Bahraini Political Prisoners

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2022 Commons Chamber

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

I congratulate the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O'Hara) on securing time for the debate and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing it. I remind the House of my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: namely, that I am a director of the board of the Council for Arab-British Understanding and an officer of a number of the all-party parliamentary groups relative to the Gulf, including the one chaired by the hon. Member.

I thank the right hon. and gallant Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) for his contribution to the debate, which illustrated rather well the challenge that we all have—I include the Government—in this area: maintaining the appropriate balance. My consideration of the situation in Bahrain leads me to be most concerned about human rights abuses. We see the comments of Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other human rights organisations that have taken an interest in Bahrain, and those people have no axe to grind other than because they have a concern for human rights.

I say to the Minister that, in striking the balance—as we must do—the Government have some way to go in getting it right. I understand the strategic importance of Gulf countries to the United Kingdom and of engagement with them. I also understand that sometimes we have to engage with a long-handled spoon, as it were, but I suggest that engagement is worthwhile only if we can see progress and a benefit from it, especially in the maintenance in human rights, and that the money we spend on countries such as Bahrain must show a rather better return than we have seen so far.

It concerns me that, last year, the Home Secretary met Bahrain’s Minister of the Interior, Sheikh Rashid bin Abdullah al-Khalifa, in the wake of an appallingly violent attack against political prisoners in Jau prison in which inmates were subjected to mass torture and enforced disappearance at the hands of the authority. The meeting also took place following the arrest and abuse of 13 children who were subjected to threats of rape and electric shock. The United Kingdom ambassador to Bahrain, Roddy Drummond, also met Sheikh Rashid just a few weeks ago.

Members of the House have heard me speak on numerous occasions about the case for Magnitsky sanctions in relation to several officers of the Chinese Communist party. I give every credit to the Government for their progress on that, especially in relation to those who are active in the Xinjiang region. However, I must say to the Minister that we undermine our good work on China and other regimes if we do not approach Governments in places such as Saudi Arabia and Bahrain with equal vigour. That is what I mean in talking about balance.

In replying to the debate, will the Minister address the reasons for the Government refusing to act against Minister Rashid al-Khalifa for his role in overseeing appalling human rights violations and a culture of impunity? That is a man who was responsible for the bloodiest days of the crackdown in 2011. Protestors have been detained and tortured at the hands of his officials.

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[James Cleverly]

The hon. Gentleman seems to think that he has clarified his position, but he has made it more chaotic and incoherent. If he does not think that trade deals are about securing an inward flow of money to a country, I dread to think what the trade policy of a separatist Scotland under an SNP Government would look like. However, time is tight and we need to get on. 

I also thought it was quite telling that the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) listed and dismissed the oversight bodies—I will come to some of the oversight bodies that the UK has helped to bring into existence later—rather than calling for them to be made more effective. She seemed to want to rip away the organisations that seek, with our support, to improve the legal and criminal justice system in Bahrain, and I think that is perhaps rather telling in respect of her motivations in the debate.

I have genuine respect for my shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous), but he accused Her Majesty’s Government of being silent on the issues of concern in Bahrain. He is relatively new in post, so I will forgive him for this, but I suggest that if he thinks we have been silent, that is more of an indication that he has perhaps not been listening. I will highlight where the UK Government have brought these things to international attention.

Defending human rights and promoting democracy around the world is a priority for Her Majesty’s Government. We want to work to support countries such as Bahrain that have demonstrated, and continue to demonstrate, a desire to adopt a more progressive and inclusive domestic set of measures, not just in their attitudes and words, but in their actions.

I have heard from a number of Members that we should disengage from working with Bahrain, including on human rights issues, and I cannot possibly disagree more strongly. They should ask themselves about the options before them: do they want Her Majesty’s Government to drive improvements in countries such as Bahrain or would they prefer Her Majesty’s Government just to stand on the sidelines and shout abuse, as they have done? If it is the former, the question we should ask ourselves is how best we influence change. We are better able to influence change through engagement, dialogue and co-operation. It is patently in the UK’s national interest to help countries such as Bahrain to benefit from our experience and expertise as they move on their journey towards essential reform.

[Mr Carmichael]

The Government presumably have key performance indicators on the money that is spent in relation to Bahrain. What are they and what progress have we seen in recent years?

[James Cleverly]

A number of right hon. and hon. Members have raised the issue of progress and I will come to that, particularly with regard to the Gulf strategy fund. I want to clarify a point that was repeated by a number of Opposition Members about the increase in funding. I remind the House that the Gulf strategy fund does not come from our ODA allocation. The predecessor of the Gulf strategy fund, which sought to accomplish, largely, the same set of priorities, had a budget of—let me double-check. Sorry, the budget for 2021 had halved. The Gulf strategy fund’s predecessor’s previous budget was twice as much, so when people talk about an increase, actually, the budget has halved. It is important to put that on record.

Amnesty International Offices in Hong Kong

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Rosindell]

My hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head. I believe that the way China has treated Hong Kong is a betrayal of everything we thought we had agreed with China. My hon. Friend makes the point very clearly, and I intend to emphasise this still further as the debate progresses.

Let us make no mistake about this: the dismantling of civil society organisations is another step in the Chinese Government’s relentless pursuit of the destruction of Hong Kong’s autonomy and the freedoms that were previously guaranteed by the one country, two systems model and the Sino-British joint declaration that underpinned it. Despite previous claims that the national security law would be used sparingly, would not be applied retrospectively and would not impact on the rule of law, we have seen the Chinese Communist party use the smokescreen of state security to arrest journalists, former pro-democracy lawmakers, activists, students, trade unionists, lawyers and even speech therapists.

This month alone, Beijing and the Hong Kong Government warned the Foreign Correspondents Club that it risked closure and possibly violated the national security law for publishing a survey of its members on press freedom. The Justice Secretary stated that gestures, words and signs could lead to convictions, and the Security Minister cautioned that Hong Kongers who cast blank ballots or boycott the upcoming Legislative Council elections could be violating this draconian law.

No one looking at these developments can be under any illusion whatsoever that the old Hong Kong that guaranteed freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, freedom of association and freedom of religion or belief, and upheld the rule of law, exists today: that has gone. The two trials we have seen under the national security law have already demonstrated the export and establishment of China’s judicial system in Hong Kong, with suspects denied bail on spurious grounds, judges hand-picked by Beijing and one individual receiving a sentence of six and a half years in jail simply for carrying a flag with a pro-democracy slogan on it.

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

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that, as recently as Saturday, a judgment was handed down that dealt with the question of joint enterprise, which shows that the national security law is actually building a significant body of jurisprudence. In these circumstances, does he agree that it is now wholly inappropriate that United Kingdom lawyers and especially judges should be party to this sham of democracy?

[Andrew Rosindell]

The right hon. Gentleman pre-empts what I was going to say later, and he is entirely correct that we should not be giving any legitimacy to this regime any longer.

The crackdown is clearly undermining the business environment in the city and Hong Kong’s status as a global financial centre, as British-based banks and businesses fear the extension of Beijing’s foreign anti-sanctions law which would require them to ignore US sanctions, and new requirements under the national security law force them to become even more complicit in the crackdown by disclosing the property of suspects. The growing number of US firms reported to be leaving the city and the warnings about the Hong Kong Government’s dwindling surplus are key indicators of this contagion.

So, what should the UK as a co-signatory to the joint declaration do in response to what the former Foreign Secretary my right hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab) has labelled China’s “ongoing non-compliance” with upholding its international commitments to the people of Hong Kong?

First, the Government need to look at what more can be done to support civil society in Hong Kong, which is currently under dreadful assault. In particular, the Minister should outline what plans the Government have to ensure the flow of information and reporting on the human rights situation now that both Amnesty and Human Rights Watch have been forced to close down.

Secondly, Ministers must reconsider the participation of sitting UK judges on the Hong Kong court of final appeal. As the human rights situation continues to deteriorate at a worrying pace, it is clear that these judges are powerless to moderate Beijing’s behaviour. Instead, they are offering political cover for a Government in Hong Kong who have lost all legitimacy.

Thirdly, Ministers need to stop dragging their feet when it comes to using the Magnitsky sanctions against the Hong Kong and Chinese officials responsible for these abuses. What signal does it send to our closest allies and partners in the region when the UK is unwilling to sanction individuals who have violated an international treaty with the United Kingdom and are systematically abusing human rights?

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[Vicky Ford]

China is paying a huge price for taking those actions against Hong Kong, not least China’s reputation on the international stage and let alone the impact it is having on the people of Hong Kong, which I will come on to now.

Last year, the UK introduced a bespoke immigration route for British nationals overseas and their dependants, providing a path to citizenship. The route opened on 31 January 2021. By 30 June, nearly 65,000 people had applied for the BNO route. We also suspended our extradition treaty with Hong Kong indefinitely and extended our arms embargo on mainland China to Hong Kong. All of that answers my hon. Friend’s question about what price China is paying.

We have led action in the international community through our G7 presidency. In June, 44 countries supported a joint statement on Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Tibet at the UN Human Rights Council. In July, we co-sponsored an event on Hong Kong during the UN Human Rights Council, speaking alongside a number of UN special rapporteurs. In October, we delivered a national statement during the United Nations Third Committee, reiterating our deep concerns about the deterioration of fundamental freedoms in Hong Kong under the national security law. The Chinese and Hong Kong authorities can be in no doubt about the seriousness of our concerns, and those of the international community.

[Mr Carmichael]

The Minister will have seen this weekend that China is not always that bothered about its reputation on the international stage. Surely the removal of the Amnesty International office in Hong Kong ought to be the canary in the mineshaft? Amnesty is not an organisation that gives up easily in these contexts and the fact that it has removed its office should be a warning. Is this not the point, as the hon. Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) said, where we really begin to get serious in relation to Magnitsky sanctions?

[Vicky Ford]

Let me turn to exactly that point and to the specific points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Romford, starting with sanctions.

Since establishing the global human rights sanctions regime in July 2020, we have imposed sanctions on 78 individuals and entities involved in serious human rights violations or abuses, including in Belarus and Myanmar, as well as in Xinjiang in China. On 22 March, the former Foreign Secretary announced that under the UK’s global human rights sanctions regime, the UK imposed asset freezes and travel bans against four Chinese Government officials, as well as an asset freeze against one entity responsible for enforcing the repressive security policies against many areas of Xinjiang. Those measures were taken alongside the US, Canada and the EU, sending a clear message to the Chinese Government that the international community will not turn a blind eye to such serious and systematic violations of basic human rights. Those listed face travel bans and asset freezes across the US, Canada, the EU and the UK. Together, we make up a third of global GDP, which amplifies the impact and reach of our actions.

We will, of course, continue to consider sanctions, but I cannot speculate here who may be designated for sanctions in future, as that very speculation could undermine the impact of the designation, if it happens—I hope that my hon. Friend understands exactly what I mean by that point. We will continue to consider them, but we cannot speculate because to speculate would undermine the impact.

My hon. Friend mentioned the participation of British judges in the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal. British judges have played an important role in supporting the independence of Hong Kong’s judiciary since handover, but it is for the judges to make their own decisions about their continued service in Hong Kong. It is right, however, that the UK Supreme Court, in discussion with our Government, continues to assess the situation in Hong Kong.

My hon. Friend raised concerns about young Hongkongers accessing the BNO scheme. I reiterate that nearly 65,000 had applied for the BNO scheme by June, which shows how valuable it is. The BNO route reflects the UK’s historic and moral commitment to those who retained ties to the UK by taking out BNO status at the point of Hong Kong’s handover to China in 1997. Those with BNO status and eligible family members can come to the UK to live, study and work on a pathway to citizenship. Those who are not eligible for the BNO route may consider other UK immigration routes that are available. These include the new points-based system and the youth mobility scheme, which is open to those aged between 18 and 30.

My hon. Friend also raised the issue of those who had served with the armed forces—loyal Hongkongers who served Queen and country—and, like him, I have huge respect for the service they have given. He mentioned amendments that have been tabled to the Nationality and Borders Bill. I am afraid I cannot answer those questions on asylum and immigration here at the Dispatch Box because they will be for the Home Secretary to answer, but I thank him for putting those matters on the agenda this evening.

Let me be very clear: there is a stark and growing gulf between Beijing’s promises on Hong Kong and Beijing’s actions. We will continue to stand up for the rights and freedoms of the people of Hong Kong. We will continue to bring together like-minded partners, call out violations of Hong Kong’s rights and freedoms, and hold China to the obligation that it willingly undertook to safeguard the people of Hong Kong and their way of life.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Tuesday 26th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

Pakistan is a significant, important and close partner to the UK. Travellers from Pakistan can come to the UK freely provided that they adhere to the relevant covid-19 restrictions, the details of which are on the gov.uk website. We will continue to work with our Pakistani colleagues to reopen international travel safely.

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

T9. What evidence have the Government of Israel given the Foreign Secretary or her Department to justify the designation of six Palestinian human rights organisations as terrorist organisations? Does she agree with me—and, indeed, with the assessment of B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights organisation—that this is not worthy of a democracy, and is more what we expect from repressive regimes?

[James Cleverly]

The UK’s relationship with Israel is strong and important, and the strength of that relationship allows us to raise sensitive issues such as this. I assure the right hon. Gentleman that we will be speaking to our friends and colleagues in the Israeli Government about the reasons why they felt that they needed to designate those organisations.

Detention of Jagtar Singh Johal

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Wednesday 30th June 2021 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I commend the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes) for securing the debate and for his advocacy on behalf of his constituent. There is a great deal that I could say about this case, but time is short. I will limit myself to three brief points.

First, I understand the concerns that the Minister will have with regard to the apparent interference in the criminal justice system of another sovereign state. That is well rehearsed; it is not new territory for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. However, I bring to his attention the quite remarkable and wholly inappropriate briefing note circulated to Members of this House today; it was brought to the Deputy Speaker’s attention by the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire. I gently suggest to the Minister that it demonstrates, in the way in which it is constructed—both in terms of its highly misleading and inaccurate content and how it strays into discussion of the procedure and indeed substance of the case against Jagtar Singh Johal—that in fact the Indian Government themselves do not have great regard for the propriety of the independence of their own criminal justice system. I hope that the Minister will bear that in mind when he formulates his own position with regard to it.

Secondly, the absolutely most crucial point, made by the hon. Member, is that Jagtar Singh Johal has been the subject of very strong prima facie arbitrary detention. As has been made clear by counsel instructed by Reprieve and Redress in the briefing they provided for Members today, this is caught by categories 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the guidance produced by the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. I was in legal practice myself for long enough to know that lawyers can come to different conclusions, so if the advice given or the conclusions drawn by the Minister and his staff are different, I hope he will explain exactly where these differences come from.

Thirdly, Jagtar’s position is undoubtedly grim, but he is actually in a much better position than just about everybody I have ever campaigned for and worked with when they were facing the death penalty, because he has not yet been through the judicial process. I have looked at just about every death penalty case I have ever been part of and thought, “Dear God, if only we had got to this at first instance.” We are well ahead of that point at the moment. The Government should be implementing their own policy with regard to arbitrary detention. They have rightly done it for Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and others often enough. Why are they not doing it for Jagtar?

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[Nigel Adams]

What I can tell the hon. Gentleman is that we have consistently raised the need for an independent and impartial investigation into those torture allegations. The Foreign Secretary himself most recently highlighted this to Indian Minister of External Affairs Jaishankar on 6 May, and we have made many representations in this case. Officials or Ministers have raised Mr Johal’s case on almost 70 occasions.

I appreciate, however, that there are calls for the British Government to do more in Mr Johal’s case. I would therefore like to reassure the House that ever since his arrest in India in 2017, our staff have worked hard to provide effective assistance to Mr Johal and his family in the UK. We take these allegations about torture and mistreatment incredibly seriously. The allegations go back to 2017 and were made again in January this year. There are causes for concern in Mr Johal’s case, and we also share right hon. and hon. Members’ deep concern about the continued delays in the legal proceedings against Mr Johal.

[Mr Carmichael]

I accept everything that the Minister has said about interventions with regard to the Indian criminal justice system. That is why the point about arbitrary detention is so important, because as the spokesperson for the official Opposition, the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), and the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes) have both said, in the event that that is the view of the Government, they have a duty to intervene. Is that the view of the Government, and if it is, why have they not intervened? If it is not, what points of distinction would they make?

Palestinian School Textbooks: EU Review

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Wednesday 30th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the EU Review into Palestinian school textbooks.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Angela. It is a privilege to speak in this place, and I do so today with a keen sense of responsibility. Very recently, yet more Palestinian and Israeli lives were lost to conflict and citizens left traumatised. The ceasefire has held, mercifully, but in the words of Mahatma Gandhi,

“If we wish to create a lasting peace, we must begin with the children.”

Children’s education is a long-term, strategic first frontline for all parties and all agendas. As far back as Aristotle, that has been understood. He said:

“Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man.”

In the context of this debate, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) first raised the alarm about radicalisation in the Palestinian curriculum in the European Parliament, 20 years ago. Last year, a debate in this House on the same subject highlighted shocking examples in the educational materials in use by British-funded teachers in Palestinian Authority schools. The answer to this, we were told then, would be found in the EU review—the long-awaited work of the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research. Ministers publicly vowed to take action if the report found evidence of material that incites violence. The report on that review has just been published, and it does.

In opening the debate, I want to bring into the light examples of the troubling findings cited in the report, share wider analysis and critique of the review itself, which casts a yet longer shadow, and demonstrate that we are not alone in our challenge to the Palestinian Authority. On a personal level, I should note that I am a teacher by profession, and for many years before coming to this place I worked as a school inspector, scrutinising the curriculum and evaluating learning. I should also note that I visited the region a number of years ago with the Conservative Friends of Israel and had the opportunity to speak with both Israelis and Palestinians.

The EU review rests on an analysis of a sample of 156 textbooks and teacher guides published between 2017 and 2019 by the Palestinian Ministry of Education and, later, a further 18 that were released online in 2020. The review seeks to establish whether textbooks meet international UNESCO standards, UNESCO’s mission being

“to contribute to the building of a culture of peace”.

The EU report clearly identifies evidence of anti-Jewish racism within the curriculum. It says of a chapter in one textbook that it

“sends the message that the Jews as a collective are dangerous and deceptive, and demonises them. It generates feelings of hatred towards Jews and…must be characterised as anti-Semitic.”

Of that particular reference, the report’s authors note that a 2019 revision—the exchange of a photo—certainly does not de-escalate the messaging.

The report identifies examples of terrorists glorified as role models, most notably Dalal Mughrabi, who was responsible for the murder of 38 Israelis in one of the country’s worst ever terror attacks. The report highlights maps of a territorially whole Palestine as an imagined homeland that negates the existence of the state of Israel—a denial of reality. The report finds that one history textbook features a doctored copy of a landmark letter sent by Yasser Arafat to his Israeli counterpart during the Oslo peace process, with Arafat’s commitment to peaceful co-existence free from violence and all other acts that endanger peace and stability removed.

All subjects in the curriculum at all levels lend themselves and pivot to the conflict, whether it is around the environment and pollution, prepositions, illiteracy, or graphical visualisations or pie charts in maths. At first glance, there appears to be positive change and an increased focus on human rights coverage. There is a recognition that human rights are a universal notion, but there is no carry-through or discussion of the rights of Israelis. It is used only as a prism for understanding violations and where most examples are carried out by Israeli protagonists.

The report states that what is problematic is the phrasing,

“which implies systematic violations of children‘s rights reaching all the way to torture and murder, and this has the potential to dehumanise the (Israeli) ‘other’.”

It goes on:

“Above all, the textbooks fail to engage with the question of whether violence carried out by Palestinian actors might equally constitute a violation of human rights.”

Textbooks call for tolerance, mercy, forgiveness and justice, but they are not applied to Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The position of the international community is considered unfair because it sides with the “Zionist occupier” by keeping quiet about its crimes. At the end of a lesson on children’s rights, pupils are asked in an exercise to monitor and list Zionist violations against children in Palestine by following news pages or social media, and then read them to classmates.

Observations noted in the report indicate that the peace process has in fact gone backwards or been downgraded since 2014. The report states:

“In the entire body of textbooks examined for this Report…the depiction of peaceful attempts to resolve the conflict is limited to a few pages”.

The unilateral disengagement of the occupation of Gaza in 2015 is pitched as a positive development, but, critically, without mentioning Israel.

The report’s findings on material are deeply problematic, but there are also problems with the report itself. Glaring omissions, phantom changes, the scale of the review and the seeming mismatch between the review’s conclusions and the evidence on which it rests are all in the frame.

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

The hon. Lady is right to highlight the deficiencies of the material, which are outlined comprehensively and in a very balanced way in the Georg Eckert report, but does she accept that the overall conclusion of the report is that,

“the textbooks adhere to UNESCO standards and adopt criteria that are prominent in international education discourse, including a strong focus on human rights”?

If she is inviting the House to accept the material that she quotes, should she not also invite the House to accept the conclusions of the authors of the report?

[Caroline Ansell]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question, which strikes at the heart of the point I was making: although there is increased coverage and focus on human rights, that does not extend to the Israelis. Actually, the very point that I rested on was that the conclusion rests on a report that offers up, in its body, example after example that contradict those UNESCO values. We need to understand that and challenge it.

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

As ever, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Angela. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Caroline Ansell) on having secured this debate. I think that she, like I—and, I suspect and hope, everybody in this debate—holds the view that we would ultimately wish to see a two-state solution in Israel-Palestine. I gently suggest to her and others that if we are ever to achieve that, the role of this country has to be limited. For us simply to take one side or another in that debate just serves to make things worse: it does not help us move towards that two-state solution.

I say that because I am slightly concerned that the hon. Lady seemed quite happy to take various examples from the Georg Eckert Institute report that it had concluded were problematic and wrong. The report also found instances of antisemitism—that has been acknowledged—but found that others had, in fact, been removed, which represents the progress to which the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mary Robinson) referred. However, I say to the hon. Member for Eastbourne and others that if we accept the report and the bona fides and independence of the Georg Eckert Institute, we do not do great service by picking and choosing those parts of the report that we like. The report’s overall conclusion, having examined extensively the material that was made available to the institute, was that the materials of the Palestinian Authority did conform to UNESCO standards. That is important. I would hope that nobody who has read that report would say that the materials were beyond reproach, but the conclusion reached by the institute through its independent analysis should not be dismissed so lightly.

One of my great frustrations about this debate, as with others about Israel-Palestine, is what I generally call what-aboutery: when someone says, “Here’s something bad that was done by one side,” and somebody else pops up and says, “Well, what about the other side?” I am going to resist the temptation to indulge in what-aboutery, but I want to put on the record my concern that there are instances of that, and there has not been the same rigorous analysis of educational standards within Israel. It is often said, and other analyses have highlighted, that maps often include the lands of the west bank as part of Israel as a whole, rather than the 1967 borders, which are generally regarded internationally as the ones to adhere to.

If we are to make a difference in this debate, it has to be out of a genuine concern for the education of young people and children in Palestine today. It is a sobering fact that a 15-year-old in Gaza will have endured five major wars, as well as several others, in their lifetime. Civil society groups have to run training programmes for Palestinian children on explosive remnants of war. Just think of that: if hon. Members sent their children to school in Gaza, part of what they would be taught, regardless of what is in the curriculum, is how to deal with exploded and unexploded ordinances. That is the day-to-day lived experience of children in Gaza.

Just this week, the Save the Children Fund issued its report on the impact of home demolition on Palestinian children, titled “Hope under the rubble”. I hope that the Minister has a copy of it, and that if he has not read it yet, he soon will. As the hon. Member for Cheadle rightly said, young children absorb their lived experience, and their education goes well beyond what they see in the classroom.

Let me give a few key findings from that report. Some 80% of children feel abandoned by the world and have lost faith in the ability of anyone, from their parents to authorities and the international community, to protect them and their rights. Some 78% of older children said they feel hopeless when they think about the future. Some younger children told the Save the Children Fund that they often take their toys to school out of fear that they might lose them in the rubble during the day. Some 70% of children reported feeling socially isolated, with no connection with their communities and land after losing their home. Some 60% of children reported that their education had been jeopardised or interrupted following the demolition.

If we really are concerned about the impact on young Palestinians, I say to the hon. Member for Eastbourne, and in particular to the Minister, that we should be considering that many Palestinian children may soon be fortunate to have any schools at all in which to have textbooks, because the hard fact is that no fewer than 53 Palestinian schools are slated for demolition by the Israeli Government. If there are no schools, frankly the content of textbooks becomes pretty academic.

[Dame Angela Eagle (in the Chair)]

I am sorry to say that I am introducing a time limit of three minutes so that we can get everybody into the debate and leave time for the Front-Bench speeches.

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[James Duddridge]

I am not sighted on that statement, but I am naturally an optimist. The report talks of the progress made as well as some of the very real and unacceptable problems that remain.

Reflecting on the report, the Georg Eckert Institute is a specialist organisation that looks at textbook analysis. It was instructed to undertake a robust and impartial review of the contents of those textbooks. Hon. Members have talked of the period being 2017 to 2019. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford) said that there was nothing more up to date. Some bits were more up to date. A smaller sample of textbooks from the most recent academic year was included, but they were principally from 2017 to 2019.

The aim was to provide a comprehensive and objective basis for the dialogue with the Palestinian Authority and to promote quality education, addressing the issues of incitement. There has generally been an acceptance of the value of education—we heard historic quotes from a number of Members—and of the power of getting it right, but part of that is getting the textbooks right. It is positive that the textbooks analysed were found to adhere to UNESCO guidelines on human rights and generally to promote political pluralism and cultural, social and religious values that support co-existence. However, it is very clear from the examples used today that there are concerns. My hon. Friends the Members for Cheadle (Mary Robinson) and for Henley (John Howell) voiced concerns specifically about maths textbooks and the issue of the use of maps, which I am sure the Minister for the Middle East will want to review in more detail and perhaps discuss with colleagues.

There is an acceptance that the report found that there continues to be anti-Israel, antisemitic comment in those textbooks. That clearly is not acceptable to the House or to the Government. The UK Government continue to have zero tolerance for incitement to hatred and antisemitism in all forms. I thank hon. Members who referred to the Durban conference as an example of that.

[Mr Carmichael]

Can the Minister confirm that the Government accept the conclusions of the report, as well as the full analysis?

[James Duddridge]

I hesitate only because I have not gone through the conclusions forensically, but we agree with the broad thrust of the report that there has been progress and there are still areas where progress needs to be made. If the right hon. Gentleman has a concern over any particular conclusions, on which he particularly wants to press the Minister, I urge him to speak to the Minister for the Middle East directly, or to raise it by way of secondary intervention.

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[Mr Carmichael]

It is simply the conclusion that I put to the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Caroline Ansell). The overall conclusion was that the materials conformed to the UNESCO standards.

[James Duddridge]

Overall, yes, but there were examples where they did not. We agree with the thrust absolutely.

The hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David), who is very experienced in these matters as a former Minister and MEP, asked us to continue the regular dialogue and raise this issue specifically. The Minister for the Middle East raised it with the Palestinian Education Minister, to whom the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) referred, on 5 May. The Foreign Secretary also raised it with the Palestinian Foreign Minister on 26 May. Hopefully that gives an indication of how active the Government are. It is particularly important as part of our commitment to education overall.

I put on the record, as others have done, that the Government do not—I repeat, do not—fund textbooks in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, but, as hon. Members have referred to, we do provide money for teachers.

Israel and Palestine

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Monday 14th June 2021 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I remind the House of my interim entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and that I serve as a director of the advisory board of the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding.

The two petitions address probably two of the most substantial issues that we could have hoped to have before us. I thank the Petitions Committee for allowing this debate, but I am afraid that the belief that any meaningful analysis of the issues at hand can be achieved in a three-minute speech represents optimism beyond even that which I possess.

Picking up on the point made by the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard), I have visited Palestine twice and have seen what he refers to as the “one-state reality”. I know exactly what he means. However, the point about the one-state reality, as he describes it, is that it is no solution. The only solution is a two-state solution, and if it is a solution that does not involve two states in a meaningful way, it is no solution.

The yardstick by which the Minister and British foreign policy should be guided is always to ask one simple question: will this make the achievement of a two-state solution more or less likely? Looking around Palestine, we see that the settlement-building programme on the west bank makes the achievement of a two-state solution manifestly less likely, and it should be condemned by our Government accordingly. It is also beyond peradventure that Britain should recognise Palestine as a state. To those who have suggested that that is not possible because it is not quite the right time, I gently say that the reason that Palestine does not control her own territory goes back to the circumstances that pertained in 1967 and subsequently. There is now no good reason for that not to be the case.

In the context of the recent conflict in Palestine, I hope that the Minister and our Government will look very closely at the deployment of arms that would have come from this country. Like others, I bow to no one in my acceptance of Israel’s right to defend herself, but we all know that self-defence in law, wherever we find it, must always be commensurate, appropriate and proportionate, and what we saw was none of those things. The idea that these events were contributed to by arms sold from this country is something that many people, wherever they stand on the debate, find disturbing.

Human Rights in Hong Kong

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Wednesday 9th June 2021 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Ghani. I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Gedling (Tom Randall) on securing this debate. One of the things that he was quite right to say in his introduction was that this should not be about the history of our relationship with Hong Kong, and it is certainly not about recreating some sort of imperial past.

I think our own recent history with regard to the territory is worth reflecting on. The position in which we find ourselves today has not happened overnight; it is the product of three decades—possibly more—of British foreign policy and our determination to put commercial interests over human rights. I co-chair the all-party parliamentary group on Hong Kong with Baroness Bennett, and I am also a patron of Hong Kong Watch. We have seen a repeated pattern of people telling us, when we speak about human rights, “Maybe just wind your neck in. There is another deal coming. There is a delegation going. There is going to be a visit or a conference.”

In the years since we completed and entered into the joint declaration, we have essentially sent all the wrong signals, and that has brought us to where we are today. I am genuinely delighted that the Government have taken the action they have on BNO passport holders. How much better and stronger might our position be if we had done that at the point of handover in 1997? That was surely the point at which we could have sent a signal that we intended to stand with the people of Hong Kong. Our failure at that time was seen by the Chinese Government as an indication that we perhaps did not mean the things we said in the joint declaration.

That is ironic, when one considers that we entered into the joint declaration because of our experience in relation to the Falkland Islands. That was another instance where we had sent the wrong signals to a despotic regime, which then thought it could take advantage of that. We tried to avoid the same thing happening again by entering into the joint declaration, but we do not seem to have learned the lessons.

There are a couple of issues I want to touch on briefly. The first relates to the position of the BBC in Hong Kong and China. Its relationship with Radio Television Hong Kong as its local partner is becoming increasingly problematic. On 1 March this year, the new head of RTHK, a career civil servant, Patrick Li, took charge. He pledged editorial independence, but he said that there cannot be “freedom without restraint”. George Orwell would have been proud of that one. With the World News TV channel taken off air in China, and the blocking of news channels and internet provision for years, we have to look at what more we can do to support the World Service, which is still the blue chip standard in broadcasting around the world.

Secondly, I would like to hear more from Government about what we are saying to financial institutions, such as HSBC and Standard Chartered, that have come out in support of the national security law. That we allow them to continue to operate as normal in this country seems to contradict what we say of our intentions towards Hong Kong. It has been reported that there have been no fewer than 16 private meetings between the Treasury and those two banks in the six months from July to December 2020. What was said at those meetings, and why are we still engaging on a business-as-usual basis?

Belarus: Interception of Aircraft

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Monday 24th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

My right hon. Friend raises a very important point. First, we will use all the sanctions—all the levers—that we have at our disposal. We are conscious, as we have discussed and as others have said, of the extent of increasing reliance on Russia, but that cannot be a reason for us not to take the action we take. This is unique; I cannot remember as far back as the ’70s there being a1an analogous case. It is very rare. Sometimes actions are taken more through cock-up than conspiracy—sometimes very tragically when aircraft are shot down—but I cannot think of a precedent for this kind of rather calculated and conniving approach, with the MiG jet and the bomb hoax. My right hon. Friend is right to reinforce, as others have done, the deterrent effect of how we respond to this specific, isolated incident.

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

I welcome the very robust political and diplomatic stance that the Government are taking, but this case is more than that. This is a potential human tragedy as well, with Roman Protasevich now in detention and possibly ultimately facing the death penalty. I know, having campaigned in different parts of the world, that consular and embassy staff are very effective in the way in which they deploy their resources in supporting people campaigning against the use of the death penalty. Can the Foreign Secretary give me some assurance that everything that can be done to keep this case in the public eye will be done, within the confines of their role in country?

[Dominic Raab]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman, and I totally agree with him. We must do everything we can to signal that, as outrageous it is what they have already done, it would be a further step into pariah status if the death penalty were to be applied. I thank him for what he said about consular officers. They relate to and provide services to British nationals and dual nationals abroad, but none the less, the broader point he makes about diplomatically keeping the pressure on and doing everything we can to avoid the death penalty is very important in this debate.

Human Rights Update

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Monday 22nd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I thank my right hon. Friend. First, may I pay tribute to him for his campaigning efforts in this regard? I know he will feel no small sense of accomplishment today, because has eloquently and powerfully made the case in the House. I will certainly look at any names he has. Of course, we have a clear, specific legal regime, and I and the Government have to assess the evidence based on it, but we should be willing to call out. The action we have taken both today and more generally, with the Magnitsky sanctions regime, shows that we not afraid not just to talk, but to act.

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

May I too give a warm welcome to this announcement of these sanctions? They have been long sought and they are welcome now that they have finally arrived. May I say to the Foreign Secretary that while he is on a roll we might possibly see some positive announcement on the Alton amendment later on today, as he has a taste for this? Will he also give urgent consideration to the recent report from the Select Committee on Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, which came forward with good and constructive suggestions about how to tackle the issue of the use of Uyghur slavery in the supply chain of many goods available in this country, possibly including the eventual linking of that to the disqualification of directors?

Hong Kong: Electoral Reforms

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Wednesday 10th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Adams]

My hon. Friend raises a good point. We are a co-signatory to the joint declaration. We have a responsibility to uphold the content, and a duty to speak out when we have concerns, which is what we have done. We did so last year: the Foreign Secretary has declared two breaches of the joint declaration in response to the national security law, and, of course, when the details that come out of the National People’s Congress are published, we will examine them and respond accordingly.

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

May I first reinforce the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) in extending the warmest possible welcome to Hongkongers coming to the United Kingdom under the BNO passport scheme? As part of that, we should all be calling out any increase in racially motivated abuse or violence against our own Chinese community.

The Minister is quite right when he says that we should not speculate about the list of who might be subject to Magnitsky sanctions, but can I say to him in the nicest possible way that that speculation will continue for as long as he and his colleagues in Government refuse to act? If he wants to end the speculation, the tools for that are in his own hands. Why will he not use them?

[Nigel Adams]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the work he does with the all-party parliamentary group on Hong Kong. He knows what I have to say about sanctions, and that to speculate would be unhelpful, but I will just say to him—as I have said to other hon. and right hon. Members this afternoon—that we are closely and constantly reviewing our sanctions regime. I know it is not the answer that he wants immediately, but that is the situation. We will keep any designation under extremely close review.