Budget Resolutions

Andrew Bowie Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

On Friday, I was in my constituency office reflecting on a Budget that is building a Britain fit for the future. Westhill is the global centre for subsea excellence, and my office is surrounded on all sides by the headquarters and offices of American, French, Abu Dhabi and Norwegian oil and subsea engineering companies. Few other places in the country symbolise not only the global international nature of the oil and gas industry, but the welcoming and attractive nature of our country as a place to invest, do business and thrive. We can all be incredibly proud of our global reputation. Whether projecting soft power, playing host to ambassadors and leading industrialists on board one of our frigates or destroyers, working alongside our allies in the Gulf, combating piracy off east Africa or delivering humanitarian aid, I have seen with my own eyes the incredible force for good that is our Royal Navy and its sailors and marines.

We are also the cultural capital of the world. The total value of services exported by the UK’s creative industries in 2014 was £19.8 billion—an increase of 10.9% since 2013. A prime example of our cultural strength and our soft power reach is the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. It could be described as the perfect hybrid of British hard and soft power, bringing together servicemen and cultural ambassadors from around the world, acting as an export catalyst and exporting the British military and its and our values on the world stage. The tattoo sells tickets in 102 countries, with 30% of its audience coming from aboard. Having already taken the show to Australia and New Zealand, the aim now is to set its sights on China in 2020, which I hope the whole House can support. I am very lucky to be married to a girl from Sweden. That means that I have of course endured my fair share of Scandi-noir over the years, and I can tell the House with authority that no country does telly better than the Brits. From “Taggart” to “Broadchurch”, “Downton Abbey”, “War and Peace” or “Blue Planet”, Britannia really does rule the airwaves, exporting more television programmes than any other country in Europe.

I am proud of our global Britain, our incredible armed forces, our unparalleled diplomatic corps and the attractiveness of this country to foreign investment, especially around my constituency. I am proud of our global cultural reach, but I am probably even prouder of the record of successive Conservative Governments, who committed to and delivered on spending 0.7% of our GNI on international aid—more than was ever managed by the Labour party. Our aid forms a crucial part of securing the UK’s place in the world and helps to put an end to disease, hunger and extreme poverty. Britain has always taken its international obligations seriously, and we will continue to do so. Britain has fought for freedom from tyranny, for liberty and democracy, for human rights and for freedom of the press around the world. We are the first to respond to the call for aid and the first to deploy our brilliant troops and aid workers in some of the world’s most dangerous and challenging locations.

We lead the word in our educational and cultural offerings and remain one of the most attractive countries in which to invest. As we stand today on the brink of a new dawn, I am proud of what this country has done in the past, proud of what we are doing today and, with this Budget, excited for what we will achieve in the future. That is why I commend the Budget to the House.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Bowie Excerpts

Tuesday 21st November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

This is a genuinely troubling case. There is an additional horror in being a relative of a victim of homicide when the event has taken place abroad because of the unfamiliar context, all the complexities of dealing with it, and the problems with the justice system. We will continue to monitor that case very closely. We now have a specialised unit in the Foreign Office to deal with cases of exactly this sort.

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

T8. My right hon. Friend will no doubt be aware that over the weekend Antonio Ledezma, the former mayor of Caracas and leading opponent of President Maduro, fled his house arrest, evaded security forces and made it out of Venezuela, managing to reach Spain. Any claim now that Venezuela constitutes anything like democracy is fantasy. Will my right hon. Friend join me in sending the best wishes and thoughts of all Members to the brave opposition politicians in Venezuela, and to Mr Ledezma, who said at the weekend that his new aim was “to spread the hope of all Venezuelans to escape this regime, this dictatorship”?

[The Minister for Europe and the Americas (Sir Alan Duncan)]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend. Antonio Ledezma is but the latest opposition figure to flee from Venezuela. On 10 October, I raised our concerns with the Venezuelan Foreign Minister, who denied that Venezuela was in crisis. That is immoral, it is wrong, and it is why this Government consistently argued for targeted EU sanctions, which were adopted on 14 November.

Zimbabwe

Andrew Bowie Excerpts

Wednesday 15th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

I have had the good fortune to meet representatives of ZANE over the years, as I am sure have many hon. Members on both sides of the House. ZANE does fantastic work, in common with other voluntary organisations that have kept the flame of hope alive for 37 years. Now is the moment when there really could be a new dawn. There is an opportunity and a moment of hope. We must not overdo it, but we must foster and sedulously protect what could be a real opportunity for the people of Zimbabwe.

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

As my right hon. Friend and others have said, events in Zimbabwe are very much in flux. Events are fast-moving, and we do not quite know how they will end. Will he confirm that the United Kingdom sees the future of Zimbabwe as a prosperous country playing an active role in the region? Does he agree that, if we are seeing the end of Mugabe’s rule, that is a much more realistic prospect and something about which we can be very hopeful?

[Boris Johnson]

I am worried that in my last answer I slightly overdid the note of hope, because hopes have been disappointed so many times, but there is hope. There is now a real chance that things will change in Zimbabwe, but it is by no means a foregone conclusion. Everybody will have to work hard together to achieve it, and there will have to be free and fair elections. Nobody on either side of the House wants to see simply the transition from one unelected tyrant to another. No one wants to see that; we want to see proper, free and fair elections next year, and that is what we will be working towards.

Hurricane Irma: Government Response

Andrew Bowie Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I think that there is water in the BVI. The main issue there, as I said earlier, is law and order, but we have managed to contain the situation. DFID has supported the delivery of more than 5 tonnes of food and water donated by the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency. It has also deployed a field team to find out exactly where the pockets of need are, so that the supplies can get to them as quickly as possible.

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

I should like to join the Minister in paying tribute to the UK armed services personnel who are delivering vital aid and support as we speak, and who are once again proving that they really are the most versatile and best-trained armed forces in the world. Can my right hon. Friend update the House on any requests from other Governments in the region to utilise our world-leading assets and personnel?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I have just been talking about this with the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood). Yes, we are co-ordinating and there will, for example, be some French assets on HMS Ocean, which I think is leaving Gibraltar today. I was in Gibraltar over the weekend, but obviously I had to come back for last night’s vote so I unfortunately had to leave before she docked. There is co-operation and we are grateful to the French and the Dutch. I have also been speaking to the United States. Everyone is proceeding in a spirit of maximum co-operation and urgency. In a way, it should lift our spirits to know that all countries are working together in the best possible way.

International Day of Democracy

Andrew Bowie Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2017 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

Thank you for your chairmanship today, Mr Betts. I also thank the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) for introducing the debate.

Clement Attlee said:

“Democracy means government by discussion, but it is only effective if you can stop people talking.”

It is a sentiment that we in this House might do well to heed from time to time.

Over the summer I was lucky enough to spend a few days in Honduras through the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, at a conference of young political leaders drawn from around Latin America. It was, I have to say, inspirational and incredibly humbling. In a part of the world where the threats of communism and military dictatorship are all too real, these young leaders, who were all aged between 18 and 30, shamed me and would shame many of us here today with their confidence, passion and enthusiasm for democracy and the rule of law. I was taken aback by how, out there, so many still look to this place as a source of hope and inspiration. More than once people out there described this place as still the mother of Parliaments. To them, freedom and liberty are not abstract notions or taglines for the next Marvel Avengers film; they are genuine, live and emotive topics, and so too is democracy.

If we look around the world today, we see far too many countries where the right of individuals to choose freely, without let or hindrance, those who govern them—the ability to hold their Government effectively to account—simply does not exist. In the west, and in Europe and North America in particular, where the idea of getting a say, having a voice and choosing to vote has been the norm in some form or another for centuries, we take democratic freedom too much for granted.

One of the most common refrains in the past two or three years in Scotland in particular is that we have had too many elections and too many referendums—in fact, too much democracy—and that people are getting fed up of voting. I think that that is highly depressing. In modern parlance, what a first-world problem to have. Although I am no fan of referendums, I have recently become a huge convert to unexpected general elections; but imagine telling the oppressed peoples of the world that one of the problems in our country is that we have to vote far too often.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman mentions being a convert to snap general elections. May I push him a bit further and ask whether he would join us in being a convert to the concept of votes at 16—the idea that if someone is old enough to pay tax, get married and join the Army, they are old enough to vote? Is that something he is willing to welcome?

[Andrew Bowie]

I absolutely will. I have gone on the record in the past saying that I would welcome votes at 16, and I am willing to stand by that again today. I also think that it is very important in a democracy that we learn to respect the results of referendums and elections—something that the hon. Gentleman’s party might do well to remember.

I am for more democracy, and would argue that we could start with directly elected provosts or police and crime commissioners in Scotland following the UK Government’s excellent example. I am not sure that I expect cross-party support for those, however. I am very proud of this country’s role in helping to strengthen and spread democracy around the world. The UN and Inter-Parliamentary Union International Day of Democracy, which we debate today, does great work in attempting to drive positive democratic change through political dialogue and action. I believe that it is our duty as democratically elected representatives to champion, defend and encourage the spread of participation in government, through initiatives such as this one and others, to ensure that, in Abraham Lincoln’s words,

“government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Bowie]

Does that mean that the hon. Gentleman would be in favour of what I would call real devolution, from centralised, devolved Administrations in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, down to the local level as much as possible, rather than holding Government centrally?

[Tommy Sheppard]

I am in favour of—what was the word that the Eurocrats used to use? I have forgotten.