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.

Afghanistan

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

The hon. Gentleman picks up on one of the great successes of the intervention in Afghanistan: for 20 years schools have been open to girls, and the education of girls remains one of the Government’s key foreign policy aims. Around the world seldom are those aims underpinned by military effort, however, and there are two things from which we should take heart. First, there are now so many women, relatively speaking, within the Afghan institutions—its Parliament, academia and media—that there is an expectation within Afghan civil society that women and girls will have more rights than what they had to endure under the previous Taliban Government. Secondly, the Taliban want legitimacy within the international community if or when they become a part of a future Afghanistan Government. Therefore it is reasonable to expect that they will not want to be the international pariah that they were, so they will be responsive to the diplomatic efforts to promote opportunities for women and girls that we are pursuing bilaterally and through the United Nations and our alliances. I wholly expect that future Afghan Governments would not want to reverse all the great progress that has been made in this important area over the past 20 years.

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

My hon. Friend speaks with great experience and knows of what he talks, but I am still struggling to understand precisely what the NATO strategy or plan is here. In addition to the great bravery and sacrifices of our own military, some very brave Afghan leaders, including women, believed that NATO would stay the course and will now feel very let down while the Taliban have little need to negotiate but increasingly will be in a very strong position. Does this not underline the very real limits of hard power and the importance of using soft power judiciously?

[James Heappey]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his question. He is of course correct that the military could underpin an accommodation of sorts almost indefinitely, but that is not an enduring solution for any country. The decision NATO took last week recognises that we are at a moment of decision. The accommodation with the Taliban is coming to an end, so the decision is to extend the deal, which removes the political imperative, to fight this summer, and who knows where that would have gone—and from a position of having far fewer troops in Afghanistan than has been the case since five years ago—or to force the pace of the political settlement. All those options are imperfect, but what matters now, exactly as my right hon. Friend says, is that the Governments who have formed the alliance now use their soft power to ensure that the parties come round the table and an enduring peace is found.

Overseas Operations (Service Personnel And Veterans) Bill

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 23rd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I thank my right hon. Friend.

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

I do think we are nearly there on this point, but my right hon. Friend knows that it is important, because it has been raised by some very senior members of the armed forces. I have talked to his excellent junior Minister, the Minister for Defence People and Veterans, my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer), and we all want the lawfare that my right hon. Friend described, which is so outrageous, stopped. Mrs Thatcher brought in the Criminal Justice Act 1988, which made it clear that torture of anyone, anywhere is a criminal offence. It would be very helpful if my right hon. Friend now made it clear, in addition to his response to the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms), that it is never acceptable, under any circumstance, for any act of torture to take place.

[Mr Wallace]

I fully agree with my right hon. Friend: torture is not an acceptable part of what any soldier or any citizen of this country should take part in. Where former Governments, of all colours, have been found to have not upheld those standards, they have either been prosecuted or faced the consequences. No one is excluding that and no one is decriminalising it.

Middle East: Security

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

My hon. Friend the shipping Minister is having a meeting with the shipping industry tomorrow, predominantly about protecting the ships in the straits and the vulnerabilities there. With both military and civilian planners, we are in the process of thinking about a range of actions we could take for evacuation or getting people to a safe neighbouring country if the worst were to happen. We plan for the worst—we do not think it will ever get that way and we hope it will not—and we put all our assets at disposal to do that.

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

My right hon. Friend is clearly absolutely right to focus, laser-like, on defending British personnel and interests, but can he assure the House that Britain is working closely with all our allies in Europe and the region, as well as in the US, to finish the job of defeating ISIL and to de-escalate tensions rather than see them spiral out of control, using all the available opportunities through the much challenged but vital international rules-based system?

[Mr Wallace]

Yes. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that the No. 1 threat to us in the United Kingdom and to Europe is the actions by Daesh. We must continue the assault on them, not only in their bases, where they are, but on their ideas, on the internet and in some of our own communities. We will continue to do that. I spoke with my French counterpart—France has often been at the forefront of ISIS attacks in Europe—and she and I are determined that that assault does not fall off the agenda and that we maintain not only our investment in fighting ISIS but our determination to recognise that they have not gone away and that it will be a long fight.

Use of Torture Overseas

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I can give the hon. Lady the assurances that she wants. It is not our policy to condone torture or to facilitate it—quite the reverse, as I set out earlier. No Ministers have been involved in decisions that would have led to that, and it is clear that that is not our intention. Again, I can check that, but that is the assurance that I have received from the Department. I can understand the concerns that have been expressed across the House. People will appreciate that I understand well why such laws and norms are in place. As I said, they are for everyone’s benefit, not just our enemies’.

I undertake to look at the guidance and review it, but it is prudent to wait for the commissioner’s feedback. If it was going to take a long time to arrive, I would take a different view, but it is imminent—a few weeks’ time.

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

Surely my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) has done the House a big service in securing this urgent question because it touches on the reputation of our country.

You, Mr Speaker, will remember that on 2 July 2018 my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) led Members from both sides of the House in asking for a judicial inquiry into British complicity in torture, and the Government promised to update the House within 60 days. Now, it is day 323 and, in spite of that promise the House has not been given the explanation it requires.

Last Friday, the United Nations Committee Against Torture called on the UK

“to establish without further delay an inquiry on alleged acts of torture and other ill treatment of detainees held overseas committed by, at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of British officials.”

Given Britain’s leadership at the United Nations, it is a very sad day when the UN has felt it necessary to pass such a motion. I urge the Government to deliver on their promise to the House and come back on the issue of a judicial inquiry. As I say, it was promised within 60 days and we are now on day 323.

[Penny Mordaunt]

My right hon. Friend raises some important points. Although I completely agree with what has been said by everyone who has spoken so far, it is right to point out that we hold our armed forces, and the agencies that work with them, to high standards —we hold them all to high standards. We understand why that is important, we understand why people must be compliant and we understand why there must be accountability and transparency in these policies not just on matters of intelligence but in targeting them to reduce the number of civilian casualties.

Part of the reason we are grappling with the issue of “lawfare” is that we want to uphold the primacy of international humanitarian law. These things are incredibly important to us.

I have undertaken to review this policy, and I will look at things more widely and in the round, but I reassure the House that what I do not want to come from the scrutiny of MOD policy, which is quite right, is any suggestion that our armed forces are somehow not upholding international humanitarian law.

I know that Members on both sides of the House will know how much that is embedded in our armed forces’ education and training, and how it is given with rigour in everything they do before deployment. Where there is wrongdoing, they are held to account, and it is quite right that we should hold them and officials to account for wrongdoing where it happens. This is not a regular occurrence, and it is not something that occurs within our armed forces—they operate to the highest standards.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Monday 10th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mark Lancaster]

Of course, we do engage with local authorities to the best of our ability, but no final decisions have been made in the Army Reserve Refine programme. It would therefore be premature to engage with local authorities to say which, if any, Army Reserve centres are closing. However, that piece of work on the reserves brings good news as well, so I am delighted to take this opportunity to announce the creation of two new infantry battalions as a result of it: 4th Battalion the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment, whose headquarters will be at Redhill, and 8 Rifles Battalion, whose headquarters will be at Bishop Auckland.

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

May I offer my hon. Friend very warm congratulations on his promotion to Minister for the armed forces? As a distinguished and senior officer in the reserve, is he not perfectly placed to make decisions on reserve centre closures?

[Mark Lancaster]

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for his warm words. As his former Parliamentary Private Secretary at the Department for International Development, I know only too well of his contribution to the comprehensive approach during his tenure there. It is rare as a Minister to be appointed to a Department one actually knows something about. On that basis, I am delighted to be here. It is great to be in this position and I hope to use any experience I have.

Report of the Iraq Inquiry

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Michael Fallon]

I read the Baroness’s speech, and I advise all Members to have a look at the debate on this matter in the other place. It had some memorable contributions, including from people who were actively involved at the time. The point that the hon. Gentleman makes about the need for external expertise has been made before. External expertise is of course available to the different Departments, and I am convinced that the new machinery is a massive improvement on what was there before.

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

I think that the Secretary of State has laid to rest the canard that the NSC operates without expertise, but I should like to reinforce that point. It is evident from the 2010 example of the strategic defence and security review that we on the NSC conducted, and from subsequent events, that expertise from the greatest experts in the country is frequently heard and always available to the NSC. Such expertise also populates the significant briefing papers that go before the NSC and informs the judgments that it makes.

[Michael Fallon]

I can confirm that that is exactly the position. There is no shortage of briefing for members of the NSC. They are able to bring that expertise to the regular meetings of the council and to question the experts who are present. The recent strategic defence and security review shows how a cross-Whitehall approach is being implemented in practice and leading to better decision making.

Counter-ISIL Coalition Strategy

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Michael Fallon]

I will always be straight with the House. Let me be clear about the rules of engagement. As far as air strikes are concerned, embedded pilots have to comply with the rules of engagement of the host nation, but also with United Kingdom law and the law of armed conflict. When the host nation’s rules of engagement are less restrictive than our own, those embedded must also comply with ours.

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

Most reasonable people will conclude that my right hon. Friend deserves the benefit of the doubt on this matter. However, further to the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Sir Alan Duncan), will he take especial care to ensure that he keeps the House closely informed, ahead of what I hope will be a successful vote in the House in the autumn on action in Syria?

[Michael Fallon]

Yes, I will certainly do that. We continue to update the House regularly through written ministerial statements about the progress of the campaign. The number of strikes is reported regularly on our website, as are any replies to freedom of information requests. I will certainly see what further information we can provide to the House as the campaign continues.

Britain and International Security

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2015 Commons Chamber

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

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) and to take part in this important debate. I say to the Government that the House will have to return to many of these issues in the coming months and years, and they would do well to secure a two-day debate on the next occasion so that they have the chance to hear the views of Members from across the House and answer their concerns. That would avoid the problems that have arisen in the past.

It is a truism to say that we face a very threatening international situation that is incomparably worse than it was five years ago. To the erudite list the Secretary of State for Defence gave at the beginning, I would add what is happening in the China sea and underline the catastrophe—the tide of human misery—that has taken place in the middle east, centred on Syria. When I first went to the Zaatari refugee camp as Secretary of State for International Development in 2012 and pledged a great deal of British money to help those fleeing Syria, I had no idea that the whole region would be convulsed by the subsequent refugee crisis and tragedy.

There is, however, some good news. The important innovation of the National Security Council is very valuable, representing a huge improvement in the way we weld together defence, diplomacy and development. After all, a third of the development budget now goes to conflict resolution and tackling conflict. We should not forget that the purpose of Britain’s intervention in Libya was to stop a bloody massacre in Benghazi in which thousands of people would have been killed.

In the election campaign, it was suggested that the Government had not learned the lessons of Iraq in respect of stabilisation. I was on the NSC at that time and we certainly learned the lessons of Iraq, but if we are to stabilise a country after a conflict, there must be some degree of stability. We had well co-ordinated international plans on stabilisation, which unfortunately were destroyed by the complete lack of stability and security in Libya at that time.

This autumn, the strategic defence and security review will be completed. That is the time when we will need to assess whether 2% is enough for defence, because we will then be able to match the resources to the tasks which we require of our great armed services. That is an important equation; there must be sufficient resources for those brave men and women to carry out their tasks.

I pay tribute to the exceptional work that is done by UK development in pursuing Britain’s national interests. I had the privilege of leading DFID in the first half of the last Parliament, and the men and women of that Department do an excellent job of boosting prosperity, tackling—often successfully—conflict and disorder, and building on the good foundations, I readily concede, of the Labour years. Although those three aspects should encourage us, there is much we can still do better.

On Daesh, or ISIL, we must have a strategy that splits off the hardliners from those who hear with some sympathy the drumbeat of the terrorist message. It is another truism that in Ireland at one point there were perhaps 200 active terrorists, but thousands of sympathisers. As Chairman Mao once said, fish need water to swim in. Splitting off the hardliners from those who are more biddable is extremely important and we do that in a number of ways. In the longer term, we need to support development. That is the way, over the longer term, that we will attack the desperate poverty and deep unfairness in the distribution of resources that we see, in particular, in north Africa and the middle east. By focusing on clean water, education, schools, health and family planning, and by offering desperately poor people those basic ingredients of life that we in the west take for granted, international development helps to bind people into a system and a country.

We need a long-term, coherent political strategy to defeat the brutal thugs and anarchists of Daesh that involves all the regional powers and is backed by the international powers outside the region that have influence. Those with influence over the protagonists must exert it for political progress to be made.

In the short term, there is great concern that a more coherent plan needs to emerge. There has been a dearth of leadership from the United States in the recent past; Europe is facing inwards, addressing substantial problems over Greece and migrants crossing the Mediterranean; and the UN, which ought to be the means of progress, is hamstrung by its structure. If there is to be greater military involvement by Britain, colleagues who were not convinced that there was an overarching strategy at the time of the Syria vote must be persuaded that this time there is.

We should also go after ISIL’s funding with greater vigour. We should seek to destroy the oil sales and the means of delivery. We should do more to train and arm the peshmerga, and we should do the same for other Gulf forces once they get their act together. We should also make far more co-ordinated use of international and Gulf special forces on the ground. There are good guys on the ground in Syria; we need to work more closely with them.

In north Africa, we need to give specific help to Tunisia. We need more public information campaigns to stop the very brave migrants coming across the sea in leaky boats, seeking a better life on a European shore. We need to consider the use of blockading and military action against the horrendous trafficker gangs, and we need to find all possible ways of diminishing and ending this huge humanitarian tragedy.

Longer-term economic progress in north Africa is essential. The southern European Mediterranean states need to understand that, in the end, they will either take the people or the goods and services that those people can produce in north Africa. I freely concede that that is a long-term objective, but it is essential nevertheless.

[Alex Salmond]

rose—

[Mr Mitchell]

I have almost finished.

May I end on this point? On Sunday night, I shall attend an Iftar at the Birmingham mosque—the biggest mosque in Europe, I think—with a community every bit as horrified by, and condemnatory of, what happened in Tunisia as all of us here. We in this country need to condemn Islamophobia with every bit as much force and conviction as we condemn anti-Semitism. We need to stand up for human rights, recognising that human rights are not just for nice middle-class people in the royal town of Sutton Coldfield, but for some very unpleasant people who populate our world as well.

We must never compromise our standards of justice and integrity in this ideological battle. Again, I make a plea to the US Government to release for transfer from Guantanamo the last British detainee held there as rapidly as they can. We must not allow terrorists to bully us into abandoning the long-cherished liberties that Britain has stood by. This House eventually stopped the absurd idea of the Executive that we should incarcerate people for up to 90 days without charge. I cannot think of any better recruiting sergeant for terrorist fanatics than the colossal mistake that that would have been. We stopped identity cards. We are now wrestling with the issue of secret courts and the information that has come out of the first secret trial, which is enormously discouraging. This is a generational battle against a threat that is a clear and present danger not only to all of us in Britain, but to many of the poorest Muslim people in the world.