Integrated Activity Fund: Transparency

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Peter Bottomley

Thursday 22nd October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to be under your chairmanship, Mr Efford, for the first time. I hope it all goes well—from both sides.

Some people might think this is something of a niche debate concerning relatively small sums of public money in the context of overall Government spending. We have heard that it has been about £20 million a year for the past five years, although there were predecessor funds and not all of that was spent. Having said that, we could pay for a lot of free school meals in the holidays with the money that is going to what many people will think is a rather prosperous region of the world.

I pay tribute to other sponsors of the debate, the hon. Members for Glasgow East (David Linden) and for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley). I remember a lot of Conservative Members—I exonerate the hon. Member for Worthing West from this—complaining that the former Department for International Development funding regime wasted money by sending it to countries such as India and China. I wonder whether we will hear the same about money being sent to Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia. That in itself deserves some explanation.

I thank the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy, which has been mentioned, and Reprieve, which has helped with briefings for the debate. It sometimes seems like a thankless task, but they and other human rights organisations labour constantly to bring to light abuses of human rights in Gulf countries. The crux of the issue—I think it has already been said—is to do with secrecy. There have been few statements about the fund. Initially, there was no admission of the fund at all. It was like the security services used to be—it did not exist. When it was finally introduced to the public, the distinguished former Minister, Alistair Burt, said:

“The IAF provides funding in support of a range of programmes across the Gulf Region. These include, but are not limited to, activities focusing on aquaculture, sport and culture, healthcare and institutional capacity building.”

What could sound more benign than that? Aquaculture sounds like a wonderful thing to spend British taxpayers’ money on in Oman. “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen” is perhaps a sorer point.

However, that is not really the full extent of it, is it? With all due respect to Alistair Burt, for whom I have a great deal of time, it emerges that about a third of the projects could be euphemistically called “justice projects”: they are related to justice, security, imprisonment and other similar issues. Despite the plethora of FOIs, the Library briefing is almost entirely made up of questions with inadequate answers to them—some from the Minister, who I am sure will give us a far more candid response. We have a whole list of UK Government Departments that are spending the fund’s money, but we do not know how much each is spending or, indeed, on which projects. We do not know which of the Gulf countries are in receipt of the money and how much each of them is given. I notice that a written answer to the noble Lord Scriven said,

“All IAF-funded project work undergoes assessment and review. We are not able to disclose information related to particular IAF projects in greater detail as we have a duty to maintain the confidence and confidentiality of our partners.”

It appears that they do not want us to know what they are doing in the aquaculture field.



A couple of months ago, I asked a question that drew attention to the contrast between the funding of Bahrain through the IAF and the two prisoners who had undergone abuses through the Bahraini justice system, Mohammed Ramadhan and Husain Moosa, who are still on death row. Again, the reply simply said, “Yes, we object to the death penalty being used in these circumstances, but we are designing to support Bahrain-led reform in areas including human rights.”

I return to the question asked by the hon. Member for Worthing West: how effective is that? The answer must be, not very effective. The record on human rights across the board is getting worse year on year in countries such as Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Saudi Arabia, which is much larger and more proactive in the region—although, UAE is becoming increasingly so—draws a lot of the attention. We have heard about the 184 executions, quite a number of them by crucifixion and other horrific practices. We know about those protesting for women’s human rights who were locked up and tortured. All of that is happening now under the current Saudi regime.

However, we also know that Bahrain lifted its moratorium on the death penalty in 2017, has executed six people and has a further 26 on death row. Those are the headline figures, but the practices and conditions in prisons, which are squalid, lead to epidemic-level outbreaks of illness. Prisoners do not get treatment for serious health conditions. Many of these individuals are long-standing human rights campaigners going back decades. They are now quite elderly, but they are locked up. Despite having serious health conditions, they do not receive any health treatment.

The situation in Bahrain has gone downhill since the Arab spring, when there was a popular uprising, which was supressed using Saudi forces. Since then, anyone speaking out on human rights has been dealt with in a summary fashion. Civil liberties in these countries are virtually non-existent now. Things that we would take for granted, such as a free press, the right to assemble and the right of opposition political parties to form—most of them have now been dissolved—do not exist. In Bahrain, unlicensed gatherings of over five people are illegal and public protests are supressed with violence.

I ask the Minister, how are our attempts, funded by the British taxpayer, to improve human rights in these countries going? It all seems to be going in the opposite direction. I do not have time to go over the many individual cases, but there are cases of people—such as Ali Al-Hajee, Ali Al-Wazir, Hassan Mushaima and all those on death row—who should be held up as supporting human rights and arguing for better conditions of life, but who are being supressed by entirely oppressive regimes.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

It would be a good idea if the Minister could say that some of this fund was used to help support human rights organisations in some of these countries.

[Andy Slaughter]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that obvious point, which I wish I had thought of. Now that it is on the record, perhaps the Minister would like to respond to it. Why are we supporting the organisations that we have heard about today, such as the special investigations unit and other human rights bodies in Bahrain? They all have wonderful names, such as the ombudsman. The problem is not just that these organisations are ineffective, despite the money they receive from the UK, but that they collaborate with the prosecuting authorities. They provide a shield against proper investigation and often turn down investigations on little or no evidence, which puts the individual whose case they are reviewing in a worse position than when they started. Yet those are exactly the organisations that we are supporting.

When I was shadow Justice Minister, I put it to the then Lord Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), in very strong terms, that we were selling prison services—this is a peculiarity of our relationship with Gulf countries: half the time we seem to be giving them money, and half the time we seem to be selling them services—through what was called the Saudi prison contract, when in fact what was going on in those prisons was torture, abuse and appalling conditions. To his credit, he ended the contract that had been started by his predecessor, the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), which was exactly the right thing to do.

If mistakes have been made in the past, look at them again. How effective are they? Are they, in fact, giving cover to repressive regimes? Are they, in fact, making the situation worse? We cannot answer those questions because of the secrecy surrounding this and other funds. It is simply outrageous that the Government continue to use national security or other measures to disguise the use of money that they say is for entirely benign purposes. We look to the Minister for some answers today, but what we would actually like is a proper review of whether this is an appropriate use of taxpayers’ money.