Jammu and Kashmir

Chris Leslie Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. As I said, we note the findings of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights reports, which are deeply concerning. We will make sure that these are brought up in international committee, both in New York and in Geneva.

[Mr Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Ind)]

The attack in Srinagar was absolutely atrocious, and the prospect of descending into a tit-for-tat exchange is immensely depressing. As the Minister knows, this is an incredibly serious issue. I speak as the former chair of the all-party Kashmir group. Last year, we published our report on our inquiry into the human rights situation, as the Minister knows, because he heard a recent presentation on that. I hear what he says about Government policy, but we have a responsibility to help to support confidence-building measures. We have a legacy responsibility in that region of the world, and the UK has an obligation to lead and show the way forward for human rights and peace in this area.

[Mark Field]

I take on board what the hon. Gentleman says and support the idea that there is a leadership role, not least within the UN Security Council, where clearly, long-standing connections between the UK and both India and Pakistan will be brought to bear. We will continue to be in the closest possible contact at senior level in both India and Pakistan to try to avoid escalation and ensure regional stability. Part of that is obviously about the capacity building to which he refers. I think he will understand that quite a lot of work goes on both in India and Pakistan to try to ensure that this is brought to bear and hopefully make lives better for all concerned.

Venezuela

Chris Leslie Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend. This goes back a long way. Indeed, the Leader of the Opposition was an enormous fan of Maduro’s predecessor, Mr Chávez. He went out of his way to praise him for his inspiring leadership and

“for showing that the poor matter and wealth can be shared.”

That sharing of wealth allowed Chávez to amass a fortune of over $1 billion while his people pretty well had to go and lick the streets in order to feed themselves. This allows me to point out, I hope very clearly, that anyone who says that Venezuela’s plight is down to the action of the Americans and their sanctions ought to read my Chatham House speech from last November, which maps out in great detail the steps that Chávez and Maduro took, over many years, that have led to the complete collapse of the Venezuelan economy, almost all of which had nothing whatsoever to do with the United States.

[Mr Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Minister understand that the problem with those on the political extremes of the spectrum is that they tend, in an ideological way, to see the world in terms of black and white, oppressor and oppressed? There is a real problem in seeing Maduro and his regime as the victim of others—America or whoever it may be. The truth is that the direct cause of the mass starvation and the 3 million refugees is the Chávez-Maduro corrupt communism that has been pursued in that country. A better illustration we could not get than the picture of the blockaded bridge that is still leading to starvation in the country. The doctors, by the way, are not allowed to designate people who die from malnutrition as having done so because they are banned from putting that on the death certificates.

What can we do to influence and put pressure on the regime? Can we get the Russian Administration to do more, or the Chinese or the Cubans? Are there individuals, perhaps even the leader of the Labour party, who have a close relationship with Maduro who could at this stage pick up the telephone and implore him—beg him—to stop this appalling approach and to leave government immediately?

Venezuela

Chris Leslie Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

When it comes to elections, we often offer very substantial advice and assistance to ensure that electoral registers are properly drawn up, and that the conduct of elections is properly monitored and financed. In this case, I hope it will be far more than just the UK taking an interest. I hope there will be a global effort to ensure that, together across the world, we can help to rescue the country from the tyranny it has been facing from Maduro.

[Mr Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Minister not agree that the hundreds of thousands taking to the streets in Venezuela and the millions fleeing that country are not doing so because of some grand Trump-oil conspiracy, but because they are starving? They are starving and they are suffering because of Maduro’s corrupt communism. Would it not be better if those who have been hailing that discredited ideology took this opportunity to apologise and admit they were wrong?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his good sense and for his sense of humanity in analysing what is going on in Venezuela. I noticed that, as he said what he said, he cast a glance at his hon. Friend the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson). It astonishes me that some of those who are so unreconstructed, who are nothing more than throwbacks to an old communist era, bleat about the poor and are then happy to support someone who has done nothing other than make poor people poorer.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Leslie Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

It is the rule of law that needs to govern the decision affecting the future of Catalonia. We fully defend the rule of law and actively assert that this can take place only within the proper workings of the Spanish constitution.

[Mr Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

13. If he will encourage his counterpart in Malaysia to welcome Commonwealth observers at the forthcoming general election in that country.

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

We encourage all countries, including Malaysia, to conduct open and transparent election processes. Naturally that should include external observation missions, which I believe—and I am sure the hon. Gentleman believes—are important to achieving a legitimate democratic outcome.

[Mr Leslie]

I welcome the Minister’s statement. Election observers can help to check that electoral registration in constituencies and districts, campaign finance and polling day are all above board. Will the Minister do what he can to help our friends in Malaysia show the entire world that these elections can be free and fair?

[Mark Field]

I very much hope so. As the hon. Gentleman points out, Malaysia is an important partner for the United Kingdom, with co-operation across a range of areas, including security, prosperity, education, foreign policy and Islamic finance. He will be glad to know that I have a routine meeting—tomorrow morning, no less—at the Foreign Office with the high commissioner to Malaysia, and I will ensure that his heartfelt views are put forward.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Leslie Excerpts

Tuesday 11th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

Yesterday, the Prime Minister’s spokesman was reported as saying that,

“the transition rules could involve the European Court of Justice for a limited time…that’s all a matter for negotiation.”

That is the quote that was reported. So can the Foreign Secretary confirm this change in Government policy, and set out the rationale behind it?

[Boris Johnson]

We are in a negotiation whose objective is to come out from under the penumbra of the European Court of Justice, and outside the EU legal order, and that is what we will achieve.

Budget Resolutions

Chris Leslie Excerpts

Monday 13th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

If Labour Members will allow me, I shall say a couple more sentences.

The first of the conditions that are essential for the prosperity of global Britain is security. Unlike the Labour party, whose idea of a nuclear deterrent is to send our submarines to sea without a nuclear missile aboard so that the whole nation is literally firing blanks, this Government see the vital importance of maintaining our defences. This Budget therefore provides once again for the United Kingdom to set an example to our European partners by spending 2% of our GDP on our armed forces, thereby giving vital credibility to NATO, which of course serves as the guarantor of the security of all our major trading partners on either side of the Atlantic.

[Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

On the point about our trading relationships, at the weekend, the right hon. Gentleman said that it would be perfectly okay for the UK to leave the European Union with no deal and to fall back on World Trade Organisation rules. Lord Heseltine said, “Well, that’s rubbish, isn’t it?” Is it rubbish?

[Boris Johnson]

I repeat what I said at the weekend, and I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman was paying attention. I do not believe, by the way, that it will come to that, because we will have no difficulty over the next couple of years in doing a deal that is very much in the interests of both sides. I shall come on to that later.

To get back to the defence of the planet, let me remind Members that we are not only committed to transatlantic defences, as we will also spend £3 billion east of Suez in the Gulf region over the next 10 years. In fact we are reopening and restoring our role east of Suez, arguably for the first time since 1967. We are reopening a naval base in Bahrain, which makes perfect economic sense as well. If Labour Members cared about these things, they would understand that there is an absolute connection between our security and our economic prosperity, because the region of the Gulf—the Opposition probably do not know this—is our largest and fastest-growing export market apart from the EU and the US.

It does not end there either, because we are also committed to the security of the wider world, including Asia. Last year, as the House will know, the Royal Air Force sent Typhoon fighters to Japan, South Korea and Malaysia, proving that Britain remains one of the handful of countries able to deploy air power 7,000 miles from its shores. Soon the Royal Navy will have two giant aircraft carriers, each of them longer than the Palace of Westminster—the biggest warships this country has ever possessed, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales.

US Immigration Policy

Chris Leslie Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

I am aware that there are other countries, particularly in the middle east, that ban the citizens of at least one country from entering their own.

[Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

Why did the Foreign Secretary make no reference at all in his statement to the Americans’ suspension of their refugee programme? Should not our Prime Minister have echoed the words of the Canadian Prime Minister by saying that we welcome those who are fleeing persecution, terror and war, regardless of their faith?

[Boris Johnson]

Our policy on receiving refugees has not changed, and we have a good record. The United States, to the best of my knowledge, has taken about 12,000 Syrian refugees alone. As I said earlier, I do not think that anybody could reasonably fault the United States of America as a great recipient of migrants from around the world. If we look at the numbers—45 million people in the US were not born in that country—we see that it has a very distinguished record.

Kashmir

Chris Leslie Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a tragedy in some ways that we are still here debating this issue, although I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee and hon. Members for securing the debate. Here we are again—I think it is a couple of years since we had a substantive discussion of this matter.

As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain), it is 70 years since the partitioning of the region, where Britain, of course, had an integral responsibility and role. It is for that reason that we cannot wash our hands of this problem, just ignore it or sweep it under the carpet. The UK has a long-standing duty and responsibility to take an interest and to be involved in this issue.

We have heard, of course, about the United Nations resolution and the call for a plebiscite to solve the issue, but nothing really moves forward. The frustration of many of my hon. Friends in the Chamber is palpable. We do not particularly relish having to come here to talk about this issue time and time again, but we find ourselves having to do so.

Decades on, we find ourselves talking about some of the tragedies that are occurring. Yes, there are occasionally brief spells of calm, but those are then broken by rising tensions, by conflict and by the flare-up of issues. Often, that is because funerals breach curfews that are put in place, which in turn escalates the conflict in this heavily militarised part of the world—and on and on the cycle goes. We have heard a lot about the effects of pellet guns, for instance; I am glad that many hon. Members have raised that. The UK Government must make it clear that there are appropriate and inappropriate ways to address civil issues that arise on the streets.

Lots of different organisations and parts of the community have a role to play, as well as the UK. The United Nations clearly has a role. This issue should not be parked and hidden away, often because there is very little media coverage and not much information about what is happening in this part of the world. India and Pakistan do not just have a role—they have a responsibility to do more to move away from the heat and the conflict in this situation to find a better path to the future. Perhaps a wider regional approach to finding peaceful solutions should be explored, given that we see this in other conflict zones around the world. Often where there are bilateral disagreements between two countries in a region, trying to find ways of saving face on either side is incredibly difficult, as we have seen in the middle east, so there is an argument for involving other parties and nations in that part of the world to think about ways of breaking the deadlock.

The Kashmiri community themselves clearly want to have a role, and they do have one: they are a very vocal community in many of our neighbourhoods. As I have said to many groups that press for attention to be given to human rights and for self-determination in Kashmir, it would help massively if they could all co-ordinate and work together. That includes communicating with Members of Parliament, because we are not getting information about what is happening in that part of the world. Much more could be done in the new ways in which we operate, even on social media, to make sure that the wider community and policymakers are aware of issues that arise, and effective co-ordination would make a difference in that regard.

We need to start to think laterally about how to crack this problem so that we are not here again in two years’ time. What different mechanisms could be available to try to find peaceful solutions? The UK has a role and should think about promoting peacekeeping, which means encouraging Governments to demilitarise and stop the attacks to take out the tension and the heat; promoting peace-building, which means reversing some of the destructive steps that have been taken in recent years; and promoting peacemaking, which means searching for negotiated resolutions where possible. All these things can and should be taking place simultaneously.

Leaders in India and Pakistan must all dial back on aggression and not be provoked by individual attacks, although that is of course difficult if they feel that different governmental forces are behind, or alleged to be behind, certain attacks. Normalisation of the situation in Kashmir is absolutely essential so that we can open the routes and channels for dialogue. As my hon. Friends the Members for Bradford East and for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) said, we must go back to the rule of law as a matter of urgency, and have the accountability for the police and the armed forces that has been lacking in many ways.

I know there is a long-standing position in terms of the Foreign Office’s policy on this, but I call on the Minister and the UK Government to think about ways of promoting conflict resolution and confidence-building measures between the different sides—for example, a summit to learn lessons about peacemaking tactics in areas where the UK has been involved in times past. The conflict in Northern Ireland was lengthy, and it took a lot of time to get people around the table, sometimes not even in the same building or the same room, but the UK Government have expertise in this field and they should find ways of applying it. It is also worth thinking about the potential role of economic development and regeneration in reciprocation for dialogue that we might want to have, because that has worked in other situations.

I thank those from the Pakistani and Kashmiri community who have made strong representations to me. On Friday 24 February, I will host a Nottingham roundtable on Kashmir, trying to bring together, as independently as I possibly can, all those with an interest in this issue to try to drill down into what the community is looking for and the solutions that might be viable, and then to make representations to the Government. I am grateful for the opportunity to make that point directly to the Minister this afternoon.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Leslie Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

May I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend on his well-deserved knighthood in the new year’s honours list? He speaks very good sense. I think that I can agree with him completely without in any way being convicted of giving a running commentary on our negotiations, so I thank him very much.

[Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

Never mind a running commentary, has the Foreign Secretary given any commentary at all to his own officials, such as Sir Ivan Rogers, who left the service saying that he had not been given any sense of the Government’s negotiating objectives? Will the Secretary of State perhaps speak to Sir Tim Barrow and give him a clue about what the Government intend to do?

[Boris Johnson]

If the hon. Gentleman consults the speeches of the Prime Minister more closely, he will discover a wealth of information about our negotiating position, but since he has not bothered to do that, I do not propose to enlighten him now, except to say that Sir Ivan Rogers did an excellent job and always gave me very good advice. I think his reasons for stepping down early were persuasive. Sir Tim Barrow, as anybody who has worked with him will know—I think that people on both sides of the House will have done so—is an outstanding public servant with long-standing experience of UK representation in Brussels, and he will do a superb job in the forthcoming talks.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Leslie Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Swire]

My hon. Friend will be aware that we are talking about two sovereign countries, India and Pakistan. It is not for the United Kingdom to come between them, other than to urge them to talk. There are some good moves and communications between the leaders of Pakistan and India and they are discussing the subject, among other things, which we very much welcome.

[Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

But I would say to the Minister that the situation has been going on for decades, and the UK has some expertise in building more peaceful settlements. Is there not a bit more that the UK could do to promote confidence-building measures between India and Pakistan, and at the very least raise this as a priority with the EU special representative so that some of our other allies know that this is more of a priority?

[Mr Swire]

We do things as best we can without getting directly involved, and we welcome the fact that on 25 December Prime Minister Modi visited Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in Pakistan, the first such visit for 11 years. That must be good news, but the hon. Gentleman knows full well the long-standing position of the Government—and when he was in government the position was no different—that this is a matter for the Indians and the Pakistanis to resolve, not the United Kingdom.