Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Catherine West and Dominic Raab

Wednesday 16th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is a fantastic champion for Torbay. The Chancellor will make a statement tomorrow and I cannot speculate on the spending decisions, but my hon. Friend will have noticed already the tourism recovery plan, which will help recovery from the pandemic and is also part of the wider levelling-up agenda.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

Q6. Private rents in my constituency are completely out of control, and since the Government broke the economy and broke the mortgage market, the hope of earning a home is quickly receding. With the cost of living skyrocketing, Tory tax rises through the roof, and an extra 1 million people in the private rented sector since 2010, will the Government get a grip and tackle housing in my constituency and across the country?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As a former Housing Minister, I know how important these issues are. I can tell the hon. Lady that the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities is looking very carefully at the situation of renters and landlords, and legislation is to be brought forward shortly.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Catherine West and Dominic Raab

Tuesday 20th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I thank my hon. Friend, and he is absolutely right. We celebrate the role of all communities and all religions in this country: they make Britain what it is. He is absolutely right to say—I regularly raise it with my colleagues and opposite numbers overseas—that particularly in Muslim-majority countries it seems there is not quite as much concern as in the UK and other western, non-Muslim-majority countries about human rights abuses. This is an actor-agnostic issue; it is merely about treatment—persecution—based on religion, creed or ethnicity. We call on all countries to uphold those basic values, but particularly those most directly affected with the victims in Xinjiang.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab) [V]]

Last week, the Government finally gave the EU ambassador the legal recognition they so arrogantly denied him earlier this year, and last month we saw the Government’s needlessly antagonistic approach towards our European partners overshadow the G7 summit and consequently hamper international efforts to tackle pressing global challenges. Does the Foreign Secretary now accept that this was a mistake that has undermined our relationship with Europe, and will he commit to treating our European partners as equals to ensure that we can work together on common concerns such as security, freedom of speech, covid and climate change?

[Dominic Raab]

Particularly after the Harry Dunn case, and what we learned about the risk of finding gaps in immunity—including long-standing gaps that date back to the last Labour Government—I will make no apologies for being very careful with EU representation, which falls somewhere between a normal international organisation and a sovereign Government’s mission. We must ensure that privileges and immunities are tailored to their functional need, and that we do not find ourselves with a gap. That means that we can hold people to account for ordinary crimes, as the public would expect. Frankly, given the various voices from the Labour Front Bench who have raised the case of Harry Dunn, I am utterly surprised that the hon. Lady would not expect us to take such a rigorous approach.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Catherine West and Dominic Raab

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

We will obviously attend the UN General Assembly in September. In relation to the Durban declaration and its anniversary, let me reassure my right hon. Friend that—as we demonstrated at the Human Rights Council recently on the approach that we took to items 7 and 2—we will not support any partisan or political attacks on Israel. I reassure her that the Government are absolutely crystal clear in our condemnation of and opposition to any and all forms of antisemitism.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

As we have heard this morning, this year the UK hosts the global COP summit and the G7, which give us a wonderful opportunity to lay out our leadership and ambition on a world stage. If the Government are really serious about tackling the climate emergency, where is the leadership on the deforestation question in Brazil, where, under the leadership of Jair Bolsonaro, we have seen a rise up to the highest levels of deforestation and impact on indigenous communities in more than a decade? Has the Foreign Secretary raised this directly with Jair Bolsonaro? If not, in broad terms what is he doing at an institutional level to try to address that desperate issue?

[Dominic Raab]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. Deforestation is a key plank of our agenda for COP26, and I have raised it in Indonesia, where it is obviously a big issue, and in parts of Asia. I also raised it recently in a virtual meeting I had with Foreign Minister Araújo of Brazil, although he is no longer in place. The key will be galvanising international support to make sure that the measures those countries take are not economically damaging to them, while at the same time being environmentally sustainable for the world. We have a key plank of work that is focused on that area, and I can reassure the hon. Lady that it is a major component of our approach to COP26.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Catherine West and Dominic Raab

Tuesday 19th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

It’s Amazon, is it? Okay. Thank you, Mr Speaker, as ever.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The press must be allowed to cover events without fear or denial of access. We have discussed our concerns about the violent events that we saw at official level, but also at ministerial level. I have done that myself. I can assure him no British journalists were detained. Of course, working with Canada and others, we have a media freedom coalition, and we certainly look forward to co-operating with the US and many others to pioneer that work through our global leadership year in 2021.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

Today, we all utterly condemn the lawless and violent storming of the US Capitol on 6 January, with the FBI identifying the involvement of far-right activists and domestic terrorists. It is clear that, week after week, President Trump’s behaviour, undermining the electoral victory of President-elect Biden, played a key role in inciting the mob. Does the Foreign Secretary believe that this violent episode has damaged democracy, and what urgent steps can be taken to mend the sense that our Government were lukewarm around the election time and failed to uphold the sense of democracy that we all deeply care about?

[Dominic Raab]

I say to the hon. Lady that the UK was not lukewarm, and she must have missed the Prime Minister’s statement in which he was very clear that what President Trump should have done—[Interruption.] We do not conduct diplomacy by Twitter, unlike the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy). We were absolutely clear about it. At the same time, we are also confident in the US system of checks and balances, and we are very much looking forward to working with the new Administration.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Catherine West and Dominic Raab

Tuesday 30th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I am not going to be drawn down the tempting line offered by my hon. Friend, but he is right to say that the merger of our aid budget, and the heart and soul of our development expertise, with the Foreign Office network, and the diplomatic clout and muscle that we can contribute, will make our foreign policy more effective. I think I can give him a crumb of reassurance, which is that trade commissioners will be directly accountable to the ambassador or high commissioner in the specific post. That will make sure that we are more aligned and joined up, country by country, in the way he has described.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

In the wake of revelations about potential Russian exploitation of the covid-19 pandemic here in the UK and press reports in recent days that Russian officials have paid bounties for British troops in Afghanistan—who have served for more than 10 years in that most dangerous region—does the Secretary of State accept that the Government’s failure to produce the Russia report, which everyone in this House has been waiting for, shows just how weak the Government are on national security?

[Dominic Raab]

First, I know that the hon. Lady would not expect me to comment on intelligence matters or, indeed, intelligence matters from other countries. I can tell her that right across the board we work with our Five Eyes partners on some of the nefarious activities that Russia is engaged in. We work very closely, through our security presence in Afghanistan, to protect all our staff and British nationals. The Intelligence and Security Committee report of course awaits the formation of the new ISC, but I understand that it will be published shortly.

Iran

Debate between Catherine West and Dominic Raab

Monday 13th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

My hon. Friend makes a strong point about the pernicious behaviour of not just the IGRC but the Quds force, of which General Soleimani was the head. The Quds force is the element, the component or the wing of the regime that is responsible for working with the militias, the proxies and the terrorist groups from Lebanon through to Iraq and Syria. It is absolutely right to make that point. On proscription more generally, they are subject to sanctions, but we will obviously keep the issue under very careful review.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

There is now a real sense of chaos, emergency and crisis in the region. What assessment has the Foreign and Commonwealth Office made of the increased risk from IS/Daesh, both in the region and here at home? What actions are being taken to counter any dangers?

[Dominic Raab]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. The reality is that unless we can pursue a path to de-escalation, the risk of war would benefit the terrorist groups, particularly Daesh. We are keeping the risk assessment under constant review, although we do not talk about the operational side of that. One clear aspect of all this that we have in common, whether with our European partners and our American partners or with the Iranian Government, is the desire not to allow the hard-fought and hard-won gains against Daesh to be reversed. We are working with all our partners in the middle east to make sure that we do not lose the gains that we made, or indeed allow the actions and tensions in the middle east to fuel the fire of Daesh and other terrorist groups.

Britain in the World

Debate between Catherine West and Dominic Raab

Monday 13th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

Quite right, and I welcome my hon. Friend’s support as I make those overtures to the Treasury.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

Will the Foreign Secretary give way?

[Dominic Raab]

Of course, and I am sure the hon. Lady is going to be supporting the Foreign Office in the next spending review.

[Catherine West]

I will, indeed, given that a comparison across all Departments shows that the Foreign Office has been cut back at least as badly as the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. May I urge, in any review of finance, that we look carefully at the ability for human rights to be at the forefront of what the Foreign Office does? Traditionally, that has been strong; it is less so now.

[Dominic Raab]

I thank the hon. Lady and I think, given what I am about to say, that I will be able to give her the kind of reassurance she needs. I look forward to working with her in the weeks and months ahead to make sure that we never lose sight of our values, and human rights is a key component of that.

We will strengthen our historical trading ties as we leave the EU, while boosting British competitiveness by tapping wider global markets. We want strong trade with our existing EU partners. They are important and valuable to us as a market; I do not think anyone doubts that. At the same time, we are making good progress in paving the way for our first round of future free trade agreements with the rest of the world. When I was out in the US, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told me in Washington that the US is poised

“at the doorstep, pen in hand”,

ready to sign a deal. A free trade deal with the US would boost businesses, create jobs, reduce the cost of living and expand consumer choice on both sides of the Atlantic, so there is a huge opportunity for a win-win deal.