Gaza

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Monday 14th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend is quite right about that and that was why I was saying earlier that the cycle of violence has got worse. He is right that, even between ceasefires, a large number of rockets have been launched against Israel, although usually in between ceasefires they have been launched by other groups and not necessarily by Hamas. What distinguishes a period such as this one is that Hamas is engaged in large-scale rocket fire against Israel, which it could control and prevent. He is right to sound a cautionary note about what will happen after any ceasefire and that further intensifies the message that reviving the peace process is very important.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Israel’s right to defend itself, of which the Foreign Secretary speaks, is not an unconstrained right, yet Israel’s response has been unconstrained. It has been disproportionate and wrong. Heavy bombing in a densely populated area with 100,000 civilians, causing the death of 170 people, a third of them children, is not self-defence; it is barbarism. What leverage does the Foreign Secretary have and will he now apply it to make the Israeli Government reappraise this barbaric and unproductive strategy?

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) spoke about the polarising aspects of this issue and there are passionate feelings about this and about what is happening to people in Gaza. As I said earlier, we must also remember that many hundreds of rockets have been launched indiscriminately against people living in Israel, and rather than refining our value judgments each day, are concentrating on bringing about an agreed ceasefire and urging all sides to abide by international humanitarian law. I think that that is the right thing to continue to do.

Israeli Teenagers (Abduction and Murder)

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Hugh Robertson]

I gave the answer that I did to an earlier question because I was assured, as I have been in the past, that there were no grounds for believing that. If a Select Committee of this House has uncovered evidence that firmly proves that that is not the case, that is a very serious issue. I can offer my hon. Friend a cast-iron guarantee that we will take that up. Indeed, the very fact that it has been found by a Select Committee will ensure that the Department responsible has to answer those questions.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Would the Minister care to reflect that, in rightly praising Secretary of State Kerry, he might have been slightly unfair to Madeleine Albright? Will he, in the context of this situation, tell us not only what might be proportionate for either side but what signals either side might send to the other that would advance rather than regress the situation?

[Hugh Robertson]

In my remarks, I intended no slight to Madeleine Albright. I simply meant that the most recent iteration of all this has been led by John Kerry with extraordinary energy and vigour, which is why I pay tribute to what he has done. As for the second part of the hon. Gentleman’s question, we will of course look at that very closely.

Ukraine

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Tuesday 13th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

That is a very important point, and it relates to part of the importance of further expanding the OSCE special monitoring mission. We might also deploy—and we are in favour of deploying—a civilian EU mission to advise on judicial and police reform, but what my hon. Friend is talking about is very much the job of the special monitoring mission. We are supplying further monitors from the UK, with the capability to build up to having 500 monitors in total. Their objective reporting will be very important in the coming weeks to international understanding of the situation.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Both the current Government in Kiev and the Foreign Secretary in his statement have pointed out that the referendum in Donetsk region was vitiated on the grounds that no valid register of electors is available. That being the case, how do they propose to hold valid presidential elections in the region on 25 May?

[Mr Hague]

Of course the register is available to those authorities holding the legal presidential elections in the vast majority of the country.

[Barry Gardiner]

indicated dissent.

[Mr Hague]

Of course it is true. The election observation mission, which I visited last week, is satisfied with the arrangements so far in 23 of the 25 regions of Ukraine. In Donetsk and Luhansk the picture is mixed—I think this is what the hon. Gentleman is driving at—and in some parts of those two regions the legitimate civil authorities have not been able to make preparations for the elections. That remains the case with 12 days to go, so Ukraine is faced with having a presidential election in which the vast majority of people in the country will be able to take part—but not all of them, thanks to Russian intervention.

Ukraine

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Tuesday 4th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

The issue should be raised vigorously in the Council of Europe. I welcome the decisions made by Conservative colleagues in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. There are Russian representatives in other political groups of the Council of Europe, and all political groups from Russia are, in one way or another, approved by the Kremlin. Opposition Members may therefore wish to attend to those matters. I hope that members of all parties in the Council of Europe will pursue the matter vigorously at their forthcoming part-sessions.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The Foreign Secretary has rightly welcomed the vetoing of the legislation downgrading the Russian language in Ukraine, but he will understand that the fact that the Parliament was prepared to pass and propose such legislation caused severe concern to the 20% of the population in Ukraine who are ethnically Russian. What further measures does he believe the Ukrainian Parliament should take to give reassurance to that part of the population that they are not under threat?

[Mr Hague]

That is a matter for the Ukrainians. As hon. Members understand, it is for the Ukrainians to decide in their country, but I put it to Ukrainian Ministers yesterday that, in addition to consolidating the veto of the legislation, they should think about crafting a new language law that represents the consensus in their country, and the long-term protection and upholding of the rights of minority languages in Ukraine. They are in the midst of a desperate crisis—we must understand that—but I hope they take that proposal seriously.

Sri Harmandir Sahib

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

The interaction between the move from a 30-year rule to a 20-year rule and the way Departments treat their files after 25 years raise interesting questions, as it would make the 25-year rule rather a moot point. That is why there is value in the further review I have announced today to ensure consistency across all Departments and to ensure that lessons that need to be learned from when documents have been withheld or published can be learned collectively across the whole of Government. I encourage my hon. Friend to await the outcome of that review for a definitive answer to his question.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The Foreign Secretary has been at pains to stress that the advice given by the British military adviser was not, in fact, followed and that it would therefore be inappropriate to take responsibility for Operation Blue Star and to issue an apology for it. None the less, it was countenanced to give advice; indeed, advice was given about how to storm the holiest site in Sikhism. Is that not something that the Foreign Secretary should apologise for?

[Mr Hague]

I go back to my earlier answers. I think it is fair to put it this way. If any of us, in any part of the House, thought that Britain had contributed to serious or unnecessary loss of life elsewhere in the world, it would be right to acknowledge a mistake and to say that the country apologises for that, but when the country clearly does not have responsibility for it, that is a different context. We have to go on the facts, and I think the facts are clear. Of course, the hon. Gentleman is really asking us to judge to a finer degree the decisions of Ministers at the time, which I feel, 30 years later and in a different Government, is very hard to do and could be unfair. I therefore stick to what I said earlier on this.

Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Wednesday 6th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

In 2012, the FCO identified Sri Lanka as a country of concern in its annual human rights and democracy report, admitting there had been some “negative developments”. The report highlighted the number of abductions and disappearances, as well as the intimidation of human rights defenders, members of the legal profession and the media. Meanwhile, President Rajapaksa has repeatedly rejected demands for an international inquiry into alleged war crimes, including from the Prime Minister.

In August 2013, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, visited Sri Lanka and noted the country’s worrying “authoritarian turn”. What concerns me is that there is a sense of complicity on the part of our own Government with what is going on in Sri Lanka, where we see the deepening and embedding of corruption, injustice and violence. I say that because Freedom from Torture has claimed that, despite the Sri Lankan Government’s claims of new-found peace, the post-conflict torture of Tamils is ongoing. The UK Government appear to be complicit, because they have forcibly removed Tamils back to Sri Lanka, where they know those people have been met with torture and ill treatment.

Following a freedom of information request in February, the UK Border Agency now admits to granting refugee status to up to 15 Sri Lankans who had been forcibly returned to Sri Lanka and subsequently tortured or ill treated, and who had then come back to the UK. That is deeply worrying.

Furthermore, Home Office solicitors are suggesting to judges in our courts that evidence of torture—scars, wounds and broken bones—is actually self-inflicted. They are saying that to push the courts into agreeing that people should be deported from this country. That is desperately worrying.

I have a constituency case of a 24-year-old man whom I will call Mr P. He came to the UK in April 2013 on a student visa. He subsequently applied for asylum on 26 April. He held pro-Tamil separatist political opinions, which he expressed in Sri Lanka and in the UK. His asylum application was refused by the Home Office, but it was won on appeal in July.

Mr P is a journalist, and he had previously worked on a newspaper in Sri Lanka in a minor capacity. In April 2011, he was detained and assaulted. He was released with the help of the newspaper’s circulation manager. In November 2012, he was admitted to Jaffna general hospital with multiple soft-tissue injuries to his body, lip laceration and teeth fractures—he had been beaten with rifle butts. The medical-legal report concluded—

[Mr David Amess (in the Chair)]

Order.

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[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) mentioned the Freedom from Torture freedom of information request and the UK Border Agency’s reply in February. In its 2011 “Human Rights and Democracy” report, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office referred to allegations of torture of people who had been sent back to Sri Lanka and were subsequently given asylum in this country, but stated that there was no substantiated evidence that people returned there had been tortured. Interestingly, neither the allegation nor such a statement appeared in the FCO’s 2012 “Human Rights and Democracy” report. The Foreign Affairs Committee has questioned that, but we got no answers from Baroness Warsi when she gave evidence to us. Our report recommended that the FCO

“state whether it still holds the view that there is no substantiated evidence of torture or maltreatment of people who have been returned by UK immigration authorities to Sri Lanka.”

Will the Minister short-circuit the process and give us an answer today? Do the British Government still hold the view that people returned to Sri Lanka are not tortured, and that there is no substantiated evidence, or is their view—given the increasing concerns, and the compelling evidence of my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) and others—that there is evidence that calls into question the UK Border Agency’s policy of returning to Sri Lanka people who we know have been mistreated since 2009?

In those circumstances, when the Prime Minister meets President Rajapaksa and his several brothers, who run the Government in Sri Lanka, will it not be time to make it clear that the British Government and British parliamentarians expect answers to our questions about people sent back from this country to Sri Lanka and then mistreated, and to the questions asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk) and others about the mistreatment of British citizens in Sri Lanka?

[Barry Gardiner]

Is my hon. Friend aware that Judge Lobo has referred to the assistance offered by country guidance cases? In an appeal in the first-tier tribunal, he has said that the people at risk are those who have outstanding charges against them—journalists associated with publications critical of the Sri Lankan Government, and those who are aligned to pro-Tamil separatist movements and are working towards the destabilisation of the unitary state. That relates specifically to risks to people who are returned to Sri Lanka.

[Mike Gapes]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, but I will not respond to his intervention.

Finally, it is all very well to say that the Government should be there—that the Commonwealth is so important that the British Prime Minister, the heir to the throne or the Foreign Secretary should attend the meeting—but let us look at the history of the Commonwealth and where it is now. Many years ago, the Commonwealth agreed the Harare declaration, which set out human rights values and how institutions should work. In the past, Zimbabwe, Pakistan and other countries have been suspended from or have walked out of the Commonwealth because human rights issues were raised.

I must say that I am extremely disappointed with the Commonwealth secretary-general—I know him personally, because he was previously the Indian high commissioner in this country—and the way in which he has run the organisation. There has been a downplaying of human rights issues under the current Commonwealth secretariat. I am not giving away any secrets when I say that the British Government tried to raise these issues in 2009 and subsequently. In a vote in the Commonwealth, 50 votes were in favour of going to Colombo and four were against. That is the problem that we have to confront in the organisation. If the Commonwealth does not change, it will become irrelevant.

Deep Sea Mining Bill

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Friday 6th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sheryll Murray]

Deep-sea mining takes place at great depth in specific areas of the ocean. I do not think that the warps, bridles and trawl doors on my late husband’s boat were long enough to trawl the sea bed. We should not excavate in a non-environmentally friendly way, and I will come on to discuss that. This is one of the reasons why the UK needs to amend the 1981 Act, so that we can impose stringent and clear environmental conditions. The UK takes part in the council meetings, which are considering—this was started at the last meeting in July—what conditions should be applied to the exploitation. These are very early days—we are talking about exploration at the moment and not exploitation, which is still some way off—but the UK should be a leader in that sphere.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

I am most heartened by the hon. Lady’s response to the hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) that one of the reasons why it is important to legislate and ensure that licences come through the UK state system is that we would then be able to apply improved environmental measures. However, I do not see any mention in the Bill of a requirement on the Secretary of State to do that. I would be grateful if the hon. Lady could point out to me any such requirement.

[Sheryll Murray]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. I think the whole House will know how interested he is in the global maritime environment. However, he may be unaware—I am sure my hon. Friend the Minister will expand on this—that a lot of the environmental requirements will be covered in the wording of the contract with the International Seabed Authority, so we do not to include that in legislation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

I am delighted to speak in this debate, which is important not simply because of the economic interests that the hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray) has outlined; she spoke of a potentially accessible resource that could be worth something to the tune of £40 billion. As she appreciates, it is also important because of the natural environmental resource that could be at risk from both the exploration, and ultimately the exploitation, of those resources.

I was grateful for the clarification made by the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) on clause 5 of the 1981 Act, which I have highlighted in my copy. When he quoted the clause, however, he left out one salient phrase:

“so far as reasonably practicable”.

Let me quote the clause in full:

“In determining whether to grant an exploration or exploitation licence the Secretary of State shall have regard to the need to protect (so far as reasonably practicable) marine creatures, plants and other organisms and their habitat from any harmful effects which might result from any activities to be authorised by the licence; and the Secretary of State shall consider any representations made to him concerning such effects.”

In its time, that was an eminently good and sensible environmental protection to introduce, but 32 years later, environmental law has superseded it. It is no longer the significant protection that it may have been regarded as when it was introduced in 1981.

In particular, we need to pay attention to principle 15 of the Rio declaration—the precautionary approach—in all such environmental matters. Principle 15 states simply that, if there are indications of likely but uncertain significant adverse environmental impacts, an activity should not be authorised to proceed. The principle switches the burden of proof. Of course, in overall terms, deep-sea ecosystem processes, connectivity and the importance of deep-sea ecosystem services are poorly understood by contemporary science.

The hon. Member for South East Cornwall described some processes, and mentioned scooping and vacuuming, but she will also know of the process of crushing when mining for these nodules. More than most hon. Members, she will be aware of the deep-sea ocean currents that can take sediment produced from such operations and disperse it over wide areas. As some of the minerals being explored are so toxic, it is difficult to understand with modern science just what the effect of their dispersal by those deep-sea ocean currents could be.

[Sheryll Murray]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the polymetallic nodules are golf ball-size spheres that occur in ocean bed sediments? I bow to his expertise, but my knowledge of the sea bed suggests that trying to crush a polymetallic would simply bury it further into the sediment. We need the Bill so that the UK can ensure that the environment is cared for and so that the activities are undertaken in the most environmentally friendly way. If he is concerned about the hoovering and harvesting of the nodules, he should support my Bill.

[Barry Gardiner]

Let me give the hon. Lady the assurance that I am sure the Bill will pass on Second Reading. I have no desire to stuff it and am not foolish enough to attempt to do so. However, I would like to obtain from her and the Minister another assurance: that the environmental protection, which is currently only in the 1981 Act, will be strengthened when the Bill goes into Committee. The burden of proof in the precautionary principle is reversed in the Act, which states:

“In determining whether to grant an exploration or exploitation licence the Secretary of State shall have regard to the need to protect”.

I want to change the focus, so that instead of the Secretary of State having regard to the need to protect, no licence is granted unless full environmental impact assessments have been undertaken.

[Alistair Burt]

Does the hon. Gentleman intend to present evidence on any matters that would affect the issue of licences by the UK under the 1981 Act? Has any such evidence given him cause for concern that environmental protection measures are insufficient? I understand where he is going, but does he have, or is he aware of, any concerns about how successive Governments have applied the condition? I take his point and understand where he is coming from, but he can also present these concerns in Committee.

[Barry Gardiner]

As the Minister knows, few licences have been granted since the 1981 Act took effect, so I would not at this stage seek to adumbrate examples. However, I am aware of many concerns from the environmental community about deep-sea mining and about how the Bill does not reinforce the protections that I believe hon. Members on both sides of the House would want us to have.

The World Wide Fund for Nature position paper on deep-sea mining states:

“Distinct ecosystems are or can be associated with these minerals and will be affected in different ways by different types of mining. Dredging for nodules is likely to damage large areas of the seabed and disperse large clouds of sediment. Polymetallic sulphide mining may destroy active and inactive hydrothermal vents (black smokers) and their associated communities and disperse toxic materials. The extraction of cobalt rich crusts may destroy the benthic seamount communities and dependent fauna.”

I will not quote the paper at length—it is available online for hon. Members to read for themselves—but we need to take those concerns seriously. The global community has a principle on environmental legislation. It is the precautionary principle, which is that when we do not know, we do not do something that we have good reason to believe will cause damage.

[Philip Davies]

There are always uncertainties, so the precautionary principle would mean that we never did anything. Many of these environmental concerns were raised in the debate back in 1981, and according to Hansard the Labour party opposed that Bill. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the misgivings expressed back then were unfounded, and therefore the misgivings that he is expressing are also likely to be unfounded?

[Barry Gardiner]

That is a very interesting interpretation of the precautionary principle—that because misgivings were unfounded in the past, they are likely to be unfounded in the future.

I do not speak from the Front Bench, but I understand from my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Brown), who will do so today, that we will not oppose the Bill. I certainly seek not to oppose the Bill, but to improve it. Indeed, the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) said that it was a good Conservative principle to conserve what we have and to improve it. On the sea bed we have immeasurable riches, and the international community has stated clearly that they are part of the common heritage of humanity. That is what the international community has agreed and that is what the Government have signed up to. That common heritage should be preserved, protected and improved. If the hon. Member for South East Cornwall will give the assurance that in Committee we can ensure that protection through this legislation, I for one will be very happy to see the Bill make progress.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Nuttall]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Indeed, I was coming on to say that my understanding was precisely the same. The 1981 Act set out to regulate mining on the sea bed in the farthest and deepest oceans of the world. The reason it was required was that it had been discovered that valuable hard mineral resources, known as manganese or polymetallic nodules, existed on the seabed, as we have heard, and United Kingdom companies, among others, were interested in mining them.

[Barry Gardiner]

The hon. Gentleman just used the important word: “hard” mineral resources. The Bill would excise that word to allow for the exploitation of oil and gas as well. Would he care to reflect on the assurance given by the hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray) in introducing the Bill that operations at a deep-sea level such as fracking would not be used?

[Mr Nuttall]

I cannot give any assurances about that; it is not for me to do that. I know that the hon. Gentleman is concerned about environmental protection, and quite rightly too, but I venture to submit that if the Bill is not made friendly towards companies, there is a danger that they will go and seek some other jurisdiction with a lot fewer environmental protections than in this country. There is a danger in going too far the other way. We have to strike the right balance on these matters, and I believe the Bill attempts to do that.

United Kingdom companies at that time were among those interested in mining polymetallic nodules. The idea behind the 1981 Act was to provide a statutory framework for the development of a nascent industry. As my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall said, it was passed in the full knowledge that negotiations were taking place at the United Nations. As we have heard, unfortunately, things did not proceed quite as fast as parliamentarians at the time thought they might. That might be due to a difficulty with the technology. Indeed, it is interesting to consider that man was able to send rockets and put men on the moon, the satellite of our planet, back in the 1960s, yet it has proved to be technologically much more difficult to travel to the depths of our planet.

A United Nations conference on the law of the sea had for several years been working towards an agreement on establishing an international system for regulating the exploitation of the mineral resources of our oceans. It was hoped that when a satisfactory agreement had been reached and had entered into force, the international arrangements would supersede the national provisions contained in the 1981 Act. It was for that reason that the legislation was sold to the House as a temporary measure. The Government of the day anticipated that there would be no need for any national legislation once the United Nations convention came into force.

The Government of the day were understandably keen to improve the security and availability of future supplies of vital raw materials for our UK industries. The UK was, and still is, heavily dependent on a small number of countries for supplies of minerals that are critical raw materials for our manufacturing industries. The possibility of securing our own supplies of minerals such as nickel, cobalt, copper or manganese from the sea bed was understandably regarded as a very welcome prospect indeed. Furthermore, the prospect of UK companies participating in the new industrial activity of sea-bed mining promised an economic opportunity for the benefit of the companies involved and the wider British economy.

The nodules that gave rise to that flurry of interest and activity were described at the time not as being like golf balls, as my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall described them, but as like charred potatoes that varied in size and, where they occurred, were like a carpet on the sea bed in a single layer. We do not yet fully understand how and why the nodules form, but it is clear that they apparently require the undisturbed conditions that are found only in the deepest areas of the ocean. Although the nodules were found in various parts of the ocean, only very few areas contained sufficiently rich deposits to justify the enormous costs of establishing commercial mining operations. The deposits of nodules are beyond the limits of national jurisdictions and were consequently treated as resources of the high seas, which any nation could attempt to recover.

It is perhaps worth considering what exactly it is envisaged will be mined as a result of the Bill. There are essentially three types of minerals involved. First are the polymetallic nodules, which contain manganese, copper, cobalt and nickel. As my hon. Friend mentioned, they either occur on the surface or are partially buried, and are discovered at depths of 3,000 to 6,000 metres—in other words, some 4 miles deep, so we are not talking about something that one can undertake lightly. It is estimated that the global reserves of deep-sea manganese nodules are in the order of 10 billion tonnes. Those of greatest economic interest are made up, on average, of about 30% manganese, 1.5% nickel, 1.5% copper and 0.3% cobalt. However, I understand that the presence of traces of other, rare earth elements might also attract interest in these resources, particularly as the supply of such metals from land-based resources is reducing.

Secondly, there are polymetallic sulphides, which are sulphide deposits found at water depths of up to 3,700 metres in mid-ocean ridges, back-arc rifts and sea-mounts. They often carry high concentrations of copper, zinc and lead, in addition to gold and silver. That is what gave me the idea that there could be a 21st century Klondike in the deep sea. Thirdly, there are ferromanganese crusts, in which cobalt-rich iron-manganese forms on the sea floor. These, too, could lead to mining activity.

Before I began to research the Bill, the letters “ISA” had always stood for “individual savings account”. Now, when I see them, I think of the International Seabed Authority. That new body was established under the United Nations convention on the law of the sea, and it plays a pivotal role in deep-sea mining. The authority has stated that the areas of exploration have not advanced much since 1981. They still mainly comprise the Clarion-Clipperton fracture zone in the equatorial north Pacific ocean, south and south-east of Hawaii, and the central Indian basin in the Indian ocean. Exploration for polymetallic sulphides is also taking place in the south-west Indian ridge and in the mid-Atlantic ridge.

Unsurprisingly, in view of the potential economic importance of those resources, there has been considerable international interest in, and concern about, the nature of their exploitation. In 1967 and 1970, that concern was formalised in two resolutions of the United Nations. The first sought to impose a complete moratorium on deep-sea mining until international arrangements had come into force. The second was a declaration of principle stating that the sea bed beyond the limits of national jurisdiction, and its resources, were the common heritage of mankind.

A United Nations conference on the law of the sea was convened in 1973 to negotiate an international system of regulation for sea-bed mining. No agreement was reached by the time of the passage of the 1981 Act, even though the conference had met regularly since 1973 and made some progress on developing an international regime. The negotiations were sufficiently advanced, however, for it to be fairly clear that any convention emanating from the talks would contain complex provisions for operations by private companies and by an international sea-bed authority. Incidentally, the negotiations apparently stalled because the United States decided to carry out a full review of its policy on the law of the sea, and therefore decided not to play an active role in those negotiations.

Those uncertainties demonstrated the problems that would face Governments and mining companies until an international convention could be agreed and ratified. Because of those uncertainties, the United Kingdom Government of the day considered it necessary to pass the 1981 Act as an interim measure to give the UK mining industry a firm basis for proceeding, pending an international agreement being reached.

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[Mr Brown]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. It raises the question of how the inspectors carry out their work. It brings to mind the old adage, “Out of sight, out of mind.”

[Barry Gardiner]

I am sure that my hon. Friend will understand that the provision of inspectors relates more to the other functions under the 1981 Act, whereby certain minerals could be made available to the Secretary of State and the Government for inspection so that there was a clear understanding of the quantities and qualities of the minerals that were being mined. I think that that is the inspection regime that was envisaged in section 11, not going down to the sea floor and seeing how the mining was being carried out.

[Mr Brown]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to provide that distinction. Again, without wishing to put pressure on the Minister, perhaps he will be able to give the history of what has been done.

Greenpeace, as quoted in the standard note, draws attention to

“the rapid increase in license applications being made to the International Seabed Authority to exploit the mineral resources found in international waters.”

It also states:

“If seabed mining is allowed to go ahead without a comprehensive system of environmental protection in place we may be destroying species forever before they have even been scientifically described.”

The hon. Member for South East Cornwall gave an explanation of what Greenpeace is talking about. There are things down there that have not yet been determined or detected.

Let me make it absolutely clear that the Opposition will not oppose the Bill. However, as was said earlier, we would like certain parts of the schedule to be improved. The Bill is about the protection of our environment and the opportunity to use the resources that are there for this nation—I am sure that the hon. Member for North East Somerset would agree with that. We should be able to fully utilise what lies in the murky waters of our seas and oceans, but we must consider the manner in which that is done.

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[Alistair Burt]

I should like to set out responses to the Bill, which was introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall, and, when I have made some progress, to deal with the series of questions colleagues have raised during the morning. This has been a wide-ranging debate, and I thank colleagues for their contributions. Deep-sea mining is in its infancy, but by being at the forefront of developments, we can ensure that the UK economy sees the benefits and that any environmental concerns are fully addressed.

The subject of the Bill is probably, in all fairness, unfamiliar to most colleagues. The hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway was honest enough to say that it is a relatively new subject for him. I could pretend that my situation is different, but I will not. I am indebted to Mr Chris Whomersley and other Foreign and Commonwealth Office colleagues for their assistance in preparing me for the debate.

On the background, I want to fill out what colleagues have said about the origins of the Bill and the importance of correct definitions of, for example, the deep sea bed. Deep-sea mining does not come up every day, so it is important to alleviate concerns, particularly bearing in mind recent concerns about mineral extraction and the environment on land, by noting that any activity would take place a long way from any coastal area.

The term “deep sea bed” is defined in amendments in the Bill to the Deep Sea Mining (Temporary Provisions) Act 1981. The UN convention on the law of the sea calls it the “area” of the

“sea-bed and ocean floor, and the subsoil thereof, beyond the limits of national jurisdiction”.

That is commonly referred to as the common heritage of mankind, a phrase that has found its way into the UN convention in article 136. The concept, which goes back to the 1960s, expresses a profoundly important point, namely that the area and its resources do not belong to any one state. They should be developed for the benefit of everyone on the planet. They are controlled through the International Seabed Authority, an international organisation to which all states can become a party. I will say more about the ISA later.

To refer to a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), getting the balance right between what is controlled by regulation and legislation and what is allowed to run free, as it were, is difficult. My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley spoke about the freedom of the seas and the like. Access to the sea and freedom to roam on the seas is important, as is the enforcement of such rights to freedom. However, the world recognises that the resources of the sea and what lies on the sea bed and below are genuinely precious. Hon. Members are aware how resources can be badly exploited—I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall knows that some countries have badly exploited resources through their fishing practices. That gives us pause to say, “Simply having a free-for-all will not work.” My hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset can be assured, however, that the attitude of the United Kingdom is to ensure that, if international regulation does curtail freedoms, it must be because that is the right thing to do. We have to take our responsibilities seriously, and our responsibility to the environment and the need to ensure that the regulations cover that adequately are as important as ensuring that opportunities for prosperity are not lost through over-regulation or complicated bureaucracy.

The “area”, or the common heritage of mankind, is the area beyond the limits of any coastal state’s continental shelf. Under article 76 of the UN convention, a coastal state is entitled to a continental shelf of at least 200 nautical miles from coastal baselines, and more where the slope of the continental margin meets certain specified criteria. This entitlement is without prejudice to the question of delimitation of the continental shelf between states with opposite or adjacent coasts. The exception to the rule is for a small islet or rock that cannot support economic life. Under the UN convention, such rocks only generate a territorial area—a maritime zone up to 12 nautical miles from coastal baselines.

The UK has one such rock which is sometimes the subject of academic debate. That is Rockall, some 186 nautical miles west of St Kilda in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. Anyone who has seen this rock, or seen pictures, will well understand why we could not claim that it could support economic life, being only a jagged spike of rock jutting up some 60 feet above sea level. Therefore, and contrary to some of the sometimes ill-informed comments about Rockall, the United Kingdom does not regard Rockall as capable of generating a continental shelf of its own. Does this mean that deep sea mining could take place in the vicinity of Rockall? No. While the UK uses a baseline on St Kilda—which, coincidentally, is uninhabited but has in the past supported a human population—the UK claims a continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles in a westerly direction, way out into an area known as the Hatton Rockall plateau. Other states have overlapping continental shelf claims in the same area, but while the claims exist and their validity is yet to be considered by the appropriate international body, the area does not fall within the definition of one

“beyond the limits of national jurisdiction”.

To be clear, deep sea mining as provided for by the Bill, would not take place anywhere near the coast of the UK, or the UK’s overseas territories, or any other coastal state for that matter. Indeed, most of the current applications relate to areas in the Pacific ocean, as my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) mentioned, and are a long way from any landmass.

I have described the “where”, now let me explain the “what”. As hon. Members appreciate, we are not talking about hydrocarbons, at least not at the moment. My notes suggest that it is safe to say that many hon. Members will be unfamiliar with the mineral types, but the debate suggests that they have made themselves very familiar with the mineral types we are discussing. Those minerals currently being explored for in the deep sea are composite mineral deposits, in formulations unique to the sea bed, which is why they are so special.

Presently there are international regulations in place for the exploration of three mineral types in the deep sea. The first, polymetallic nodules, have already been the subject of discussion today. Polymetallic or manganese nodules contain manganese, copper, cobalt and nickel, and are—as far as the FCO is concerned—potato-shaped balls generally found on the sea bed surface. I have no information about whether they may be tennis-ball sized, and it is the official view of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office that they are potato-shaped balls. They are generally found partially buried in sediment, and cover vast plains in the deepest areas of the sea bed.

Secondly, there are polymetallic sulphides. These, mainly sulphide deposits, are found in ocean ridges and seamounts, and often carry high concentrations of copper, zinc and lead, in addition to gold and silver, as my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset will be pleased to hear. Not for the first time, he is right on the ball—the tennis ball-sized ball. Such deposits are associated with previous volcanic activity, where the deposits have built up over time via plumes from vents. Where such vents are active, they tend to be places of unique fauna and flora. However, mining would take place only when such sites were extinct, not least because of the very high temperatures associated with live vents. That deals with one of the questions that my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley raised. There is no question of mining such areas when they are live, because frankly the temperatures would make it impossible.

The third group of mineral elements to which the current legislation applies are found in cobalt-rich crusts or ferromanganese crusts, which form at the flanks and summits of seamounts, ridges and plateaus. They contain amounts of iron and manganese, and are especially enriched in cobalt, manganese, lead, tellurium, bismuth and platinum. Such minerals are important. Mineral prices have increased noticeably since 2000, largely as a result of increases in demand, especially from emerging economies such as China and India, as colleagues have noted. According to the United States geological survey in 2013:

“China has advanced from consuming less than 10% of the global market for metals to over 25% of the market in the past few years and that trend is increasing; India is following on a similar path.”

As I will explain, changes in demand have created a need for legislation.

[Barry Gardiner]

rose—

[Alistair Burt]

I will answer colleagues’ questions in due course, but I am happy to take an intervention now.

[Barry Gardiner]

I might have missed it in the Minister’s remarks about the various chemicals, but the briefings that I have read refer to deposits of submerged massive sulphides—the hon. Member for Bury North talked about the ISA, but this is SMS. Will the Minister say what category SMS falls into? My understanding is that a different treatment might apply in their mining.

[Alistair Burt]

The point I was making in going through the three mineral types is that they are the ones that are currently affected by regulation, but we are moving on. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: as he will be well aware, seafloor massive sulphide deposits are the modern equivalents of ancient volcanogenic massive sulphide ore deposits—or VMS deposits, as we call them in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The term has been coined by mineral explorers to differentiate modern from ancient deposits. SMS deposits are indeed relevant; I will come to the reason for changing the legislation.

There is also an issue of limited sources of supplies. For example, in 2010 it was estimated that the Congo produced 40% of global cobalt supplies, South Africa 79% of global platinum and China 97% of global rare earth elements. That factor can distort total global supplies and costs. Access to supplies makes these strategically important minerals. An increase in available stocks of such minerals should increase competition in the global market, reduce the price faced by consumers and help to ensure sufficient future supplies to satisfy rising global demand. For example, present estimates suggest that there is a 100-year supply of cobalt deposits on land, which might increase to 200 to 300 years if deep-sea supplies are included.

As the world, we hope, exits recession—helped in the United Kingdom, of course, by this Government’s economic policies—it is inevitable that demand for minerals will increase. It is certain that commercial companies will be looking for new sources of such minerals, and the deep sea bed is the new frontier for them. We in the United Kingdom must be at the forefront of such developments.

[Barry Gardiner]

The Minister has drawn a parallel that will have ramifications for the environmental agenda. He will know that the mentality of the Klondike and the frontier, and the rush for the extraction of minerals on land, resulted in some of the worst environmental degradation. Will he accept that the Opposition are simply trying to ensure that the Bill contains proper safeguards and environmental protections relating to the new frontier that he is describing, so that a similar laying waste of the environment that happened as a result of the extraction of natural resources on land does not happen on the sea bed?

[Alistair Burt]

That is the intention not only of the hon. Gentleman and his party; it is part of the Bill’s raison d’être and of the working environment on which the regulations are already based. There is already a double lock. The reason that UK legislation provides for licences is to ensure that those whom the UK sponsors for licence applications to the ISA have already passed the standards that this House, and this country, would expect from those involved in mineral extraction and exploration. Once the UK has been satisfied, the second lock comes into operation. That involves the environmental controls put forward by the ISA, and I will cover that subject in more detail in a moment.

There is no difference between us on the importance of this matter. In answer to some of the hon. Gentleman’s previous questions, there has not, to date, been any challenge to the existing arrangements. Only two licences have been granted under the 1981 legislation. The original reason for introducing those temporary provisions was that the possibility of Klondike-type activity was in the minds of companies in the early 1980s. That proved to be a false expectation, however, and the pace of exploration has been slow. The reason for introducing this legislation now is that we anticipate the pace picking up, given the increase in information and technological development.

In the interim, however, the environmental protections in section 5 of the 1981 legislation have proved entirely sufficient, as have the inspections. If the hon. Gentleman does not believe that and wishes to raise a challenge to what we have done, he is entitled to do so. He is right to be concerned about this, but I am genuinely not aware of any challenges to those who have taken licences through the United Kingdom. We must protect for the future, however, and I will go on to explain how that is being covered by the ISA, how we are dealing with negotiations as we look forward four or five years to mineral exploitation—which is not anticipated yet—and how we are involved with the ISA in relation to that. He need not fear that we are not considering these matters. Nor need he fear that this matter has caused any concern to date.

[Barry Gardiner]

I am grateful to the Minister for trying to respond fully to my concerns. I appreciate that. However, it is not sufficient to say that there is no cause for concern simply because only two licences have been issued to date and because there have been no problems with the way in which section 5 of that 32-year-old Act of Parliament is being implemented. He knows very well that section 5 states that

“the Secretary of State shall have regard to the need to protect”

the marine environment. The words “have regard to” do not provide for a strong protection. All we are asking is that that wording should be upgraded in the Bill.

[Alistair Burt]

I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall will give that matter her consideration. I was not seeking to link the fact that only two licences had been issued to the issue of environmental protection. There have been only two applications because only two consortia have felt it necessary to do that kind of work. Others have not been prepared to do it. There is no linkage between the two points. My point was that we have no evidence that environmental issues have ever been a matter of concern in relation to those applying for a licence under our legislation and going on to be sponsored for permission from the ISA. The protections that are in place have in no way been considered inadequate. Had they been, that would have been an important point of evidence, but we do not have any such evidence to date.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alistair Burt]

This is a fact never lost on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. I also have in my room at the FCO a copy of a treaty with Algeria that dates back many centuries; we have such treaties scattered around the place. There are many claims to be our oldest ally and we can be quite sure that the facts would prevent the United States from claiming that. For the avoidance of any doubt, however, let me make it clear how close and warm our relationship is with the United States across the board. Environmental protection and the law of the sea is another area where the House can expect the warmest and closest engagement between us and the US. We look forward to the US’s playing a full role in the International Seabed Authority.

As I have said, the UK, in common with other industrialised countries, did not feel able to participate in the original convention because of the terms of part XI. There was a general recognition that it was unsatisfactory for the industrialised countries to remain outside the convention. So in 1990 the then Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr Perez de Cuellar, convened informal consultations, which continued for several years. The UK played a key role and the result was the adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of an agreement on the implementation of part XI of the convention in July 1994. Such agreements assisted the UK’s joining the convention.

The part XI agreement is particularly pertinent to the Bill. It remedied the major defects of the original convention and, in particular, it addressed the costs to states parties and ensured that they were kept to a reasonable level. It clarified and streamlined the procedures for the approval of applications to explore for or exploit the mineral resources of the deep-sea bed. The agreement reduced the possibility for the so-called Enterprise, an international organisation composed of states parties, to participate in exploitation or exploration. It emphasised that decision making in the authority should normally be by consensus. It resolved satisfactorily the problem of how to ensure equitable representation of all states in the council, including the industrialised and developing states, as well as the consumers of metals and land-based producers.

The agreement ensured that any transfer of technology to developing countries should be by agreement. It also stated that the development of the resources of the area should take place in accordance with sound commercial principles. It emphasised that the system of payments to the authority should be fair to both the contractors and to the authority and established a finance committee, on which the United Kingdom has a member, which has a key role in scrutinising the finances of the authority.

The adoption of the part XI agreement paved the way for the United Kingdom to become a party to the convention in July 1997. When the UK became a party to the convention, we considered whether the 1981 Act was sufficient to enable us to comply with our obligations under the convention. At the time it was concluded that it did—although, as I think it is fair to say, only just. Obviously the intention behind the 1981 Act was not to implement the convention, which had not even been adopted when the Act was enacted, but the essential elements were thought to be sufficient. In particular, as we have seen, the Act provided for the issue of licences to prospective contractors and we are satisfied that that gives the United Kingdom sufficient powers in relation to such contractors to comply with the requirements of the convention, particularly that the sponsoring state should have effective control over its contractors.

The International Seabed Authority is the body that under the convention is responsible for regulating deep-sea mining. It has its seat in Kingston, Jamaica. The House will be aware of the extent of my portfolio in the FCO—Iraq, Iran and various countries throughout the middle east—so I hope it will not mind if I apply to the Foreign Secretary to suggest that it might be necessary for me to visit the ISA in Kingston, Jamaica at some point, with, of course, an appropriate delegation including Members of the Opposition, to ascertain that the proposals made by my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall in her Bill will be accepted by the authority. With the permission of the House, I will make that request to the Foreign Secretary. However, that is a digression.

[Barry Gardiner]

Will the Minister give way?

[Alistair Burt]

Of course, and I will check on the tickets before we go.

--- Later in debate ---

[Barry Gardiner]

Just to correct the impression that may have been given to the House by the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), the treaty of Windsor in 1386 was of course a treaty between Portugal and England, and as so often with the hon. Gentleman, the key is, who is the—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I think the hon. Gentleman is testing the patience of the Chamber a little bit, and I will be quite honest with him. We have had a lot of long interventions, and the last thing I want to get into is a history lesson from either side of the House, because other Bills want to get a hearing, and I am sure he has an interest in those as well.

European Council

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Swire]

Of course, the former Prime Minister has tremendous expertise but I am not aware that we are consulting him on what we should be doing as a coalition Government with regard to the situation in Syria.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Does the Minister understand that it is the trajectory that worries Members? First, we lift the arms embargo, then we supply arms, then we supply military advisers, then personnel and then those very arms are used against the personnel. The best way to put a fire out is not to put more fuel on it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Of course, we absolutely do not agree with any such remarks. My hon. Friend is quite right to give the date, because those remarks were made well before the President of Egypt took office as President. We welcome, since he took office, his maintenance of the peace treaty with Israel and the work that Egypt has done, including engaging with Israel, to try to succeed in bringing about a ceasefire in the Gaza conflict that we saw a few weeks ago. We will continue to judge the President by his actions in office.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

T2. At the global conference that the Foreign Secretary was good enough to host last week in the Locarno rooms, Christiana Figueres, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, made it clear that a settlement in 2015 would as much reflect national legislation as define it. What steps is his Department taking in bilateral arrangements with other countries to promote that national legislation?

[Mr Hague]

We do a great deal of that in our bilateral relations. This work was started under the previous Government—I pay tribute to that—and it continues in the current Government. I think we are foremost among Foreign Ministries in promoting the recognition of climate change and the need to act on it within other countries around the world. We have done a lot of that in China and do a lot of it in Brazil and many other emerging economies, so that work has the continued energy that we have all put into it over the past few years.

Sri Lanka

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Siobhain McDonagh]

I strongly support the right hon. Gentleman’s intervention, which I hope to address later.

The UN internal review proved that war crimes and human rights violations took place, but it admitted that UN staff did not think that preventing those killings was their responsibility and that they deliberately suppressed casualty figures. According to the review, when the UN began collating information on casualties the

“reports pointed to the large majority of civilian killings as being the result of Government shelling and aerial bombardment, with a smaller proportion of killings resulting from the LTTE actions.”

However, the UN played down evidence about the scale of what was happening, and the truth was portrayed as propaganda from Tamil Tiger terrorists.

In fact, as outlined by the Secretary-General’s panel of experts on Sri Lanka in 2011, and as we were told by Marie Colvin in 2009, there was systematic shelling of hospitals and civilians by Government forces, as well as restrictions on humanitarian aid and assistance. The panel of experts speaks of “tens of thousands” of casualties—perhaps up to 40,000—and even worse figures are now emerging. The Bishop of Mannar, Rayappu Joseph, has stated that over 146,000 remain unaccounted for, and the former BBC journalist Frances Harrison cites a World Bank estimate of 100,000 people still missing. All that only emphasises the importance of having an independent, international inquiry into the conduct of both sides during the conflict. Credible investigations into war crimes allegations and human rights abuses are a duty under domestic and international law. However, Sri Lanka’s own inquiry, the so-called Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission, has failed completely to provide the accountability required. It has been described as “deeply flawed” by the panel of experts, which has called for an independent, international investigation into war crimes. The LLRC was not independent or international, and our fears about it have been shown to be well founded. Government forces were largely exonerated of culpability. Only military rather than independent courts of inquiry have been established to look into the few abuse cases that were deemed worthy of further consideration by the LLRC.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way and pay tribute to the work that she has done over many years in exposing what has been going on. Does she recall that, in a previous debate on the LLRC, the Minister said that the Government would see what action the LLRC took, and if it were not substantial they would take much stronger action and do precisely what the right hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow) said and review again the decision to hold the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Colombo later this year? I hope that we will see such a view reflected in the Minister’s response today.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. We all have faith in the Minister, and we ask him to take action.

As there is no justice or accountability with the LLRC, what we see instead is a culture of impunity—enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, gender-based violence as well as the recent trumped-up impeachment proceedings against the Chief Justice—which is testament to the breakdown of the rule of law in Sri Lanka. Just as we had a responsibility to protect civilians at the time of the killings, so too do we now for ensuring that there is accountability.

--- Later in debate ---

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

I thank you for calling me to speak in this important debate, Mr Hollobone. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh). She knows more and has researched more than anybody in the House, and she has done more to keep this issue at the forefront of its debates and of the Government’s mind, as they consider their obligations to the international community.

I arrived here this morning with a speech that detailed many of the things in the UN internal report and the way in which the UN had looked at its own failure. It is important to understand that it was extraordinarily courageous of Ban Ki-moon to establish a report looking at the UN’s failure properly to protect people and to intervene at the right time in the war in Sri Lanka. Although it was a courageous report, however, it now needs to be followed up. It highlighted many of the actions that took place at the time, but the international community must now see whether the reconciliation that we all wish for has actually taken place.

My hon. Friend spoke of the LLRC. At the time, many of us said it was a smokescreen intended to avoid having the independent international review that was being called for. However, the Minister said, “Let’s give it space. Let’s see what it comes up with. Let’s see whether it actually delivers. If it does, we should judge it on that basis.” Well, it has now produced its report, but it has not delivered. The international community, from the UN right through to Amnesty International, has acknowledged and documented the LLRC’s failings. Initially, the commission made absolutely no mention of war crimes; subsequently, under pressure, the Sri Lankan Government made further moves to switch the international community’s focus. When the Minister sums up, I would ask him to be true to his words in our previous debate: we should judge the Sri Lankan Government by their actions. On any international standard, they have failed.

I said I had come with a speech that I had prepared. What I was not prepared for, however, was the schoolboy nonsense from the Government side—“Oh well, have you ever been to Sri Lanka?”—and the sniggering when my hon. Friend said that, no, of course she had not been there. Does that in any way reduce the value and the quality of her research? Absolutely not.

I wish I had not been to Sri Lanka, because I could have stood with my hon. Friend, but I have been there. A decade or so ago, the then Foreign Office Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr Hain), asked me to become involved in the second tier of the negotiations that were going on at the time. I was partly responsible for Anton Balasingham coming here with his wife, Adele. I also went to Sri Lanka and met all the parties there.

When I was a Minister in Northern Ireland, I invited Mahinda Rajapaksa to dinner there to discuss speaking to the communities in Northern Ireland to see exactly how reconciliation could be achieved and how a country could move on. At that stage, I hoped he would go back to his country to try to implement some of those ideals, but he did not: he went back and turned Sri Lanka into a kleptocracy, in which the Rajapaksa family controls absolutely everything. How is it that the President’s brother, Gotabaya, is Secretary of Defence? Another of his brothers, Basil, is Minister of Economic Development. Chamal, the third brother, is Speaker of the Parliament. They have carved up the country between them and there is absolutely no economic freedom.

If we take the Commonwealth Heads of Government or the Commonwealth Business Council there, what will we be doing? We will be putting money into the pockets not of Sri Lankan people, but of one family: the Rajapaksas. Anybody who pretends to be part of this debate without acknowledging what is going on in that country currently is fooling themselves. Those Members on the Government Benches may or may not have gone to Sri Lanka, but if they have, they have not looked into the detail of what is happening in that land, because it is corruption and it must end. The Government of this country should not allow Her Majesty the Queen to set foot on Sri Lankan soil.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Alistair Burt)]

I add my thanks to those of my colleagues, Mr Hollobone, for your chairing of this debate. I also thank the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) for her brevity and her remarks. I start, as always, by congratulating the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) on securing this debate. Her deep and committed interest in Sri Lankan issues is well known. I welcome the opportunity to state the Government’s position and the opportunity that she has once again provided the House to discuss the issue.

I welcome the interventions of a number of colleagues in this debate. They have been passionate, thoughtful and honest. The difference of views expressed across the Chamber emphasises the complexity of the issue. In an effort to defuse a little of the heat, may I say that, bearing in mind the history of the issue and who was in Government in 2009, a degree of humility in all parties is helpful? Hindsight is a wonderful thing. The contributions of colleagues with personal experience of reconciliation in parts of the UK were particularly important in bringing to the surface some of the difficulties involved.

The UK’s relationship with Sri Lanka is long-standing, strong and based on close historical, cultural, educational, commercial and family ties that will not weaken. The United Kingdom is fortunate to have a large Sri Lankan diaspora community, which contributes much to our rich and diverse culture. Over the past couple of years, I have met regularly with Sri Lankan Ministers, parliamentarians from different parties and members of the diaspora in the United Kingdom. As has been noted, in two weeks’ time, I will make my second visit to the country.

The hon. Lady suggested that my visit might be taken as a vindication of the Government. I assure her and the House that judging from experience over the past couple of years, my remarks are not always taken in that way by the Government, who are entitled to see them as they wish. I do not think that that is a particular risk.

There are different ways of visiting a country. People do not always have to go on a Government-sponsored visit; non-governmental organisations are operating, for example. People should declare everything and of course they must be on guard, no matter who takes them on a visit. It is helpful to visit and get a picture, if it is possible to do so, although that does not preclude views from those who have not visited but know a great deal about the issue.

The decades-long war in Sri Lanka, which ended in 2009 with the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, devastated the country and deeply scarred its population. Sri Lankans deserve lasting peace and reconciliation and where the United Kingdom and international organisations, such as the UN, are able to encourage and support the process it is right to do so.

I want to deal with three elements that came out of this debate: the situation of the UN; progress being made in Sri Lanka; and issues to do with the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting. In essence, I agree with and support the remarks made by the hon. Lady. It is right that the UN has been through an intense process, examining its role in relation to the conclusion of events in Sri Lanka. We welcome the report by the panel of experts appointed by the UN Secretary-General in 2011, which found credible allegations that both sides were involved in violations of international humanitarian law, and its setting up its own independent internal report to consider what happened with regard to the UN’s role. We agree that shortcomings were identified. In following that up, we note that the UN has moved swiftly to put in place a lessons-learned programme overseen by a panel chaired by the Deputy Secretary-General’s office. It is there that we will make our contribution to how the UN is going to repair what it failed to do in relation to the responsibility to protect, and we will follow that panel’s progress closely. I expect that questions will be raised about that over time.

We are committed to and support the concept of responsibility to protect, which was supported by all UN member states in 2005. The difficulty that was found in 2009 was that a pillar III responsibility-to-protect response required the agreement of the UN Security Council. It was clear at the time—former Ministers in this Chamber know this better than I—that there was not widespread support in the wider international community for a more assertive position towards the parties to the conflict. This turns out to have been a tragedy. The United Kingdom’s primary concerns during the final offensive were to ensure unimpeded access by humanitarian agencies and compliance with international humanitarian law, including investigations of allegations of violations. The UK focused, therefore, on the parties’ obligations to protect the civilian population.

[Barry Gardiner]

In the light of what he has just said, will the Minister comment on paragraph 15 of the internal report? It says that there was

“concern that the moment that humanitarian organizations leave, the Government will begin bombing Killinochchi town and that the physical security of the civilian population will be at increased risk”.

It is implicit that there is safety by the UN organisation’s very presence and that there is supervision.

[Alistair Burt]

Yes. As we have all said during the debate, the UN is examining its processes carefully as it finds fault in what it did in the past and emphasises the importance of UN engagement in the most difficult circumstances. Of course, we see in Syria today how difficult that has become. No doubt, the UN panel will look carefully at how it failed to meet that obligation and what might be done in difficult circumstances in future.

The LTTE is a brutal, ruthless organisation that rightly remains proscribed in the UK, but a military victory alone cannot deliver the stable, lasting peace all Sri Lankans deserve. Addressing events during the final days of the conflict is important and the UK has consistently called for an independent investigation into allegations of violation of international humanitarian law on both sides. There needs to be a more fundamental approach that goes beyond accountability. Colleagues have mentioned this in terms of the context of the future of Sri Lanka being for Sri Lankans themselves and how they take this forward. Therefore, we support the view, widely held in Sri Lanka and outside, that long-term peace can best be achieved through an inclusive political settlement that addresses the underlying causes of the conflict. Such a settlement must also take into account the legitimate grievances and aspirations of all Sri Lanka’s communities.

On the progress that has been made, the Sri Lankan Government recognised that in appointing the LLRC, which submitted its report in December 2011 and made more than 200 recommendations, including calls for credible investigations of alleged judicial killings and disappearances, demilitarisation of the north, implementation of impartial land-dispute resolution mechanisms and protection of freedom of expression.

Although we welcome the recommendations that were made, as I said at the time, the Government’s view is that the report left gaps and unanswered questions on alleged violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law. We were disappointed by the report’s conclusions and recommendations on accountability. None the less, as colleagues have said, the recommendations, if implemented in full, would go a long way to achieving the reconciliation that we believe will achieve lasting peace.

What progress has there been and, in answer to colleagues who have asked what we are looking for, what have we measured? The UK recognises and welcomes progress made in various areas. UK officials have visited all nine provinces of Sri Lanka in the past 12 months and have seen much to welcome. The absence of conflict has brought greater security and opened up economic development—the demining was mentioned by colleagues—with UK financial support, freeing up yet more land for resettlement and agriculture. Rehabilitation of thousands of ex-combatants, including child soldiers, has allowed many individuals to integrate back into society. The majority of internally displaced persons have now moved out of camps, although there is still work to be done in ensuring that “permanent homes” means just that, and does not mean people being deposited in places that they came from. Troop numbers are well below those in 2009. Although that is positive, there still remains more to be done to ensure that there is lasting peace and prosperity.

The March 2012 Human Rights Council resolution, supported by the UK and a number of member states, called on the Government of Sri Lanka to implement the LLRC recommendations and address alleged violations of international law. I assure hon. Members that we will be robust in pursuing that in the March 2013 council meeting. We wish that action plan, with deadlines from early this year for the implementation of LLRC recommendations, to be carried forward. It only covers about half of the LLRC recommendations. When I go to Sri Lanka in a couple of weeks, I will see if Sri Lanka will consider implementing all the recommendations and, if so, how to take it forward.

It is too soon to talk about our attendance plans for the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting. We will not move from that position for a period of time. Sri Lanka was scheduled to host the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in 2011, but given ongoing concerns about the humanitarian and human rights situation, the UK and other Commonwealth members did not support its bid. However, Commonwealth members decided that Sri Lanka would host in 2013. To reopen that decision would require a consensus of all member states and I do not think that is likely.

I have listened carefully to exchanges between hon. Members. The intensity of views and the sharp divide between colleagues emphasises how difficult and complex the situation is. A decision on the location of CHOGM is not for the UK; it is for the Commonwealth. The meeting will discuss many issues, not just Sri Lanka, but as Sri Lanka well knows it will inevitably shine a spotlight on the host country, demonstrating either its progress or lack of it. It is up to Sri Lanka to choose what will be seen. As the Foreign Secretary has said, we expect the Sri Lankan Government to demonstrate that they uphold the values of the Commonwealth.

Colleagues have said that the UK should not let Her Majesty the Queen go to the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting. It is important to clarify that she attends that meeting as head of the Commonwealth, not the UK Head of State. Her attendance is not a decision for the UK Government. If she were to ask for advice, it would be from all Commonwealth members.

Following the resolution of the conflict, it is clear that long-term reconciliation is an issue. The hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), perceptive as he often is, said that unless that is done the problem will come back at some stage to haunt everyone in Sri Lanka. The process of reconciliation is not easy. Some progress has been made in implementing some of the recommendations in the LLRC report. More needs to be done. The LLRC needs to be given time and good will must be there on all sides to see the process through. Nothing has been swept under the carpet and we are mindful of what has happened in the past and of the wishes of all Sri Lankans for the future.