Resignation of UK Ambassador to USA

Debate between Bob Stewart and Alan Duncan

Thursday 11th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

The House is certainly aware of my view that everybody should have been there in full support of Kim Darroch and should continue to extend that full support to him without any kind of criticism whatever or any stain on his character because, as the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) said, he was doing his job and doing it well.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Like everyone else in the House, I have nothing but the highest respect for Sir Kim Darroch. Does the House agree that he has acted in the highest tradition of the civil and diplomatic service in so far as he has laid down a job that he must have considered to be right at the top of his career in the interest of his country?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

My hon. and gallant Friend understands chivalry, decency, duty and honour, and that is precisely what we saw yesterday in the personal conduct of Sir Kim Darroch.

UK Ambassador to USA: Leaked Emails

Debate between Bob Stewart and Alan Duncan

Monday 8th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his extremely unhelpful ingenuity. Any decision about when Sir Kim finishes in Washington will not, I hope, in any way be influenced by the events over the weekend.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Whoever leaked these signals will have signed the Official Secrets Act, which means that they should not divulge anything “confidential”, “secret”, “top secret” or above. This is the act of a traitor, and whoever has done it, we should deploy everything that we have against that person under the Official Secrets Act.

[Sir Alan Duncan]

Yes; our Government, diplomacy, ministerial activity and the actions of civil servants all need to be underpinned by trust, and trust means that people have to be able to keep confidences, not leak inappropriately—or leak at all—and not divulge information that should not be leaked. This is a total and inexcusable breach of trust, and without that trust, Government cannot function. I hope that the investigation that has been started will be able to find out who did this.

Draft Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Debate between Bob Stewart and Alan Duncan

Tuesday 5th February 2019 General Committees

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I am grateful to hon. Members for their comments and questions. Let me endeavour to answer them in turn.

I will respond first to the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton, on the Opposition Front Bench. Among other things, if we were not a participant, others would not trade in rough diamonds with us, so we would be out of the trading system that has emerged on the back of the Kimberley process. Potentially, that could lead to a weakness in the policing of the trade in rough diamonds.

The cost would be the same as now. Likewise, the impact is unchanged, hence the absence of a need for an impact assessment. The point that I would make is that the draft regulations are simply the transposition of the EU-based regime to an autonomous UK one, so that we can participate autonomously. I suppose the parallel is with the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018: we used to do all sanctions with the EU, but now we will be able to do them on our own. The regulations are one of the changes necessary to adjust to us leaving the European Union.

In response to the hon. Member for Vauxhall, 82 countries are members, which include Zimbabwe. We are confident that our existing participant status will be embraced by the 81 as we reapply on a slightly different footing.

My hon. Friend the Member for Braintree is absolutely right to emphasise again the importance of this regime in addressing some of the worst aspects of conflict and rapacious behaviour in war-torn areas. My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham is also right that this is not a perfect regime, but it has been a successful and improving one, given what was there before, which was quite simply nothing.

The hon. Member for Glenrothes asked about influencing direction. We would remain a full participant, and would be so on our own, so inasmuch as we could influence direction in the past, we will still be able to do so in future. The draft regulations are a transposition of the regime—that is what such statutory instruments are for—which does not open up immediately any scope for adjusting, improving or amending, because that is not what the changes before us are intended to do.

[Bob Stewart]

I thank my right hon. Friend for allowing me to intervene again. May I ask whether, on 30 March—assuming that we leave on 29 March, as we will—Hatton Garden, say, will be able to import legal diamonds into the country? Is that what this is all about?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

There is a distinction between polished and rough diamonds—

[Bob Stewart]

I am sorry.

[Sir Alan Duncan]

So this is about a particular category of diamond. The draft regulations mean that if we were a participant, anything legal in the Kimberley process would include us in that process; if we do not pass them today, it would not.

Let me answer one more question put to me about the powers. The Kimberley process requires participating Governments to certify the origin of rough diamonds and to put in place effective controls to prevent conflict diamonds entering the supply chain. That is done through the Kimberley process certification scheme, of which we would be a part if the draft regulations go through. In the process, each international shipment of rough diamonds must be accompanied by a Kimberley process certificate relating to that specific shipment. In other words, the certificate is valid for one specific journey only. The certificates are issued by the exporting country’s Kimberley process authority, which has controls in place to verify that the shipments are conflict-free.

As I outlined in my opening speech, the draft regulations are crucial to our participation in the Kimberley process and, in turn, to our conflict prevention objectives and obligations. The instrument is fully consistent with the Prime Minister’s commitment to be a supportive member of the European Union until we leave, and it will ensure the UK’s continuous compliance with the scheme. It has the added advantage, Mr Evans, of making me a greater expert in rough trade than even you, sir. I commend the regulations to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Chagos Islands

Debate between Bob Stewart and Alan Duncan

Thursday 17th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

It would potentially be illegal. In my view, it is quite clear that our decision is that there should not be resettlement or repopulation on these islands.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

When we renegotiate this treaty with the Americans for the use of the Chagos Islands, could not part of the conditions of agreement be that Chagossians should be the people of choice for employment in the American airbase there? They would then be sustained by the American infrastructure and be looked after that way. That would be an honourable thing for us to do; what we decided to do yesterday is dishonourable.

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I do not agree with my hon.—and gallant—Friend. I do not think this is dishonourable. As I have already said, Diego Garcia is only one small part of this large archipelago. The nature of the employment there would not necessarily prove attractive, and it is not seen as practical to link subsistence payments for a repopulated series of islands to the use of the defence base, for which, at the moment, there is no payment anyway.

Mobile Army Surgical Hospital

Debate between Bob Stewart and Alan Duncan

Wednesday 9th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan]

Spending on humanitarian matters is official development assistance, so in that respect my hon. Friend is right. However, we must also show that there is value for money and we must know that the assets can be appropriately deployed. I will discuss that issue further.

DFID has worked on the ground alongside UK forces in Bosnia, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Iraq and Afghanistan. DFID has also used Royal Air Force aircraft and helicopters in earthquake and flood relief in Pakistan, and in sending search and rescue teams to Indonesia. The Royal Navy was able to make its Royal Fleet Auxiliary Largs Bay ships available to help with relief after the Haiti earthquake.

So far, UK military field hospitals have not been deployed under the auspices of DFID. However, the way it would work is that DFID would request the support of the MOD in response to a natural disaster, in accordance with United Nations guidelines known as the Oslo guidelines. Those guidelines stipulate that support should be provided in line with the humanitarian principles of impartiality, neutrality, humanity and independence. They also state that military assets should be requested only where there is no comparable civilian alternative. That implies that the military asset must be the only way of meeting the particular need and that its use should be a last resort.

DFID has to design its humanitarian responses carefully according to the specific humanitarian needs that they face and based on what responses are best provided by the UK and by other donors. Very often, what works best is help to restore and rebuild an afflicted country’s own health system. If a field hospital is needed, there are already well established civilian organisations that are used to providing such hospitals in humanitarian crises, notably the International Red Cross, which has been mentioned.

A civilian response will usually be what is needed in a delicate and complex situation, rather than a foreign military presence which, however well intentioned, is still military and may not be welcomed. For example, in Pakistan, which has also been mentioned, it was a difficult, finely balanced, decision to include RAF aircraft in the NATO relief airlift, when extremists had explicitly threatened the foreign relief effort and relief workers if NATO were to operate in that country. Like other international donors, therefore, while we are glad to have military field hospitals available, we will use them as a last resort, when it is too difficult or dangerous to use civilian measures and if the circumstances permit a military medical unit to be deployed.

DFID has also been building a UK civilian medical response capability. UK surgeons and other medical staff performed heroically in Haiti after the earthquake in 2010, saving lives and limbs which might otherwise have been lost. Building on that experience, DFID is supporting a programme of training and regional workshops for NHS doctors and other medical staff to equip them to deal with the additional challenges of surgery in a conflict zone. That is underpinned by an arrangement with the Department of Health and the national health service to deploy surgical trauma teams drawn from the British health service. Many of those personnel will also be military reservists, thus further exemplifying good civilian/military co-operation across Government.

My hon. Friend specifically mentioned the Syria crisis. As the House is aware, the UK Government’s relief response is considerable. The UK has so far pledged £500 million, making us the second largest donor. Much of that relief is to provide health and medical care. Through our funding we are supporting vital medical help on civilian channels and with civilian medical personnel, not all details of which can be openly revealed. I can say, however, that the range of services provided by DFID is wide and big. It includes ensuring the running, supply and necessary specialist training for a large number of emergency surgical facilities, including in remote areas. For example, we are supporting primary health care centres to help look after vulnerable groups such as women and children, as well as the elderly, who often have chronic unmet health needs. In Syria’s neighbouring countries, which now host more than 2 million refugees between them, DFID-supported health programmes provide medical evacuations and ambulance services, widespread primary health care facilities, mental health and psycho-social services, and highly specialised facilities for victims of sexual and gender-based violence.

We provide specialist training courses for health professionals, many of whom are specialist staff seconded into emergency departments to reinforce their capacity and specialist care. We provide health services for refugees, as well as for vulnerable resident populations that are hosting huge numbers of refugees in their communities. DFID and MOD officials are in frequent touch in London and the region, and the need for and suitability of mobile field hospitals is often discussed. While options remain open, it is agreed that deploying a mobile field hospital at the moment would not be the most effective way to reach the diverse needs faced by so many people in so many different locations.

DFID’s new civilian surgical trauma facility also remains an option, but so far it has not been necessary to deploy a surgical team in any of the refugee-hosting countries. Inside Syria, the level of conflict makes access to health care difficult in many areas, and unfortunately the security challenges also prevent the deployment of a field hospital or a civilian UK surgical team. DFID will therefore continue to support existing health facilities on the ground, and constantly review the situation.

[Bob Stewart]

Does DFID have the capacity to deploy not just a surgical team, but the equipment and some primary buildings in support of that team? Is that what my right hon. Friend is referring to?