European Union (Referendum) Bill (Money)

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 16th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Soon to be shadow.

[Emma Reynolds]

Soon to be shadow, I hope.

The Minister for Europe said that he could not give a number for, or approximate cost of, the expenditure needed for a referendum. He has, however, some questions to answer on whether particular groups will be included in this specific referendum. Will the good people of Gibraltar, who have a right to vote in European parliamentary elections, be included in this franchise? Will British people living abroad have the right to vote? Will 16 and 17-year-olds have the right to vote in this referendum, as they will have in next year’s Scottish referendum? Finally, and importantly, will British service personnel serving abroad have the right to vote in the referendum foreseen by this Bill? I fear that the Government have not answered any of those questions today.

Iran

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

As we were saying a few moments ago, the power structure in Iran is complex and enormous authority resides in the Supreme Leader—there is a big clue in the title—in particular over the nuclear issue. We cannot assume that a newly elected President, whatever his intentions—and we cannot yet be sure of those—would be able to execute all the policies that he would like to see.

We will take the issue step by step. We will respond in good faith to efforts to improve relations, but we will judge Iran on actions rather than words.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

It is too early to bring out the bunting, although it is good that once the authorities had banned most of the candidates from standing, at least they did not rig the election this time, as they did last time.

May I impress on the Foreign Secretary two elements of the human rights record that he did not explicitly refer to, the first of which is the execution of children? Iran is a signatory to all the international treaties in relation to that, and it should stop. Secondly, there is the treatment of the Ahwazi Arabs, many of whom are still on hunger strike. They have been hideously oppressed and their peaceful activists have been thrown into prison without trial for far too long.

[Mr Hague]

I absolutely agree. We do our utmost to hold Iran to account on human rights issues. We have designated under EU sanctions more than 80 Iranians as responsible for human rights violations. We have helped to establish a UN special rapporteur on human rights and we will continue to raise those issues.

G8 Foreign Ministers

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 15th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

We in the UK are certainly devoting substantially increased resources. As my hon. Friend will know, we allocated in the strategic defence and security review an additional £650 million to developing our capabilities in the cyber area. One of the things that I discussed with my G8 colleagues is the setting up of our own cyber capability centre, which they can take part in and contribute to. I am satisfied that we are devoting the necessary resources. I think that, around the world, countries are in different stages of waking up to the scale of this threat. I discussed it with the South Korean Foreign Minister this morning and I welcome the fact that, later this year, they will hold the next international cyber conference, following on from the series that I started in 2011, to raise our awareness and co-operation on the issue.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I congratulate the Foreign Secretary on the great progress made this year on the arms trade treaty, but implementation is often even more difficult than getting the agreement in the first place. Eighty-one countries have now signed up to banning cluster munitions and we are committed to trying to get other countries to ban them as well. Did the Foreign Secretary get a chance to mention the issue to the Americans or the Russians at the meeting the other day?

[Mr Hague]

That was not part of this meeting, but it is a regular part of our bilateral discussions with many countries. The hon. Gentleman is right that we have to maintain our efforts to increase that number. We are committed to it—again, on a cross-party basis—in this House and across Government, and support what the previous Government did and achieved on the issue. Although it did not figure in the G8 discussions, I assure the hon. Gentleman that it will continue to be part of our diplomatic effort around the world.

European Council

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Swire]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman, of all people, will be aware of the situation—as I have said, 70,000 people are dead and there is a huge refugee and humanitarian crisis. The bottom line is that Assad is still in place and is being strongly supplied and strengthened by others. I am not going to talk, however, about our arming anyone, as it might never happen. We have made our position perfectly clear. There are Members on both sides of the House who, for understandable reasons, are extremely nervous about getting dragged further into this appalling situation, but I stress that we are not, at this point, discussing arming anyone. Were that to occur in due course, and were our European partners to take that decision, clearly it would need to be properly debated in this House. There is no change in our position, however, as was stated very clearly in the last statement.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

It is just tawdry to pretend that the Prime Minister could not have given an oral statement. He could perfectly easily have done so today, and he should have done so. We do not do EU scrutiny well in this House, and are doing it even worse as a result of today.

May I ask the Minister specifically about relations with Russia? One year ago, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), stood up in the Chamber and accepted a resolution, unanimously agreed by the House, that we would ban people involved in the death and murder of Sergei Magnitsky coming to this country. He said that we would wait to see what the Americans did. The Americans have now passed legislation to ban those people going to the US. When will the Government do the same?

[Mr Swire]

On the hon. Gentleman’s remarks about the Prime Minister, I can do no better than repeat what the Prime Minister said to my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) yesterday:

“We now have more European Councils than sometimes is altogether healthy, and certainly more than there have been in the past. There are almost always oral statements, but I think that on this occasion, when it was very much a take-note European Council rather than one packed with exciting things, a written ministerial statement will probably suffice.”—[Official Report, 18 March 2013; Vol. 560, c. 680.]

I have nothing to add to that.

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the Russian Foreign Secretary was in London last week and had extensive discussions with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs.

[Chris Bryant]

Magnitsky.

[Mr Swire]

Will the hon. Gentleman allow me to finish? Russia is a major player in the world. We continue to have extraordinarily important discussions with it about Syria and about the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and other issues, and we continue to review—and raise when appropriate—the situation there regarding human rights.

Europe

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 30th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Hague]

I will give way again in a moment, but the hon. Gentleman is a bit far down the queue.

On competitiveness, Britain has great advantages: one of the most competitive corporate tax rates in the world, Europe’s largest venture capital community, tax breaks for early-stage investment, and entrepreneur visas so that the brightest can come to the UK. We want the EU to help its members to succeed in the global race.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hague]

Yes, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. I pay tribute to all the work that she, with many of our colleagues, has done on this subject. It is vital to shape and reform this debate. Europe has to change, and the UK should be at the forefront of arguing for that change.

[Chris Bryant]

rose—

[Mr Hague]

I give way to the hon. Gentleman because I was inadvertently rude to him earlier.

[Chris Bryant]

I am grateful to the Foreign Secretary. What renegotiation do the Government really want to enter into, given that the coalition agreement refers to seeking only one treaty change, which is to stop the European Parliament going to Strasbourg? I gently suggest to him that even though I agree that that is as bonkers an arrangement as there can be, it is probably not at the top of his list of priorities for renegotiation. Is staying in or out of the European arrest warrant a priority for him?

[Mr Hague]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, because he is well informed about these matters, the debate about the European arrest warrant is part of the justice and home affairs opt-out considerations. The Home Secretary has announced our proposals regarding a block opt-out and the negotiation of an opt-in to some of these requirements and arrangements. The Prime Minister has set out the principles for a future negotiation, and that is a wise thing to do. If the previous Government had set out the principle that the rebate was not up for negotiation, they would not have surrendered so much of it. If they had set out the principle that they were not going to agree to budget increases, they would not have agreed to such increases in so many negotiations. That is the right place to start.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Alexander]

I have already let the hon. Lady intervene. As I have suggested to her, the real tragedy is that Conservative Back Benchers will not let the Prime Minister sensibly deliver the changes that we agree are needed in Europe.

[Chris Bryant]

Is there not an irony in the fact that the Government are able to come up with only one line on a power they would like to repatriate—namely, the working time directive? The working time directive can be changed. The Prime Minister could be fighting to change it, because it is a directive and a matter of qualified majority voting. If he wants to repatriate that power, he must get every single country in Europe to agree to the change. Is there not hypocrisy at the centre of the Government policy?

[Mr Alexander]

The Labour Government secured an opt-out on the working time directive, and that process of change can be advanced now rather than in many years ahead. It is significant that the Foreign Secretary, for all his skill as a parliamentarian, singularly avoided giving a single additional detail in his lengthy remarks today on what the Prime Minister was talking about.

European Union (Croatian Accession and Irish Protocol) Bill

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 6th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

The point of principle that my hon. Friend makes is certainly right—that during a treaty negotiation it is open to any member state to withhold its consent unless it receives a concession that it is seeking. Obviously, during such a negotiation every member state has to calculate where its national interest lies and what kind of bargain it wants to achieve. However, this is now water under the bridge, as these events took place before the previous general election.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

No, the Minister is wrong. What a member state tries to do, across the piece and over a period of time, is to decide what its main priorities may be. That does not mean that every time a treaty is coming up, it decides to put yet another thing on the table. Indeed, I would argue that the problem with the Government’s current approach is that they are trying to fight the European Union on too many fronts at the same time and will not secure any of their intended outcomes.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I am aware that the hon. Gentleman has only just come in, but we do need shorter interventions. I know that he gets carried away, but I am sure that he will be shorter in future.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 30th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Since my hon. Friend seems to know that I will agree with him, I am not sure why I am bothering to answer to question, but the rules of the House require me to do so.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Tell that to the Prime Minister.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Mr Bryant, calm yourself. I am worried about you—you are supposed to be a statesman.

EU-UK Relationship (Reform)

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 18th September 2012 Westminster Hall

[Andrea Leadsom]

That is absolutely not my understanding, but that is not a discussion for now, so we will have to park that.

The Green Paper was published in June and the Fresh Start project is now moving to phase 2, which is to suggest a manifesto for change by Christmas. I am delighted that 10 Conservative colleagues have each agreed to chair a policy area in which they have a particular expertise, and they will look to get buy-in from other colleagues to achieve a consensus on what specific reforms we will recommend that the Government pursue. By Christmas, we will end up with a specific manifesto for reform, which will be a shopping list of things that Britain would like to see changed.

One of the Government’s biggest challenges is the fact that FCO officials wring their hands when we talk about a shopping list of reform proposals.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

No they do not.

[Andrea Leadsom]

Yes they do. I have had several conversations with FCO officials who say that people can negotiate on only one or two points at a time. That is the way in which EU Commissioners and European parliamentarians squash the genuine national interests of one member state. They say, “You can talk only about the rebate, or only about 0% increase in the budget. You cannot talk about all the other issues that you want to include in your shopping list.” That will be the biggest challenge to any reform.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), who has been a fiery speaker on these issues ever since she arrived in Parliament and is obviously making a big name for herself. I completely and utterly disagree with her. She made a fundamentally old-fashioned speech. It was as though Joseph Chamberlain and Arthur Balfour were among us again and protectionism was the order of the day.

We must turn around how we look at the issue. If we keep looking at it from the inside of the European Union rather than the outside, we will miss the fact that the growing economies—Russia, China, Brazil and the whole of Latin America—do not look on each individual country in Europe and think, “How can we do business with them?” They look at the whole of Europe and think, “How can we make investments that make sense across the whole of Europe?” The hon. Lady cited rising figures for exports from the UK, but she failed to mention that during the same period, EU exports to China, Russia and Brazil have grown faster than those in the UK. Many people suggest that visa liberalisation would do more to improve our trade with those countries, but I am hesitant about liberalising visas to Russia, Mexico, Brazil and China at the moment; I think that there could be profound dangers.

Several hon. Members have said that shared policies are a problem. Personally, I think that the common agricultural policy operates in an immoral way. It means that people in poor parts of the world are unable to feed themselves properly because we deliberately overproduce. However, if there were no common agricultural policy, there would be a French agricultural policy, an Italian agricultural policy and doubtless a British one, which would be even worse. I would like us to keep the policy but slash it in half.

Similarly, there are many aspects that benefit us directly. We need strong borders around Europe so that UK borders are strong. When Brits travel abroad, as they do in their millions every year, we need to ensure that they enjoy good medical standards. Brits buying homes in Spain need the rule of law. We need more Europe on some issues, rather than less. For instance, on mobile telephony, I have never understood why, when Europe is meant to be a single market, we are charged more for making a phone call in France or Germany than here at home in the UK.

Somebody said that we should trade with Europe and not in Europe. That is fundamentally naive about the politics of Europe. As for the idea of having a rolling opt-in and opt-out programme, it would mean that every country would abandon all its treaty obligations at every general election. That fundamentally misunderstands the whole nature of international law.

I agree with the hon. Lady about two things. One is an element of the repatriation of structural funds. It is crazy that we recycle money through Europe and that nobody can then follow the money, which is why the auditors cannot track it. The other is EU questions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Simmonds]

I agree with my hon. Friend. The Prime Minister’s veto back in December played a significant role in ensuring that he and the Government are always seen to be protecting the UK’s national interest. That is absolutely right. The comments of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) on this matter are confusing, particularly in view of her unwillingness to rule out British membership of the euro, which the Government have done.

[Chris Bryant]

If we are talking about things that will happen in the future, I would be delighted to know when the Government expect to have a resolution of the next financial perspective. The advice of the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire is to have a shopping list for the next couple of years, but a shopping list normally involves some spending, and I wonder whether, to secure some of the things she wants, the Government will abandon the rebate in that perspective discussion.

[Mark Simmonds]

It is clear that the UK’s agenda and priorities—I hope to come to them in a moment—are about driving global competitiveness and economic growth to alleviate some of the problems that are prevalent in the eurozone. That includes further trading with the eurozone and—my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman), who is no longer in his place, made this key point—not just with the eurozone, but further afield. This debate is extremely timely, and provides an early opportunity to discuss the issues. It is clear that events in the eurozone will have wide-ranging implications, and its ultimate shape is unknown and uncertain. The Prime Minister made it clear on the Floor of the House in June that as Europe changes to meet the current challenges, our relationship with it may also change. It is vital for Britain’s national interest, and for the European Union’s strength and prosperity, that we meet those challenges.

The coalition agreement that was set out at the beginning of this Parliament stated that the UK should be a positive participant in the European Union, working with our partners to ensure that all European nations are equipped to face the challenges of the 21st century, by far the most important of which is global competitiveness. I am the first to acknowledge that there is still much more to do to restore growth, both inside and outside the eurozone. The Government remain vigorously committed to developing the European single market, to smarter and less costly EU regulation, and to more free trade between Europe and the rest of the world. We need a Europe that delivers prosperity, job and wealth creation, and security, and a Europe that is more outward-looking, more dynamic and more competitive on the global stage.

Syria

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 3rd September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his remarks. It is my view that there would have to be changes on the ground for Russia to change its position. Russia itself has not spelt out such conditions or criteria. At the meeting in Geneva at the end of June Russia signed up to an agreed transition in Syria and the creation of a transitional Government, as we all did, in the hope that that would make any other measures unnecessary, but now we have to make sure that such a transitional Government is actually created. Russia has not spelled that out; I am simply giving the House my analysis.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

The Foreign Secretary is absolutely right to highlight the Russian Government’s disgraceful role in the barbarism we have seen in Syria, or at least in preventing the international community coming to a single mind on it, but will he clarify whether the statement made by his hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) yesterday in a national newspaper—that the British Government have written to the Russian Government to tell them that the 60 officials involved in the death of Sergei Magnitsky or the corruption he unveiled will not be welcome in this country—is accurate?

[Mr Hague]

I think that if I gave much of an answer to that I would be going very wide of the subject of the statement, and I do not want to incur your wrath, Mr Speaker, but I can say that there has been no change in our immigration policy. No doubt my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will be able to comment on that in due course.

Falkland Islands Referendum

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I, too, fully stand behind the Falkland Islanders’ right to self-determination, and I do so as a former Minister who had responsibility for them, but I have to say that the referendum in Gibraltar changed not one whit the view of the Spanish Government and we would be extremely naive if we were to think that we would change President Kirchner’s view by having the referendum. However, there are Argentine senators and members of Parliament, including Peronists, who simply laugh at their President’s position because they know that it is there for party political advantage and nothing else. Will the Minister confirm that calm and resolute negotiations with Argentina not on the basis of our holding the Falklands, but on other matters, is a better way than sabre-rattling?

[Mr Lidington]

One of the great sadnesses when reflecting on the situation in the south Atlantic over the past 10 years is the change in Argentine politics. Argentina has moved from what had appeared to be a policy of gradual accommodation and reconciliation towards the much more aggressive stance that President Kirchner has taken. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is important that the United Kingdom continues to make it clear that we want a mutually beneficial, friendly relationship with Argentina but that that will not come at the price of selling out the democratic rights of the Falkland Islanders. That remains our position.