(6 years, 10 months ago)
Westminster HallWestminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) on securing this important debate. She painted a bleak, sobering and depressing picture of life for those who step outside the accepted norms in Iran. She was absolutely right to say that many of us who have been concerned with human rights and freedom of religious belief for many years had hoped that with the re-election of President Rouhani in May, we would begin to see a lessening of the hard-line attitude that has become the hallmark of how Iran deals with people deemed to be out of step with the state’s politico-religious ideology. Many of us dared to hope that a more progressive Iran that embraced increased social, religious and political freedoms would emerge. We hoped for an Iran that would finally adhere to the treaties on human rights and freedom of religious expression to which it was a signatory.
Unfortunately, that simply has not happened, and the December 2016 citizens’ rights charter, which talked optimistically about freedom of expression and the right to life regardless of religion, seems as distant as ever. Indeed, there is ample evidence that intolerance, discrimination and persecution of both secular and religious minority groups has increased in Iran, with the regime increasingly hiding behind, as we have heard, that great catch-all offence—“conspiracy against Iran’s national security”. It is using that law to put both journalists and minority religious communities such as the Baha’i and Christian groups under enormous pressure. As we have heard, earlier this year the United Nations special rapporteur on Iran confirmed that “severe limitations and restrictions” on religious minorities persist and that the number of prisoners of conscience in Iran remains staggeringly high.
Every speaker today has rightly highlighted the appalling cases of the British citizens in jail in Iran and particularly that of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. I add my voice and support to what has been said about her outrageous imprisonment, based on the nonsensical idea that because of her work with Thomson Reuters and previously with the BBC, she was, as the court case says,
“specifically working to overthrow the regime”.
Unfortunately, that is evidence of a mindset that still exists in Iran. It is confirmation, if any were needed, of Tehran’s paranoia about a free press.
I was contacted last week by the National Union of Journalists, which told me that 152 of its members currently working in London for the BBC’s Persian service had previously seen their assets frozen in Iran and were not allowed to buy or sell property in that country. All 152 of them have just been informed that they have been charged in their absence with
“conspiracy against Iran’s national security”.
Of course, the journalists cannot defend themselves against the charges unless they travel to Iran to stand trial. If they do so, the likelihood is, going by Iran’s recent record, that they will end up in jail for a very long time. However, many of the journalists still have family living in Iran, and according to the NUJ, many of their family members have been interrogated by the security services and encouraged to put pressure on their relatives working at the BBC to leave their job or agree to spy on their colleagues.
As I said, the offence of “conspiracy against Iran’s national security” is used extensively to pursue not only journalists, but minority religious communities. As the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet said, in the last few weeks 12 Christians have been sentenced to prison terms far in excess of what is laid down in the law after being found guilty of
“acting against Iran’s national security”.
As the right hon. Lady rightly pointed out, the charges arose from such innocuous events as Christmas celebrations and attending a church picnic. I understand that the majority of the 12 involved are Christian converts—a group of people who seem to be particularly reviled in Iran by the theocratic regime, as they are deemed not only to have betrayed their faith, but to have rejected the state itself.
There are other examples. Only last month, two Christian converts, a married couple, Mehrdad Hushmand and his wife Sara Nemati, were reportedly detained the day after attending and participating in a Christian funeral. Since the day they were detained, only Sara has been able to contact her family, and has done so just once. No reason has been given for their detention, and nothing is known of their health, legal status or even their exact whereabouts. That is happening despite the fact that the rights of Christians and other religious minorities are explicitly protected under the Iranian constitution, and regardless of the fact that Iran is a signatory to many international agreements that guarantee the right of an individual to change their faith should they wish to do so.
However, it is not just minority Christian groups that are targeted. As we have heard, the Baha’i community, which has 300,000 members and is Iran’s largest non-Muslim religious minority, suffers systematic persecution simply because of its religious belief. The Iranian authorities seem absolutely determined to marginalise and remove the social and economic rights of the Baha’i community. Indeed, an official memorandum, dating back to 1991, from the Supreme Cultural Revolution Council explicitly states that the Government’s dealings with the Baha’i community should be conducted
“in such a way that their progress and development are blocked.”
As a result, the Baha’i community is often demonised in official state media and from the pulpits of mosques. The authorities have given a green light for blatant discrimination—discrimination that, as we have heard, all too often leads to violence and murder.
Regardless of who it is done to, state persecution is wrong, and when it occurs, it is incumbent on us to say so. The Minister is a great champion of human rights and religious freedom. Will he add his voice and that of the UK Government to those around the world saying to Tehran that the harassment, imprisonment and punishment of individuals who exercise peacefully their right to practise their chosen faith must stop, that the smokescreen of hiding behind the catch-all “conspiracy against Iran’s national security” is both intolerable and unacceptable and that we expect Iran to abide by its own constitution as well as the international treaties that it has signed up to and begin to uphold the rights of religious and ethnic minority communities within its own borders? And will the Minister promise to do everything he and his Department can do to secure the immediate release of Kamal Foroughi and Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe?
(6 years, 11 months ago)
Westminster HallWestminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the Scotland-Malawi relationship.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope, having spent the afternoon with you in the Procedure Committee.
I am pleased to have secured today’s debate, and am very grateful to be able to give the House a chance to discuss and celebrate our very important and successful bilateral relationship. Before I speak about some of the more pressing matters, I would like to talk about the connection, the significance of which is seen through the numerous links to Malawi in every single one of the 59 constituencies in Scotland. I do not doubt that some of the other hon. Members present will be keen to use this debate to highlight some of those cultural links and will try to keep my comments brief to allow other Members to speak. I am happy to take appropriate interventions as well.
I pay tribute to the Scotland Malawi Partnership for all its work to promote the relationship between our nations. It has been invaluable in helping me to prepare for this debate. In particular, I thank and pay tribute to David Hope-Jones, its chief executive, who is tireless in his resolve to celebrate the scale, energy and impact of Scotland’s bilateral relationship with Malawi.
I cannot speak on this subject without honouring another David—now would probably be a good time for someone to intervene with those immortal words, “Dr Livingstone, I presume?” The doctor is a famed figure across the globe, but nowhere more so than in his home nation of Scotland and in Malawi, where he travelled extensively on missionary work. David Livingstone’s influence on Malawi is evident right across the country. Its commercial centre and oldest city, Blantyre, was named after his birthplace in Lanarkshire. The history of the great Scotsman’s travels and crusades against slavery is taught to every schoolchild in Malawi even today, which ensures that he remains a much revered figure.
It should therefore come as no surprise that almost 200,000 Malawians are now involved in the Scotland Malawi Partnership, along with 100,000 Scots. The organisation’s impact should not be underestimated: some 2 million Malawians benefit directly from the partnership and 4 million benefit indirectly. In Scotland, almost half the population know someone with a connection to Malawi—an absolutely remarkable statistic.
There are 1,131 Scottish organisations and community champions with active links to Malawi, such as the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund, Classrooms for Malawi, Mary’s Meals, Oxfam Scotland and 500 Miles. Glasgow City Council also has strong links. Successive Lords Provost have made the link a real priority since 2005, with each visiting Malawi and outdoing the last in raising funds, engaging and inspiring more people in Scotland and Malawi to connect for their mutual benefit. I recently met our newly appointed Lord Provost, Councillor Eva Bolander. I take great pleasure in informing the House that she will continue the tradition and is ready for the challenge.
A number of Glasgow City Council’s schools already have thriving relationships and partnerships with Malawi. These are active, dignified, two-way, school-to-school links that inform and inspire generations of young Scots to be good global citizens and that are transforming lives in Malawi and in Scotland.
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. Will he join me in recognising and commending the excellent work of a disproportionately large number of people in my constituency to support the people of Malawi? He has already mentioned the excellent work of Mary’s Meals, but we also have the Mid Argyll Malawi Twinning Group, the Imani Development Foundation in Oban, the Netherlorn Churches’ project “Seed for life. Feed for life”, many secondary schools such as the Rothesay Academy, Dunoon Grammar School, and the primary schools of Strone, Dalmally and Iona.
I wholeheartedly join my hon. Friend in commending those wonderful local organisations. We have seen the generous, welcoming spirit of Argyll and Bute in its international work in recent years. I am more than happy to put that on the record.
In my constituency, Carmyle Primary School, St Joachim’s Catholic Primary School, Croftcroighn School, Swinton Primary School, Eastbank Academy and my own former high school, Bannerman High School, all participate in programmes to connect our distinct but intertwined communities over thousands of miles. On a recent visit back to Bannerman, I was delighted to learn that the school is preparing for a trip to Malawi next year, which I hope to be able to join.
Bannerman High School’s preparations are likely to be a lot easier than those of Malawians who wish to travel to Scotland, however. That brings me to my first substantive issue: the extremely serious shortcomings in the UK Government’s handling of visa applications. The Scotland Malawi Partnership has reported that over the past decade, its members have experienced an increasing number of issues with visa applications. Worryingly, many of them feel that the situation is worse now than it has ever been. Some argue that Malawians who apply for visas to visit the United Kingdom are treated with contempt from the outset, with ever increasing charges and an ever decreasing quality of service.
The partnership reports that what it sees as the dysfunctional processing of UK visas not only affects its work and the work of its members across Scottish civil society, but has a serious negative impact on the Government’s own development and diplomatic efforts, causing reputational damage. It is quite clear that this is not an isolated issue. The partnership’s experience is that Scottish churches, schools, non-governmental organisations, businesses, NHS boards, hospitals, universities and community groups have had to cancel visits, often at a considerable cost, because UK visas have not been processed correctly or in time.
When concerns have been raised in this place, the Government have been quick to point out that about 82% of UK visa applications from Malawi are successful—perhaps the Minister might ask the relevant Minister to break down for me how that percentage was arrived at. I understand that a significant proportion of Scotland Malawi Partnership members who start the process of applying for a UK visitor visa are not able to complete it because of systemic failures, so I would be keen to find out whether those incomplete applications are included within that percentage. I would also like to know if the figure includes visas that are awarded on the day of travel or even after the scheduled travel date.
The second substantive issue is the 1955 Malawi-UK double taxation treaty. I appreciate that Ministers may have been somewhat distracted by Brexit and disrupted by the snap general election, but the Government have not yet honoured their promise—and it was a promise—to update that treaty. The final deadline of July 2017 has now passed. My hon. Friend the Member for Dundee West (Chris Law) recently asked a written question about the matter, but I am afraid the Treasury’s answer was disappointingly non-committal about the timeframe for completion. Its reason for delay—that the Government of Malawi had raised further points for consideration in August 2016—was somewhat at odds with the promise made by the then Financial Secretary to the Treasury last December that
“we hope to conclude soon”.—[Official Report, 16 December 2016; Vol. 618, c. 1142.]
Nine months on, we seem to be no further forward. I do not think that I am overstepping the mark when I say that the UK Government appear to be dragging their heels. They ought to get on with their day job and bring this matter to resolution. I do not consider it unreasonable to ask them to let us know exactly when they aim to have the treaty signed off. Any update would be most welcome.
(6 years, 11 months ago)
Westminster HallWestminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
I beg to move,
That this House has considered consular support for British citizens.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. I am grateful for the opportunity for this debate. My interest in this important issue was sparked by two of my constituents, who approached me with different issues but with one common theme: the help they had hoped would be provided by our consular services was not there when they needed it.
The first issue relates to my constituent David Greenaway, a former member of the British armed forces. Mr Greenaway contacted me by email on 28 October 2016 to tell me that he was being held in Iraq against his will and was not receiving assistance to remedy the situation. To summarise the case, Mr Greenaway was working in the city of Basra for Hannaford Construction, a company with headquarters in the United States. Unfortunately, after he started work in Iraq, he discovered that his employer had failed to pay a succession of outstanding invoices for his accommodation and an office that the company was using. By the time Mr Greenaway contacted me, it had also failed to pay his salary for four months, leaving him without the financial means of addressing his situation. That resulted in the owner of the hotel that Mr Greenaway was staying in confiscating his passport and holding him against his will until the arrears could be paid. At that stage, Mr Greenaway was also informed that he was banned from travelling out of the country until the debt was paid.
Mr Greenaway contacted the British embassy to request urgent assistance, but unfortunately the officials there did little more than advise him to seek legal advice, which of course he could not afford because his salary had been withheld for a significant time. No assistance with funding for legal fees or other ways of obtaining pro bono advice were offered.
On 31 October 2016, I wrote to the right hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), then Minister with responsibility for the middle east, to request that urgent assistance be provided to my constituent. I followed that up with a question to the Leader of the House on 3 November, who undertook to raise the matter with his colleagues in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Following my intervention, an official from the FCO was able to speak with the chief executive of Hannaford, Shane Hannaford, on 4 November, who undertook to resolve the matter as soon as he could. However, that proved to be no more than another empty promise by Hannaford, like those Mr Greenaway had received on many occasions previously.
Mr Greenaway was again informed that he could not be assisted with access to legal advice, obtaining a replacement passport or funding to obtain an exit visa. Mr Greenaway had of course also been informed that even if he obtained a passport, he would be prevented from leaving the country due to the outstanding debts in his name. In the meantime, the situation in the UK was also becoming difficult, with Mr Greenaway and his wife unable to meet mortgage payments and struggling to keep food on the table for their two young children.
When I spoke to the FCO official handling the case, I was extremely disappointed that he kept coming back to the matter being a commercial dispute for Hannaford to resolve, and did not offer anything that I considered to be concrete assistance. I found that particularly concerning given that Mr Greenaway was being subjected to a travel ban, which I understand is unlawful. The FCO did however eventually undertake to speak with colleagues in the US embassy. In the meantime, I made a number of telephone calls to Hannaford in the United States.
Eventually, on 14 November I received an email from Shane Hannaford in response to my calls telling me that the funds were being transferred imminently. Sadly, that was much like his other promises; the money did not materialise. Fortunately, in the meantime, Mr Greenaway, with the assistance of his family, managed to obtain a sum of money that the hotel accepted as a down payment on the arrears that had been accrued, and it agreed to return his passport.
By 18 November, Mr Greenaway had finally managed to leave the hotel, but he was still unable to leave the country due to the travel ban remaining in place. I continued to lobby my constituent’s employer on his behalf for the funds, which were finally transferred by Hannaford on 7 December, enabling Mr Greenaway to return to the UK two days later.
I hope that the Minster will understand from the circumstances I have outlined why I am so concerned about the response that my constituent received. Despite having served his country in the armed forces for a number of years, at times Mr Greenaway felt that he had been left completely isolated. Sadly, I do not see that the matter would have been resolved without my intervention. Simply advising an individual who is subject to an unlawful travel ban and who has had his salary withheld for four months to speak to a lawyer is really not good enough. I hope that the Minister can assure me that the right lessons will be learned.
How can it be right that an individual who has done nothing wrong can be effectively detained in another country, without any judicial process and without access to legal advice? I accept that there are times when diplomatic channels mean that a direct approach may not be the best route, but in this situation there cannot be any justification for the lack of a robust approach. I hope that the Minister will acknowledge that the support my constituent received was just not good enough. I also hope that the debate will serve as a warning to anyone thinking of working in Iraq for Hannaford Construction, which acted outrageously at all stages and had no regard to my constituent’s safety or wellbeing at all.
The second situation relates to my constituent Paul McCann, and sadly it is still unresolved. Paul, along with his twin brother Gary, founded the charity Twin Vision, which undertook work in India with disadvantaged children. Tragically, on 30 October 2004, while on the way to a meeting with an American charity in New Delhi to discuss establishing an outreach photography project with the city’s impoverished street children, Gary was involved in a hit-and-run incident. After arriving at New Delhi following a lengthy train journey, Gary hailed a rickshaw to take him to his hotel, but at around 6 am a 30-seater bus jumped a red light and collided with the rickshaw, killing him instantly. The driver did not stop at the scene, but he was later apprehended by a witness and subsequently arrested.
I cannot imagine the hurt and distress that the incident caused Paul and the rest of his family, but sadly, 13 years after that tragic incident, Paul is still on a painful journey to obtain justice for his brother. Despite making very simple requests on repeated occasions, he has not been aided in that journey either by our high commissioner in India or by the Indian high commissioner here in London. Because of the intransigence of the authorities in India, it took him more than a decade just to obtain his brother’s death certificate. Sadly, despite multiple requests, he was not aided in that by our consular services. Despite us being almost thirteen years on from the tragic incident, he has still not been able to obtain any details at all about the status of the case against his brother’s killer.
Mr McCann initially approached my predecessor, Andrew Miller, before I took up the matter when I was elected to this place just over two years ago. However, despite the best efforts of us both over a number of years, and innumerable letters to both the Indian high commissioner and FCO officials, we have been unable to make significant progress. Mr Miller attended a meeting some years ago with a previous high commissioner, and I have met with another, who has also since moved on. We also both engaged in numerous exchanges with our own officials. However, what should be a simple request for information has still not been met, and none of this has resulted in anything more than promises for follow-up correspondence, which subsequently fail to materialise. To deny Mr McCann any sense of closure all these years on is a tragedy on a tragedy, and one that I am determined to help him address, however long it takes. All this is compounded by what he feels is a failure of our consular services to do anything to assist him.
I will first ask the Minister, as I have asked his predecessors in the past in writing, whether he will instruct his officials to make representations on Mr McCann’s behalf to the authorities in India, asking them to provide him with an update as soon as possible. I also ask him to look into this matter personally and assure us that he is satisfied that everything that can be done has been done.
I would also like to put on the record my anger and frustration with the Indian high commission in London, which has either given me undertakings that updates would be provided and then not met them, or ignored my correspondence altogether. I hope that today’s debate will be the final spur it needs to provide Mr McCann with meaningful information in the very near future. It may be that it will still not respond, and it may be that a more assertive approach from our consulate would not reap any rewards either, but if it could make a personal approach out in India, then at least my constituent would know that every avenue had been explored.
I commend the great work and the service that the hon. Gentleman is doing on behalf of the Greenaway and McCann families. He will be aware, as will the Minister, of the fate of the six British ex-service personnel languishing in jail in Chennai in India, including my constituent Billy Irving. Will he join me in asking the Minister to put pressure on the Foreign Office and the consular service in India to give as much support as they can to the families, and to seek a speedy resolution—the release of those innocent men?
I certainly echo those sentiments. My hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) also has a constituent in that dreadful situation. It looks like it could drag on for many years, which is intolerable for the families. I understand that sometimes these things cannot be best discussed in an open forum—that does not always reap the best results—but we are in a much more open society now. Channels of communication across the world are much easier, and the information needed should be getting to those in this country, so that they can feel that some progress is being made. I understand the frustration and anxiety of the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O'Hara) that things do not seem to be moving as swiftly as we would like.
I know that the Minister is also aware of the very serious cases of British dual nationals Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Kamal Foroughi, who are imprisoned against their will in Iran, and that a request has been made of the Government in Iran for Mr Foroughi to be released.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe.
Consular support is fundamental to British foreign policy. It is probably the very oldest element of British foreign policy. Before we had a Foreign Office, protecting British citizens abroad was in our DNA, and it remains for us a very fundamental responsibility. That is why we have hundreds of consular staff working across the world in very difficult circumstances. That obligation is going into a new world—a world that is changing.
When our consular in Aleppo set up in 1570, he saw 12 British citizens in a year. Today, 70 million trips are made by British residents in a single year. Nearly 43 million British citizens currently possess passports. This is one of the most travelled countries on earth, and we wish it to remain so. It is an adventurous trading nation. It is a nation where a lot of our citizens are dual nationals, and many are living in other people’s countries. There are 100,000 British nationals living in South Africa alone, and more than 600,000 British nationals living in the United States. It is not simply that we have more people travelling than ever before; it is that the world is changing. The world is becoming more dangerous.
There are people in this room who will have contemporaries who would have been able to take a bus from Victoria station to Delhi in the 1970s. They would have been able to drive across Syria, Iraq and Iran. They could have gone across Afghanistan, from Herat to Kabul. They would have been able to travel to the north-west frontier province of Pakistan. None of that is possible today for a British citizen. In fact, nearly 50 countries in the world are in a fragile or conflict-affected state. It has never been so dangerous.
At the same time, our relationship with other people’s countries is changing. In the 1850s, Lord Palmerston stood up in this House and established the principle that any British citizen getting in trouble would involve the deployment of a British gunboat. When a British dual national in Athens in the late 1830s was not paid for some damage to his property, an entire squadron of the Royal Navy deployed to Athens to try to deal with it. Today, we have a situation where even the United States of America—a country that is able to deploy 105,000 troops on the ground and spend more than $100 billion a year—frequently struggles to get even quite small countries to provide the respect to its citizens that it wishes. That is not just a problem for the United States, for Britain or for Europe; it is a problem for every country in the world.
Given the 70 million-odd trips that British citizens make around the world every year, the challenge for our consular staff is dealing with a huge variety of problems. For example, I have been to see the consular activities run out of Marbella, where we have to deal with hundreds of British citizens who end up in Spanish jails, frequently because they have had too good a night out. Consular assistance needs to extend from that to British citizens who are captured by Islamist terrorist groups and end up in a boiler suit in the desert, about to have their heads chopped off, in some of the most difficult and inaccessible countries on earth. In between, they have to deal with the fallout of Hurricane Irma, with earthquakes and with military coups. The cases that have been brought up by hon. and right hon. Members show exactly how difficult it is. Members of Parliament have advocated for these cases very powerfully. They are difficult cases. They show exactly where Britain is having to respond. Let me take them in turn.
The first case raised was that of a British national who, as we heard, travelled to southern Iraq. I served in southern Iraq. It is not a safe place. We advise against travelling there on our websites. British embassy staff basically cannot travel to those areas of southern Iraq; it is too dangerous. He went there with an American construction company. We absolutely support the commercial drive and adventurous spirit that leads a British citizen from the constituency of the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) to wish to travel to southern Iraq. He found himself in a situation in which his company had not paid the hotel, and the hotel had taken his passport.
The hon. Gentleman then championed his constituent’s case very powerfully with our Department, but our consular staff acted. They acted by calling the hotel repeatedly and pushing for the passport to be returned. They acted by calling the US embassy repeatedly, and they acted also by trying to provide support for his constituent to access legal advice. We feel absolutely the frustration of the hon. Gentleman’s constituent. If I were stuck in a hotel in southern Basra in a difficult situation, with my passport held, I too would feel extremely frustrated and angry with the company, with the hotel and with my Government.
We are very fortunate that the situation was resolved. I would like to pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for all his pressure and the telephone calls he made. I have no doubt that one of the reasons it was resolved was his very active work, but I also pay tribute to the consular staff in the embassy, because I believe that their telephone calls and the pressure they brought also contributed to it being resolved.
The second case raised is an even more difficult one, because it brings us into the Indian legal system. In this particular case, Gary McCann was in a rickshaw when it was struck by a bus in 2004. The consular staff at that moment—we are now going back 13 years through Government records, and it was not this Government but a previous Government who were then responding—identified a lawyer, tried to advise Paul McCann—Gary McCann’s brother—to contact that lawyer when he visited, and were able to identify a witness who had seen the rickshaw struck and introduce him to the witness. Mr McCann understandably feels real frustration and fury at the slowness of extracting promises from the Indian High Commission, getting hold of a death certificate, getting the prosecution done and making sure the lawyer from the Supreme Court brings the case fully forward.
The British Government must balance what we feel we ought to do with what we can do. The balancing act is difficult. We must respect the fact that India is not a British colony, but an independent, proud state with a rapidly growing economy and its own legal system. It does not want to be told what to do by a former colonial power and we must balance that with our belief in the rights and justice that are due to our citizens and the sort of support we can provide for them to work within that legal system.
That brings me to the Chennai Six. Six British nationals were on a ship that had arms on it—the intention was to provide support for actions against piracy in the horn of Africa—docked in an Indian port. The Indian Government, particularly the Q branch, argued and successfully won a prosecution in court that bringing arms into India in that way was illegal and the men were detained. At the very most, these man were guilty of being on a ship that docked in Indian waters. They have been cleared once. The case was then brought a second time and they were prosecuted a second time. They have appealed and it has taken nine months for that appeal to be heard. Meanwhile, they have spent nearly four years of their lives in jail. Some of them are very young. I went to see John Armstrong in Chennai and I met the deputy Chief Minister’s family, consular staff and all the men. These men are in a really tough and unfamiliar situation. An Indian jail is a challenging place to be.
I know how personally the Minister has been involved in this case, but does he think the Foreign Office and the consular staff in Chennai have done absolutely everything they possibly can to help the men currently in jail?
The honest answer is that we can always do more for British citizens, but the consular staff have done a great deal and they have done a great deal recently. They have provided a lot of support for families to have access to the jail and in respect of conditions in the jail. The High Commissioner has visited, the previous Minister has visited and the consular staff are putting an enormous amount of time and energy into the case. I have met the lawyers representing the men and, without being a lawyer, I have tried to give as much advice and support as I can to the families and men to make sure they get the right legal advice.
The problem is fundamentally within the Indian legal system and I believe the Government and Members of Parliament have an obligation to be honest with people about their expectations. One of the most tragic things that can happen in such situations is to raise expectations and to pretend that the Indian legal system will move faster. I believe that again and again the men have been promised a swift resolution, but it has not come and I am not sure that that has been the most honest or kind thing we can do.
I am very aware of the number of meetings that have been held. Our own Prime Minister raised the matter again with Prime Minister Modi at their latest meeting and it was raised by the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he was Minister for the Middle East and by the current Foreign Secretary, but the fundamental problem remains with the Indian legal system and we must keep pressing.
Unfortunately, the case is similar to that of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who is an Iranian-British dual national who unfortunately has been detained, like many American-Iranian dual nationals and many other dual nationals in Iran, by the Iranian Government on very unclear grounds, and consular access has been refused. My right hon. Friend the Minister for the Middle East has just paid a visit to Iran and raised the case directly with the Iranian Government.
Again, we are facing a struggle with how we exercise British power and influence in these very different contexts. We have heard about southern Iraq, Iran and India, but in fact our consular work takes place in nearly 200 consulates around the world, every one of them with different, specific local conditions.
I will end by being constructive. What must we do to improve the situation? How can we do better for British citizens going forward? How do we face this new world where 70 million people are travelling? How do we face a new world with these dangers? I have three ideas.
First, we need to focus much more on how we assess vulnerability. We will never be able to deal with every one of the 70 million trips that British nationals make worldwide, even with 700 consular staff, so we need to get much better at mixing compassion, intelligence and some difficult prioritisation to make sure the people in the toughest situations receive support. That means understanding the context, their family and financial situation and, above all, what we can actually do to help.
Secondly, we must try to work with British citizens to make sure they take responsibility and precautions, such as getting adequate travel insurance, following British embassy advice and not engaging in activities that are inherently risky. That means not just personal responsibility, but industry responsibility. How do we make sure travel agencies, employers and others fulfil their obligations to citizens?
The hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston asked about a company’s obligation. Again, with the Chennai Six, what on earth is the obligation of the company that employed these men? It has stopped paying their salaries, has not paid their legal fees and has made no attempt whatever to represent its employees. It has left six British citizens—as well as 10 Estonians and a dozen Indians—in jail because it has not represented them.
Finally, we must be clear about prevention. What can we do in advance to stop these situations happening? If there are problems with the prison systems of other countries, how can we work in advance with those countries to begin improving their prison systems? If there are problems with the legal systems of other countries, can we do things now to start working respectfully, diligently, persistently and courageously to drive change in those legal systems so that British citizens are not caught up in these problems in future?
The issue is important because we want British citizens to travel and to keep travelling as they never did before. We want to acknowledge the fact that the 70 million trips we make abroad are just the beginning. We want British citizens to be educated abroad, to trade abroad and to enjoy themselves abroad. The entire existence of my Department is predicated fundamentally on trying to enable that spirit of adventurous trading in an outward-facing nation whose citizens feel confident that wherever they go the strong arm and watchful eye of Great Britain is with them with realism, pragmatism and humility. The connection between the citizen and the state in some of the most difficult and dangerous situations on earth is one of the most challenging foreign policy challenges of our era.
That is why I pay tribute to Parliament and the way it has today—and for nearly 200 years—championed the interests of British citizens abroad. I also pay tribute to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and our consular staff who, for all the frustrations and bewilderment of so many constituents who feel let down, isolated and afraid abroad, continue in difficult circumstances to provide what support they can.
Question put and agreed to.
(7 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberYes, and that incident was absolutely appalling and shocking. Nobody can fail to be upset by the pictures of those Somali people, who have suffered enough without being bombed.
Ministers must make sure that the cranes, which have been bought and paid for, are installed in Hudaydah. That would turn on the taps: it would get aid and commercial operations flowing again, and get things moving.
Hudaydah’s strategic importance is recognised by both the Houthis and the Saudis. Aid agencies, including the UN, fear that the conflict in and around Hudaydah is ramping up, which must be prevented at all costs. Half a million people would be displaced and it would make aid efforts all but impossible. Yemen’s primary port cannot be a frontline in this conflict, and I seek the assurance of Ministers that they will pursue the matter.
My hon. Friend is making a very powerful speech. We have already heard about the ridiculous situation of the UK Government giving aid with one hand while arming the antagonists with the other. Does she agree that famine relief and a ceasefire can come about only with the immediate suspension of the Government’s selling of arms to the Saudi regime, which has already been found to be guilty of breaches of international humanitarian law?
Absolutely. As I said in Foreign Office questions earlier, £3.3 billion has been made from arms licences over the past two years, which dwarfs the £85 million in Government aid, welcome though that is. The arms sales must stop now. Peace will not happen if bombs continue to rain down on the heads of people in Yemen.
The UK Government’s role in establishing the UN verification and inspection mechanism at the port of Hudaydah, inspecting the goods entering Yemen’s ports while they are still at sea, is welcome, but Save the Children told me yesterday that that has not prevented the Saudi-led coalition from carrying out its own inspections, thereby delaying vital aid shipments. That can mean a delay of up to three months in delivering aid and medical supplies, leaving aid workers making life and death decisions on the ground about who they can help with dwindling resources.
Some shipments have been diverted from Hudaydah and around the coast to the smaller port of Aden, meaning that convoys have instead to complete the dangerous journey overland, via checkpoints and across the frontline, adding at least another three weeks to the time taken for that aid to reach the people it needs to reach and risking the lives of everybody on the convoy.
Moving goods and people across the country also requires confirmation of deconfliction from authorities in Yemen, without which the convoy will become a target in the war, and nobody wants that to happen. Other Members will no doubt outline the grave mistakes and errors that have happened during air strikes. NGOs based in the country tell me that they are fearful for the lives of their workers at every single checkpoint where they get stopped. They become targets, regardless of the assurances given to them by the governing parties and their warm words.
All the organisations I have met have stressed the difficulty of moving around Yemen, the complications with visas and the delays caused by petty bureaucracy. Some agencies have not been able to make field visits to support their operations on the ground and to bring back evidence that will enable funders to encourage more people to donate to their campaigns. They are not being well enough supported by the Government agencies that should be facilitating aid.
There are increasing problems in getting to Yemen, with limitations on travel by land and sea. Sana’a airport is also closed and people cannot leave, including those who seek urgent medical assistance. I ask the Government to speak to the Saudis about removing that blockage so that people can get in and out by air and receive treatment.
All the delays are costing lives and leaving the population with long-term health problems as a result of severe malnutrition. For want of clean water and a suitable diet, people are less able to fight off disease and their immune systems are more susceptible to cholera. There have been a suspected 22,000 cholera cases in 15 governorates in the past six months alone, and at least 100 people have died as a result. Tragically, UNICEF estimates that 63,000 children died in 2016 from preventable diseases linked to malnutrition. That is 8,500 more children than were born in the whole of Scotland last year. That is a generation. The future of Yemen hangs in the balance, and the Government must do more.
(7 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberAs my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) said so eloquently, there is so much wrong with the Budget that it is difficult to know where to start. In the little time available to me, I would like to look at the Chancellor’s decision to reinstate the alcohol duty escalator and raise duty by 4%. I should declare an interest as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Scotch whisky.
The Chancellor’s decision was particularly galling given that on 3 March, the Prime Minister praised the industry, describing it as
“a truly great Scottish and British industry”,
only for her Chancellor to undermine that same industry with a huge tax grab just five days later. The Chancellor’s decision to raise duty is a major blow to an industry on which so many in my Argyll and Bute constituency depend. He has undone, in one fell swoop, all the good done in the last couple of years, in which the previous Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Tatton (Mr Osborne), cancelled the duty escalator, cutting duty by 2% in 2015, and freezing it the following year. When he cut duty by 2%, it was estimated in the Treasury’s own Red Book that it would create a revenue shortfall of £185 million. However, the reality was very different, because that 2% cut in 2015 actually increased the tax take to the Treasury by more than £100 million, with a further 4.2% rise in revenue from spirit duty in 2016. In cutting duty, the Chancellor sent out a message to potential investors that confidence in the industry was high.
The initial duty freeze followed by the cut gave confidence to investors who, for the first time in decades, believed that the Government no longer saw the whisky industry as a cash cow. Their investment saw more than a dozen new distilleries opening in the past two years, with no fewer than 40 in various stages of planning, hoping to come on stream over the next two decades. It allowed existing production sites to grow and it helped distilleries to expand the very lucrative tourist/visitor side of their business. I fear that the signals sent out by this excise duty increase threaten to stall that investment and damage industry confidence.
In this Budget, 36p was put on a bottle of Scotch whisky, which means that the excise duty paid on 70 cl bottle of scotch is a whopping £8.05, taking the total tax take on a bottle to £10.20. That means that the tax on an average priced bottle of Scotch whisky now sits at an eye-watering 79%. A total of £4 in every £5 spent domestically on Scotch whisky now goes directly to the coffers of the Treasury in either duty or VAT. Sadly, this tax hike is little more than a cash grab by the Chancellor because, as I have said, it goes against the evidence of the past couple of years when duty was cut and then frozen. I fear that the days of the Chancellor using Scotch whisky as a cash cow have returned with a vengeance.
(7 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberGiven that Saudi Arabia has finally admitted to using illegal cluster bombs in Yemen, what consequence or sanction is being planned by the UK Government against Saudi Arabia for that clear breach of international humanitarian law?
If I may attempt to correct the hon. Gentleman, those cluster bombs are not illegal, because Saudi Arabia has not signed up to the convention on cluster munitions. Therefore it is in its right—indeed, any country’s right—to use cluster munitions should it wish. As I mentioned earlier, I have encouraged Saudi Arabia to make sure not only that it has destroyed all the cluster munitions that we sold it in the past, but that it gets rid of its entire arsenal of cluster munitions and signs the convention.
(7 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberWe will continue to support the Government of Iraq to deliver the reforms and reconciliation needed to build public trust and unite all Iraq’s communities against extremism. In Syria, we continue to work in support of a lasting settlement based on transition away from Assad, and towards a stable and peaceful future for Syria.
I thank the Secretary of State for that answer, but in light of what happened in Libya, when a failure to plan for the future plunged the country and the region into absolute chaos, will he tell me what lessons the UK learned from that experience and what his Department is doing to ensure a very different outcome in Iraq and Syria?
As the hon. Gentleman can imagine, a huge amount of work is going on now, particularly with respect to Mosul as I told the House at the previous Foreign Office questions. We announced a commitment to invest £169 million in aid towards reconciliation and bringing communities together. The House must understand, however, that fundamentally it is up to the Government of Iraq to work in a way that brings communities together, and builds trust and confidence in the people of Mosul and other parts of the country.
(7 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberMy hon. Friend will know that some of the training programmes over the past few years have not been entirely successful. As we step up our training efforts again and get on with vetting and security screening new candidates, that will be done outside theatre and outside Syria in order to get the best possible results.
Today I have written to the Prime Minister asking her to pay specific attention to the plight of the estimated 2,000 Yazidi women and children who are still held in sexual slavery in Mosul, and who, once released from the evils of Daesh, will need specialist care. Will the Foreign Secretary encourage the Prime Minister and Cabinet colleagues to look at the great work being done by the Baden-Württemberg Government in Germany, who have a programme of specialist psychological care and emotional support for these victims of unimaginable horror, with a view to the United Kingdom following suit?
I think that the number of female Yazidi captives has been put even higher than the hon. Gentleman indicates—I have seen a figure of 3,500. Clearly their needs will be very important as Mosul is recaptured. As he will know, the UK Government attach particular importance to looking after the victims of sexual violence in conflict.
(7 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberI respectfully agree. Indeed, I think that that very good point supports the argument that we are advancing today about the need for an independent investigation, so that we can establish the facts rather than going on assumptions and presumptions. We must all be satisfied that whatever investigation takes place is independent and internationally recognised.
There is evidence of a further disturbing trend in the way in which the conflict is being conducted. According to Yemen expert and London School of Economics professor Martha Mundy, detailed examination of Government agriculture statistics has revealed hundreds of cases in which farms, livestock, water, infrastructure, food stores and markets were targeted by Saudi airstrikes. Her analysis suggests that the extent of the bombing in rural areas where there is little activity besides farming is clear evidence that Yemen’s agriculture sector is being deliberately targeted. Some Members will doubtless argue that what was effectively a blockade imposed on Yemen in 2015 has helped to exacerbate the starvation crisis that we are seeing today, but Saudi Arabia did at least claim some UN mandate for that action. There is no UN mandate for the destruction of Yemen’s agriculture sector, which, if it is indeed deliberate and targeted, represents a clear breach of the Geneva convention.
That brings me to the question of how alleged violations of international humanitarian law in Yemen are being investigated. In September, the House discussed the fact that the Government’s position had changed from saying that, according to their assessment, there had been no violations of international humanitarian law to saying that they had made no such assessment, and that it was for the Saudi-led coalition to investigate any such incidents.
The Saudi Foreign Minister was recently reported as saying that, although they do not play a role in choosing the targets, United Kingdom military officials in Saudi Arabia have access to the list of those targets. If that is true, does the hon. Lady share my bewilderment about how the Government can claim not to have reached a conclusion in respect of the very serious breaches of international humanitarian law that are taking place in Yemen?
I apologise to the hon. Gentleman. I heard only half his intervention, because there is a certain amount of noise coming from behind me. Perhaps I will take another intervention.
(7 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberMay I thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting the time for the debate this afternoon? May I also join colleagues from across the House in congratulating the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) on securing today’s debate?
There is, as we have heard, an unimaginable humanitarian disaster happening right now across Syria, and nowhere more than in the largest city, Aleppo. As we have heard, 400,000 people have already been killed, 15,000 of them children, with in excess of 1 million people wounded since the onset of the war in 2011. As a result of the war, 5 million Syrians have been displaced and have had to flee the country. Five million people is equivalent to the entire population of Scotland, displaced, homeless and impoverished.
If I may, I would like to pay tribute to the people of my constituency of Argyll and Bute, who, with the full support of Argyll and Bute Council, the Scottish Government and the Argyll community housing association, have responded magnificently and have warmly welcomed 15 Syrian families to the gorgeous island of Bute, with more scheduled to arrive in the not-too-distant future. I have met the Syrian families and enjoyed their kind hospitality. I am delighted to report that they are settling in well and are being supported by a thoughtful and generous local community. I am sure this House would like to put on record its appreciation for the welcome shown by the people of Bute to the innocent men, women and children of Syria in their hour of greatest need.
Like the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), Bute has shown what we can do. I sincerely hope that we in the United Kingdom can accommodate far more Syrian families—not just in Argyll and Bute or in Scotland, but across the UK. However, those few families on Bute are the very lucky ones, because they managed to escape the hell on earth that their country has become. Although many of the people I met were born and bred in Aleppo, I doubt very much whether they would recognise it today, as just last week the UN envoy to Syria said that he feared that the eastern part of the city could be totally destroyed within two months.
This claim follows on from the bombing of Syria’s largest hospital, which was hit by seven airstrikes on the morning of 1 October. Then, as the repairs started, it was hit again the following day. As we have heard, in a shocking attack—undoubtedly a war crime—a UN aid convoy was deliberately targeted, killing 20 people. The World Health Organisation said that in the week to 30 September, at least 338 Aleppo residents, including 106 children, were killed.
There is overwhelming evidence that the Assad regime and his Russian allies are now deliberately targeting civilians, hospitals and the emergency medical teams and first responders. As the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) said, the regime, with its allies, stands accused of using a method known as two-tap strikes, in which they bomb an area, circle round, giving sufficient time for medical responders to attend, and then return to bomb the rescuers. If that is true, it is a despicably cynical tactic that, even amid the horror of this conflict, leaves one speechless at its depravity.
Today, in eastern Aleppo, a city officially under siege, there are only 35 doctors to care for a quarter of a million residents. It is the biggest besieged area by far. People still ask, “What can we do, when there is so much chaos on the ground and in the skies above Syria?”. I would say to the Government that, as protagonists in the conflict, it is absolutely incumbent on the United Kingdom to be part of the solution. The Government must produce a coherent plan and a sensible strategy immediately to halt the airstrike campaign in which the UK is involved. The Foreign Secretary said on 19 August:
“It is only when the fighting and bombing stops that we can hope to deliver the political solution”.
I say to the Foreign Secretary that that means everyone’s bombs, including our own.
Andy Baker of Oxfam has said:
“It’s not only Russia, it is other nations, too, Britain among them, that have fuelled the fire of this conflict, continuing to support one side or another and failing to deliver peace.”
The Foreign Secretary and Oxfam are right: adding UK jets and bombs to this prolonged and agonising war has not and will not bring about a lasting peace.
Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that the UK should unilaterally stop its actions in Syria? If so, how does he think Russia and Assad would react to such a withdrawal?
The United Kingdom unilaterally joined this fight in December last year, promising that it would be a pivotal turning-point in the campaign. It has singularly failed to do so, so we have to take a different tack. We must have the bravery and the courage to stand up and say that we were wrong to do what we did last year. As I say, we have to take a different tack.
Almost exactly a year ago, we asked the Government a series of questions, none of which was answered in the headlong rush to join this conflict, so I ask again: how, when more than a dozen different countries are engaged in military action, have UK airstrikes brought peace and stability closer to Syria? Where is the UK Government’s detailed plan for winning and securing the peace? Where is the money for the reconstruction of Syria going to come from when the bombing ends?
We need to act, and act decisively with our allies and friends. As the French Foreign Minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, said last week,
“If we don’t do something, Aleppo will soon just be in ruins and will remain in history as a town in which the inhabitants were abandoned to their executioners.”