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.

Diplomatic Service and Resources

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 13th March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Richard Benyon]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The role of defence attachés in our defence manufacturing capability and our ability to market that important part of our economy is so important. I entirely support what he says.

France also has a truly impressive integrated soft power strategy. The opening of the Louvre museum in Abu Dhabi is a key indicator of that. Off the back of Government investment—not private investment, but cultural investment by the Government—flows influence that directly benefits France’s Exchequer. It is hard to compare like with like, but it is possible to argue that Germany spends about three times what we spend on its posts abroad. Even if we strip it down, it spends at least £4.6 billion, which is well over twice what we spend. We spend way more than Germany on development aid in Zambia, yet we employ about 11 people to deliver it, while Germany has around 150 people delivering its aid projects there. That is because we deliver our aid through a variety of organisations, including non-governmental organisations and international institutions such as the World Bank, whereas Germany uses a well-developed cadre of in-country experts in education, health, agriculture and other disciplines to implement its projects. At the end of the day, that means that German taxpayers get a better deal because German business is intrinsically linked to the soft power investment that its Government makes.

I am here not just to whinge, but to suggest a way forward. I want the Minister to reassure us. If he cannot, I want him to take on board the genuine concerns of people who have seen how our country operates abroad and believe that, impressive though that is, we need a dynamic shift in our ability to engage in the dangerous and highly competitive world in which we find ourselves. Can he assure us that every penny of official development assistance that can be used to develop a growing number of highly professional diplomats, defence attachés and other personnel is being used to maintain us as a relevant power in the coming decades? Can he convince me that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office understands Africa? Does he understand my concern, as someone who has travelled widely in Africa and was for some years our trade envoy in Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Mozambique, that our position as a favoured partner may be under threat?

In a few years’ time, a quarter of the world’s population will live in Africa. It is a continent of huge natural resources and has massive potential as a partner in trade and so many other areas, but it feels like Britain risks being left behind. China’s investments abroad are not altruistic. In many ways, what it is doing is good—I have seen new roads, electricity generation projects and vast business parks, including in Ethiopia, that are changing people’s lives and providing wealth and opportunities for female empowerment, among other things—but it has a massive benefit to China, too. There can be a similar benefit to Britain if we play to our strengths on a continent where we are still admired and where such things as our language and our time zone are distinct advantages.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

The Select Committee on Foreign Affairs was in Paris the other day. We had an interesting discussion about how Britain and France can co-operate in Africa. There are countries where the former colonial power is not well regarded. We have been able to play an important role in places where France is the former colonial power—Mali, the Sahel and so on—in return for exactly the same co-operation where we are the former colonial power. Now that we are leaving the European Union, I wonder whether we need to be wise about how we manage our relations with our European allies.

[Richard Benyon]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. Our trade envoy, Lord Risby, is doing great work in countries such as Algeria in promoting what we do. I have not heard this from him, but I imagine that he is able to have conversations that the French perhaps find it harder to have. On defence engagement, we are using the Lancaster House agreement to our benefit. We are assisting the French forces in Mali with lift—with helicopters and things like that. That partnership in the fight against terrorism—against organisations such as Boko Haram and al-Shabaab—delivers influence and benefit in a variety of ways.

My final point is that Ministers in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office require political intelligence.

[Chris Bryant]

Uh-oh. [Laughter.]

[Richard Benyon]

Perhaps I should have worded that better. They require intelligence about what is going on politically in those countries. They need to know who is on the rise in different parties, who the new influences are and who could be the next generation of leaders. Our diplomats provide that intelligence superbly, but Parliament should hold the Executive to account to ensure that we have enough of them and that we have them in the right places.

I argue that there should be a new strategy, even if we were not leaving the EU. However, Brexit brings a new urgency to our deliberations. It is not too late to see a paradigm shift in our strategy, but influence is hard won and easily lost. We need to understand that with influence comes jobs at home and stability abroad. That is something that even the Treasury should understand.

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[Jim Shannon]

I agree. Each of us in the Chamber can speak for our own food and drink sectors. I am pleased to have Portavogie prawns and Comber potatoes in my constituency, both of which are names in their own right across Europe, and we want to see them across the whole of the world. We will build on that trade to make that happen. A number of new gin distilleries are also starting up: two have done so in my constituency in the last year and a half, and the hon. Lady probably has those as well. The sector is growing, and we want to ensure that that continues.

[Chris Bryant]

But according to the Prime Minister yesterday, the biggest threat we face at the moment relates to Russia. We have been proud that, over the past few years, we have managed to go to European Council meetings and get the rest of the European Union to sign up to international sanctions against Russia. At the moment, the Prime Minister is speaking to Macron and, no doubt, Merkel and other leaders around Europe to try to get the whole of Europe signed up to a common position. That will be vital to us. It will be much more difficult for us to achieve that when in future we will not get to sit at the table when common security and defence policy is agreed. How does the hon. Gentleman think that will happen?

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his “but.” It is always good to have his input. Let us be honest: we all see the common threat, which at this time is Russia, as the Prime Minister told us yesterday in the Chamber. It is across the fronts of all the papers and front-page news on the media today. Already, France, Germany and other European partners recognise the common threat of Russia. I am confident, as I hope he is, about how we can espy the common enemy, understand where the focus has to be and then move forward accordingly.

An oft-cited statistic on trade with the Commonwealth bears repeating: in 2015, UK exports of goods and services to the Commonwealth were worth some £47.4 billion, while imports were worth £45.5 billion. The right hon. Member for Newbury referred to the Commonwealth, and we cannot forget about it. It is important for us to have it in place.

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[Sir Nicholas Soames]

I completely agree with my right hon. Friend. He was a distinguished and successful Foreign Office Minister, and he has seen all these things in action. He is completely right: we will have to redouble all our efforts, call in all our chips, and work very hard to retain our influence and position on the world stage. That is an incontestable fact.

[Chris Bryant]

Some people have suggested in recent months that after Brexit, instead of spending so much time on Brussels, we should spend more time on other European capitals. My feeling is exactly the opposite: to secure the foreign policy and security outcomes we want, will we not have to double our efforts in Brussels to ensure that we win arguments?

[Sir Nicholas Soames]

I agree, and I would say further that we will have to ride every single horse in the park, not just the European horse. We no longer have a diplomatic network in the way that we used to, because our diplomatic network has been subordinated, in a perfectly sensible way, to working within the European Union. We will have to revitalise that, and indeed there is now a great rush to hire people or move them around, to ensure that the embassies are properly equipped. My father was for a time the British Ambassador in Paris. I was in the Army at that time, and I look back on those days, before we were members of the European Union, at the sheer scale of British diplomatic efforts to achieve what we set out to achieve, which was truly remarkable. We will have to replicate that right across Europe in order to retain our position.

[Chris Bryant]

rose—

[Sir Nicholas Soames]

I will continue if I may.

These relationships with allies, friends and networks do not just drop into our lap; they require continuous and ceaseless effort, and the most serious diplomatic work. Take the example of the last few months. With our allies we continue to be engaged in an active diplomatic and other campaign to counter Islamist extremism. We have also once again entered an era of deterrence in the face of threatening rhetoric and aggressive behaviour from Russia. While military deterrence must be properly integrated with political, economic, diplomatic and other hybrid deterrence measures, credible conventional military capability remains a vital part of a strategy designed to keep the peace. It also ranks, pari passu, with the diplomatic effort required to ensure the same thing. In an environment of uncertainty, it is essential that we stand with all our diplomatic, military and other assets, ready to reassure, and if necessary defend, our allies in a manner that will force any potential opponents to think twice. As I have said, that requires not just military assets, but most especially our diplomatic reach across the world.

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[Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Bailey, for getting round to this knight, as Sir Lancelot may have said to Guinevere. I am delighted to join in this important debate this morning. I hope that it will not be the last we shall have on the subject.

I do not seek to replicate much of what my right hon. and hon. Friends have said. I just want to pick up on one or two issues, the first of which is our physical global imprint—our estate. I hope to go from here later to a lunch to congratulate James Stourton and Luke White, who have produced a magnificent book called “British Embassies: Their Diplomatic and Architectural History”. It is an extraordinarily good book on Britain’s overseas estate. Looking through it, it is possible to have one of two reactions—to giggle in bemused embarrassment at the awful post-colonial life that our embassies represent, or feel rather proud that we possess some of the finest properties, many of which, incidentally, were gifted to us by the then Heads of State of the host countries. That is something that other countries look on with envy.

In my four and a half years at the Foreign Office, I was pleased to open some rather small embassies that had been closed, in Asunción and in El Salvador, and a consulate in Recife, and so on. It was always a source of pride to be reopening embassies, however small, rather than going around closing them. I cannot think of a single example, in retrospect, about which we can say, “Gosh, weren’t we clever to sell X embassy: we are in much better accommodation now”—Madrid being one of the great disasters. I was rather involved in the Bangkok embassy site; the rationale for the sale was that it was inappropriately located and no longer fit for purpose, although, needless to say, we had just spent some huge amount of money on accommodation on that site. I note with horror what I have picked up on my various visits—that the Chancellery building in Paris, which will be well known to my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames), whose bedroom no doubt overlooked it for many happy years, is possibly going to be sold. What a ridiculous message it would send to Paris, at the heart of Europe, as we exit the European Union, to sell our Chancellery building on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré.

My right hon. Friend the Minister does an excellent job in the Foreign Office now. I do not know whether he sits on the body I sat on—the Foreign Office board, where many of these things are discussed. It strikes me, in my experience, that these things are never brought to the attention of Ministers. Perhaps they are brought to the Foreign Secretary, but on the whole they are decided by the permanent under-secretary and others—the mandarins within the Foreign Office. There is absolutely no doubt, to my way of thinking, that these are Treasury-led decisions. It is about saving money, not about looking at our global footprint and where we want to be represented.

In future, whenever there is any discussion, there is an oversight role here for the Foreign Affairs Committee, on which many hon. Members sit, to have a view on any proposed changes to the diplomatic estate globally, and not at the eleventh hour, when the decisions have effectively already been taken. I would like to see that change, and I would welcome the Minister’s view on that.

[Chris Bryant]

rose—

[Richard Benyon]

rose—

[Sir Hugo Swire]

I will take the hon. Gentleman’s intervention first, and then that of my right hon. Friend.

[Chris Bryant]

The Foreign Affairs Committee intends to do exactly as the right hon. Gentleman suggests. If I can correct one thing, I do not think the Madrid decision was made on a Treasury basis. The old building was difficult to maintain and was listed under Spanish law and all the rest of it, but we did move to the wrong place. I opened it, as it happened—the highest embassy we have in the world, I think, because it is in the highest capital in Europe and on the 75th floor, or whatever. It is virtually inaccessible to lots of people and it was a terrible mistake for us to move there. My biggest concern—

[Mr Adrian Bailey (in the Chair)]

Order. Interventions should be short and not speeches. I want to bring the Front-Bench spokespersons in at 10.30, so would everybody bear that in mind?

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[Helen Goodman]

I will come to the soft power aspects and the institutions that contribute to that in a moment. First, I want to look at the numbers and the reductions that the Foreign Office budget has had since 2010 and is projected to have.

[Chris Bryant]

I slightly disagree with the right hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames). I do not know whether my hon. Friend noticed, but Emmanuel Macron went to India the other day and said, notwithstanding our historic relationship with India, as part of the former empire and all the rest of it, that he intends France to be India’s prime access point to the European Union in the future. We have to be very careful about not relying on the past.

[Helen Goodman]

If we leave the European Union, we obviously cannot be the prime access point to the European Union. That stands to reason.

I will come to the soft power assets in a moment, but I just want to say something about the numbers. The Foreign Office budget reduction is slightly unclear. Is it 16%, 30% or 40% over the 10-year period? Whatever it is, it is quite a significant amount of resource. I realise that some of the Foreign Office budget has gone into the Department for International Trade and some into the Department for Exiting the European Union, but the smallest cut that one can glean from looking at the numbers is about 16%, which is none the less extremely large. It seems to me that it is difficult for the Government to project the global Britain role while at the same time reducing resources in the Foreign Office.

Turning to our soft power assets, we are all very proud of the World Service and pleased with the British Council, and we all think that the Commonwealth is a fantastic network. There is another soft power asset, which I think we should look at alongside those assets. I am talking about our universities and higher education. We have soft power assets in this country as well as overseas.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Asia and the Pacific (Mark Field)]

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon) for securing this vital debate on an issue of national importance. I pay tribute to his valuable work on the Intelligence and Security Committee. I know from experience the time-consuming but absorbing nature of its activity, albeit that, by its nature, it is rather unsung and, in theory at least, low profile.

I thank everyone who contributed during the debate; there were some excellent contributions. I shall endeavour to answer all the questions, as I have a little more time than I had anticipated. There are one or two more technical aspects on which I will write to the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman), if I am able to do so, subsequently.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury rightly talked about the need for a dramatic and dynamic shift of resource. He touched on our Africa strategy. As he will be aware, our right hon. Friend the Prime Minister set out, at her first G20 meeting in July 2017, a new long-term vision for our partnerships with Africa, centred on supporting African aspirations for economic growth, trade, job creation and investment. Ministers across Her Majesty’s Government have worked closely together to refresh our approach in order to deliver on that vision. We are clear—I reiterate the words of my right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury—that our substantial development spend in Africa needs to be directed more broadly towards the UK national interest, as well as supporting those in greatest need in Africa.

Let me touch on the point raised just now by the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland. I agree with her fundamentally, in that I think it is dangerous for us to look on aid as intermingled with other strands of British interest. We can take, for example, the deteriorating political situation in Cambodia at the moment. We have some important long-term aid programmes in Cambodia that deal with mine clearance and are designed to work for the most vulnerable in that country. The notion that we should hold the Cambodian Government of the day, however much we might disapprove of their work, to ransom in some form in that regard would be quite wrong. Indeed, I made it very clear in my meeting with the Cambodian ambassador only a few weeks ago that we would continue, on exactly the same terms, to fulfil our aid obligations.

However, I do believe that there is at least some mileage in the view that we need to look at this issue. I have sympathy with a number of my right hon. Friends, who talked in their contributions about the idea of DFID coming back into the Foreign Office. There is a sense in which there needs to be a broader focus. Particularly in the post-Brexit world that we will be living in, we need to focus all our energies in a one-Government situation.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury talked about official development assistance, which was also raised by the Opposition spokesman. It is right to say that the Foreign Office is and will continue to be a large ODA-spending Department. The Department closely complements DFID’s efforts, and we are trying to deliver on the Government’s aid strategy commitments through our own programmes—in particular, the cross-Whitehall conflict, stability and security fund and the prosperity fund, for which I now have responsibility in the Foreign Office. That also involves grants to external organisations, and our global remit means that we are designing those to deliver a breadth of programming in support of our national security strategy that other Departments simply do not have the resource to do. I believe that programmes of that sort will very evidently begin to add value by responding quickly to specific or niche requirements in volatile environments. I am talking about pursuing higher-risk programmes where political sensitivities require a different approach, but also exploring and testing options before scaling up and unlocking larger interventions by others.

It is recognised that some of the ODA and non-ODA programmes will have to be blended together, in order to secure some of the best outcomes in the future. That applies not just to Africa, but to Asia and the Pacific—an issue close to my heart and that of my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Sir Hugo Swire). I accept that an unintended consequence will be that some aspects of our annual report will be rendered more opaque.

In many ways it would be a pleasure to have a much broader debate, along the lines that my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames) developed. I hope that we will be able to have further discussions both offline and on the Floor of the House in future. He is well aware that I have a significant amount of sympathy with much of what he said. We need to be realistic about where we are in the future. I will be honest: I gave considerable thought to whether I should be a Minister in this Government. I was, like him, passionately—on emotional and geopolitical grounds as much as anything else—keen that this country should stay in the European Union. Yes, in my heart of hearts, I do believe it was a mistake. However, we have to make it work. I think it is also important that people of my mind play their part within Government, rather than just beyond Government, not to frustrate that Brexit outcome, but to try and make it work as well as we can and to put that voice across.

[Chris Bryant]

I do not disagree with what the Minister has just said, but the key thing is how we ensure that we are able to secure the policy outcomes on defence, security and foreign affairs, in relation to places such as Russia, the middle east or Iran, after Brexit. I urge the Foreign Office to do a full review of our presence in Brussels itself, because it will need to become much more like a lobbying operation than it has ever been before.

[Mark Field]

I have a lot of sympathy with that view and I think there is little doubt that we will need to do that. I saw that when I attended the Foreign Affairs Council only last week, in the stead of the Foreign Secretary.

I will talk a bit about the British Council, because that was mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex. I fully recognise the fantastic work of the British Council and its soft power potential post-Brexit. I have seen that with my own eyes in virtually all my overseas visits in Asia, and indeed even last week when I was in Paris. Funding for the British Council has increased over the spending period. There are issues, as I think my right hon. Friend is aware, about the signing off of accounts. We need to get those accounts ready, not just to impress the Treasury, but because I want to be able to make the most aggressive case for the importance of that soft power, and the British Council’s integral importance in that, when we leave the European Union, but that does require the British Council having its financial house in order. We are working closely with the Treasury to try to achieve that impact.

Government Policy on Russia

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 6th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I do not think the Government have been robust or consistent enough over these past few years, and I have said that for a long time. Putin’s violent record is a matter for all to see—Beslan, the Moscow theatre, Crimea and Ukraine, Anna Politkovskaya and many other journalists, Sergei Magnitsky, Boris Nemtsov and so on. The truth is that this Government have repeatedly just shrugged their shoulders. After the Litvinenko inquiry found that Putin was personally responsible, the Government did absolutely nothing in response. What happens when a murdering dictator is told that nothing is going to happen? They just do it all over again. I urge the Foreign Secretary to think long and hard about a proper Magnitsky Act, which many other countries have adopted already. Let us make it absolutely clear to Russia: you cannot kill people on our soil with impunity.

[Boris Johnson]

I agree with the last sentiment the hon. Gentleman expressed, but I do not agree that the UK stood by and did nothing after the murder of Alexander Litvinenko. On the contrary, we have led the world in tough action against Russia: both at the United Nations and in the European Union we have been in the forefront of those calling for tough measures against Putin’s Russia. I made exactly those points in Moscow when I saw Sergei Lavrov, as some hon. Members may recall. As for the hon. Gentleman’s substantive point about a Magnitsky Act or a Magnitsky amendment, as I said in an earlier answer to an Opposition Member we are certainly willing to look at sensible proposals.

International Court of Justice

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 1st March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ian Murray]

The Chagos islands issue is not mentioned directly in the report, although it is used as an example of where the UK has taken votes to the UN in recent times and lost. It is clear that not being on the ICJ diminishes the UK’s voice on making sensible decisions at the UN. One of the report’s conclusions is that the real difficulty is not directly the loss of a judge on the ICJ but in how we get a judge back on to the ICJ. Incumbency is a special thing in being able to promote a future election. Indeed, not being the incumbent will make it much more difficult next time.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I wonder whether my hon. Friend got the same impression as I did. Repeated witnesses told us that there was a kind of shrug at international meetings, with people saying, “What on earth are you doing with regard to Brexit? Why are you choosing to step back from your international role?” That might have contributed to this election result.

There was a second kind of shrug from all the Government Ministers, who seemed to go, “You win some, you lose some. Does it really matter?” If that is the sense permeating throughout Government, we certainly will lose influence around the world. Do we not need a much stronger sense of leadership from the top of Government, and particularly from the Foreign Secretary?

[Ian Murray]

My hon. Friend is also a member of the Committee. He is right that we extensively questioned Lord Ahmad, the Minister of State for the Commonwealth and the UN, on the reasons for the loss of our place on the ICJ, and he did not seem to have any reasons for that loss. We questioned him in depth on what countries had fed back to him on why they did not vote for the UK, or why they voted for the UK in the first round and then changed their vote to another nation. Again, he did not really have a reason. There seems to be significant complacency in the Foreign Office, and Ministers, the Foreign Secretary and the Foreign Office will have to up their game significantly post Brexit to ensure that the UK’s voice is not diminished.