Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 26th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

Any and every decent person in this House utterly condemns the barring of much needed humanitarian aid from getting into Venezuela. We all stand together in condemning those who are preventing that much needed source of supplies.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Several British overseas territories are still refusing to implement full transparency and to have public registers of ownership. Why are the Government refusing to obey the command of this House, which was to introduce legislation swiftly? Why are they refusing to do it until 2023?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

We are fully adhering to the obligations and requirements of the Act that was passed. The hon. Gentleman is quite right that 2023 is the date by which we hope every requirement will be met in respect of public registers.

Venezuela

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Put it in the Library, if it is not there already. [Interruption.] Very good.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

When I visited Venezuela in 2009, I was shown around a theoretically brand-new hospital, which was meant to be fully operational. Those showing me around must have thought I was a complete and utter idiot because every ward I went into had exactly the same patients—they were scurrying around from one ward to another. The truth is that the Venezuelan Government have lied for years and years to their people and to the outside world, particularly Russia and China, and the people who are feeling the damage are the poor children on the streets and the parents who are unable to feed their children because there is nothing in the shops.

My biggest fear is what this may do to Colombia, however, because the peace process is very tender and Iván Duque’s election is not necessarily moving towards restabilising it. Could the Foreign Office in this country perform a very useful function in working with the Spanish Government to try to bring security and stability to Colombia, which is facing such an enormous influx from Venezuela?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. One of the reasons why the United Nations is interested is that this is not a domestic issue for Venezuela; it has regional and therefore international implications. One of those implications, as I said in my opening response, is that Venezuela is harbouring some of the elements who would undermine the peace process in Colombia. He is absolutely right, and he has a long-standing interest in and has supported the Colombian peace process. We need to understand that process fully and to realise that these matters are linked. Therefore, solving the problem in Venezuela can significantly help with the challenges, which are increasing, in Colombia.

Institute for Statecraft: Integrity Initiative

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 12th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I am very happy to say yes. I can assure my hon. Friend and the House that when it comes to challenging officials on any issue, I do so very robustly, to establish the highest standards of activity in everything the Foreign Office does. Therefore, in response to this situation, I have certainly been grilling officials to find out exactly what is happening. I have asked them to engage with the Institute for Statecraft to look at its editorial policy to ensure that there is, and will remain, an absolutely clear division between its domestic activity under its charitable rules and any overseas activity that we fund and is subject to the contract we have.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I completely support any attempts to deal with misinformation campaigns, whether they originate from Russia, Saudi Arabia, the hard right in the United States of America or Syria—or, for that matter, in Catalonia last year. I want to make sure that a project such as this really works, but it will not have the confidence of the whole nation unless we are able to see some changes in the way in which it operates in this case. I would have more confidence if the Government were to engage in the kind of investigation that is ongoing in the United States of America into Russian involvement in democratic process in this country. Why can we not have that investigation?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

Again, that is an area where there is an enormous amount of work going on in the Government. I share the hon. Gentleman’s concerns. We have seen all sorts of social media activity and we have seen completely verified activity of Russian intervention in democratic processes, such as the election in Montenegro and perhaps the referendum in Catalonia. That is in addition to the full spectrum of activity that we are specifically discussing in this urgent question.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 30th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If we looked at a map of Europe showing all the places where there have been Russian-inspired cyber-attacks, we would see it is a very busy map indeed. We need to create a new international red line that says these cyber-attacks are unacceptable, which is why it is very positive news that, on 15 October, the EU agreed to set up a sanctions regime for cyber-attacks, but that is just the first of a number of steps.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

We need to keep up the pressure on Russia. There is no point in just referring to what we have already done. When will the Government bring forward their first list of people caught by the new Magnitsky legislation in this country? Would it not be a good idea for us now to include those who are gangsters, rather than just those who have abused human rights?

[Mr Hunt]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. As he knows, the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018 only comes into effect after Brexit, because it depends on us taking trade measures, which is what has to happen. Ahead of that, however, we are talking to the EU about whether it should introduce a sanctions regime for human rights abuses, and that is relevant not just to Russia but to many countries.

Nuclear Treaty: US Withdrawal

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

My hon. Friend is right and there are very deep-seated concerns, not only for the US but for all allies about Russia’s development of new missile systems. Those long-standing concerns are shared by all NATO allies, not least those close to the Russian border. Along with NATO allies, and supported by US efforts, we worked to bring Russia back into compliance as recently as the NATO summit last July.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

One disturbing thing that President Trump added to this conversation was when he said that he is not convinced by the treaty because it does not include China, which is increasing its arsenal. Does that suggest that something in the mind of the President of the United States of America would quite like an escalation of nuclear weaponry? That is something to be abhorred by us all, is it not?

[Mark Field]

The hon. Gentleman will recognise that that is, in part, in the realms of speculation. As Members will know, Russia and the US alone are the countries bound by the treaty, although it obviously impacts on many other countries across the world, especially in Europe. We are engaging, and will continue to engage, with the United States Administration to understand their assessment, although obviously, I, too, have read some of the speculation to which the hon. Gentleman refers. Fundamentally, this treaty concerns Euro-Atlantic security and can be effective only if there is full compliance.

Colombia Peace Process

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 12th September 2018 Westminster Hall

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the peace process in Colombia.

Although my visit to Colombia earlier this year was sponsored by ABColombia, I have not yet been able to register the fact, because I do not yet have the figures. It is not the case the case that ABColombia wants me to say something on its behalf—I am not lobbying on its behalf—but it certainly paid for me to visit. I went with the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady), and we had a very productive visit, but I want to make the position clear from the outset.

As I think all hon. Members will know, the conflict in Colombia has been one of the most disturbing of the past 100 years. It is not much commented on, particularly in the British press or on British television, but it is a simple fact. It has gone on for 50 years. There have been 220,000 casualties; 177,000 civilians have been killed, more or less; and 25,000 others have disappeared—nobody knows where they have gone. Some 45,000 children have been killed in the conflict.

Perhaps one of the most shocking statistics is that between 5 million and 6 million people have been displaced. In a population of 50 million or 55 million, a phenomenal number of people have had to leave their lands. They have been forced off their lands and moved to other places. Often they have been forced into complete and abject poverty. Having lived on land where they were able to achieve subsistence by growing crops and looking after animals, they have suddenly found themselves in urban populations with no means of making a living and without a home, so they rely on begging.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important issue. The tragedy of Colombia is that half of the 7 million or so refugees have been forced to go and live in slums in cities, which has just increased the problem, both for the Colombian Government and for the rest of the world.

[Chris Bryant]

Indeed. We were in La Primavera, a small town in one of the more remote districts in the north-east of Colombia, and it was striking that a lot of the campesino population, who 10 or 15 years ago would have had a few hectares per family on which to grow crops and have their livelihood, had suddenly found themselves begging on the streets in La Primavera. Of course, the urban townsfolk and the local authorities get quite racist about this, frankly—that was the impression we got. People being forced into poverty when they had a richness in the way they lived previously is one of the most distressing elements of what we are talking about.

The massive exodus that we are seeing from Venezuela at the moment is also an enormous problem for Colombia. In the past I have been very critical of President Uribe, who I think sometimes used the ideological confrontation with Venezuela as a means of bolstering his own political support inside Colombia. Indeed, President Santos’s first and most successful job was to restore proper relations between the two countries. However, the fact that between 1.5 million and 2.5 million Venezuelans are leaving Venezuela because of the extraordinary problems in that country and their fear for the future is causing a real problem for Colombia. The Spanish President was in Colombia a couple of weeks ago and commented on the fact that it is an extraordinary success that Colombia has managed to accommodate so many people. But inevitably, with so many people who are in effect economic refugees, there are enormous dangers.

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

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that part of the terrible human loss has come from the targeting of trade union leaders and human rights defenders? Just this year, 123 leaders and human rights defenders have already lost their lives as a result of assassinations.

[Chris Bryant]

I think that the figure of 123 is just for the first six months of the year. One difficulty, which I will come to later, is that it is very difficult to get precise numbers. The mixture of different military and paramilitary organisations engaged in the conflict over the 50 years has meant that very often the Government, or people sponsored by the Government, have effectively been killing human rights defenders. Sometimes it is a genuine mistake but, I think, very rarely. This is often referred to as false positives by the Colombian authorities, but I think that actually, in many cases, we could see that sometimes a presidential decree, certainly under previous Presidents, or somebody being referred to as a political undesirable, would mean that somebody would take it into their mind a few weeks later simply to bump them off. The number of incidents is still growing. This year there have been very significant numbers, and it shows no sign of stopping. I will refer later to some of the things that I think could be done.

One problem is this. Everybody knows about the FARC, the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, but there are many other groups, such as the ELN—Ejército de Liberación Nacional—and the paramilitary groups that have collapsed into dissent. Some of them are much less co-ordinated and structured. The fact that many of them resorted to the illegal cocaine trade to fund their military activities has meant that they have become addicted to that trade. In the end, in many cases, there is very little difference between the criminal—the pure criminal—and these paramilitary organisations. In particular, in the most difficult-to-reach parts of the country, such as in Chocó, there are still significant numbers of these groups, such as the Black Eagles and the AUC, which are still quite clearly engaging in intimidation, assassination, torture and murder.

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this really important debate. Does he agree that there are some areas where the FARC were previously in control and have been moved out as part of reincorporation, so there is now a space for these dissident groups to fill and that is creating the sorts of dangers and the climate whereby criminality and the number of murders are rapidly rising? There seems to be no Government control or police control over those areas.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The issue of land ownership, which I will come to, is a really important part of trying to resolve the long-term issues from the conflict, because where the space is theoretically owned by nobody, it is almost certain that somebody, usually with criminal or paramilitary intent, or both, will step in to fill the vacuum.

Let me give just some characteristics of the conflict. Obviously, there has been the murder of human rights defenders and trade union activists, which has already been referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West), and I have referred to the stand-off with Venezuela. The corruption of judges has meant that it has been very difficult to secure convictions of those who have been involved in all this. I am enormously grateful to the British Government for all the work that they have done to try to restore, or help to restore, the criminal justice system in Colombia to a more secure form of justice. I very much hope that will continue. If more money needs to be put into it, it should be. I note that the European Union is putting in €35 million for a fund to help Venezuelans acting as refugees in Colombia. It would be good to know whether the UK will be contributing anything towards that. I hope that the Minister will be able to answer that question later.

The single biggest element of the conflict, which makes it so different from others, is the massive consolidation of land ownership that has occurred. It is not just that, as a result of the colonial past, lots of people have big farms—far from it. Some 1% of the largest farms have 81% of the land, and the 0.1% of farms that are over 2,000 hectares have 60% of the land. That is a phenomenal consolidation. It is considerably worse now than it was even in the 1960s. In 1960, 29% of farms were over 500 hectares; in 2002, 46% were over 500 hectares; and in 2017, 66% of farms were over 500 hectares. One factor behind that extraordinary consolidation is that British-funded agribusinesses want to plant vast acres of oil palms, which often leads to significant deforestation and the taking of lands that had previously been used by campesino and indigenous peoples.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I am very impressed by my hon. Friend’s speech. Does he know which British corporations are doing this? It would be extremely helpful to the House if he could name them.

[Chris Bryant]

I might need a bit more notice to answer that question, if that is all right. There is a point here for all of us, whether we run a big industry or not. If we want to rely on palm oil, and if there is an enormous demand for palm oil in British supermarkets, the temptation will be to cover all of Colombia with oil palms. It is good that some supermarkets have said they will not use palm oil products at all. I hope we move further down that route.

The hon. Member for Glasgow North and I flew over large chunks of Colombia. At one point we were in a heavy thunderstorm, which was quite frightening—the aeroplane, which was only a six-seater, was wobbling all over the place. I was quite nervous, until I looked at the pilot, who was on WhatsApp on his phone throughout the whole flight, which sort of reassured me. The most extraordinary thing, having flown over Colombia and seen all the acres devoted to palm oil, was to learn that Colombia can no longer feed itself, yet it has some of the richest agricultural lands in South America. We think that we know what an avocado is, but there are 50 different types of avocado in Colombia. In the past, people grew to eat, but increasingly they grow to provide for an external market. I understand why Colombia wants to earn a living in the world, but it is crazy that such a country is unable to feed itself. Of the 43 million hectares devoted to agriculture in Colombia, 34.4 million are devoted to cows and only 8.6 million to crops. That means that 1 million campesino families have less land to live on than a single cow.

I pay tribute to a succession of wonderful Colombian ambassadors to the United Kingdom, who have sometimes had to pick their way through very difficult subjects. In my experience, they have all been impeccable. I am not sure whether Néstor is leaving soon, but if he is I hope that anybody here who knows him will send him our best regards.

If I could say one thing to the Colombian Government, it would be that we in the United Kingdom want to do everything we can to help in the process of land reform, because that is the essential element of the peace accord. It is good that everyone sits around the table and all the rest of it, but clause 1 of the peace accord refers to land reform. In La Primavera and El Porvenir we met a variety of different communities, including the Sikuani indigenous people, and we met campesino families in Cajamarca. Their biggest concern is that they do not have land to live on. If they do not get secure title, they will simply move in ever greater numbers into the big cities, which will exacerbate all the problems of poverty.

We visited the Sikuani, who were wonderful. I think they trained themselves in Spanish to be able to talk to us better, as it was not their first language. They were thrown off the lands they used to occupy by the FARC and then by other paramilitaries. They have tried to get the land back, but they need legal title to feel secure on that land. Only a few months ago, some people—it is difficult to know exactly who they were—accompanied by Colombian police officers, who were photographed, came to try to throw them off their lands again and destroyed some of their sacred grounds.

Clearly, across Colombia, but particularly in the more remote areas, there is a deliberate intention, sometimes sponsored by members of the police and the armed forces, to try to intimidate campesino and indigenous people off their lands. That can be changed only through the much faster acceleration of the process of restitution of land, the declaration of title and the granting of baldios. The word “baldio” in Spanish usually means wasteland, but it also refers to the large amount of land in Colombia that does not have proper legal title, which the Government theoretically own. The peace process was meant to deliver to every campesino family enough baldio land to live off, and that is the most secure path towards peace. That has been limited to certain areas of Colombia, and I hope the Colombian Government will consider looking at other areas as well in the next phase of the peace process. They have tried to put a time limit on the process, which I think is a mistake. The process is still remarkably slow, and many indigenous and campesino people simply do not have access to their land.

There has been a peace accord with the FARC, as I mentioned. We met some members of the FARC, who have handed in their guns and turned to peace. They are desperate to ensure that the peace process is fulfilled. It was a difficult process to arrive at. One element of the peace process is incomplete: a deal with the ELN. The Spanish President was trying to encourage the new Government of President Iván Duque to sit around the table with the ELN. The ELN is not as co-ordinated, structured or—some might say—principled as the FARC. There is not a single organisational structure in the ELN. Thus far, it has not been part of the peace accord. I note that the day by which Duque said that the ELN had to surrender its last 17 hostages has now passed. I do not know whether anything has happened today, but yesterday Colombian Government Ministers were saying that they will not sit down at the table until those hostages have been surrendered, and the ELN was saying that it cannot surrender those hostages, because of Government military activity in the areas where they are.

We all know from our experience in Northern Ireland that politicians sometimes have to say one thing in public and scurry away into the background to do something completely different. Mrs Thatcher—or the British Government at the time—was having conversations with terrorist organisations, just as John Major did long before it was publicly known. In the same way, a former Colombian ambassador to this country, Mauricio Rodríguez, was deployed by President Santos to have initially secret conversations with the ELN. I hope that the same is happening at the moment. Some of the attacks on human rights defenders and others in Chocó and other parts of the country are undoubtedly being committed by dissident groups alongside the ELN. If there is to be peace, in the end, everybody will have to sit round the table.

On the issue of human rights defenders, we had a productive meeting, as the hon. Member for Glasgow North will agree, with the people from the National Protection Unit. They genuinely want to protect everybody who comes under threat and intimidation, but I still do not think that they have the resources to do the job properly. We heard about one woman who had full protection measures up to the point she got out of the car and walked half a mile down the drive to her house, which was obviously the most dangerous place. Those issues are really important. Women, in particular, are being attacked and need much greater protection.

Colombia is a great country of phenomenal riches. In Cajamarca, we saw La Colosa, which is a mountain that a British-registered company wants to turn into a gold mine. The people of Cajamarca, some 18,000 of them, organised a plebiscite—a public consultation, as they call it—under state provision, and more than 93% of people came out against the mine. As a representative of a former mining constituency, I am not opposed to all extractive industries—I am quite in favour of mining—but for people to get a chunk of gold out of the place they are talking about, they would have to take half the mountain away. It is right at the top of a series of valleys, and two wetlands come together at the top, so all the water for large numbers of communities down the river could be damaged and become impossible to drink. I am not an expert, but it seemed to the hon. Member for Glasgow North and me that whoever came up with the idea of taking away a mountain and the drinking water of hundreds of thousands of Colombians did not have any real idea of how to go about business.

I very much hope that we have an opportunity to meet the company, AngloGold Ashanti, and say that that mine is not going to happen. The people of Cajamarca have a right to have their consultation honoured. I am not a fan of referendums—they can go terribly wrong—but when the people have spoken with a definitive result of 93%, that has to be honoured.

Over the last 200 years, our country has been closely related to Colombia, and we want to continue to do an enormous amount of trade in the future. For many politicians in this country, it would be a joy to see the proper fulfilment of the whole peace accord in Colombia. There is a famous book, “Open Veins of Latin America”, and this feels like one of the last remaining open veins in Latin America. It would be good to sew up that wound.

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

This is a hugely interesting debate on a subject that has increasingly become part of my intense interest in politics. I congratulate the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) on securing the debate and on raising issues that have stimulated that interest. I need to know a lot more about land ownership and land reform in Colombia, and I shall be going away to find out exactly what has happened.

My interest in the issue started with my family: my son married a Colombian girl. I did not know much about Colombia, so I simply wanted to know, and I suddenly realised that so much about this wonderful country is not known to the British population at all. I wanted to try to change that in different ways.

My knowledge has greatly increased, because I spent most of August in Colombia. I spent a week in the capital, Bogotá, and almost a week in the second city, Medellín. I also spent time in the rural area of Boyacá, where my family originate from and where some of them still live, and I had a few days of relaxation in Anapoima. I now have greater knowledge of the country, but it is so huge that there is still much to learn. That is why I welcome today’s debate.

My trip coincided with the inauguration of the new President, which signalled a substantial change in the country. There was also the attempted assassination of the President of next-door Venezuela, which also had a huge impact. When I was driving around, I saw so many Venezuelans walking along the road, on the backs of lorries, or thumbing lifts—just leaving the country and moving into Colombia in very large numbers.

The most relevant part of my visit for today’s debate was the five days that I spent in Medellín, the second city, and not because a flower festival was taking place—probably the best flower festival in the world—but because of the way in which that city has dealt with a history of violence. I was grateful to the Mayor of Medellín for organising a day for me to understand exactly what has happened in the city. Throughout the 1990s, it was the murder capital of the world, with 25,000 murders in 1992 and 27,000 in 1993, but when I was there, I could not believe that that had been the case. In my Sunday newspaper about two weeks ago, I read that it had dropped out of the 30 most murderous cities in the world. What astonished me was that the people had decided that they wanted an end to the scale of the violence—it was done through people power. The level of forgiveness that was needed in the population to deliver that result is truly astonishing.

I will touch on two issues of inevitable concern. First, the rumoured approach and direction of the new President, Iván Duque. The hon. Member for Rhondda, and others in interventions, have mentioned the continuing murder of human rights defenders, which is quite shocking. As has been outlined, Colombia experienced serious internal conflict from 1964 to 2016 when the peace accord was agreed and signed by Juan Manuel Santos and the FARC. The whole world celebrated the accord and thought it was wonderful, so there was inevitably some concern—which I shared because of my developing interest—during the election campaign, when the favourite to win suggested that the agreement needed to be changed in certain ways. The worry was that that might produce some negatives. However, the new President has now been in place for five weeks and most of what I have managed to glean from the comments that have been made so far seems to me to be incredibly encouraging.

The first issue was who was appointed to the various positions, but the appointments have been generally welcomed. They have shown a streak of independence. One of the concerns was that it was thought the new President would be too influenced by Álvaro Uribe, a previous President, who really was not a great supporter of the peace agreement or of the FARC coming into Government. The independence shown by that is important and, as I say, the appointments seem to have been welcomed.

[Chris Bryant]

I am afraid I make a rather different reading of all of this. I have met President Uribe—in 2010, I think—and he was very opposed to the peace process and the peace accord, and I think that it is still to be seen whether President Duque will decide to go his own course and be an independent man. However, with some of Duque’s Ministers, including in some of the key departments, the strings are undoubtedly being pulled by Uribe.

[Glyn Davies]

That is not the impression that I have been receiving, but it is a perfectly valid point and I certainly think that that is how Uribe is seen. Nevertheless, I am sure the hon. Gentleman will agree that it is welcome if the new President is seen as having a degree of independence and being his own man, because he was sponsored, or at least supported, by Uribe in the election; we should welcome that independence.

The inauguration was only five weeks ago. I have written down one or two things that I have gleaned since then. Duque has reiterated a commitment to the peace process, which is good; everybody will think that is to be welcomed. There is an open invitation, and a public open invitation, to FARC combatants to continue their involvement in the reintegration process. There is a reassurance that committees established in the peace process will continue. There have been no modifications at all to the terms of the peace agreement; it had been feared there would be. Who knows what may happen in the future? As of now, however, there certainly have not been any modifications. There is a new high commissioner for peace, a new presidential councillor for stabilisation, and a commitment to work with the international community, including with the UN, the US and indeed the UK, which are also to be welcomed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

I am grateful to all hon. Members. There is clear concern across all political parties that the peace process should not now founder, and we want justice for all the people of Colombia.

I am enormously grateful, as I think is the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady), to Louise Winstanley, who organised our trip to Colombia—although she is a very hard taskmaster, because we were getting up at ludicrous times in the morning. Colombia often listens to the international community. I was struck that one of the hotels we stayed in was called the Hotel Lusitania. It is unusual for a hotel to be named after a ship that was sunk. The links between the United Kingdom and Colombia are very strong. Of course, some of those links are quite dangerous, not least in relation to the cocaine trade and, I would argue, to palm oil as well.

We are engaged and involved in the situation in Colombia. It is very early days in the presidency of Iván Duque, and we wish him well. I note what the Minister said about the softening of the tone. It may well be that he does exactly what President Santos did, which was to get elected under the Uribe umbrella but then storm off in an entirely independent direction. I very much hope that is what happens.

I will end with the most sobering comment that I heard from one campesino family. They said that their grandfather had been told by the paramilitaries, “Either you will give us your land, or your widow will.” That is the injustice that still has to be put right.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the peace process in Colombia.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 4th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

As my right hon. Friend will be aware, we have dedicated more resources to increasing our representation across Europe, so that we are fully equipped to do all that we can to represent the UK’s interest once we have left the European Union.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

The 50-year conflict in Colombia has seen thousands and thousands of campesino and indigenous families thrown off their territory, tortured and murdered, so the Minister is absolutely right to say that it is distressing in the extreme to see that the peace process has now stalled. The Spanish Prime Minister went to Colombia last week to impress on President Duque that he must get this back on track. Will the Minister make sure that British representations to President Duque are just as strong as those from Spain?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

Yes, I will do so very genuinely. I think that I am right in saying that the hon. Gentleman has recently visited Colombia. I would therefore like to invite him and any other colleagues to see me in order to brief me on what they learned during their visit.

Draft International Fund for Agricultural Development (Eleventh Replenishment) Order 2018

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 17th July 2018 General Committees

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

A few questions. Of course, I completely support the measure. Successive British Governments have supported the fund, because we recognise that in dealing with the greatest areas of poverty in the world, one has to tackle the issue of agricultural poverty and agricultural communities. However, I have a few questions for the Minister.

First, can the Minister tell us how the Government arrived at the figure of £66 million? It seems remarkably round and convenient. Is it more or less than Germany, France or Italy? Is the United States of America reneging on its payments, or is it abiding by its commitments? How do we know that that £66 million is an appropriate rise since the last replenishment? I notice that the figures have not necessarily increased in a straight line; sometimes they have gone down and then gone back up again. Why is £66 million the right amount for Britain to contribute?

Secondly, the Minister referred to the fact that there has been quite a push, not only in IFAD but in other organisations of the United Nations, to ensure that more of the money goes to the poorest countries. She said that we are trying to get up to 90% of the money going to the poorest countries. I wholeheartedly agree with that, but can she lay out for us which countries will now not receive money? For instance, I think China has received money in the past. That would seem rather odd now, as it is one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Likewise, although we recognise that there are areas of considerable poverty in India, perhaps India ought to look to its own resources.

Finally, several countries that are very close allies, with whom we ally in many different spheres, have not signed up to IFAD. Why is that? For example, why has Australia, with whom we share views on nearly everything under the sun, not signed up to IFAD, or for that matter several member countries of the European Union? The European Union itself is an observer of IFAD, but not a contributor to it, so why are Latvia and the Czech Republic not members? I wonder whether we would do anything to persuade those countries to sign up. Obviously, if we could get not just 174 but all countries in the world to sign up, we would have more contributions and could do more good work.

[Harriett Baldwin]

I shall respond briefly to points made by hon. Members. I confirm that we emphasise continuing to work directly with rural communities. We shall also continue to put an emphasis on ensuring that smallholders are at the heart of our work.

In reply to the hon. Member for Rhondda and to elaborate on how we came up with the figure of £66 million, which would make us the largest contributor to IFAD, the increase is about 15% in sterling terms; our contribution over the previous cycle was £57 million. At the moment, we have not yet heard what Germany will pledge, but we anticipate a similar amount. The Netherlands, for example, is a strong contributor and just behind the UK. China is now a net contributor to the system, increasing its contribution from US $60 million to $80 million. Italy has pledged $63 million, Sweden $57 million and Canada $55 million. The US commitment is on an annual basis, so about $30 million per year takes it up to about $90 million—again, a similar amount to us.

A range of different countries have a strong sense of ownership. Cameroon, for example, has put money in—$1.1 million—and Bangladesh has put in $1.5 million, up from $650,000, Kenya $1 million, Ghana $585,000 and Rwanda $100,000. I confirm that widening the donor base towards the total—it is also important to say that the total replenishment we aimed for was US $1.2 billion—is an important part of the reforms.

[Chris Bryant]

I am proud of the fact that Britain is doing more than other countries—that is excellent—but are the Government seeking to use that leadership as a means of persuading others to put their hands in their pocket more effectively? The Minister cited the United States of America giving roughly the same as the UK, but it is a much bigger economy and I would have thought that it gave significantly more. I want to know how much more the Government are trying to leverage in from others.

[Harriett Baldwin]

We certainly make that point. In all our work, we try to do exactly that: we must get the balance right between being one of the leading donors and at the same time ensuring that we leverage in money from other countries. That is a constant part of our work on the replenishment. I think that I have addressed most of the points made by hon. Members, so I ask the Committee to support the motion that we have considered this replenishment.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 26th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that is why we have responded to the challenges that the world presents us with today by increasing our diplomatic staff by another 250 diplomats, in addition to the 100 that we added to our European strength, and we are opening 10 new sovereign posts in the Caribbean and the Pacific, with more to come in Africa.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I hope that global Britain is also about being extremely robust where there are strategic issues in Europe that we have to address, such as Nord Stream 2. Will the Foreign Secretary make it absolutely clear that Russia has systematically been bullying smaller countries in Europe for years through its energy policy and that we will assist the Danes and the Germans if they want to make sure this does not go ahead?

[Boris Johnson]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Germans import a great deal of their gas from Russia and they are conflicted in that matter, but we continue to raise the concerns that he mentions with our German friends and of course with all the other states on the periphery of the EU that are threatened, as he says, by Russian gas politics.

Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords]

Chris Bryant Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 1st May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

If I might say so ever so politely to the hon. Lady, she is jumping the gun slightly given that I am only at the end of my first paragraph, and as she knows there have been some detailed discussions through the usual channels. I will address the matter she has asked about in more detail later on; if I may, I will tackle the three issues to which I have referred in the order that I raised them, in order to satisfy the House that we are looking at all concerns in detail and genuinely.

First, sanctions for gross human rights violations have clearly been an issue of significant concern to Members on both sides of the House, as was made clear by many who spoke on Second Reading and in Committee. I fully recognise why Members and many people outside this House want to include gross human rights abuses in the Bill explicitly as a reason why sanctions can be applied, particularly in reference to the abhorrent case of Sergei Magnitsky in Russia.

In her speech to the House on 14 March, the Prime Minister made clear the Government’s intention to bring forward a Magnitsky amendment to the Bill, and as the House can see we have fulfilled that obligation by doing so for discussion in the House today. As a result of that commitment, we have worked closely, constructively and genuinely with Members on both sides of the House, including some who have campaigned for this amendment at great length, particularly my right hon. Friends the Members for Newbury (Richard Benyon) and for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell). I also genuinely thank the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman), my opposite number, and the hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds). Together we have worked to put together a form of words that now enjoys cross-party support. We have tabled amendments that we hope will capture the maximum possible consensus in this area.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I am truly grateful for everything that the Minister and all those he has referred to have done in relation to the Sergei Magnitsky amendment. It is obviously important that he has captured the consensus of the House, but it is even more important that we capture all those, in particular those from Russia, who have come to this country and used it for money laundering purposes and for hiding their assets. Is he confident that we will be able to do that as a result of this legislation?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I am confident of that, as I will explain further in a moment.

As is traditional on Report, it is important that I explain what the amendments do, if ever so briefly. Amendment 10 relates specifically to putting gross human rights abuses on the face of the Bill as a basis on which sanctions may be imposed. Amendments 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17 are consequential to that, introducing technical changes that will follow. Amendment 13 links the definition of a gross violation of human rights to the existing definition in the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, so that it includes the torture of a person by a public official or a person in an official capacity, where the tortured person has sought to expose the illegal activity of a public official or to defend human rights or fundamental freedoms. That will ensure that all gross human rights abuses or violations are explicitly captured.

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The present practice is unsustainable. The fifth money laundering directive from the EU will bring in public registers across the EU by the end of 2019. As the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) said earlier, that will mean that Gibraltar will act before the implications of this Bill are felt in 2020. Countries across the world—from Nigeria to Afghanistan—are now beginning to commit to public registers, so this is flowing with the tide of practice across the world. We should be showing leadership on this, not trying to be the last man, or the last woman, standing against what is morally right.

[Chris Bryant]

So far, we have been talking about public registers of beneficial ownership of companies. Does my right hon. Friend accept that this should also apply to beneficial ownership of trusts? It seems incomprehensible to me that we in this country should keep the trusts quite separate and quite hidden.

[Dame Margaret Hodge]

I completely concur with the point made so forcefully by my hon. Friend. No doubt that will be subject to further campaigns for a change in legislation over the coming period.

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[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend makes a good point about Delaware, but perhaps we should come to that on another occasion.

[Chris Bryant]

We should bear it in mind that the sanctions regime imposed by the United States of America ends up being far more aggressive, meaning it is far more difficult for Russian oligarchs to hide their money there. In fact, that has now had a significant impact on Oleg Deripaska’s holdings in this country.

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Gentleman speaks good sense. He, like me, will have been very pleased to hear from the Minister how the Magnitsky provisions will apply.

I come to the fourth and final argument that the overseas territories submit: the use of an Order in Council is over the top in this day and age; and using the royal prerogative to legislate for the OTs by Order in Council is wrong. It is right that the House considers that argument, but our new clause does so by making an Order in Council a last resort to be used only if the overseas territories have not done what we have already done in the UK and introduced open registers by the end of 2020. Others have mentioned the precedents for using an Order in Council. This House and the Government are entirely entitled to use such a mechanism if necessary—they have done so, as the right hon. Member for Barking explained—but those signing and speaking to this new clause hope that it will not be necessary. In summary, the overseas territories share our Queen and travel under our flag, and they should also share our values.

In this new clause, the right hon. Lady and I have agreed to significant concessions that I hope the overseas territories and Crown dependencies will appreciate. First, there is the total exclusion of the Crown dependencies. The Lord Chancellor was most persuasive over the past week, and they do have a different governance structure. However, I believe that Parliament will expect Her Majesty’s Government to make the point persuasively that we hope that the Crown dependencies will embrace the same ethical position and equal transparency, and accept that what is sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander.

Secondly, while both the right hon. Lady and I believe that the overseas territories should take these steps now, the Foreign Secretary was eloquent in pleading the immense difficulties that have been caused to some of these economies by the hurricanes. That is why the right hon. Lady and I agreed that we would put the timescale back by some two and half years, to the end of 2020. I very much hope that the overseas territories will take note of that. We are trying to be helpful, within the confines of the principles that we have set out in the new clause.

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[Mr Seely]

I am most grateful for that intervention. I am aware that the right hon. Gentleman has seen these documents and that he shares my concerns. I believe that the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill, should he have the privilege of being called to speak, will talk further on that point and make reference to these files.

Christopher Chandler’s personal file is marked “File code S”, a DST marker indicating, if I understand correctly, a high or higher level of threat to France. In France, the letter “S” is now used to designate radical Islam. In Monaco then, it was used to designate counter-espionage. As I have said, Mr Speaker, I believe that other Members, if you wish to call them, may cite further details—the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill, the hon. Member for Rhondda, the right hon. Member for Exeter or my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham.

I wish to state explicitly that I make no criticism of the staff at Legatum, nor those people who have engaged with its charitable work, nor members of the public, nor, clearly, Members of this House who have dealt with this institution. I have thought long and hard before making this statement, but I have done so because I believe, and the five of us believe, that it is in the national interest to do so. If people like Mr Chandler are vulnerable to malign influence—maybe he is an innocent party in this, who knows?—especially if the information on them is covert, that matters to our democracy.

In November 2017, the Prime Minister highlighted the danger from Russia of subversion. I take my lead from her when she said that the Russian regime was trying to “undermine free societies”. I also read the excellent piece in The Sunday Times this weekend looking at how Russian bots may have manipulated elections. One of the problems in elections is that if they are manipulated successfully, the winning side does not want to know and the losers plead sour grapes, so the answer is to do what we can to strengthen our electoral system before it is too late.

[Chris Bryant]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for what he has said and fully concur with what he has argued—I have seen the papers as well and I have come to the same conclusion as him. Does he think that the Magnitsky clause will make a significant difference in our being able to tackle this kind of hidden pervasive influence in British society and British politics?

[Mr Seely]

Anything that helps us is important because we need to keep our society free of covert and malign influence. I was in the States last week, as the hon. Gentleman knows, and I am working with Congressmen there and in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, so that we can combine best practice. That is important because a counter-propaganda Bill is going through the United States Congress—do we need that here, etc.?

If I see information of this kind, I have a choice: I can disregard it and become complicit or, if it is genuine, I can put it in the public domain. It might be that Committees will wish to have access to this information, and I suspect that those who have it will provide it to any of the six Committees investigating Russia, if they wish to do so. It might be that Mr Chandler can provide a satisfactory explanation or argue that these relationships, if they existed, are now historical or have been misrepresented in the documents. I do not use privilege lightly, Mr Speaker. He might wish to offer evidence, written or oral, to any of those six Committees, whose work I am supporting, in a modest way, as secretary to the Russia steering group. I look forward to his response— I am quite sure there will be one.

I will be writing to the Prime Minister in the coming weeks to suggest further measures to strengthen our democracy and electoral system. The struggle of our generation is how we deal with authoritarian states and their actors, official or proxy, who use free and open societies to damage those free and open societies. We need to do something about it. Increasingly, Members now see that covert malign influence from authoritarian states, most commonly our friends in the Kremlin but also elsewhere, is a real and present danger to our nation, to our financial system—hence this debate—and to the transparency of our democracy and electoral system, not to mention the Kremlin’s ability to conduct acts of violence and murder on our soil. We have a duty to speak up and to use this House for the public good. That is what I am doing now.

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[Mr Djanogly]

First, let me join many hon. Members in congratulating the Government and, in particular, the Minister on building a consensus within the parties and among hon. Members on the Magnitsky provisions, which I wish to speak to today.

Time is short, so I will make only a few brief points. On whether these powers are actually going to be used and on the methods of use, I do not yet see any significant change of Government policy. However, if this debate is going to be the herald of a new-found dynamism to clear the UK of the £90 billion of black money flowing through our banks, real estate market, private schools, Bond Street and the rest, I would certainly very much welcome that. My question is: will action now follow the law? I will be interested to hear whether the Foreign Office has had words with the Attorney General, the Home Office or other Departments in that regard—is there a strategy?

On the Government amendments, I see that new clause 3 provides for a reporting system for human rights violation-related sanctions. That is welcome, but my reading of this provision is that it is a retrospective check on what the Government have done and not so much on what they intend to do—if I am wrong on that, I would be grateful if the Minister would clarify the position. The measure in itself is commendable, and I agree that if the report is a sparse one, it would imply and provide evidence to support claims that the Government should be doing more. However, I was very pleased to hear the Minister suggesting today that we are also to have a list system that will be updated on an ongoing basis for those subject to sanctions, as this approach has clearly been so effective elsewhere. Having said that, will the Minister confirm whether people to whom the relevant sanctions have been applied would also need to be listed in the Government new clause 3 report? I believe the answer is yes, but I would be grateful if he would clarify that. Even if there is to be a running administrative list, it would be helpful to have the names set out in the report, with reasons given and an assessment.

There is another related issue here. Could the Minister confirm whether the visa bans attributed to section 1 -type sanctions would also be listed in the new proposed report? Again, maintaining the current system of secret visa bans is simply not as effective as people knowing that their lack of welcome here will be made public in a Magnitsky-list fashion. What these people fear, every bit as much as receiving a visa ban, is other people knowing about it.

My final point is that although this Bill creates a new post-Brexit framework for sanctions, it does not actually set out our policy for how sanctions will be considered or implemented on a multinational basis, which everyone agrees is the most effective approach, as has been said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon). So will the Minister explain how these sanctions provisions would be considered within the European Union after we have left it? For instance, is consideration being given to setting up a new co-ordinating committee within the EU? In various speeches I have read, it seems clear that the EU will continue to wish to work closely with the UK on external security matters, so there seems to be goodwill to that end. I would be interested to hear more on how we propose that decision making on sanctions will be put into an institutional context.

We have mainly discussed Russia today. It is worth mentioning that the US aluminium sanctions on Russia were put in place only a few weeks ago, and I have since heard of a degree of kickback from other countries such as Germany and other negatively affected parties. Clearly, if we are going to get tough on sanctions, it will be important to continue to present a united front. So we are seeing progress, but ultimately this will need to be proved by a better UK record of sanctions, visa bans, asset seizures and active prosecutions. Will the law be backed by action? The days of the UK being a dumping ground for illegal black money need to come to an end, and I hope that this Bill will act as a spark to get the process moving.

[Chris Bryant]

I shall be brief, Mr Speaker. Several hon. Members have spoken about the dangers of our legislation meaning that dodgy money will leave the overseas territories and go to some other kind of territory. First, that will probably be a good thing for each of those territories. Secondly, and far more importantly, all too often the way we have run our affairs in this country, and how our overseas territories have run theirs, has meant we have been a magnet for that money. For a series of different reasons, rich people who have stolen money from their own people like having it squirreled away here or in our overseas territories or, as is normally the case, in a mixture of the two. That is because they like to send their children to our expensive schools; because they like to go shopping in the UK; because, ironically enough, they like to enforce their contracts in law in British courts; and because they know that the whole system of financial and land registration in this country is relatively weak. That is why I warmly welcome the changes we are going to bring about.

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[Liam Byrne]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the next big international opportunity to make progress on this issue is the G20 in November? If we are to help to lead the argument, we must have the moral credibility of having taken action ourselves.

[Chris Bryant]

I completely agree, and that is also why I agree with the kind of approach that the hon. Member for Isle of Wight tried to enjoin on the whole House—not only on those from different political backgrounds, but also on all the different silos, including defence, foreign policy, work and pensions and the Treasury—to try to make sure that we have a united, coherent, consistent and, to use a valleys word, “tidy” approach towards the Russians. That was not “a valet’s word”, but a valleys word—[Laughter.]

[Richard Benyon]

Language is really important, and I know that the hon. Gentleman will agree that when we talk about Russia’s malign influence, we are talking about the Russian regime and the coterie of criminals that surrounds it, of which the Russian people are the victims. The Magnitsky amendment we will pass today is the most pro-Russian piece of legislation that we can pass.

[Chris Bryant]

I agree; I do not think that there is a single Member of this House who does not have profound respect for the people of Russia and for the country of Russia, and for what it has given to us culturally and in so many other ways over the centuries. But what a pain it is to us to see a country that was reaching out for liberty suddenly find itself crushed under the heel again. It is a country that should be one of the great advancing economies of today, but it is in stagnation, with barely 1% growth. That is why all of us, from all parts of this House, have campaigned to take a robust attitude to Russia.

Finally, the Russian ambassador tweeted the other day that he wants to meet the all-party group for Russia, which I chair. He is not answering his phone—I am not sure whether he is busy on something else—but we will have him next Wednesday afternoon at 2.30 pm if anyone wants to hear his view of things.

[Nick Herbert (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

I was pleased to add my name to new clause 6, and I congratulate the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) on bringing it forward. I will not repeat the powerful arguments that have been made for transparency today—they were also well made on Second Reading—other than to say that progress has been made in the overseas territories. Central registers have been introduced, but that is not sufficient for the reasons that have been given. We need that transparency to shine a light on what is happening. I suspect that there has been relatively little interrogation of the central registers by law enforcement authorities. There also needs to be a step up in law enforcement action as well as in these measures.

Two principal concerns were adduced to explain why we should at least hesitate before we compel the overseas territories to act. The first is the potential economic damage to the overseas territories. I argued strongly on Second Reading that that should not be an impediment to act. It can never be an argument that, where something wrong is being done, we fail to act simply because there might be some economic consequences. We do, however, have a duty to ensure that those economic consequences are addressed and that we help to mitigate them.

In accepting the new clause, there is a strong responsibility on this House, and now on the Government, to ensure that there is no damage to the economies of the overseas territories for taking action, especially as they may now be taking it more rapidly than they wished to, particularly when we consider, for instance, the impact of the hurricane damage on the British Virgin Islands. That concern should not prevent action, but it should be taken seriously.

The second concern is the constitutional objection: is it right for us to intervene? That is a serious argument. Again, on Second Reading, I argued that if the harm that is being done is so great that it can no longer be ignored, there is a justification to act, and there clearly is a power to do so. These are not just domestic matters for the overseas territories in which we have decided to intervene; they have a global impact. It is therefore very important for the Governments of the overseas territories to understand the reasons why this House has felt it so important to move. If they can act voluntarily, ahead of any action being taken legislatively, that would be very welcome.