Nord Stream 2 Pipeline

Debate between Bob Stewart and Daniel Kawczynski

Wednesday 10th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention and agree with every word that he has said. Later in my speech, I will chide my own Government. They have been almost mute on this issue, and that position does not reflect the urgency of the situation and the responsibility that our country has.

Countries in central and eastern Europe are not just leaving this all to us to deal with. They have created the Three Seas initiative; 12 countries, all of whom are members of the European Union, and all of whom are members of NATO—apart from Austria. It is a regional, relatively homogeneous bloc. The 12 member countries are on the frontline with Russia. My office and I have spent the past few weeks interviewing all the ambassadors from these 12 countries. We have interviewed 10 out of 12 so far, and we will be writing a report for Members of Parliament about the initiative. These countries are trying to create strategic investments across the whole bloc to safeguard individual members from undue Russian pressure.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

The strategic problem is this, is it not? By putting the Nord Stream 2 pipeline straight into Germany, Germany can guarantee its gas supplies from Russia. On the other hand, these countries in eastern Europe—the Three Seas, as it were—could be blackmailed by Russia and picked off from the rest of NATO. That is the strategic problem with Nord Stream 2.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

My hon. Friend, who is such an excellent speaker with so much experience in military matters, has managed in a few words to sum up the whole situation more succinctly than I could in half an hour. I am grateful to him.

Poland and Croatia have been the instigators of the Three Seas initiative. Both countries have built liquified gas terminals on their coastlines. The whole thing about the Three Seas initiative is that the investments seek to create additional pipelines so that more of this liquified gas can be sent inland to landlocked neighbours and NATO partners. Poland is also buying a huge amount of liquified gas from America and from Norway, and has invested billions of dollars in its liquified gas terminal at Świnoujście on the Baltic coast—I would like to see Hansard deal with the spelling of that. I shall help them with the spelling of Świnoujście. Is that not an amazing example, Mr Deputy Speaker? If a country is a member of NATO, that exclusive club or organisation that has not lost a square inch of territory since its inception 70 years ago, surely the next step should be to do as Poland is doing, which is to buy gas from America or Norway, even if it costs a little bit more, so that it is not dependent on Russian gas supplies.

I would like the Minister to give me an assurance that the Foreign Office is working hand in glove with the Department for International Trade to assess what opportunities there are for British companies to participate in the construction of these pipelines within the Three Seas jurisdiction, and to assist and invest in these liquified gas terminals on the coastlines of the Adriatic sea, the Black Sea and the Baltic sea so that we have some of the greatest energy companies in the world. That is important not only for British strategic and financial interests, but in helping our fellow NATO partners in central and eastern Europe.

--- Later in debate ---

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I could not have put the situation better. Germany, in a rather peculiar statement the other day, did not really explain why it is building this pipeline. Clearly, it is a stitch-up between the Russians and the Germans. They do not want to rely on the transportation of gas through Belarus, Ukraine or Poland—countries that the Russians have problems with. Russia does not want to rely on exporting its main commodity through those countries; it wants to have a direct link under the sea, so that Germany, irrespective of its obligations to NATO, can have that direct access to Russian gas.

[Bob Stewart]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I will not give way for the moment.

It is a very selfish act on Germany’s part and inconsistent with NATO membership. The Germans have also said that it is something to do with their obligations to Russia in terms of reparations from the second world war. They need to help the Russians with the construction of this pipeline out of some sense of duty over war reparations. If that is the case, Poland is still waiting for its war reparations 80 years on.

I am very grateful to have secured this Adjournment debate, but it should not be for me, a Back-Bench Tory MP, to raise this issue. It should be the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary explaining the threat of this project to our electorate. I suspect that, if most of us went back to our constituencies and started talking about the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, not many people would be cognisant of it. It should be the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary who are leading the way in explaining to our citizens the threat that this project poses to our allies and, ultimately, to us. One thing that we have learned from history is that if there is instability in central and eastern Europe—if these countries are threatened, blackmailed or invaded—which country always get sucked into it? It is the United Kingdom. We have seen too much instability on our continent to allow Britain to be sucked into that. We need a statement from the British Government that we will implement sanctions on every company and individual involved in this project and it must start with the former German Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, who was earning an eye-watering salary at the very pinnacle of this organisation—

[Daniel Kawczynski]

Yes, Gazprom, as my right hon. Friend says.

Germany is behaving in a selfish and dangerous way and in a way that is incompatible with its responsibilities to NATO. As I have also said, let us talk to the Russians, but let us do it from a position of strength.

We have all seen—the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) has been one of the most vocal on this—the outrageous behaviour of the Russians within the neighbourhood, whether in Georgia, the butchery that took place in South Ossetia, in Ukraine, or the ongoing deliberate violation of the Baltic states’ maritime and airspace. I went to Ukraine when I was on the Foreign Affairs Committee. We went to Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine. I have never seen anything like it in my 15 years as a Member of Parliament. It was like being on the face of the moon. Everything was destroyed. Nothing was left standing. It was a wasteland. We on the Foreign Affairs Committee saw what the Russians are capable of in Ukraine.

The two countries that this pipeline will violate most are indeed Ukraine and Belarus. The Government are trumpeting their agreement with the Ukrainians on the Government website, saying just this month,

“UK and Ukraine sign Political, Free Trade and Strategic Partnership”.

“A strategic partnership” with Ukraine—there is a photograph of the Prime Minister with the President of Ukraine signing the agreement, and it says:

“UK cooperation in political, security and foreign matters with Ukraine”.

How can we sign a strategic partnership with the Ukrainians while at the same time kicking the chair from underneath them, by allowing the one last power that they have over the Russians—the fact that they have to export their gas from Ukraine—not to happen? This agreement it is not going to be worth the paper it is written on, if this project is allowed to come to a conclusion.

[Bob Stewart]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Daniel Kawczynski]

In a second.

Let me turn to Belarus. We have all seen on our television screens the brave young men and women fighting against the brutal dictator in Minsk. A few years ago, I went on a parliamentary delegation to Minsk, where I saw at first hand how this brutal authoritarian regime suppresses its own people. But one day, Lukashenko will be gone and this will be a new, independent, sovereign fledgling state. Can hon. Members imagine in two, three, four or five years’ time—whenever it is—when the democratic Government of Belarus are seeking finally to join the rest of Europe as a sovereign state, what position they will be in if this gas does not have to go through their country and just goes straight to Germany under the sea? It will be the greatest impediment to the democratisation of Belarus, and we have a duty and responsibility to that country as a fellow European partner.

I must now conclude. By allowing this pipeline, we not only betray our NATO allies; we empower Russia in an unprecedented way to manipulate Belarus and Ukraine. I look forward to the Minister’s response to my genuine fears and the fears of many colleagues from across the House.

Holocaust Memorial Day

Debate between Bob Stewart and Daniel Kawczynski

Thursday 23rd January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

I would like to address colleagues, not as the MP for Shrewsbury, but as the only Polish-born British Member of this Parliament. A lot of the killings during the second world war took place in the country of my birth. Of course, we could not go back to Poland after we had left, because of communism, and the martial law that General Jaruzelski imposed to suppress the Solidarity movement.

When we finally managed to get back to Poland and I could see my beloved grandfather, he never spoke to me, when I was a child, about what he went through, and the terrible devastation that the Germans brought about in Poland, and in Warsaw, the city of my birth. Subsequently, though, I found out that his brother, Jan Kawczynski, hid eight Jewish families on his estate. We have already heard what would happen to a Pole if they took the risk of helping a Jewish friend or neighbour. He was coming back to his estate one day, and a friend said to him: “Don’t go back—your property has been surrounded by the Germans. Just flee: escape and save yourself.” He said to his friend, “I have to go back; my wife and daughter are there.”

First, the Germans made him take off his officer’s boots. Then they made him dig a grave. Then they made him watch as they shot his 12-year-old daughter. Then they shot his wife. Then they shot him. And his only crime was hiding his Jewish friends and neighbours.

I related that story, for the first time after 30 years, to a friend of mine who is called Jonny Daniels, who runs a wonderful organisation called From the Depths, which seeks to bring Poles and Jews together. He investigated the story, and subsequently I went to an awards ceremony at Warsaw zoo with the Polish Prime Minister, Mr Morawiecki, and others, to be presented with an award on behalf of Jan Kawczynski for the sacrifices that he made.

It was so counter-intuitive: that is the thing. Anybody in this Chamber who is a parent, like me, will know that we are programmed instinctively, in our DNA, to protect our children. And yet what did these people do? They knew that if they protected Jews it would not be just they who were shot; they would have to watch their children being shot before they themselves were killed.

I say all these things because I am so upset about the second world war revisionism that is now taking place. As the people who took part and survived the second world war die, the next generation know so little about what happened during the second world war.

Last week President Putin accused Poland of being somehow jointly responsible for starting the second world war, and Members can imagine how aggressively confrontational that is for any Polish person. As we all know, it was the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, entered into by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, that led to the invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 and the subsequent butchery.

The first thing that happened to me today is that my partner handed me an article from The Independent—I have to say I never read that left-wing rag—by Rivkah Brown, whose Twitter account shows her wearing a “Vote Labour” sign on her hat. The article was headlined, “Poland is in denial about its role in the Holocaust—it was both victim and perpetrator.” This young lady from The Independent is trying to suggest that Poland is equally to blame and somehow just as much a perpetrator of these atrocities as it was a victim, but in her article she could reference only the famous tragic case of Jedwabne, a small Polish town where it is alleged that the local Polish villagers rounded up 300 Jews, put them in a barn and set the barn alight. It is a very, very tragic, brutal and well-known case that we Poles struggle with, but to compare that one incident to the systematic extermination of 6 million people in Poland through a series of concentration camps is highly distorting of the facts and is deeply regrettable.

[Bob Stewart]

My very good and hon. Friend mentions the 6 million people killed in Poland. I thought several million of them were actually Polish. How many Poles are reckoned to have been killed by German soldiers and the Gestapo?

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I do not have the exact figure to hand, but at least 4 million Poles, if not more, were killed. Of course, it is not just the killing of millions of Poles. As my hon. Friend will know, in 1944, when we had the temerity to try to drive the Germans out of Warsaw, Adolf Hitler insisted on the systematic destruction of Warsaw so that it would be wiped off the face of the earth. Ninety-seven per cent. of Warsaw was destroyed. When I take delegations of British parliamentarians to Poland on all-party group visits, the first place we go to is the Warsaw Uprising Museum so they can see at first hand the complete destruction, the extermination, of an entire city that took place in 1944 in Warsaw.

I have a thick file in my office of my correspondence with the BBC. I write to the BBC year after year with the same letter asking it not to refer, as it always does in its programmes, to “Polish death camps,” and year after year I get the same reply. I tell the BBC that there is no such thing as a Polish death camp. These were concentration camps set up by the Germans and run by the Germans in German-occupied Poland. I just wish the BBC, a taxpayer-funded organisation, would understand the sensitivities of these things, rather than repeatedly referring to Polish death camps.

I intervened on my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) earlier to ask why he had used the term “Nazi.” Many hon. Members have used the term “Nazi,” and I am very worried about that term. It is almost like a firewall in front of the responsibility of the German nation and the Germans. It is almost as if Nazis are some third party who descended on us temporarily. They were not Nazis—the Nazi party was a political party—most of the people who carried out these brutal attacks in Poland were German soldiers and German Gestapo officers who were not connected with the Nazi party. They were Germans. When I talk about the revisionism that is taking place today, we must remember who the perpetrators of these appalling crimes were.

I was invited to a German-Polish conference at the Polish presidential palace—the Belvedere palace—a few years ago. The Körber Stiftung invited me to a German-Polish conference, and I asked them why the German Government had not given war reparations to Poland. Poland is the only country that has not received any reparations resulting from the second world war, yet it was brutalised the most and had the most people—the highest percentage of citizens—eliminated and destroyed. The German Government always say to me that they will not pay reparations and they hide behind an agreement they signed with a Polish Government in 1952—they signed an agreement with a mafia-type, illegitimate Government imposed on Poland by Stalin. Bolesław Bierut was the communist stooge imposed on Poland by Stalin, who instructed Poland at that time, “You will have nothing to do with those capitalists in Germany. You will sign an agreement. You don’t want any war reparations.”

It is good that we are speaking here in this Chamber, but we need action for the millions of Jews and the millions of Poles who were killed, butchered and persecuted in Poland and never received any compensation from Germany whatsoever. I talk to the Polish Government often about whether or not they are going to implement a tribunal or a prosecution in an international court against Germany. They talk about it from time to time, but very little happens. I want Members to know that I am in discussions with barristers to see whether we can find Polish and Polish-Jewish survivors living here in the United Kingdom and implement a private prosecution against Germany on behalf of Polish and Polish-Jewish survivors who are British citizens.

A young Polish girl from Oxford University came to see me because she wanted to do a research programme in my office—an internship—and I asked whether she would help me write a paper on why Poland today should ask for war reparations. This young lady, who was 25 and desperate to work in the House of Commons, said, “No, I won’t do it.” I said, “Why won’t you help me with this?” Her reply was, “No, I am not doing it. I have a German boyfriend, who would be upset if I did it, and it is ancient history. It is gone, forget it.” My generation is the last generation who will do anything about this, because we sat on the laps of our beloved grandparents, and we heard about what happened to them. When we are gone, that is it, it is finished; no subsequent generation will want to stir this thing up again. But what message does this send to the hundreds of thousands of people of Polish and Polish-Jewish origin still living in this country who are now British citizens? What message is sent to them by saying, “No, this is too complicated, it is too long ago. We are not interested in the fact that the Germans did not pay war compensation to you. We are going to move on.” No, as long as I am a Member of Parliament, I will continue my fight and struggle to make sure that the Germans account for the brutality that they implemented against Poland.

Middle East

Debate between Bob Stewart and Daniel Kawczynski

Monday 30th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee) on securing this important debate. I agree that the United Kingdom has a peculiar responsibility for the region. Indeed, it is unique, given the high standing that our country has throughout the middle east.

I pay tribute, too, to the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee for his leadership on our recent visit to the region and for the way in which he has put the Committee front and centre of the debate in the run-up to the important vote that we will shortly hold.

The impression that I took away from our visit to Tehran and Riyadh was one of the mutual hostility, suspicion and antagonism that exists between the two regional powers, Saudi Arabia and Iran. That tension is starting to spill over, not just in Yemen, but in Bahrain and now so tragically in Syria. Many other countries, including Kuwait, are caught up in the appalling tension between those two powers. I am pleased that in the Vienna talks Iran and Saudi Arabia are around the same table for the first time in a long time. As I said to the Prime Minister last week, it is vital that the United Kingdom uses its good offices in the United Nations to encourage and facilitate dialogue between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

[Bob Stewart]

On that point, we must fully understand that the United Kingdom still has an exceptionally good reputation in the middle east, despite the fact that we have lost so much of our military power. We are still regarded as friends.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

Very much so. When one travels throughout the middle east, time and again people highlight the fact that they see us as an impartial and honourable interlocutor and as people who can facilitate dialogue to try to dissipate some of the tension in the region.

We recently saw the extraordinary strength of British diplomacy, particularly over the nuclear agreement with Iran. If we cast our minds back to the extraordinary tensions with that country—by the way, during our visit we spent time at the British embassy, which had previously been trashed by students—we can see the great accomplishment of that painstaking British diplomacy. I pay tribute to our Foreign Secretary for playing a substantial role in the agreement. It shows what British diplomacy can achieve. I therefore do not believe that it is naive or unrealistic to expect that the United Kingdom could and ought to be trying to secure better dialogue between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

It is, however, essential that the Government are probed on strategy and planning in the run-up to a potential bombing of Syria. I spent quite a lot of time on that delegation to the middle east with my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron). He wrote an article in The Mail on Sunday yesterday outlining the case against bombing in Syria, and he is the only one among the entire Conservative parliamentary party who voted against the bombing campaign in Libya. That was an extremely courageous thing to do—to ignore the rest of the Conservative parliamentary party and go into the opposite Lobby. I pay tribute to him—he is a former soldier—for the tremendous courage that he displayed at that time.

I recall from those deliberations how the Opposition, the Liberal Democrats and the Government all rushed to support the bombing of Gaddafi. It was a highly emotional time for us. He promised to instigate a bloodbath in Benghazi and, as has been said, we wanted to do something so we sanctioned the bombing of his military capability. Getting rid of a dictator is easy. What is more challenging is the planning that has to take place in order to ensure that the country is then administered properly, and that those important seeds of a democratic society are allowed to germinate before we pass on responsibility to local politicians.

North Africa and the Near and Middle East

Debate between Bob Stewart and Daniel Kawczynski

Monday 28th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I meant foreign countries. Spain and Cambodia are the two I was told about. To answer my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng), it is not necessarily probable that the Libyan people would vote for a constitutional monarch—it is a possibility, but not a probability—but none the less they should be consulted, rather than the national transitional council stating unilaterally that there should be a presidential system.

I move on now to the trial of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi. I would never dream of defending Gaddafi or any of his family, sycophants or supporters, but I think it is very important that this man gets a fair trial. Some of the Sunday newspapers have reported that people were saying that, if he was not found guilty and hanged, they would leave the country. Our newspapers must do everything possible not to prejudice the trial, because no matter what the individual may be guilty of, it is extremely important that he is given a fair trial. I very much hope that the Libyan authorities—I make this point to the Minister—will allow International Criminal Court lawyers to be present throughout the trial.

I was glad to hear from the Foreign Secretary that the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), has raised with Niger the importance of its acquiescing in international standards and handing over remnants of the Gaddafi regime and family members who have sought sanctuary in that country, as they have done in Algeria.

[Bob Stewart]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I will in a moment.

I will move on to the rendition of Libyan citizens to Libya when Gaddafi was in power. The shadow Foreign Secretary did not mention Libya once in this whole conversation, and one wonders why. Of course, I fought vehemently against the previous Government’s amazing cosying up to Colonel Gaddafi. I think that they must be embarrassed about the extraordinary rapprochement that Mr Blair and his successor had with that brutal despot—so much for Robin Cook’s ethical foreign policy, which was so loudly trumpeted when Labour took office in 1997. I have listened to senior Labour figures stand on the Government side of the House and say that they knew nothing about the rendition of those people to Gaddafi’s Libya. I found that absolutely extraordinary. They say that the previous Labour Government knew nothing about sending those people back, ultimately to be tortured or done away with by Gaddafi, so they must be claiming that our security forces, off their own bat, unilaterally decided to engage with Libyan security forces and were responsible for sending those people to Libya without Government approval. I simply do not believe that. If it were true, I would be extremely concerned that our security forces had done such a thing. That is why I am calling for an investigation. I do not want it brushed under the carpet.

[Bob Stewart]

My hon. Friend has moved on from what I was going to say, which is that the International Criminal Court is responsible for trying people only when it would not be possible in their own country. I have given evidence in several ICC trials and am delighted that Saif al-Islam Gaddafi will be tried in Libya. I am happy for ICC lawyers to witness it, but they should not run it.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I agree; I said merely that I hoped ICC lawyers would be able to observe the proceedings.

I have received disturbing evidence about the equipment that some of our European partners sold to the Gaddafi regime. I will not go into too many details, but it helped Colonel Gaddafi to eavesdrop on his citizens and on citizens of this country. That is something that will come out in the coming days and weeks, but I should be interested to find out from the Minister everything that was exported to Gaddafi over those 13 years and might have assisted him in oppressing his own people. Mr Blair told us that the great rapprochement and engagement in the tent in the desert were to ensure that that man gave up his weapons of mass destruction, but from recent newspaper articles we see that vast stocks of chemical weapons have been found in Libya, so Colonel Gaddafi was really just playing a game of cat and mouse with the previous Government.

I very much hope to see progress on Lockerbie now. We all know that Mr Megrahi is not solely culpable of the worst terrorist atrocity on UK soil since the second world war, so I very much hope that the Minister and the Foreign Office will do everything possible to ensure that the Libyan authorities comply fully in helping us to get to the bottom of that case—and the case of PC Yvonne Fletcher.

I turn now to Mauritania. I alluded to the fact that on a recent visit to the country, as well as meeting politicians I spent a little time standing on the coast, watching the fishermen bring in their fish. It was quite extraordinarily difficult for them to drag—literally drag—their small boats on to the sand to get their catch.

The European Union and, in particular, Spanish vessels are pillaging the waters off the coast of Mauritania, sucking out all the fish and impoverishing the lives of local fishermen. Many promises that the EU made as a result of the agreement to which I referred earlier have not been fulfilled. One was that a pier or jetty would be built near Nouakchott for the local fishermen, but that has still not been put in place, 10 years on. I raise the issue with the Minister, as I very much hope that he will use his good offices to find out what the European Union’s promise of assistance was to the local fishermen, and that he will do everything he possibly can to help them.

My trip to Mauritania was the first by a British Member of Parliament since one by the Father of the House in 1960, and the Mauritanians were so amazed by this that they laid out the red carpet. I had more than two hours with the President—[Laughter.] My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) laughs but this is a serious matter, because the people there feel neglected by the United Kingdom and wish to engage far more with us. The problem is that Governments of various political colours have neglected the whole of Francophone north Africa over the decades, and that has led to a lack of engagement in terms of trade and co-operation. Luckily, I studied French—that was my degree—at university, so I could converse quite happily with the Mauritanians in French and had to translate for the rest of my delegation, but we need more engagement.

On my other visit, to Tunisia, I found when I met representatives of its chambers of commerce that only 52 British companies trade there, in contrast with 1,700 French companies—52 to 1,700. There are very similar statistics regarding Morocco. I have met Lord Green, the new Minister for Trade and Investment, who does an excellent job, but I very much hope that somebody who is a fluent French speaker will be appointed to lead a massive export drive to the Francophone countries.

UK Relations: Libya

Debate between Bob Stewart and Daniel Kawczynski

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

At the point of capture, it is difficult to control forces that were not particularly under control in the first place; the testosterone is flowing. People probably just wanted to get rid of Gaddafi there and then. I do not blame those soldiers who killed Gaddafi. Like my hon. Friend, I regret it, but I understand exactly what was going on. They were in the height of battle, their testosterone was flowing, and they just went for it and killed him, because he was the tyrant.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I agree. In fact, my understanding is that one of the people involved in his death was from Misrata, and his sister had been raped by Libyan soldiers loyal to Colonel Gaddafi, so I concur with my hon. Friend.

To return to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), I have tabled an early-day motion on the issue, calling on the Government of Niger to respect international law and acquiesce in ensuring that the relevant members of the Gaddafi clan—up to 30 loyalists are allegedly in Niger—are extradited to the International Court of Justice at The Hague. My first question to the Minister is this: what discussions is his Department having with the Government of Niger—and with the Governments of Mali and Algeria, where other Gaddafi loyalists are said to be seeking sanctuary? The most important of those loyalists is, of course, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, who apparently is hovering somewhere around the Libya-Niger border. I hope that that man will not be killed. I would like him to be brought to justice in the Court at The Hague, and would like to hear what the Minister is doing to interact with the Government of Niger, and others, to achieve that.

[Bob Stewart]

I apologise for making a second intervention, but I have given evidence in five trials at The Hague, and the writ of the International Criminal Court runs only when a national jurisdiction has indicated that it has no intention of trying individuals who have committed war crimes in its territory. I should like the Gaddafi family and their supporters to go back to Libya. There will be a problem, because of the death penalty, but that is what I should like, because it is how the Court should work. A national jurisdiction tries those in question first, and if that does not work, they go to The Hague. I would prefer those people to go back to Tripoli.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

That is an interesting point, and the Minister will have to deal with the Government’s position on that. Do we want those people sent to The Hague, or should they go to Libya? I defer to the experience of my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) in those matters.

I am very supportive of the national transitional council, but I am deeply concerned—I feel passionate about it—that there has been no plebiscite. No referendum has been announced on the sort of constitution that the country will have. We have been told that there will be parliamentary elections in eight months’ time, and presidential elections in 18 months. I am extremely concerned that the NTC has already unilaterally decided to state that there will be presidential elections. I think that the last thing the Libyan people want is another Head of State who is a politician. They need to be consulted, so that they can decide what sort of constitution they want. I think that they want a unifying figure: someone who commands respect throughout the country, who is untainted by any previous association with the Gaddafi regime, and who can bring the whole country together in a unifying way. I am not embarrassed to put those issues forward; I do not flinch from doing so. Yes, it is a matter for the Libyan people, but our country has put our service personnel’s lives at risk, and we have a right to advise and caution the NTC in that regard.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

Yes. The hon. Gentleman makes a good point; there are allegations of atrocities on both sides. My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham talked about testosterone and the desire to take revenge, and we have heard that serious human rights violations and massacres have taken place, such as the shooting of up to 50 Gaddafi loyalists with their hands tied behind their backs in Sirte. The hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) raises an important point, and I would like to hear from the Minister what the Government’s attitude is to ensuring that people are brought to justice.

I believe that the unifying figure who is untainted by Gaddafi and who commands respect in Libya is Crown Prince Mohammed, the heir to the Libyan throne. I have had the great honour and privilege of meeting him; he has lived in London since Gaddafi exiled him and his father from Libya. Gaddafi burned their house down in front of them and then banished them, and they have lived in London ever since. Crown Prince Mohammed’s father subsequently died, but His Royal Highness continues to live in London. Having met him on numerous occasions, I consider him to be, if I may say so, a friend. He is a tremendous counsellor, and I respect him greatly. I have met many leaders around the world in the past six years, but few of them have impressed me as much as Crown Prince Mohammed.

A few weeks ago, I raised directly with the Prime Minister how important it is for him, or at least one of his aides, to meet Crown Prince Mohammed to seek his guidance and views. Foreign Office officials have met Crown Prince Mohammed, but to my knowledge no Foreign Office Minister has yet met him, which I am concerned about. I understand that the Foreign Office does not want to be seen to be manipulating the situation in Tripoli—of course it is for the Libyan people to make decisions—but a member of the el-Senussi family who has extraordinary respect in his own country is living in London; the least the Foreign Office can do is engage with him effectively and properly and find out from him what is happening on the streets of Libya.

The Foreign Office will of course be told a lot by the national transitional council about what the council wants the Foreign Office to know, but I am hearing from Libya—from town councils and the people on the streets of Tobruk, Benghazi and other cities—that many people are holding exhibitions about the history of Libya, which is something that they were deprived of under Gaddafi. Many people are holding exhibitions about the royal family, the late King Idris and Crown Prince Mohammed.

The Foreign Office must be careful. Having spent so much taxpayer money on pursuing the liberation of Libya, we want to ensure that the Libyan people are consulted, and that their will comes through. If they wish to have a constitutional monarchy, as I believe they do, that should be put to them in a referendum, so that they can decide of their own accord, rather than the unelected NTC unilaterally deciding that the Libyan people should have a politician as their Head of State in perpetuity.

[Bob Stewart]

I, too, have met Crown Prince Mohammed, although he is not as big a friend to me as he is to my hon. Friend. I know that Crown Prince Mohammed has had contact with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, so it is fully aware of the situation. I subscribe totally to my hon. Friend’s contention that there should be a general election before a presidential one, and I, too, would like someone such as Crown Prince Mohammed to become Libya’s Head of State. However, it cannot be done just like that; the Libyan people have to ask for it. That is fair.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I agree with my hon. Friend, but after 42 years of absolute and tyrannical despotism, it is not unreasonable to have a referendum or plebiscite. Let the people decide. Give them the options. We in this country had a ludicrous referendum on changing the voting system, which I was furious about, as chairman of the all-party group for the promotion of first past the post.