Foreign Affairs and Defence

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2024 Commons Chamber

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

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and welcome to the Chair.

May I warmly congratulate the Defence Secretary on his new role, and strongly endorse the comments he made about Britain’s armed forces? My own regiment has recently been on the frontline in Estonia, and I want to strongly endorse the words he used. I also endorse the advice he gave to new Members sitting on these green Benches. I first sat on these green Benches—on the Government side—37 years ago, and I strongly agree with what he said. I feel that sense of honour and privilege every day in this House.

I had hoped to start by welcoming the Foreign Secretary to his place. I wanted to wish him well in discharging the immense responsibilities of the office he now holds. I have to say that I was dismayed to hear the Foreign Secretary answer questions on the “Today” programme this morning that should more properly have been answered in this House—a view that I believe Mr Speaker shares. Nevertheless, I have no doubt that the Foreign Secretary will be very well served by the outstanding civil servants at the Foreign Office. I want to express my gratitude to our ambassadors and high commissioners around the world. On overseas visits throughout my tenure, I was superbly served and looked after. I also want to thank the outstanding young officials who worked in my private office.

I should like to pay a special tribute to my noble Friend Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton. He demonstrated clear strategic thinking about how British foreign policy needed to adapt to the world as it is today and injected real energy into British diplomacy. I hope the whole House will acknowledge that to persuade a former Prime Minister to serve as Foreign Secretary was a real benefit to our country. It was also a pleasure to serve alongside the former Members for Berwick-upon-Tweed and Macclesfield, who I am very sorry are no longer sitting alongside me on the Front Bench. They were both superb Ministers, who worked diligently at the Foreign Office.

I cannot recall a more perilous period in international affairs. I entered the House of Commons just two years before the momentous fall of the Berlin wall, which precipitated the demise of the Soviet Union and the consequent end of the cold war. It is difficult to overstate, having lived with the terrifying spectre of nuclear confrontation, the collective relief we all felt. Yet the world is once again in the grip of a galloping escalation of tensions and dangers, where the international institutions created on the heels of the second world war to defend our values and protect mankind are being undermined, the narrow nationalism that so disfigured our continent is once again rearing its destructive head, and despots and dictators increasingly ride roughshod over democratic freedoms and the rules-based order.

Putin’s brutal and illegal invasion of Ukraine has brought war once again to the European continent. The Israel-Gaza conflict is devastating and risks regional conflagration. Poverty and debt stalk the global south. Yet covid taught us that no one is safe until we are all safe, while climate change is the greatest existential threat of our time. Never have we faced dangers so grave when our fates are so closely entwined. So at the very time when we need an international rules-based order to tackle these common threats—climate change, migration, terror and pandemics—we are more fragmented than ever. Divisions are hardening and debate is coarsening.

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North) (Lab)]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Member, my constituency neighbour, for giving way and I am delighted to see him in his place—on the Opposition side of the Chamber. Can I take it from his remarks that he subscribes to the view that we need not only a rules-based order, but a rights-based order? Here in our country, and indeed in Europe, the framework for those rights is the European convention on human rights. Are we to take it from his remarks that it is the policy of His Majesty’s loyal Opposition that we should remain a member of the ECHR?

[Mr Mitchell]

That is certainly the policy of the Opposition, and I hope it is common across the House that we should remain part of the European convention.

I was talking about divisions hardening and debate coarsening. Public discourse is increasingly vitriolic, be it in pursuit of single issue causes or broader agendas, from the left or the right, or driven by motives that may or may not be religious and may or may not be well-intentioned. The challenge this presents to British foreign policy is immense, but Britain has punched above its weight precisely because of our leadership role in the international system.

As His Majesty’s Opposition, our role is to hold the Government to account, but also to give the strongest possible support where we can. I hope that we can work constructively, as our two parties have done hitherto. In opposition, we will continue to make the case that Britain must be a force for good, that it is outward-looking and global in perspective, that we stand up for internationalism and co-operation, that we stand against populism and isolationism, and that we stand with the world’s poorest and most vulnerable. I am very proud of the Conservative party’s record in government on all those fronts. We stood firmly behind Ukraine, and we worked day and night with international partners to maximise the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza, while supporting negotiations to secure the release of the Israeli hostages. We produced a groundbreaking White Paper on international development, which drew in the support of all political parties in tackling global poverty in a complex geopolitical environment.

[Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)]

I am grateful to the shadow Foreign Secretary for his comments. One duty of the Opposition is to point out blind spots. We are talking about security, but one thing that was not mentioned in the King’s Speech was food security. For a rural community like mine, which has an 85% agricultural base, food security is really important. We have seen the attacks on Ukraine and the grain coming out of it. What can my right hon. Friend do in opposition to hold the Government to account to ensure we have food security on these isles?

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend is quite right about the importance of food security. He will remember that the then Prime Minister launched the global food security summit last November in Britain. Food security is an issue not just for us but, as my hon. Friend rightly says, all around the world, and we will continue to press the Government to take it as seriously as we did.

I would like to expand on some themes that I anticipate will remain dominant over the course of this Parliament. First, I turn to Ukraine. Britain’s work in supporting Ukraine is a shining example of cross-party co-operation. I pay tribute to the Labour party for the constructive approach it demonstrated while in opposition. The Government can rely on us to continue in that spirit, because the struggle in Ukraine is an existential issue. Let no one believe that Putin will stop at Ukraine if he is victorious in this struggle. Our support for Ukraine in the face of Putin’s brutality remains unwavering, and I know that the Government’s position is the same. We welcome the Government keeping in place the commitment we made to spend at least £3 billion a year on military support for Ukraine for as long as is necessary.

In government, we were also a leading advocate for sanctioned Russian assets being used to support Ukraine and for ensuring that Russia pays for the destruction it has caused. I urge the new Government to push the international community to coalesce around the most ambitious solution possible to achieve those important aims. We on the Opposition Benches welcome the declaration agreed at the NATO summit in Washington last week—to which the Defence Secretary referred—which committed to support Ukraine

“on its irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership.”

It is right that the Government also committed to this in the Gracious Speech.

In relation to the middle east. we want to see the conflict in Gaza come to a sustainable end as quickly as possible. Our view remains that a negotiated pause in the fighting is the best way to secure the release of the hostages, enable a significant scaling up of much-needed humanitarian aid, and help bring about the conditions that will allow for a permanent end to hostilities. That is the plan that Britain championed in New York, and which secured the consent of the international community at the UN. There is a deal on the table to achieve those goals, backed by Israel, the United States and the United Nations Security Council. The onus is now on Hamas to accept it and bring to an end the suffering of the Palestinian people and the hostages, who remain in such awful jeopardy.

The Government must build on our hard work to see aid reach those in Gaza who desperately need it. The Conservative Government trebled their aid commitment in the last financial year and did everything possible to get more aid into Gaza by land, sea and air. Israel has committed to increasing the amount of aid reaching Gaza, and the Government of Israel must be held to account for delivering on their promises.

I want to signal a note of caution, which links to my comments earlier about composure. I am acutely aware of the very strong feelings that the conflict in Gaza has elicited. It is probably the most polarising foreign policy issue of our time, which has played out on the streets of our country, on our university campuses and in our politics, even forming the entire basis for some candidates in the general election, who are now with us in the House of Commons.

We must remember that this remains an incredibly complex issue. The questions and challenges around resolving the current conflict and achieving the two-state solution that we all want to see are profoundly difficult. We have a responsibility to set a sensible and respectful tone in the many debates we will continue to have, and to make clear that there is no room in our democracy for threats of violence and intimidation. We require serious solutions and long-term measured policies, not performative politics or short-term symbolic proclamations. We should certainly recognise the state of Palestine, but it must be at the right time, as part of an overall solution. To do so prematurely could send a signal that terror pays. I urge the Government to resist the siren calls of those who wish to demonise the state of Israel, and who draw a moral equivalence between the Hamas leadership and the democratically elected Government of Israel in a bid to isolate and delegitimise it.

While we are all appalled at the dreadful loss of life in Gaza, we must never forget the horror unleashed by Hamas on Israel on 7 October—the deadliest terrorist attack in Israel’s history, to which the Defence Secretary rightly referred. The Conservative party stands four-square behind Israel’s right to defend itself—but it must be in accordance with international humanitarian law. We must not lose sight of the fact that this is, at its heart, a tale of two just causes, of two peoples’ legitimate aspirations for national sovereignty, security and dignity.

There are other crises around the world that must also preoccupy the Government. I refer particularly to the crisis that has engulfed Sudan—now the worst displacement of people anywhere in the world. We are seeing clear evidence of ethnic cleansing once again in Darfur. We urge the Government to continue our efforts to pressure the warring parties in Sudan to cease hostilities, and to push hard for humanitarian support to reach those desperate people, including those I saw on the border with Chad earlier this year.

The Government must also continue to hold to account the regimes around the world committing appalling acts, whether that is Iran, Myanmar, North Korea or Russia, where we must push for the immediate release of Vladimir Kara-Murza. Finally, I know that the Foreign Secretary will want to work closely with the Governments of Gibraltar and Spain, and take a hands-on approach to securing a good deal for the Rock’s future prosperity. We will also be following closely the very important negotiations over the future of Diego Garcia.

I turn briefly and directly to the Gracious Speech. In spite of their legitimate desire for yet another defence review, I think the Government have made a mistake in not honouring immediately our commitment to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2030. My hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), the shadow Defence Secretary, will say more about the matter later, but I would say now that this gives the wrong signal to our allies and adversaries about our determination to confront the multitude of dangers the world faces. In 2014, the Conservative Government made the commitment to spend 2% of GDP on defence. The UK led the way and many NATO allies have followed, and we have now led the way with our commitment to move to 2.5% of GDP by 2030. The Government should be in no doubt, either, that we will place under the microscope any decisions that they may make on our nuclear deterrent.

On the subject of Europe, we welcome the closest possible partnership with our friends and neighbours, subject to respecting the results of the referendum and the will of our constituents over Brexit. Today’s most important summit at Blenheim, served up oven-ready by my right hon. Friend the former Prime Minister, is a chance to underline the effective way in which the UK has worked with our European partners in response to the invasion of Ukraine and shown that, although we are outside the EU, we can indeed work together effectively.

The upcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, which I am delighted was referenced in the Gracious Speech, will be an opportunity to show real ambition for the Commonwealth. In government, we offered strong support for Samoa’s hosting of CHOGM and its desire to use this platform to enhance Commonwealth countries’ resilience to global challenges. I urge the new Government to continue working closely with Samoa to make the most of this CHOGM and to mobilise action across the Commonwealth, including to boost trade and investment and enhance access to climate finance.

I wish to conclude by addressing an issue that is very close to my heart and the hearts of many others across the House, but which in many ways links all these themes together. I was privileged to return to government as the Minister for international development, a brief I held previously in 2010 as Secretary of State. For many in their darkest moments after flood, earthquake and disaster, Britain has been a beacon of hope and light. Now, 70 million people are falling back into poverty, millions of girls are out of school, famines stalk the lands of east Africa and children are starving to death. The anger and frustration of the global south is palpable. I made no secret of my dismay that the overseas aid budget was cut and that the Department for International Development was merged into the Foreign Office. My job as Deputy Foreign Secretary was to look forward, to try to make the merger work after a tumultuous start and to set out a pathway to return to 0.7%.

However, development is about much more than money. Our recent White Paper crafted new approaches that reflect the changing world around us. We formulated creative ways of mobilising new and additional funds to ensure that the sustainable development goals can get back on track. I am proud of the leadership that our former Prime Minister has shown on the green climate fund and the Global Fund, where Britain was right at the forefront of ensuring that those funds improved and were fully replenished. I hope that the new Government will do the same with the International Development Association World Bank replenishment and with Gavi.

We made the case that international development must be owned by the British people. I submit that that is not a Conservative, Labour or Liberal policy but a British policy, and we must all unite behind the goal of bringing the British people behind the agenda set out so clearly in the White Paper. All British development money is spent in our national interest, because it helps heal the grotesque discrepancies of opportunity and wealth that disfigure our world. We will continue to stand up for the world’s poorest and most vulnerable, calling for the continued reform of the international financial system to free up funding for climate finance, debt relief and achieving the SDGs. We will continue to stand up for women and girls with the same vigour that we exhibited in government, whether in relation to female genital mutilation, women’s rights or LGBTQ rights, and we will press for a bolstering of the coping mechanisms of countries on the frontline of climate shocks.

Finally, we will be keeping a close eye on whether the “D” in FCDO falls silent once more. Development is only as effective as the structures and expertise behind it. I tried hard in office to strengthen the development silo in the Foreign Office, with some, but frankly not enough success. I stress in the strongest terms that development cannot be a sideshow, as people’s lives depend upon it, but the Foreign Office system is built around diplomacy, with a panoply of resources focused on the Foreign Secretary’s priorities. I hope that the Government keep that in mind. Development deserves the attention and energy afforded to diplomacy. With the right strategic adjustments, development and diplomacy could make for a mighty partnership, but it will require proactive leadership. If, despite best efforts, that cannot be achieved under the merger—that will become clearer sooner rather than later during this Parliament—I will urge the Government to move swiftly and decisively to plan B.

It is easy to despair at the state of the world, so I hope to end on a more sanguine note. I am long enough in the tooth to have lived through the ebbs and flows of different eras, conflicts and crises. I have witnessed the worst in humanity, but also the best. I have learned that the bleakest moments offer the greatest opportunities. However, history teaches us that most things do not come to an end, but are brought to an end. We have the power to change things for the better and to build a safer and more prosperous world, but we cannot do it alone. Only international co-operation can deliver the progress we seek. I sincerely hope that the new Government will succeed. The future of us all depends on that success.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Siobhain McDonagh)]

I call Deirdre Costigan to make her maiden speech.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)]

What a pleasure to have heard three such effective maiden speeches! I commend the hon. Member for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell) for surviving not only the election, but the birth of twins. I wish his family well. I wish the hon. Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme (Lee Pitcher) a happy birthday. I do not think that making a speech in the House of Commons on future birthdays will have the same allure, somehow.

I regarded Virendra Sharma as a great friend in the House of Commons. I never quite saw him as a mafia don, but I did see him as a very effective operator. All new MPs, and indeed returning MPs, could learn a lot from Virendra about how to get things done in Parliament.

I commend the new teams at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the Ministry of Defence. I am particularly pleased to see the noble Lord Collins of Highbury becoming an Under-Secretary in the Department. I have worked closely with him on development-related issues over the past five years, particularly as his co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on nutrition for development. Lord Collins championed those issues in opposition; I am confident that he will now do so within the FCDO, along with the Minister of State, the right hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds), whom I congratulate on her appointment.

I want to concentrate on international development, although I note that there was no specific mention of it—nor any ambition to return to spending 0.7% on it—in the King’s Speech. I commend my long-standing right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) for his efforts in the previous Government. Not only did he bring his usual vigour and drive to his time as Minister for International Development, but he stabilised what all the evidence presented to the Select Committee on International Development showed had been a chaotically managed merger of the Department for International Development and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the thinking behind the merger, we cannot pretend that it was well executed, or that the randomness of some of the decisions and the scale of the funding cuts were not seriously damaging to frontline programmes and the UK’s reputation as a reliable development partner.

Thank to my right hon. Friend, that is behind us. I listen to his warning about the need for a plan B, although the last thing those delivering aid on the frontline need is the distraction and disruption of further organisational change in the FCDO. However, I am sure that they want to know this Government’s criteria and anticipated timescale for returning to 0.7%. In opposition, Labour Members rightly highlighted the cuts to the aid budget, and the impact on that budget of spending on refugees in the UK, but in government they need to put their money where their mouth is, so I look forward to hearing some detail on that spending in the Minister’s winding-up speech.

If we are to make meaningful progress on achieving the sustainable development goals by 2030, the Government should embrace the White Paper published by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield. It was well received across the development community in the UK and internationally. Although it is understandable that a new Government might want to put their own bells and whistles on it, I hope the core objectives of ending extreme poverty and tackling climate change will remain, along with the framework for doing so.

[Mr Mitchell]

I assure my right hon. Friend that there are bells and whistles from across the House in the international development White Paper.

[David Mundell]

Indeed, and I see the White Paper as an important part of building a new consensus on development, and of re-engaging the wider public with that agenda. A cross-party approach is the best way to build public support for development and confidence that funding is being spent effectively, which is a legitimate concern of our constituents.

All of us in this place who care about development should set ourselves the objective of increasing public engagement in the UK, as should those who work in the sector. In recent years, too many non-governmental organisations have gone down an overtly corporate route and lost touch with their members and supporters, who are often the most powerful advocates for aid in their communities.

Having listened to Mr Deputy Speaker’s guidance, I think I do not have time to go into detail on what I think the specific priorities should be, but having co-chaired the all-party parliamentary groups on HIV/AIDS and nutrition for development, I am absolutely clear that those must be at the heart of the Government’s approach to international development.

The Economist has highlighted this week that spending on nutrition delivers the best outcomes for the money spent. As the Government move forward on delivering the sustainable development goals, which we seem far from achieving by 2030, I hope that nutrition will be at the heart of the agenda, and that the Government will take the opportunity of the forthcoming Nutrition for Growth conference in Paris to restate their commitment not just to nutrition, but to international development.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Anneliese Dodds)]

It is an honour to close such a well informed and at times passionate debate, and I will endeavour to respond to as many points as I can get through in the time available. As my right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary said at the beginning of this debate, the Foreign Secretary is extremely disappointed that he was not able to participate today, and I know that he will want to update the House shortly on his recent international engagement.

It is an enormous privilege for me to speak in this Chamber for the first time as the Minister of State for Development, as the Minister for Women and Equalities, and as part of a new Government who are proud to serve our country and are working to reconnect Britain with the world. I welcome the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) to his new place on the Opposition Front Bench, and of course the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), to whom I am personally very grateful for reaching out to me on my appointment. I note that both the previous incumbent in my role and the Defence Secretary said at the very beginning of the debate that this is a time when we need to respect others’ points of view. I think that has largely held, although perhaps we had a slight change of approach in the speech by the hon. Member for South Suffolk.

Overall, I think we heard throughout this debate a definite determination to focus on bringing people together when we can as part of a national mission of renewal. We heard so many excellent maiden speeches today—really terrific introductions to the House from many new colleagues—but it is particularly pertinent that my new hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Kirsty McNeill) made reference to the need to recognise that so often, we have more in common than divides us. We need to bear that approach in mind locally, nationally and globally in these often dangerous times.

It is clear that the British people have given this new Government a mandate for change in order to deliver our progressive vision for a shared future—a vision rooted in cool-headed realism about the world as it is, and guided by hope for what it can be. As I say, we are already working to reconnect Britain to the world after 14 years during which there has, at times, been disengagement and isolationism. In so doing, we are turbocharging our mission for growth, to bring investment and jobs to every part of our country.

In these often dangerous and divided times, the UK’s security is our first priority, as my right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary made clear. We will stand up for our interests and for our values. We will create a new relationship with the EU, we will deepen our engagement with the global south, we will reclaim leadership on tackling the climate crisis, and we will champion human rights and international law. We will work in partnership with our friends and allies to reduce global poverty and the drivers of conflict and instability, and we will also empower women and girls. In that connection, I congratulate my new hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme (Lee Pitcher) on his heartwarming maiden speech, and particularly his reference to the women in his life. Indeed, many new Members have made reference to their partners and families in their maiden speeches.

As the Minister for Development and for Women and Equalities, I know that delivering a truly effective and modern approach to development has never been so urgent or so important. On that, I concur with the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell). Partnership, not paternalism, is required to deliver the change that is so desperately needed. Next week, I will go to the G20 development ministerial meeting in Brazil to reconnect with allies and partner countries in the global south. Together, we must reform the international financial system to tackle unsustainable debt, accelerate growth and unlock climate finance. Together, we must enhance our ability to prevent conflict, and together we must restore our development reputation to deliver both for our international partners and for the British people—and it does need restoring.

The right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield rightly referred to the critical role for development for the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people, for our stability, for security and for global prosperity. The commitment to development has always been fundamental for my party. So many powerful champions from this House are household names: Barbara Castle, Clare Short, Gordon Brown, and of course my predecessor who held this brief in opposition, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), to whom I pay tribute.

The shadow Foreign Secretary has often been critical of damage done under Conservative Governments to development and our country’s reputation. He referred to the fact that previous Conservative Governments had “literally removed” food

“from the plates of starving children.”—[Official Report, 6 July 2022; Vol. 717, c. 922.]

He also said that previous Conservative Governments had “trashed” our international reputation. I appreciate his honesty, but now is the time for reflection on a fact that he did not mention today: the damage done by the uncontrolled growth in the previous Government’s spending from the development budget on accommodation. That spending was classified as overseas development aid, but it led to cuts in programmes for some of the neediest people in the world. In a spirit of openness, we must surely acknowledge today that that has done tremendous damage to our reputation.

We are wasting no time in seeking to restore our development reputation by increasing support for those most affected by Hurricane Beryl, and by ensuring that the Foreign Secretary visits our closest allies.

[Mr Mitchell]

I have listened carefully to the Minister. As she knows, not least from what I said today, I have been critical of earlier decisions, but can she tell the House today whether she has yet thought through when we might see the 0.7% return?

[Anneliese Dodds]

That is absolutely something that this Government take incredibly seriously. Under previous Labour Governments, the 0.7% commitment helped to build our reputation across the world. We have been clear that we are determined to get back to 0.7% as fiscal circumstances allow, but we will also be clear about situations in which the percentage of our gross national income that can go to development has been compromised because of uncontrolled costs, such as those incurred under the previous Government. Surely the shadow Foreign Secretary must acknowledge that damage and what has happened to programmes for some of the poorest people around the world under his party’s watch.

As I stated, we have sought to restore our development reputation by increasing support for those affected by Hurricane Beryl, and by immediately taking action to reconnect with our allies, with the Foreign Secretary visiting Germany, Poland and Sweden in his first 48 hours in his role, and the Defence Secretary, of course, visiting Ukraine. The Defence Secretary was crystal clear: Ukraine and its people have no firmer friend than the UK in their fight against Putin. The Ukrainians are defending our shared security and prosperity, and we stand with them now and always. The right hon. Member for Wetherby and Easingwold (Sir Alec Shelbrooke) rightly referred to their bravery as well as that of the UK’s armed forces, to whom I pay tribute. It was a pleasure to hear from new Members who have services experience, including in the maiden speech of the new hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Cameron Thomas), and the new hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (John Cooper) talked about the noble military history of his constituency.

We are clear that under the new Government, the UK will pledge £3 billion in military aid to Ukraine every year. We are speeding up delivery, including of a new package of military equipment, and will aim to play a leading role in supporting a clear, irreversible road for Ukraine to full NATO membership. That commitment from the UK to ensuring that Ukraine can proceed to NATO is unshakeable. As has been mentioned, we will also set out a clear and credible path to spending 2.5% of UK GDP on defence, as we call on others to step up. I would gently point out to the hon. Member for Broadland and Fakenham (Jerome Mayhew) that there was no credible plan from the previous Government.