar

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Wednesday 14th March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher.

I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris), not just on obtaining the debate but because it is, as he rightly said, on a very important issue. I also congratulate him on the way in which he presented the arguments, which I thought was exceptionally fair and even-handed.

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that there is little to be served by our standing here in Westminster delivering pious sermons, not least because although we have within our own legal systems good standards of labour rights, they are not universal and they are not always applied. I think back, during my time in this House, to the tragic deaths of the cockle pickers on Morecambe Bay. I am the MP for Orkney and Shetland, so I have very close links to the fishing industry. I know that some truly appalling incidents have been reported of migrant crews from outside the European economic area and the conditions in which they have worked in our own country in recent years. So we must approach this subject with a bit of humility, and that is exactly what the hon. Gentleman did.

I should also declare an interest, as the chair of the all-party parliamentary British-Qatar group. Twice in recent years I have visited Qatar; it is outlined in my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I say to the hon. Gentleman and to all others in the Chamber that they are most welcome to engage with the all-party group. We have regular contact with the Qatari embassy here and I have also made it my business to engage with human rights non-governmental organisations that are working in the region. The last visit to Qatar that I was part of was in February 2017. We were hosted by the British embassy in Doha and we met a number of the human rights NGOs and other campaigning organisations working in the region.

We have challenged the Qataris on many occasions in relation to the matters that the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who is from the Democratic Unionist party, have raised. There is no point in pulling our punches; we add no value if we stand here as apologists, or as people explaining the inadequacies in the systems that we find in other countries. However, I say to the House that on all the occasions when we have raised, tackled and quite robustly put to the Qataris the shortcomings that have been identified, I have always found in them a willingness to engage, and as we have seen in recent years, that engagement has resulted in significant progress.

In particular, in entering into the three-year programme of technical co-operation with the International Labour Organisation, Qatar has done something that I hope will produce the sort of change within the system that we all want to see. We have already seen the abolition of the kafala system and the introduction of a temporary minimum wage, as the hon. Member for Nottingham North said.

Most importantly, from my experience of engaging with the Qatari Government I am encouraged by the establishment of the national committee for combating human trafficking. I say that because I have engaged in recent times with the National Human Rights Committee in Qatar, which is a body set up by the Government but independent of the Government. If the committee for combating human trafficking is allowed and able to operate in the same way as the human rights committee does, I suggest that there is significant opportunity for making the sort of progress that we want to see in Qatar.

It is almost a heresy for a Scotsman to say this, but I am absolutely indifferent on the subject of football. The World cup holds little joy for me, or indeed probably —in all sincerity—for many Scotsmen when it comes to the subject of our own national team’s prospects. However, I have always been quite struck by the vision that underpins the idea of the first Arab World cup. It is a quite remarkable vision that Qatar has. If Qatar is to justify it, and do it justice, it will have to come up to the mark on labour rights and other human rights.

That gives the Qataris a real opportunity. With every major sporting occasion, we always speak about a legacy. It is my sincere hope, and it is an aspiration that I know is shared by many in Qatar itself, that the legacy of the 2022 World cup may be that the standard of labour rights and human rights, which will bear scrutiny in the future, will mean that the recent history of Qatar that we have seen—the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves) witnessed it for herself—will genuinely be consigned to history.

Scotland-Malawi Relationship

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Wednesday 13th September 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to take part in this debate and I congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) on securing it.

The links between Scotland and Malawi were well documented by the hon. Gentleman. They have their roots in history, but they are still flourishing now. I suppose that traditionally they existed through the links between the Church of Scotland and the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian, which remain strong to this day. Indeed, my own presbytery in Orkney is linked with the Thyolo Highlands Presbytery in Malawi. These are the sort of direct and meaningful links that exist.

Like other hon. Members, there are schools in my constituency that have direct links and partnerships with schools in Malawi. Westray Junior High School and Sanday Junior High School in particular have done a lot in recent years to offer their pupils an opportunity to see the life of their contemporaries in Malawi and to offer people in Malawi a chance to come in the other direction.

Those are very commendable links—the sort of links that should give us confidence that the civic links between Scotland and Malawi will continue to grow and endure, built as they are on links between communities and individuals within those communities. Indeed, at this point I should also pay tribute to the Scotland Malawi Partnership, which provided me with a briefing for this debate. I suspect that it has done for other hon. Members what it has done for me—namely, listing the links that exist within our communities.

In fact, there is another link that the Scotland Malawi Partnership was obviously not aware of, because it did not appear on its list. Nevertheless, it is an absolute exemplar of the sort of project that we should see and indeed do see across Scotland. It is the Malawi Music Fund, which is based in Orkney. It was set up by a constituent of mine, Glenys Hughes, who taught music in secondary schools in Malawi in 2006; she took a year out to go there. She came back and with her knowledge and experience she then built up links. The traffic between the two countries has continued to this day. Malawi Music Fund runs residential workshops and also raises funds for bursaries for secondary education, which, as hon. Members will know, is not free in Malawi.

Just this weekend, I met a dance teacher in Orkney, Joanna Davies, who had just been in Malawi with Orkney’s Malawi Music Fund. She told me, with some excitement, of her plans to bring a dance teacher and dancer from Malawi to Orkney—a link that she had built during the visit. I listened with a curious mix of inspiration and despondency. I could not help being inspired by the enthusiasm of somebody who had gone out and made a connection with somebody she had identified, from her own professional experience, as very talented. I was despondent, however, that by encouraging her to go forward with a visit or programme for this young man, I was almost certainly creating my own casework, because from the profile she described, I just know that getting him a visa will be an absolute nightmare.

It need not be like that. As a constituency MP, I have seen a number of projects over the years in which visitors come from Malawi to the United Kingdom. I have lost count of the number of times I have sat at my desk, bashing the phones and trying to get some common sense out of UK Visas and Immigration, the UK Border Agency, Border Force or whatever it was called at the time. It is the same old story every time: “We don’t believe that these people are going to go back, notwithstanding the basis on which they have been brought here.”

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

I apologise for coming late to the debate; pepani chomene, as we say in Chitumbuka. Is it not one of the greatest ironies of visas that the visitors who apply have so often been funded by Government institutions? These are UK Government and Scottish Government programmes that are vouched for by highly reliable organisations, but that does not seem to make a blind bit of difference to the Home Office.

[Mr Carmichael]

In calling it ironic, the hon. Gentleman is being kind to those responsible. Whether or not it is ironic, it sure as hell is frustrating and totally unnecessary. I have found myself speaking to Heathrow Border Force staff on a Saturday, with every document that could possibly be required, but it is always the same old story: any ambiguity in any of the information provided is always interpreted to the detriment, not the advantage, of the person seeking entry.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

The right hon. Gentleman makes some very good points; I share his frustration in my own constituency cases. Does he agree that it fundamentally undermines the reciprocal nature of the relationship that we can go to Malawi relatively easily, but people from Malawi cannot come here? It is difficult to have a friendship of equals when we do not treat people from Malawi as equals in the immigration system.

[Mr Carmichael]

Indeed. It strikes at the very heart of the nature of the relationship, which ought to be a partnership. I was struck by the last thing Joanna Davies said on Saturday, after I outlined a fraction of what she would have to deal with before her friend’s visit: “When we go there, we have absolutely none of these difficulties.” That is the experience that many of us have had, and I hope the Minister will take on board the hon. Lady’s good point. It is difficult and occasionally impossible to build the sorts of links that I believe the Minister wants, if another part of the Government is operating in a way that undermines the efforts of such groups.

The hon. Member for Glasgow East mentioned the 1955 UK-Malawi double taxation treaty. It is to be regretted, to say the least, that we are still speaking about this; I rather thought that we had got beyond that and that we had sufficient undertakings. If there are difficulties at the Malawi end, we need to hear more about them, but surely in a modern agreement the partners should be equal. The characterisation of the 1955 treaty is one of a colonial power to its colony. I hope that when the Minister talks about difficulties coming in each way, that is not an indication of the UK Government’s attitude in the present day.

[Rory Stewart]

It is a little uncomfortable, but the question of the trade relationships is about technical legal definitions and trade. The problem is not an ideological problem; it is not a problem of colonial history or timetables. It is a problem of such things as very specific legal definitions of geography. These things cannot be resolved by simply standing up, trying to shame the British Government and telling us to get on with it. The Malawian Government have to make some moves in the negotiation. The negotiation cannot be resolved in the way the right hon. Gentleman suggests.

[Mr Carmichael]

I was a legal practitioner before I came to this House, so I am well acquainted with the issues around interpretation and negotiation. All I would say is that if the Government are experiencing difficulties in revising a 62-year-old treaty with a former colony—now a partner in the Commonwealth—they may have a taste of what is ahead of them in other upcoming negotiations. The Minister may wish to educate some of his ministerial colleagues in that regard.

In conclusion, we often hold up Malawi as an example of some of the negatives: poverty, the debt burden and some of the social issues, such as the oppression of LGBT+ people within the country. That is an inevitable fact in how the issues are seen. I suggest that today’s debate offers us an opportunity to hold up Malawi and our relationship with it in a rather more positive light. How Malawi has built its links with Scotland—the civic links, church links, school links and business links—could in many ways inform the opportunities open to other African countries. I spent two weeks with Voluntary Services Overseas in Cameroon a couple of years ago. The problems facing people in Cameroon are not dissimilar to those affecting people in Malawi, but there is not the same plethora of local groups and civic engagement across Cameroon. Malawi could bring some of its experience to bear, perhaps through an organisation such as the Commonwealth, to show the opportunities for civic engagement and the results that could be produced when that is made to work properly.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Africa (Rory Stewart)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) for introducing this debate, but above all I pay tribute to the Scotland Malawi Partnership—genuinely one of the most unique, remarkable, interesting and human interweavings of two nations anywhere in the world.

Right hon. and hon. Members have spoken powerfully about those links. The hon. Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins) spoke about the links between the University of St Andrews, the University of Edinburgh and the University of Aberdeen in maternal healthcare, obstetrics and specialist tropical diseases. The hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Hugh Gaffney) spoke about responses in childbirth.

That is all part of a pattern of a dense interweaving of different types of interaction. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) spoke about interactions in music. My hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Colin Clark) spoke about the relationships that exist in exchanges. The hon. Members for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) and Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) spoke about school partnerships and connections. Everything that has been said, including by the hon. Member for Glasgow East about Mary’s Meals and by the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) about the personal experience of his extraordinary year spent teaching in Malawi, shows the genius of the Scotland Malawi Partnership. Those are just a dozen out of 1,300 different examples of Scottish individuals, small Scottish charities and Scottish institutions linking to Malawi.

There are three things from which we can learn. The first is, to use a horrible jargon phrase, the civic multiplier—the way in which the Scotland Malawi Partnership, with a relatively modest amount of money, can draw on all the institutions to create a much richer partnership and be more than the sum of its parts. The second element, which has come through time and again in today’s speeches, is mutual respect. Everyone who spoke talked a great deal about equality and about how we can learn as much from Malawi as it can learn from us. Finally, there is the genius of co-ordination and connections. Since 2005 the work of the Scotland Malawi Partnership has been not to create the connections, but to find them and mine them—to draw them out of the soil and reveal to us that thick web of connections between two nations, essentially putting Malawians on the board. That is a very important part of the work of the Scotland Malawi Partnership.

Along with the Scotland Malawi Partnership and, indeed, the good work done by the Scottish Government in Malawi, the Department for International Development is also a major player there. In financial terms it is a considerably larger player, as we spend probably 12 times more a year. We are doing something slightly different. We pay a huge tribute to the Scotland Malawi Partnership, but we recognise that there is space for other things.

We work on a systems level. We have been working since the 1960s, and during that time we have spent well over £1 billion on trying to transform the country’s fundamental governmental systems. That means addressing health systems, not merely through the ways that we have been discussing, such as university exchanges, but by getting into the details of how drugs are bought, procured and moved into clinics, and of how to deal with HR mechanisms of health clinics. It means thinking about enrolments in education. Almost every boy and girl in Malawi now goes to primary school, but the question is how we move on and think about quality. As for agriculture, Malawi is heavily dependent on maize, which is a challenge. There are not always markets for maize and the Malawian Government are currently reluctant to allow people to export it. There is a question not only about transforming the markets for it, but about how to diversify into other crops.

There are therefore two different relationships: the very rich one between the constituencies of those right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken, the Scottish people and Malawi; and the bigger relationship with the British Government. What can we learn from each other? Perhaps I may modestly and bravely suggest things for the Scotland Malawi Partnership to consider. It has been an incredibly successful partnership, but two or three things occur to me. The first is whether the wonderful friendship, partnership and diplomatic relations that have been developed could occasionally be used to challenge the Malawian Government about uncomfortable issues, such as corruption. Can the relationships be used to talk about that—or about family planning? The Malawian Government have brought the fertility rate in Malawi down from 5.7, but the average family size is still 4.5 children. That is a major challenge for a country that is already densely populated. Is the Scotland Malawi Partnership prepared to speak about that?

The hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) raised some recent surveys about the Scottish Government’s work in Malawi. Indeed, we in DFID could reflect on some of those questions about innovation and sustainability, and how the human, personal connections, which are often really good, can be sustained into the future. How can we achieve structural transformation and get beyond supporting 300 people in a particular place today to changing the Malawian Government system, so that they could do that themselves?

Two areas of learning have emerged for the Department: the questions of the double taxation treaty and of visas. My interventions have probably revealed my views on the double taxation treaty, but I think we can do more on visas. Progress has been made. We have now identified a designated UK Border Force officer, who will focus on Malawi visas to try to facilitate the Scotland Malawi Partnership. That may save the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland from having to spend every Saturday talking to the UK Border Force. However, there is more that can be done.

More broadly, the big lesson from the Scotland Malawi Partnership may be for the Department for International Development itself. The Scotland Malawi Partnership shows us a great deal. It shows us the powerful example of a man such as David Hope-Jones and what leadership can mean. In a pretty remarkable achievement, this man has succeeded in ensuring that 15 Members of Parliament appear to have read in detail the 1955 double taxation treaty, the 1978 amendment to it and all 16 of its articles. I am delighted that they show such authority and detailed knowledge. That shows David Hope-Jones’s extraordinary success in communicating with Parliament.

More seriously, at the centre of the Scotland Malawi Partnership is its use of the idea of history and identity—something that perhaps the United Kingdom could be more confident in doing. We have heard a great deal about David Livingstone, but this relationship is not one that could necessarily have been taken for granted. Like all relationships, it was nurtured and developed. There was no inevitability about the relationship being between Scotland and Malawi. The hon. Member for Dundee West (Chris Law) could have made a powerful argument that the natural relationship might be between Dundee and Calcutta. There are many profound relationships between Scotland and many different parts of the world. Malawi was chosen for good reasons, and over time, through talking about it, that relationship has become more powerful, more interesting and more human. There is a great deal we can learn from that.

There is also a precedent point: as the world changes, as African economies grow and as China and India come in, the amount of British money going into Africa will form a smaller proportion of those economies. Learning that we cannot necessarily do everything, and that we may want to take a leaf out of the book of the Scotland Malawi Partnership and learn how to operate at a smaller, more human scale in certain designated countries, may be important for the British Government.

[Mr Carmichael]

I sense that the Minister has said as much as he is going to say about the double taxation treaty. Given that we have not met the deadline that his ministerial colleagues previously identified, what new deadline have the Government set for themselves? Does he not understand that this taxation treaty is more important to Malawi than it is to Britain?

[Rory Stewart]

I am afraid I do not have time to address that point, but as a lawyer the right hon. Gentleman should be aware that setting arbitrary deadlines is completely irrelevant in that type of negotiation, and his intervention was extremely inappropriate given the time. We can talk about that in much more detail later, and we can discuss the 16 articles if we wish. Deadlines are not the key; the key is the Malawian political position on the treaty. Setting an arbitrary deadline is not likely to help us.

If we could move away from the right hon. Gentleman’s confrontational tone and towards what I had hoped he would address, namely a more positive discussion on how we can learn from the Scotland Malawi Partnership, I would like in the remaining 45 seconds to touch on what those lessons could be. The first is about learning how to operate at a smaller scale. The second is about learning how to use history and identity. The third is about learning how to use civic connections, and the fourth and most important lesson is about learning how to place the human at the centre.

What is so striking about the Scotland Malawi Partnership is that it has found ways of engaging a whole human population. Britain could do that in Malawi or in Tanzania, Uganda or Nigeria. It is a very exciting way of thinking about how to do development in the 21st century. The fact that so many right hon. and hon. Members are here championing international development shows how these human connections give us the legitimacy and centre to make progress. I wish they would also champion international development in the main Chamber and champion the UK aid budget in the same way. I will end by saying zikomo kwambiri—thank you very much.

British Prisoners in Iran

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Tuesday 18th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Tulip Siddiq]

I am highlighting just one case, but there are many more involving people with dual nationalities. At the end of the day, they are still British citizens, and we have to give them the respect and time they deserve.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Tulip Siddiq]

Just before I do, I would like to ask the Minister a few questions, which I hope he will answer in his speech. First, it remains incomprehensible that our Government are yet to call for Nazanin’s release, and that they have failed to join the UN in maintaining her innocence. As I said, 261 MPs and peers signed a letter seeking the release of Nazanin, Kamal Foroughi and Roya Nobakht. Will the Government finally join them today?

[Mr Carmichael]

The hon. Lady is making a compelling case. It is perhaps unsurprising that Iran is not receptive to the United Kingdom Government’s overtures, but may I remind her and the Minister that we have many allies in the region, and that we could be doing more to get them to assist us in making representations to Iran in that regard?

[Tulip Siddiq]

This is a matter of life and death, and we should be relying on any allies and friends we have in the region to try to get our prisoners of conscience released.

President Trump: State Visit

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2017 Westminster Hall

[Dr Lewis]

I am pleased to say that this is a debate about President Trump and whether he should come here. I believe that it is entirely right that he should come here. Therefore, issues about any extraneous matters are matters for debate perhaps at another time in another place, but not here or now.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way, but on what basis does he think giving President Trump a state visit will have the effect he believes? We have already told him he can have one, and just this weekend we hear him again talking about walking away from NATO.

[Dr Lewis]

I am not at all aware that he has talked about walking away from NATO. On the contrary, he has made two criticisms of NATO. One is that he believes that NATO has adapted insufficiently to meet the threat of international terrorism and is too solely focused on state-versus-state confrontation. The other criticism he has made is—if it is an extreme view, it is one shared by the Defence Select Committee—that countries are not spending enough on defence. He has rightly pointed out, as has his Secretary of Defence, that only five out of 28 NATO countries are paying even the 2% of GDP—which is not a target, but a minimum guideline. The failure of NATO countries to pay to protect themselves has been remarked upon time and again to no effect.

I finish with a point that may be strange to relate, but stranger things have happened in history: it may be that the only way to get NATO countries to pay up what they should in order to get the huge advantage of the American defence contribution—they spend 3.5% of their much larger GDP while so many of our NATO fellow member countries do not spend even 2% of their much smaller GDPs—is Donald Trump’s threat. If that is so, Donald Trump, ironically, may end up being the saviour of NATO, not its nemesis.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to take part in the debate and to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. I congratulate the Petitions Committee on bringing it to us this afternoon and, in particular, I congratulate all those who set up and signed the petitions. For them to see the direct influence of that political activism on the business of this House has to be a good and positive development.

The argument advanced by those who support the extension of an invitation of this sort to President Trump, which was most thoughtfully expressed by the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt), is that essentially this is the spending of a measure of political capital, on which there will be a return. As the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee put it, the Prime Minister won an important reaffirmation of the special relationship. I have to say to all those who have advanced that argument: where is the evidence that that is in fact the case? I ask that because having offered President Trump a state visit, and the offer having been accepted, we have since seen a very different range of views coming from him that are not particularly helpful, particularly in relation to America’s future engagement through NATO—the relationship with Russia, for example.

[Stephen Doughty]

The right hon. Gentleman is making a very important point. Does he recall another British Prime Minister, one who did many good things but, I think, was deeply naive about the ability he thought he had to influence an American President, and where that led us?

[Mr Carmichael]

Indeed, and I had cause to reflect this weekend on that former Prime Minister.

My other concern is that we may have spent that capital in this way and it may or may not ultimately be effective, but this is week one of a four-year term. Having offered a state visit this time, what will we offer the next time we want to get a favourable response?

[Alex Salmond]

The Crown jewels.

[Mr Carmichael]

Will it be the Crown jewels? Who knows? Just about anything is possible these days.

Essentially, what we are talking about is a question of judgment, and in my view, the Prime Minister, in the exercise of her judgment, got it catastrophically wrong, not just in offering a state visit but, as others have observed, in doing so seven days after President Trump’s inauguration. That was not something that she just decided to do on the spur of the moment. We all know the Prime Minister well enough to know that it was not something she would have blurted out to fill an awkward pause in the conversation, so the question is: what was the motivation? My suspicion is that she was perhaps a little bit spooked by seeing the pictures of Nigel Farage at Trump Tower following the election in November, or it may be—as the right hon. Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) suggested—that she was pursuing questions of trade deals post Brexit. Whatever the motivation, however, it has left us looking desperate and craven and rushing to embrace a presidency when the rest of the world is rushing away from it.

It is also worth remembering some of the things that that presidency involves and, in particular—this is my personal concern—President Trump’s determination or avowed intention to resurrect the use of torture.

[Mr Nigel Evans]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Carmichael]

I am sorry, but I am down to four minutes and I do not have any more injury time, as it is called.

Waterboarding or something

“a hell of a lot worse”

was the expression. When I asked the Foreign Secretary whether he had raised that with President Trump, he said that he did not discuss operational matters. Whether we share our intelligence with a country that condones the use of torture is not an operational matter. That is a matter of policy for every other country in the world and it should be a matter of policy for the United States of America as well.

I have no issue with the Prime Minister seeking to influence the President of the United States, but she should do it in a way that engages the relationship that we have enjoyed in the past; she should be seeking to build on that. If, and only if, she is successful in that should an offer such as the one that she has made be extended. That presumes, of course, that President Trump will be influenced. I see little evidence to support that contention. Even those few benign influences that are around him do not seem able to do that.

I start from the position of somebody who values the special relationship, but I understand that that special relationship is not between a Government and an Administration; it is between our two peoples. It is our shared history and our shared values that make it special and enduring, and that is what the Prime Minister risks doing severe damage to today.

Occupied Palestinian Territories: Israeli Settlements

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

The settlements are illegal—that must be central to any talks. Several Members have suggested that direct negotiations should take place, but I question whether that is feasible. There is no trust whatsoever between the two parties, and the talks would be unequal, which is something that the Israelis acknowledge as they hold many of the trump cards.

What has been the UK’s contribution to the peace process? I am disappointed by the Prime Minister’s position on John Kerry’s speech—it was a depressing volte-face. It was particularly confusing given that the Foreign Secretary had said about the Paris conference that his intention was to be “reinforcing our message”. Of course, the Government attended that conference as an observer, so unless our message is that we have nothing to say, it is hard to see how the Government were in a position to reinforce their message. The Liberal Democrats, of course, support a two-state solution, and we believe that part of the way in which it will be achieved is through international co-operation such as the Paris conference. As John Kerry underlined, some unilateral actions also need to be taken. We want the Palestinians to clamp down on violence and its glorification, but the Israelis must also act unilaterally. Unfortunately, we have seen only negative action from the Israelis so far.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

We can perhaps understand the issue of unilateral action and the significance of settlements best if we ask ourselves a simple question. Can my right hon. Friend imagine any sustainable solution as long as the settlements exist?

[Tom Brake]

Indeed. I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. I am sorry that he will not have an opportunity to make a longer contribution.

The land regularisation Bill is a good example of a counter-productive initiative, as is the expansion in area C. I hope that we will hear from the Minister not the carefully scripted speech that has been written for him, but what concrete actions he will take, because the Government’s toned-down press releases have made no difference whatsoever. Umm al-Hiran has been demolished, notwithstanding any contributions the UK Government might have made.

It is clear that while the illegal settlements and their expansion are not the only obstacle to the peace process, every expansion and every attempt to legitimise their illegality is rightly seen as a slap in the face for the Palestinians and a demonstration of bad faith by the Israeli Government. Of course, any instance of Palestinian-initiated violence against Israel is clearly also seen as a demonstration of bad faith. The fact is that each illegal settlement expansion strengthens Israel’s hand and makes a two-state solution, which many senior Israeli politicians clearly dismiss, increasingly impossible.

Ministers say that Palestinian recognition will be appropriate at a time when it will have most impact. That time is now. If Ministers wait any longer, Palestinian recognition will be pointless, as a one-state solution will have been imposed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We did not learn the lessons, or the lessons were not learnt, in 2013 when there was a failure to listen to the moderate Sunni voices. That is what allowed Daesh to develop. Extremism is flourishing across north-east Africa and, indeed, the middle east, and will do so unless we engage with those moderates to ensure that they are brought to the table. That is why planning in places such as Mosul and Aleppo needs to be done at once, before the guns fall silent.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

T6. When the Foreign Secretary met the President-elect’s team, did he make it clear to them that the United Kingdom will not share intelligence with his Administration if his Administration is then to use it in association with a revived US torture programme?

[Boris Johnson]

I am sure the House will forgive me if I remind the right hon. Gentleman that we do not discuss intelligence matters or their operational nature.