Britain in the World

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Monday 1st June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend will not have heard me using the two unmentionable words that he uttered. I use the term ISIL. Daesh is equally acceptable. I would be grateful if he presented his argument to the BBC and perhaps got it to adopt his very sensible proposal.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

Is this an opportunity for the Foreign Secretary to update the House on what the British Government are doing in Iraq and the support of the front-line forces in training?

[Mr Hammond]

If the hon. Lady will allow me, I shall come on to Iraq specifically shortly. I will address her question then and I will happily come back to her if she wants to ask a supplementary question at that point.

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[Mr Hammond]

Yes. The hon. Gentleman made that question much easier with the last phrase: since Prime Minister Abadi took office, there is no doubt that relations between the Kurds and the central Iraqi Government have become much less strained. Within that, there have been ebbs and flows in the relationship and tensions, created, frankly, by the collapse in the oil price—in the end, a great deal of this is about the sharing of revenues and resources, and when the cake is smaller, the discussion becomes very much more difficult, as the hon. Gentleman will know.

In Syria, we will continue to seek a political settlement to the civil war, which has allowed ISIL to seize control of large swathes—

[Ms Gisela Stuart]

rose—

[Mr Hammond]

I did say I would give way to the hon. Lady on Iraq. I do beg her pardon.

[Ms Stuart]

I am very grateful, because I am still not clear on one issue. If press reports are to be believed, our involvement in training Iraqi forces has moved closer to actually training combat forces. I am also not entirely clear whether all our training—that includes of the Syrians—is happening outside Syria and Iraq, or whether more is going on inside Iraq and Syria.

[Mr Hammond]

The answer is that, in relation to Syria, we are doing our training outside the country; in relation to Iraq, we are doing training inside Iraq. We are providing important specialist training to Iraqi forces—particularly counter-improvised explosive device training, which is probably the most pressing single need they have at the moment. We are actively looking at areas where we can increase our support; what we are looking for is areas where we can bring something to the table that others cannot—where we have a niche capability that will deliver a meaningful benefit to the Iraqi forces.

In Syria, we have to seek a political settlement to the civil war, which has allowed ISIL to control large swathes of territory in which to create a nascent terrorist state. We support UN special envoy de Mistura’s efforts to kick-start a political dialogue, and we will continue to train and support the moderate armed opposition and to seek a settlement that leads to a truly inclusive Government that can then tackle ISIL head on.

We are clear that Syria cannot overcome the extremist threat so long as Assad remains in power. As the forces under his command and control showed through their use of chemical weapons against their people and through their continued use of indiscriminate barrel bombing—including attacks over the weekend in Aleppo province—he has lost any claim to legitimacy in Syria. Assad is the heart of the problem. He has triggered a crisis that worsens day by day: 220,000 people dead, nearly 4 million people forced from their homes and more than 12 million in extreme need. We will maintain our leading humanitarian role. With our international partners, we must be ready to support a post-Assad regime to prevent the country being overrun by ISIL and to contain other Islamist extremist forces as it consolidates power.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Fareham (Suella Fernandes). I was struck by the fact that her father arrived in 1968, and I arrived some six years later under my own steam but also carrying only a suitcase. I was an immigrant by choice rather than necessity, but what brings us together is a supranational concept of being British, so whether born in these isles or having decided to live in these isles, we can call ourselves British. That is something we should never forget, and it takes me to the subject of my speech.

The Queen’s Speech talks about Britain in the world. I wonder whether the time has come for us to pause occasionally and see how the world sees us. The divergence in the way we see ourselves and the rest of the world and how the world looks upon us is becoming greater. Elections are quite often viewed in Germany—the country of my birth—through journalists following me around on the campaign trail. Invariably, when I do radio interviews, one of the first questions I am asked is, “Well, Mrs Stuart, just how long have you been on these isles?” I suddenly realised that for the rest of mainland Europe, these are islands, whereas we have largely forgotten that we are an island. The most telling evidence of that forgetting was the mention of our maritime surveillance aircraft and the fact that the strategic defence review did not start by saying, “We are an island, therefore we need a navy.” That is part of our forgetting who we are.

We assume that we have natural advantages, one of which is the English language. I want to warn Members. There was a wonderful programme not long ago in which a young American woman attributed the breakdown of her marriage to an Englishman to the simple fact that she did not speak English English. For example, she would say, “I would like children” and he would say, “Yes, let’s think about that.” She would suggest that they move to another part of the country and he would say, “Yes, we can discuss that.” She said it took her about 20 years to realise that this was just a very polite English way of saying, “No. No chance. I just don’t want to have an argument.”

When we talk about hard power and soft power, we assume that part of our soft power is the export of our culture, our values and the English language, but just listen to many an interview. The English language as spoken on these islands is no longer necessarily the English that is spoken in the rest of Europe and at many of the negotiating tables. We think of ourselves as being, as of right, permanent members of the UN Security Council. Yes, in terms of the institutional structures, we are there as of right, but if we do such things as lecture NATO members in Wales about not meeting the 2% standard on spending and tell them that they are no-good crummy allies by failing to do so, when we ourselves fall below the 2% standard, the gap widens between our posturing and the reality, and our credibility is diminished.

We are a force for good. It is not just the supranational concept of Britishness, but it can be traced back to Queen Elizabeth I who, when dealing with the Catholics, said, “I will not make windows into men’s hearts.” That was her way of saying, “If you live in these islands, I expect from you certain behaviour in your public life, which includes compliance with the rule of law, but there is a part of you—your inner beliefs—which are yours.” I therefore make a plea that we do not often get a chance to make in this House: let us start looking at ourselves a little more carefully.

The rest of the world sees these islands as fragmenting, and sees a startling rise of nationalism. Whether that is the Scottish referendum, the call for English votes for English MPs or other causes, the world sees us not as pulling together but as fragmenting. Unless we start to be conscious of that and deal with the consequences, our negotiating positions will become much harder.

Above all, as a member of the Defence Committee in the previous Parliament, and after two Sessions on the Foreign Affairs Committee before that, I believe that unless we start to define what British national interests are and formulate a foreign policy accordingly, all the discussions about defence will be meaningless. There is a natural hierarchy—we do not know what forces we need unless we know what role we wish to play in the world. If we wish to play a positive role in the world, that will occasionally mean that we need significant military capabilities, because when war breaks out we have to fight that war before we can do the peace.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

I apologise for interrupting a fantastic speech, but I remind my hon. Friend that during our last inquiry one of the most frightening pieces of evidence given to us was when we asked about strategy and were told that, unfortunately, the speaker thought that the Prime Minister’s concept of strategy was “What’s next?” Is not the great problem of this House that perhaps we become more focused on what’s next than on what is the grand strategy for the UK, where we aim to be and where we aim to take these islands?

[Ms Stuart]

I do not disagree with a word my hon. Friend has said. I ask new Members of the House to take note. Too often, we spend time on all the important things in life such as rubbish not collected, the potholes in our constituencies and the hedges not being cut, but we do not spend enough time on what the role of this House should be: taking a strategic view of what this nation is about, what the requirements of this nation are and whether the Government are fulfilling them.