Government Referendum Leaflet
Christopher Chope Excerpts(8 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Lidington
That is not an argument for leaving the European Union. It is an argument for more effective co-operation between police forces and intelligence agencies. One reason why our security would be at hazard if we were to withdraw is that leaving the EU would mean leaving the various arrangements for police and judicial co-operation that have enabled us to detect and disrupt the work of terrorists and other criminals and to bring to justice people who had fled to other countries to seek refuge from justice there. Because we are in the EU, it means that we are able more quickly and more cheaply to remove to other jurisdictions people who had come to the United Kingdom than we could possibly do outside the EU.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
Can my right hon. Friend explain why there is no reference in this document to the massive trade deficit that the UK has with the rest of the European Union? A reference to various percentages is made, but my constituent Alan from Ferndown emailed me this afternoon to point out that those figures are at best meaningless and at worst totally misleading. What are the actual figures, in terms of millions of pounds, for our deficit? Does my right hon. Friend agree with my response to Alan and many others who are angry about this that rather than just be angry, they must get even?
EU Membership (Audit of Costs and Benefits) Bill
Christopher Chope Excerpts(8 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
Madam Deputy Speaker, I apologise on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) for his being unable to participate in this debate. He has been waiting for the opportunity for a long time, and it is only because of a series of supervening events that he cannot be here to move the Bill’s Second Reading himself. In those circumstances, he asked me, as a co-sponsor, to move it on his behalf, which it gives me great pleasure to do.
You may be aware, Madam Deputy Speaker, that this Bill, or a Bill very similar to it, has had a long gestation. It was back in the 2007-08 Session that I brought forward a Bill, supported by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough and other colleagues. It was entitled the European Union (Audit of Benefits and Costs of UK Membership) Bill to
“establish a Commission to carry out regular audits of the economic costs and benefits of the UK’s membership of the European Union; and for connected purposes.”
That Bill had almost a full day’s debate here on 20 June 2008.
As we start today’s debate it is worth recalling some of the comments I made when opening the previous debate. The Bill was narrower than this one, in that it dealt only with the economic costs and benefits of the UK’s membership of the European Union. I started by referring to the preface to an excellent work by Ian Milne, “A Cost Too Far?: An Analysis of the Net Economic Costs and Benefits for the UK of EU Membership”. In the foreword to that pamphlet, which was published in July 2004, the former distinguished and late Speaker Lord Weatherill stated that when he was the Conservative Government’s Deputy Chief Whip in 1972, he supported entry into the European Common Market
“on the assurance of the Prime Minister, Mr Edward Heath that ‘joining the community does not entail a loss of national identity or an erosion of essential national sovereignty.’”
Lord Weatherill went on to say that things had moved on a bit since then, and that what was important was that
“Parliamentarians now have a sacred duty honestly to explain the pros and cons of our developing relationship with the European Union. Only then can the people make an informed choice.”
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on putting forward this magnificent Bill and I thank him for giving me the privilege of being one of his co-sponsors. In the debate of 2008 and in the research by Ian Milne, was any prediction made that in 2016 we would be faced with a £62 billion annual deficit of trade with the European Union?
Mr Chope
The short answer is no. I do not think it was ever envisaged that the European Union would be such a manifest failure as an economic entity and would be unable to maintain its share of world trade. We know that since 1972, the EU share of world trade has declined significantly. We know, too, that the EU has not been growing in economic terms in the way people thought would be possible—even to the extent that we now face a situation in which half the new jobs being created in Europe are being created in the United Kingdom, while the other half are being created in the 27 other countries of the EU. When we first joined, the share of trade that the EU had with the rest of the world was significantly higher than it is now, despite the fact that at that time it had many fewer member countries. As the EU has got larger in numbers, its influence over trade in the rest of the world has declined. I do not think that any of that was anticipated by Mr Milne in his pamphlet.
Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)
Does not the Bill have a serious drawback if it is seeking to educate the public? Clause 6 seeks to set up a commission that will report within 12 months. If we are supporting this Bill, is not the inescapable conclusion that we are, in effect, arguing for the referendum to be put back two years?
Mr Chope
My right hon. Friend is a lawyer, so he knows that he is absolutely correct. The Bill was brought forward back in June and we did not know then what would happen. We did not know when we would get a referendum. Now we know that we are going to get a referendum so I will not ask the House to give the Bill a Second Reading today. It has been overtaken by the welcome fact that we are getting our referendum on 23 June. I hope that when that happens, we will be able to have an objective assessment of the costs and benefits of our membership, although I must say that on the basis of recent events, I am rather concerned about whether there will be such an open and objective assessment by the Government. Still, I live in hope.
Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)
Is my hon. Friend proposing to withdraw the Bill or is he going to carry on with it?
Mr Chope
The answer to my hon. Friend is, as always, that I am going to wait and see what the Minister says in response to my Bill. I am not going to anticipate that. Discussing the Bill provides us with a chance to look at the various issues surrounding information, or lack of it, on the costs and benefits of our membership of the European Union.
Today, I am delighted that Lord Howard—Michael Howard, as he was when he was a Member of this House—has decided to join the leave campaign. I had the privilege of serving with him as a junior Minister for several years in the late 1980s so I know what a great supporter he is of the idea of Europe. What he has shown today by his decision, however, is that he is very much against us continuing to be members of a European Union that is increasingly out of touch with the needs of the people of Europe. That is a really important move, following so soon after the decision by Lord Owen to join the leave campaign.
As a further response to the point raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Sir Greg Knight), let me say that I tabled a parliamentary question to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 1 June 2015. It said:
“To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will commission an independent audit of the economic costs and benefits of UK membership of the EU.”
Do you know what answer I got, Madam Deputy Speaker? I shall read it to the House. It said:
“The Government has a clear mandate to improve Britain’s relationship with the rest of the EU, and to reform the EU”—
I emphasise that point—
“so that it creates jobs and increases living standards for all its citizens. The Government will hold an in/out referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU by the end of 2017.”
What was the answer to the question—I hear you saying, Madam Deputy Speaker—about the economic costs and benefits of UK membership? There was no answer. Why was there no answer from the Treasury Minister? Why did the Treasury not want to answer the question? It knew that if it said “no”, it would be ridiculed; and it knew that it did not want such an audit, so it was not prepared to say yes.
Mr Hollobone
Is it not the case that Her Majesty’s Government have always been frightened of an independent objective analysis of the costs and benefits of our membership, which explains why they were so worried about the answer to my hon. Friend’s question? Only today, we have heard the latest spin from Her Majesty’s Government that, were we to leave the European Union, the pound would fall and holidays would be more expensive for those going to Europe. I always thought it was the convention of Her Majesty’s Government, and in particular the Chancellor of the Exchequer, not to comment on the future direction of exchange rates, so does this not demonstrate that we are now in an era of spin because they are frightened of independent objective assessment?
Mr Chope
As ever, my hon. Friend has made an important and, indeed, fundamental point. I would just add that it is even odder that the Government should comment on sensitive issues relating to exchange rates at the same time—on the very same day—as saying that they were not prepared to answer questions about the disparity between the number of people from the European Union who registered for national insurance numbers last year and the number of people who are alleged to have come here from the European Union to work. I believe that more than 600,000 asked for national insurance numbers, but the Government say that only about 250,000 came here in that year. When the Government were asked to explain the difference between the two figures, their answer—it is in the papers today, so it must be correct—was that it would be wrong to answer the question, because it might influence the forthcoming referendum. I am sure that the Chancellor, the Prime Minister or whoever it was who said that we would all have to pay more for our holidays did not do so in order to try to influence the outcome of the referendum.
Mr Hollobone
I disagree with my hon. Friend. They said that deliberately to try to mislead people into thinking that their holidays would become more expensive. The truth is that exchange rates go up and down, and are very difficult to predict. However, if the Government are going to start commenting on the future direction of exchange rates, should not they at least do so in a balanced way, and point out that were the pound to decrease in value, that would be extremely good news for hard-pressed British exporters who are seeking to sell more of our products abroad?
Mr Chope
Absolutely. That is another side of this very important argument.
I referred extempore to what the Government were reported to have said yesterday about the disparity between the figures, but let me now give the exact figures. A total of 630,000 EU citizens registered for national insurance numbers entitling them to work or claim benefits in Britain last year, yet it is said that there were only 257,000 new EU migrants. Incidentally, 209,000 of those national insurance number registrations came from residents, or citizens, of Romania and Bulgaria.
Jonathan Portes, of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, sought an explanation for this extraordinary disparity, but was told that the Government were not prepared to give more details because
“it might prejudice the outcome of the EU referendum.”
Mr Chope
Well, it depends what the answer was, does it not?
This illustrates the problem that we have with the unequal use of resources and statistics. Having refused to answer the simplest of questions from me last June, the Treasury is now refusing to inquire further into what is, on the face of it, an extraordinary disparity, while at the same time making the scaremongering assertions to which my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) has referred.
The purpose of my Bill is to introduce some objectivity and independence into the whole process of evaluating the costs and benefits of our membership of the European Union. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie), the Chairman of the Treasury Committee, has launched an inquiry into the economic costs and benefits. He is doing a lot of good work, and I look forward to the publication of the report, but, having read much of the oral evidence, I note that the answer given by a great many experts, whether pro or anti-EU, is that it is extremely hard to be sure one way or the other.
During the forthcoming referendum campaign, we might be well advised to note the information that is set out so ably in House of Commons Library briefing paper 06091, which was published in January this year. According to chapter 6,
“There is no definitive study of the economic impact of the UK’s EU membership or the costs and benefits of withdrawal. Framing the aggregate impact in terms of a single number, or even irrefutably demonstrating that the net effects are positive or negative, is a formidably difficult exercise.”
Why is that?
“This is because many of the costs and benefits are subjective or intangible. It is also because a host of assumptions must be made to reach an estimate. If the UK were to leave the EU, assumptions must be made about the terms on which this would be done and how Government would fill the policy vacuum left in areas where the EU currently has competence. If the UK were to remain in the EU, assumptions would need to be made about how policy in the EU would develop.”
That is a very important point. We often hear—and we heard from the Prime Minister this week—words to the effect that there will be no leap in the dark if we decide to stay in the European Union; it will all be as plain as a pikestaff. However, the House of Commons Library briefing clearly states that we do not know how policy in the EU would develop if we chose to remain:
“Estimates of the costs and benefits of EU membership are likely to be highly sensitive to such assumptions.”
If the Government, whose current robust line is that we must at all costs stay in the European Union, start presenting figures and data, how shall we be able to assure ourselves that those figures and data are objective? I think the answer is that we shall not be able to do that, because the figures and data will come from a biased source.
Mr Hollobone
It seems to me that, rather than trying to present independent and objective statistics and data to the British public, Her Majesty’s Government are putting increasing emphasis on spin. For example, the claim that 3 million British jobs depend on our membership of the European Union is trotted out by all those who are campaigning for us to remain in the European Union, although any objective, independent assessment demonstrates that it is a complete myth.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is only one of the figures that have been strongly criticised in evidence to the Treasury Committee. It has now been ridiculed, but can we be sure that it will not be replicated in the Government propaganda leading up to the referendum?
The House of Commons Library briefing states:
“Open Europe (2015) The Consequences, challenges & opportunities facing Britain outside the EU estimated the effect on UK GDP in 2030”—
some 15 years from now—
“of leaving the EU could potentially be in the range from -2.2% to +1.55% of GDP. However, the study argued that a more realistic range was between -0.8% and +0.6% of GDP.”
In other words, there is no significant difference either way. Yet between now and 23 June, I predict the Government will be suggesting that it is all one way and it will be an economic disaster if we have the courage and conviction to take responsibility for our own lives and our own destiny and leave the EU.
The other part of the Library paper I want to mention is a reference to a May 2014 report by Civitas on trade advantages of the EU. It found that the trade benefits of EU membership were exaggerated. Based on a study of UK exports since 1960, Civitas found that UK trade with European nations outside the EU had increased dramatically, while the UK’s trade with other EU members accounted for no more of its trade with leading economies than in 1973. That goes back to a point we were making earlier.
Mr Hollobone
Yes, we were making that point earlier, and when we joined the EU—the Common Market as it then was in 1972—we did not have a £62 billion annual trade deficit with our EU partners. Over the 44 years of our membership, the trade deficit has grown. To put this in simple terms, the EU nations are selling to us £62 billion-worth every year more than we are selling to them. So our trade with our EU partners has deteriorated over the past 44 years, not improved.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend is absolutely right and the figures he quotes are almost identical to those in this House of Commons Library briefing paper, which quotes figures from the Office for National Statistics balance of payments statistical bulletin. They show exactly the effect my hon. Friend describes. I wonder how much of that information we will see in the Government’s leaflets in the forthcoming campaign.
Mr Hollobone
Can my hon. Friend also confirm that, as a result of our EU membership, we have lost Britain’s seat at the World Trade Organisation? That means that we have lost our sovereign ability to negotiate friendly free trade arrangements with other countries around the world. So, for example, a country as small as Iceland has negotiated a friendly free trade treaty with an economic superpower like China, yet we are forbidden to do exactly the same thing because of our membership of the EU.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend again makes a telling point. I was going to come to it later, but as he has raised it now, let us put on the record, for example, the concern many of our constituents have about TTIP, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership being negotiated between the EU and the United States. A legal opinion has been circulated to a number of us over the last 24 hours saying if TTIP goes ahead as proposed, it would potentially be disastrous for our national health service. I do not know whether that is correct or not, but there is an opinion saying that that could be the impact. Why are we relying on the EU to negotiate a trade deal with the US? Why do not we, as the fifth largest economy in the world—English-speaking, committed to free trade—make our own trade deal with the US? The short answer is that we are not allowed to do so until we leave the EU.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
I wholeheartedly agree with what my hon. Friend is saying. On TTIP, does he agree that the following is an interesting factor in any cost-benefit analysis? We are always told that if we want a free trade agreement with the EU, we will have to accept free movement of people. Does he think America will accept the free movement of people—of all EU citizens—into the United States when it signs its free trade agreement with the EU?
Mr Chope
As my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) suggests, North America has its own North American Free Trade Agreement, which brings Canada, Mexico and the United States together. However, as Donald Trump and many others would bear witness, under that there is no free movement of people between Mexico and the US or between Canada and US, but there is still a free trade agreement.
Sir Edward Leigh
More than that, Canada has an agreement with the EU on trade and there is no free movement of EU nationals into Canada.
Mr Hollobone
My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point about TTIP. He will have received letters and emails from constituents, as have I, expressing very real concern that the 28 additional words we need in the agreement to protect our NHS are not in the draft TTIP terms. Just to make it crystal clear, were we to leave the EU, we could negotiate such an agreement with the US and include in the agreement, under our new sovereign capabilities, those crucial 28 words that all the TTIP campaigners would like to see.
Oliver Colvile
Will my hon. Friend just explain then how long he thinks that might take given the time it has taken to get to the position we are in at the moment?
Mr Chope
That is interesting. I was at a meeting the week before last with a group of people from the US Senate and Congress who were interested in the subject of TTIP. I was invited to take the chair of this gathering, and one of the first questions I asked was how many of these people thought TTIP was going to be resolved by the end of this year. The answer was zero.
What we were told when the Prime Minister launched this initiative in 2013 was that we would get this sorted out before the end of the Obama presidency; it is absolutely clear we are not going to get it sorted out before then. So I then asked the same gathering of people how many of them thought it would be sorted out by the end of next year. Again, nobody thought that. Basically, the message coming from these people who are very well connected on Capitol Hill was that TTIP is very much in the long grass as far as the US is concerned because of the difficulties being put in the negotiations by the European Union, which is trying to maintain the protectionism that is still espoused by so many members of the EU and that is not compatible with what the US wants. So in answer to my hon. Friend’s question about how long a resolution would take, my view is that we would get a bilateral trade agreement between the UK and the US one heck of a sight quicker than we are ever going to get a trade deal between the EU and the US.
Mr Hollobone
To extend that principle into a future where Britain is outside the EU, given that we are already 100% compliant with all the EU obligations, should it not be possible to negotiate a free trade agreement between Britain and the EU in double-quick time after our EU exit?
Mr Chope
Absolutely. The fall-back position if we did not negotiate such a deal would be that we would have a continuing relationship on WTO rules, which are signed up to by the EU. So any suggestion that there would be a complete curtailment of trade between us and the EU when we leave is absurd. Why would the EU not want to sign up very quickly with the UK? They are selling us more than we are selling them, so it must be in their interests to try to maintain those connections. Tellingly, and disappointingly, in addressing this point in Monday’s statement the Prime Minister did not talk in absolute terms. Instead of facing up to the fact that we sell less to the European Union than it sells to us, he started talking in percentage terms. That is completely misleading because we are but one of 28 countries in the EU, so if we start talking about the percentage of EU exports that come to us compared with the percentage of our exports that go to the EU, we will present a distorted picture. It was very sad that the Prime Minister chose not to use the absolute figures and instead resorted to such misleading percentages.
Philip Davies
We are also told that if we had a free trade agreement with the EU, we would still have to have all our laws decided by the European Union. When my hon. Friend had his discussions with his American friends, did he become aware of whether the Americans were going to accept their law being changed for them by the European Union, by qualified majority voting, when they entered into their free trade agreement with it?
Mr Chope
We did not get down to that sort of detail, because the feeling was that we are a long way apart on this. There is also a feeling that there is a lot more commonality between the British people and the people of the United States; we share a common language, the common law and a common heritage, and that is very different from the approach of so many other EU countries. On the basis that we have this special relationship with the US, we would be able to prosper and develop our trade together through bilateral open trading arrangements far more effectively than is being done at the moment with the EU. That is an important factor to take into account when assessing the costs and benefits of membership.
I am conscious of the fact that a number of other people wish to participate in this debate, so I will not say much more now. I merely wish to point out that the Bill proposes terms of reference, whereby the independent commission that would be set up to examine the current costs and benefits would be
“taking into account the impact of membership on the UK’s—
(a) economy (including consideration of public expenditure and receipts resulting directly from membership”).
Of course, we know that in round figures we are paying in about £10 billion more than we get back every year. Interestingly, in yesterday’s statement on the EU solidarity fund and flooding the Minister made much of the fact that we would be applying to get some money back from the fund, but he did not think this would amount to anything more, at best, than about the equivalent of one day’s net contributions to the EU. He admitted that even getting back one day’s net contribution would involve an enormous amount of bureaucracy on both sides, which typifies the costs at the moment and how unfair it is that our people should be paying £10 billion net a year to the EU.
Sir Greg Knight
My hon. Friend made a prediction earlier. Will he comment on my prediction that if this country is misguided enough to vote to remain in the EU, within a few months our contribution to the EU will go up, because it is totally incapable of keeping within existing programmes and budgets?
Mr Chope
I agree absolutely with my right hon. Friend, who brings an enormous amount of experience, not only as a former trade Minister, but as a former Deputy Chief Whip. I am delighted that he is playing a key part in the leave campaign. What is happening in Europe to deal with the migration crisis is breath-taking in its incompetence. We are talking about a major cost; this crisis will potentially cost the EU a fortune. Who will have to contribute to those costs if we remain in the EU? It is none other than the British taxpayer. I think my right hon. Friend’s prediction is right, but I hope we will never see whether it comes to pass because by then we will have left the EU.
Mr Hollobone
Ten billion pounds sounds like an enormous figure, and it is, but people often struggle to deal with figures when they get so big, so let me place it into a local context. In Kettering, we are struggling to get £30 million for an improvement to Kettering general hospital and the development of an urgent care hub on the site there. That sum is less than one day’s subscription to the EU but we are having a really difficult job getting even that small a sum out of the Treasury. Imagine what we could do with £10 billion to spend on important public services across our country, providing hospitals, schools, doctors, police officers and nurses.
Mr Chope
I am not commenting on that, but we will have plenty of £30,000 sums to spend when we leave.
Clause 5(b) talks about taking into account our
“competitiveness and ability to trade freely (including consideration of the UK’s restricted ability to negotiate trade agreements and to engage in free trade with other countries)”.
I have already covered that. Subsection (c) then deals with the issue of
“national security and defence (including the UK’s ability to decide which non-nationals should be allowed to reside in the UK)”.
That is a very big subject and I suspect some of my colleagues will wish to go into it in a bit more detail. At the moment, we do not have any control over non-nationals from the EU coming into our country. The figures published yesterday show a massive increase in net migration—it was again more than 300,000 in the year to September 2015.
We all supported the Prime Minister and the Conservative party manifesto on the promise in 2010, in a pledge repeated during the last election campaign, that we would bring net migration in the UK down to the tens of thousands. I looked today in the press to see what the Prime Minister’s response was to the latest net migration figures, which show that more than 300,000 people came in that year period, 257,000 of whom came from the EU. If we were going to get the figure down to the tens of thousands and even if we prevented anybody from coming to this country from anywhere other than the EU, we would still have to reduce the number of people coming from the EU by about two thirds—from 257,000 to just less than 100,000. With the most heroic assumptions, how is it possible to say that the very modest measures contained in the package that came back from the negotiations in Brussels could ever deliver a reduction of 157,000 EU migrants a year?
Mr Hollobone
Is this not the crucial point for people who voted Conservative at the last election on the basis of that manifesto pledge to cut immigration to tens of thousands? The truth is that that objective will simply be unattainable while we remain a member of the EU, so the only way to solve this is to vote to leave on 23 June.
Mr Chope
Exactly. If we ask whether the Government have any idea how we could achieve that without leaving, I am sure we will be told that we cannot have any more information because it might prejudice the outcome of the referendum.
It is not just the numbers; there is also an associated cost. I refer to the document called “The best of both worlds”. There is a problem with the title of that document. I believe in one world, and the people who are defending our position in the European Union seem to be under the illusion that there is more than one world. There is just one world, and we can be the masters of our own destiny in that world if we are released from being in the European Union.
Mr Hollobone
Maybe some members of the Government are living on a different planet.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend makes the point in his own inimitable way. Perhaps that should be the subject of a parliamentary question in due course.
The document entitled “The best of both worlds” refers in paragraph 2.103 to the costs of the migration coming in. It has been pretty difficult to get hold of this information, but it has at last been wrung out of the Government. The document states:
“On average, families with a recent EEA migrant claim almost £6,000 per year in tax credits”.
If a million EU migrants have come in during the past four or five years, as we know from the latest figures, and over 40% of those are claiming tax credits, the cost of that is 400,000 multiplied by £6,000 per year. That is a lot of money, and that is just the cost of in-work benefits to non-UK citizens from the European Union. That creates pressure on our public services, such as health and schools. I saw in the Evening Standard last night how many people will not be able to get their children into the school of their choice in London in the coming year because of the increased population.
All the issues have a bearing on the question whether it is in our best interests to leave the European Union. Having done research such as I have, I am in no doubt that it would be in the best interests of the United Kingdom to leave the European Union. The purpose of this Bill is to ensure that the Government put forward objective figures in relation to the issue, rather than figures that are based on prejudice.
Philip Davies
My hon. Friend makes his point well, as always, but we should not be in this situation. Such decisions should be taken in this House for the benefit of our constituents, but they are not.
We are signing up to a treaty, and the EU is saying to us, “You sign the treaty, and if we want to change things against your wishes, we have the freedom to do so through qualified majority voting.” If I said to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, “Let’s sign a deal on something, but by the way, I can change the terms at any time, and there is nothing you can do to stop me”, I do not think you would sign up to it—nobody would sign up to such a deal, but that is in effect what we are being asked to sign up to in the EU referendum if we vote to remain.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend has not mentioned the part of the deal that states that we will now lose the little influence that we had in the past in relation to the deeper integration of the eurozone. For example, we will not be able to argue that Greece would be better off outside the eurozone, or have any influence on the consequences of a sclerotic eurozone being uncompetitive, and the result that that leads to of more people from the eurozone wanting to work in our country.
Philip Davies
My hon. Friend is right. I have already covered economic and trade matters and regulations, and I know that other people want to speak so I shall not go on for too long. National security and immigration are crucial issues that are mentioned in clause 5 of the Bill. National security is a key area, and the remain campaign seems to think that it is one of its trump cards, and that we are more secure and safer from terrorist attacks within the European Union. I would love them to go and tell the people of Paris how much safer they were from terrorist attacks as a result of being in the European Union, but I suspect they would not get particularly far.
Last night in a debate at York University we hit a new low in the tactics of the remain campaign. I was making the point that we cannot stop people coming into the UK from the EU if they have a valid EU passport, and that that applied to everybody, whether law-abiding people or criminals. But would you believe what the remain campaign announced last night? Perhaps the Minister can confirm it. I am on the Justice Committee, but I was not aware of it. It emerged last night during the debate that, apparently, when an EU national comes to the UK, our robust border controls mean that we check who people are. Apparently, when passports are scanned—this was a new one on me—it flags up whether or not a person has criminal convictions in their home nation, which enables us to stop them entering the United Kingdom. If only that were the case. The most generous thing I can say about that claim is that it is an absolutely blatant lie, because no system exists across the European Union to scan passports, trigger a huge list of criminal convictions and enable us to stop people coming into the country. That claim is simply untrue—I cannot be any clearer than that. The Minister may want to confirm or deny that when he comments, but let us please have an honest debate about these things. That system does not exist.
Philip Davies
Yes, indeed. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The problem is that there are much richer pickings in the UK than in some of the countries these people come from.
The other aspect of this is that, even if these people run the risk of being caught, they would, I suspect, much prefer to spend their time in a British prison than in a prison in their home nation. So this is a win-win, given their chances of being caught and what happens when they are caught. I am afraid that that does not quite work the same in reverse.
Mr Chope
When I visited Denmark with a Select Committee in the last Parliament, we heard directly from the Danish about the problem they have with eastern Europeans coming into Denmark and committing crimes. If those people are convicted of those crimes, they will earn more in prison than they would have been able to earn in their home country, so there is no deterrent.
Philip Davies
That is another interesting point I had not factored in. I will bow to my hon. Friend’s superior knowledge. I have visited prisons in Denmark, and that is not something I was aware of, so I am grateful to him for putting that point on the record.
Suggesting that our national security is enhanced by being in the EU, when we let thousands of EU criminals in every year, is fanciful in the extreme. Being susceptible to crime from such individuals is doing nothing at all for the security of my constituents.
Mr Chope
May I give my hon. Friend an example of where our security is much worse as a result of being in the European Union? People from outside who come into the European Union at the moment often do not give their fingerprints, as they should. I suggested that we take DNA samples from people coming from outside, but I was told that that is unlawful under the Eurodac regulations, so we cannot take that precaution.
Philip Davies
My hon. Friend is absolutely right about that. I very much agree that people wanting to come and live in the EU should have to give their fingerprints and DNA, so that if they do commit a crime, it is easy to track them down, convict them and deport them. As he says, however, that is not what happens. The best the Government have come up with so far is that if somebody comes into the UK and commits a crime, the police can go through some burdensome procedure of asking other EU countries whether they have a fingerprint match for a crime that has been committed there. If those countries ever manage to get back to us, which they probably do not half the time, Lord knows what may happen on the back of that. However, that is not the same as stopping people who are criminals coming into the UK.
Sir Edward Leigh
I would be delighted to visit my hon. Friend’s constituency. Perhaps I could sail there in my boat from the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, where it is moored. But obviously we are deeply serious about this, because the last 30 years have been a traumatic experience for our fishermen. It is a matter of immense importance. Again, we need an independent audit.
Mr Chope
Bearing in mind what my hon. Friend said about Ministers, is there not an issue with the fact that the fishing Minister, who has all this expertise and is keen that we should leave the EU, will not have the support of his civil servants in doing what needs to be done to ensure a strong and independent UK fishing industry after we leave?
Sir Edward Leigh
Exactly. It is extraordinary, given that we have this great industry and are a proud island race, and that much of our past and present is tied up in our fishing fleets, that the fishing Minister has already been put in purdah by his own civil servants and cannot talk about this subject at all. It beggars belief.
Apparently, the Government are not going to do any independent analysis over the next four months of what leaving the EU would mean for fishing. Presumably, at some stage or another, a Minister will make a claim—perhaps a fairly wild claim—and there will be no comeback, because the fishing Minister has been put in the corner, like a naughty boy with a dunce’s hat on his head, and told to keep silent. It is amazing. This is the most important decision we are going to make—yet silence.
In trying to answer the Minister for Europe, who asked, “Why don’t the leave people give an alternative vision?”, I have talked a bit about fishing and agriculture, but what about trade? I have quoted Winston Peters, a former Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary of New Zealand—no slouch—who has talked in public about leaving behind the “betrayal” of 1973. Yes, we did betray them. We betrayed our friends in New Zealand and Australia, who, in two world wars, had come to our aid. He says there is the exciting prospect of recreating free trade between Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. It is an exciting prospect. My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley made a good point about the declining proportion of world trade taken by the sclerotic, over-regulated and overtaxed EU. There is another world out there—the world of the burgeoning growth of China and India.
I will go into more detail about the Government’s case in a moment, but I would be quite happy for them to say, “This is all just pie in the sky—a romantic illusion—and it’s not going to happen. You wouldn’t have any influence on the world trade body, because you’d just be one voice out of 130.” Well, we have very little voice at the moment, because we are one vote out of 28—at least we would be there on our own—but I accept that the Government can make these arguments. Given the importance of this issue, however, surely we want at least some independent analysis, so that the people, before they cast their votes, know what the realistic prospects are of a United Kingdom outside the EU being able to negotiate good trade deals with the rest of the world. But we have nothing.
That was my introduction, Madam Deputy Speaker. I now want to go into more detail about the history of this independent audit and analysis. People now argue—there is some lazy thinking on this—that way back in 1957 when the treaty of Rome was being signed, we were casual in our decision not to join it. A sort of myth has been created, particularly by my personal friend, Michael Heseltine, now Lord Heseltine, and others that this was an enormous wasted opportunity. Actually, people in government at the time were attempting a reasonable audit and analysis of what joining the treaty of Rome would mean. This debate has therefore been going on for a long time.
One cause of worry in 1957 was article 3 of the European Community treaty, which would
“eliminate…customs duties and quantitative restrictions on imports and exports”
between member states, establish a common tariff and “common commercial policy” and
“abolish obstacles to freedom of movement for persons, services and capital”.
When we were having these debates in 1957, the view taken by the then Conservative Government was that that was a risk too great and particularly, showing the importance of objective analysis, too great a risk to the Commonwealth.
My personal view is that that was a right conclusion. Unfortunately, during the 1950s and ’60s, there was a lack of confidence in our future as an independent nation. We should bear it in mind that we were dealing with a generation scarred by the second world war—I accept all the arguments about that. The hon. Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass), who is going to reply to this debate on behalf of the Labour party, spoke most movingly yesterday about the scars of two world wars, and I can understand how that was an influence on people at the time. As I said, there was a lack of confidence, not just about peace in Europe, but about our own nature and the resilience of our manufacturing and service industries. That led directly to Harold Macmillan’s failed bid to join the then European Economic Community.
As we know, of course, we eventually joined the European Economic Community. What then happened after we joined it? We were told at the time that it was going to be primarily a trading mechanism. The British people were never really made to understand and appreciate that under articles 2 and 3, it was much more than that. This was effectively the end of the sovereignty of this House. It was completely different from any other treaty that we had ever signed. Those arguments were made by Tony Benn, Michael Foot and Enoch Powell at the time. To its credit, Labour tested this in the referendum, and the British people decided to join.
Let me move on to the treaty of Nice. Although there had been a reasonably detailed debate, as I mentioned, in the mid-1950s about the benefits or otherwise of joining, this is where I believe the debates got rather weaker and there was less and less independent cost-benefit analysis of whether we should take this ever closer union further.
Article 3 of the treaty of Nice created an explicit common policy in fisheries, when it had previously been included under agriculture. An environmental policy was also created. Under the guise of strengthening competitive industry through the promotion of research and technological development, the EU acquired competence. The EU was authorised to establish and develop trans-European networks. I was here and I may be wrong, but although I certainly know that no independent analysis was done, I am not aware how much analysis of any kind was done on the costs and benefits of these very important matters that furthered the integration of Europe and our involvement in it. The treaty of Lisbon completed the process by making all remaining pillar three matters subject to EU justice-making procedure.
There was a steady increase in the area of EC and EU activity, and thus a steady increase in the number of pieces of legislation until the 1990s. Until we set up the Scrutiny Committee—which is now under the distinguished chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash)—there was very little analysis of the vast plethora of legislation that was pouring out.
In a paper published by the Robert Schuman Centre, Professor Carol Harlow, of the London School of Economics, noted:
“On the regulatory side, an average of 25 directives and 600 regulations per annum in the 1970s rose to 80 directives and 1.5 thousand regulations by the early 1990s”.
In a study of the evolution of European integration, EU academics Wolfgang Wessels and Andreas Maurer observed that the increase in legislation had been accompanied by an increase in the EU’s institutional structures and sub-structures. While all that was proceeding apace, there was virtually no debate in the House of Commons or, I suspect, within the Government.
My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and I were Ministers at the end of the Thatcher Government and in the Major Government. We remember going to the Council of Ministers, and we remember, as we sat there all night, a vast tide of more and more pieces of legislation which was subjected to very little, if any, independent analysis. Output peaked in 1986 with the single market legislative programme. It fell slightly after that, but it continues apace. Meanwhile, apart from the analysis conducted by the Scrutiny Committee, very little detailed analysis of what the directives involved mean for our country is available to Members of Parliament—if, indeed, they are interested, given the complexity of many of those directives.
Sir Edward Leigh
I agree with that entirely. If we were to remain in the EU, we would need—and this would require the sort of analysis that would arise from a measure such as this Bill—to create much more impressive, comprehensive structures in order to deal with the continuing tide of legislation. People who want to remain in the EU assume that it is a static organisation. We apparently have an opt-out from ever closer union, but the European Court of Justice does not refer to ever closer union because it does not need to. If we remain in the EU, this wave of legislation will go on and on and on.
Rulings by the European Court of Justice have also given rise to a number of amendments to United Kingdom laws. One of the most significant cases in this regard was the Factortame case, which concerned the UK’s obligation under EC law, and the terms of the 1985 Act of Accession whereby Spain joined the European Community, to allow Spanish fishermen to fish in UK waters within the prescribed EC quotas.
We need much more analysis, much more control, and a much more intelligent debate about what is going on, because most people in the House of Commons are blind to it. Naturally, as Members of Parliament, we are all much more interested in the great debates about assisted dying, gay marriage or hunting, or even about whether to stay in the EU or leave it, or whether to bomb Syria. We are much more concerned about those issues than about the detailed nitty-gritty of what is going on under our noses. However, it does not stop. It does not rest. The machine keeps grinding on, with very little control from Ministers and virtually no control from the House of Commons.
Let me now deal with the cost of EU membership.
Mr Chope
Before my hon. Friend does that, may I ask whether he recalls—this is an example of what he has just been talking about—that in October 2000, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), who is now the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, assured the world that Europe’s new charter of fundamental rights would have no greater legal standing before EU judges than a copy of the Beano or The Sun?
Sir Edward Leigh
That sort of casual statement is quite worrying, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for telling us about it.
I was about to deal with the cost of EU membership. The following information is taken from various papers that I have been studying. The cost is set to be £3.1 billion higher over the next five years than forecast before the 2015 general election. This is not a static process, therefore. That change is due to a reassessment of the size of Britain’s economy relative to the rest of the EU, thus penalising the UK for its economic success. The bigger and more successful we get, the greater a magnet for migrants we become and the bigger the sub we have to pay, despite the fact that the deficit carries on much the same as it always has done.
Sir Edward Leigh
I have mentioned Grimsby and fishing, but my constituency also abuts Scunthorpe. What about these poor people there? They are also going to be allowed to vote on 23 June, and are being encouraged to do so. They would rather like to know the detailed costs of what the EU means for their jobs and what the possible alternatives are. This is serious stuff for them—it is not just a debate in the House of Commons; it is about their whole way of life and their town.
Sir Edward Leigh
It beggars belief that whole towns can be suffering a possible wipeout and yet we are apparently putty in the hands in the Chinese. We should have stopped this on day one, as it is so serious—this is steel we are talking about.
Sir Edward Leigh
Yes, that is the point that was made time and again during the debate yesterday. I am not sure the Government have entirely answered it to my satisfaction.
The Government seem to argue that were we to vote to leave the EU, that would be such a catastrophic snub to our EU partners that there would be a degree of vengeance. I think that is a childlike view of how policy is created in Paris and Berlin. Many people in France—I take a bit of an interest in this—have argued for many years that it would not be an absurd state of affairs for Britain to leave the EU, for all sorts of reasons. However, the Government argue that a dramatic vengeance game would be initiated.
By the way, if our European partners acted in that way, would we want to have anything to do with them? It is a ridiculous argument anyway. They would not behave in that way, because of the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies)—because of our trade deficit with them, particularly with our German friends. They are intimately bound up with us in terms of trade and there is every incentive to conclude a reasonable deal.
Mr Chope
It is not just about the trade issue. The Baltic states, for example, are very dependent on our NATO presence in helping them to defend themselves against the Russian threat. They would never countenance the rest of the European Union taking it out on the UK, when the UK is doing so much to defend their interests.
Sir Edward Leigh
Perhaps I have banged on a bit too much about the economy, and should briefly touch on defence and security, as it is in my hon. Friend’s Bill and is a matter of acute concern. Apart from “Project Fear”, which is based on this false premise of a loss of millions of jobs—Lord Mandelson appears to have made that up on the back of a fag packet—which no one has ever quantified in any great detail, although we wait to hear what the Government say about that, there are all these arguments about security. David Owen, a former Labour Foreign Secretary, who has now come out in favour of leaving the EU, dealt with that matter and debunked it very well on his interview on the “Today” programme yesterday. He asked how the European Union has improved our security by creating, in an imperialist and expansionist way, a new trade association deal with Ukraine, which led directly to Russian fears of being encircled and to the annexation of Crimea and eastern Ukraine. By the way, I do not countenance, approve or support in any way what Russia has done. The fact is that the EU gave President Putin that opportunity.
In a direct answer to my hon. Friend, is it really conceivable that, if the UK decided to leave the EU, our friends and allies in the Baltic states would want to throw us into some appalling doghouse and have nothing more to do with us when their freedom and security depends so much on us? We do have the strongest armed forces in the European Union. France and Britain are the only two countries that are capable of deploying world power. The Minister who is summing up this debate has considerable expertise in this matter because, as a Back Bencher, he spent years talking about it.
Although I cannot speak for the French Government, I do regularly speak to people in France, and I can assure Members that France has no interest or desire in not continuing to co-operate in an ever closer way, in terms of an ever closer union of sovereign states, in military policy. This whole argument that, somehow, the peace and security of Europe would be endangered if we were to leave the EU does not hold water. I will not repeat all the arguments that have been made many times before about our peace and security depending not on remaining in the EU, but on NATO. That is not a point that can be directly summed up in any cost- benefit analysis, but it needs to be articulated. We Eurosceptics are not nationalists. We love Europe; we love Europeans; we love European culture; and we want to have the closest possible relationship with our friends in France and Germany.
Let us go back to some of the detailed studies of the cost-benefit analysis. I am very grateful to the Library of the House of Commons for this. In fact, we should pay tribute to it because it is one of the few bodies that has actually attempted, with its limited resources, to collate all these studies. The study by the Institute for Economic Affairs—Minford et al, 2005—“Should Britain leave the EU” estimates a range of 3.2% to minus 3.7% of GDP in ongoing costs. I have dealt with Open Europe. The 2014 study by Gianmarco Ottaviano “Brexit or Fixit? The Trade and Welfare Effects of Leaving the European Union”, the Centre for Economic Performance and the London School of Economics estimated the trade-related costs to the UK of leaving the EU as being in the range of 2.2% to 9.5% of GDP. That is their argument, but it would be nice for it to be tested. In the literature review for “Our Global Future”, the CBI—again, I am not citing people who are naturally friendly to my point of view, but we need to test the arguments—found that the net benefit arising from EU membership is somewhere in the region of 4% to 5% of UK GDP.
Sir Edward Leigh
We should have had more independent analysis of that. Conservative Members often criticise Gordon Brown, but we should never forget that he kept us out of the euro, against the wishes of his Prime Minister, Tony Blair. We were told that disaster would strike by some in the City of London, the CBI and so on, and they used precisely these arguments. Now the Prime Minister goes to the Dispatch Box and says as a great virtue that we are out of the euro, but we were told by all the powers of the establishment that not joining the euro would be a disaster, and many of the arguments used were exactly the same.
Mr Chope
Roger Bootle told the Treasury Committee on 27 October last year:
“A large number of supposedly very highly qualified people argued that there would be a mass exodus of the financial services industry if Britain were not in the euro. It did not happen. In fact, the reverse happened: it was the provincial continental financial centres that suffered, as business concentrated on London”.
Sir Edward Leigh
The Mayor of London and the Conservative mayoral candidate represent, or hope to represent, the powerhouse of the British economy. Presumably they deal with and talk to businesses in London every day, and significantly they have both decided that London would not be disadvantaged by leaving the EU.
I am not necessarily quoting people who are friends of mine, but in evidence to an inquiry by the Lords EU Committee into relaunching the single market on 27 July 2010, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills stated that
“EU countries trade twice as much with each other as they would do in the absence of the Single Market programme”,
That is based on the argument that increased trade with Europe since the early 1980s may be responsible for UK income per head being around 6% higher.
That is fair enough. We accept that we want to recreate the single market in some form. However, the Government immediately replied, “Well, I’m sorry but the rules of the EU are absolutely clear. If you want to be part of the single market, you have to accept free movement of people.” But that is not necessarily true. For example, it does not apply to Canada. As I understand it, Canada has created a good trade deal with the EU, but I am not aware that EU nationals are allowed to travel freely to Canada without a visa—I have some knowledge of this because my wife has a Canadian passport as she was born in Montreal.
The argument about what sort of access we would have in the single market is so crucial that we must have some independent analysis. Otherwise, we are making a decision based not on facts, but on prejudice. Those of us who argue from a Eurosceptic point of view are not in any way trying to convince the British people that they should make this choice in terms of nationalism, although many will, and that is their prerogative. We are arguing that there is a perfectly good, legitimate, intellectual, rational case for leaving the EU, but we want it to be tested by the Government.
I had better sit down as I have probably wearied you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I want to end with a study, which people here will not be aware of, commissioned by the Bertelsmann Stiftung of Munich—so this is not, as far as I am aware, some sort of UK Independence party front organisation, but a well-respected German institution. It is interesting that people around Europe—Stiftung in Germany and think-tanks elsewhere in Europe—are starting to take seriously the prospect of the United Kingdom leaving the EU. They are also writing studies that could form part of the independent cost-benefit analysis we want the Government to do.
In the second and third columns of its detailed analysis of what countries pay into and get out of the EU, the Stiftung demonstrates that Germany, the United Kingdom and France are the biggest absolute net contributors, paying in about 0.5% of their gross national income. Eleven of the 28 member states were net contributors in the 2013 budget, and the Stiftung gives various detailed figures for member states’ gross contributions. In terms of net contributions as a share of GNI, we always come second to Germany.
The Stiftung says:
“Because the United Kingdom benefits relatively little from CAP expenditures (for example, it received only €3.16 billion in 2013 compared to France’s €8.58 billion), Margaret Thatcher negotiated the introduction of a ‘UK rebate’ in 1984. At its core, this contains a refund of approximately 2/3 of the United Kingdom’s annual net contributions to the EU budget. For the years 2011-2013, the rebate averaged around €4.1 billion. A correction in how the rebate is calculated was introduced in 2008, which reduces the rebate depending on the costs of the EU expansion. According to forecasts by the UK’s economic and finance ministry…the rebate will hover around an average of €6 billion”.
The Stiftung provides various detailed figures and illustrates how the UK’s net contribution has risen. It says:
“One key element of the Brexit debate is that net payments have increased sharply since the global financial and economic crisis in 2008…If the United Kingdom exits the EU on January 1, 2018, this will change how the EU budget is financed”—
that must be the understatement of the year. It continues:
“According to estimates by the UK’s economic and finance ministry”—
Her Majesty’s Treasury—
“the United Kingdom will pay a net contribution of £8 billion for fiscal year April 2017-April 2018.”
These arguments are therefore being set out in detailed papers by think-tanks throughout Europe, but here—in the most important decision this country will make, in just four months’ time—the Government are apparently telling us that they do not believe there should be any independent cost-benefit analysis of what that decision will mean for the United Kingdom. Shame on them!
Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)
This is the first time I have intervened in the European debate, and hon. Members can rest assured that one thing I will not be talking about is the future of the hedgehog, or le hérisson, as I think it is called in French.
This is probably one of the biggest, most controversial issues we will deal with as a country, and I am acutely aware that a number of my hon. Friends take a completely different position from the one that I will espouse during my speech. I would also say that this issue—like the corn laws, free trade and imperial preference—is one of the big issues in British history. Of course, this, too, is a big trade issue, and we have to take that into account.
Over the last 15 years, as the parliamentary candidate for the Plymouth Sutton seat and, more recently, as the Member of Parliament for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport, I have always sought to take a rather pragmatic attitude to what our relationship with Europe should be; I do not start from the basis of a set view of how we should proceed. I very much support what the Prime Minister has been able to do in the way of bringing back reform. The big issue of Europe kicked off when Jacques Delors said how important it was that the single market was not just about money but employment regulations and stuff like that too. I want the UK to be in Europe but not run by Europe. Now that the Prime Minister has finished his negotiations and presented his new plan for Europe, I have decided that I will vote to remain in the EU in the referendum on 23 June. I want to make it abundantly clear that I have exactly the same influence as every single one of my constituents or, for that matter, anybody in the whole of the United Kingdom. I have one vote, no more and no less.
To my mind, Britain’s role in Europe is to maintain the balance of power, and that is utterly crucial. Over the course of history, when we have walked away from Europe, we have had to go back in and sweep up the whole mess. We have invested time, money and blood in that relationship with Europe, and now is not the time for us to wash our hands of our allies and turn back.
Oliver Colvile
Well, that is the whole business of politics, isn’t it? My hon. Friend is right to raise these issues, but ultimately this is about the future of our country within Europe and whether we are led back into having wars and things like that. I very much want to avoid that. Believe you me, my heart is for coming out, but my head says that it is not a clever thing to do.
Last week, during the recess, I spent a few days with the Royal Marines and the Royal Navy in Norway doing a survival course. We ended up building a shelter and a fire, and then we had to go and kill a chicken and eat it. Needless to say, I did not get too involved in the killing of the chicken, because I think I would have found that incredibly difficult. I heard at first hand the Norwegians’ real concerns, shared by the Baltic states, about the whole business of Russia potentially invading their country and coming through the north and the Arctic in order to do so. That made me very concerned as well. I therefore believe that our national security should not be weakened at a time of global insecurity.
Oliver Colvile
My hon. Friend has a point, but it is important that we acknowledge that this country needs people to come here to do those jobs.
Oliver Colvile
I am afraid not.
Businesses in Plymouth rely on the UK’s deep links. My constituency has a global reputation for marine science and engineering research. Representatives from the Plymouth marine laboratory and from maritime organisations have told me that it is important that we continue to have links to Europe. University students in my constituency also want to be able to travel abroad. I am afraid that I have doubts about what the alternative would be if we were to leave.
Babcock, which runs the dockyard in my constituency, signed a letter to The Financial Times, saying that it is very important that we stay in. One of the big boat manufacturers in my constituency explained to me a couple of weeks ago how difficult it is to sell boats to south America. The company has to pay a 15% premium and it is very concerned about what would happen in France and Greece if we left. They would want to protect their own businesses and boat-building industries. That is another reason that I find it difficult to deal with this whole debate.
Britain has a proud history of playing its part in Europe, and I want it to continue to play an important role in reforming Europe while also promoting its interests worldwide. The terms Europhile and Eurosceptic are thrown about quite a bit, but I am neither. I am not Euro-suicidal but a Euro-realist, and that is why I will be voting to remain in the EU.
Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), who is not present but whose Bill this is, for giving us the opportunity to once again debate the merits or otherwise of the European Union.
I think we should have a cost-benefit analysis of this debate, given that right at the beginning—it has been going for some three hours—we were told that it was highly unlikely that the Bill would be taken any further, because that would require the referendum to be delayed. It is, therefore, a complete waste of everybody’s time and of taxpayers’ money.
Pat Glass
No, but I think it is worth saying. We have sat here for three hours, and we have heard Members talk for at least an hour about a Bill that they do not intend to take any further. As the Bill is about a cost-benefit analysis, perhaps we can have a cost-benefit analysis of this morning for the taxpayers of this country.
Pat Glass
We agree that if there is to be a TTIP agreement, it is much better to negotiate it with Britain as part of the European Union.
We have talked a lot about sovereignty in recent weeks. Many of us would agree that we have in various ways negotiated on our sovereignty in order to be part of something bigger. We have given up part of our sovereignty in defence to be part of organisations such as NATO, and we have done the same with the UN. On a personal level, when I married—I have been married for 30 years—I gave up some of my sovereignty over decisions that I would have made myself to be part of something that I accepted was bigger and better for both of us. The principle is very clear: in order to be part of something better, we sometimes have to give up things we want to hang on to. That is true of our sovereignty. I do not believe that this country has given away our sovereignty. It is very clear that whenever decisions are made in the European Union, they come back to and come under the sovereignty of this House.
On immigration, one of the huge strengths of this country—it has made us one of the strongest, richest, most powerful and greatest countries in the world—has been our ability, over centuries, to absorb and integrate millions of immigrants, migrants, people fleeing oppression and economic migrants. My family were economic refugees who came to this country during the Irish famine in the mid-19th century. Such people came to this country and worked hard for it. They brought up their children in this country, and paid their taxes. They fought for this country and, frankly, some of them died for this country. That is part of what makes this country the great country it is. To the idea that we can close the doors to people who will work in our NHS or our schools, I would say that that is part of what has kept this country rich. This country has got rich and stayed rich on immigration. We need to be very careful when talking about closing the doors to people, particularly those from the European Union.
Mr Chope
I do not think anyone has talked about closing the doors. We have talked about giving equal access on the basis of merit to foreigners regardless of whether they are from the EU or from outside the EU. For example, the hospital in my area tried to recruit nurses from the Philippines because they are well qualified for its needs, but it was unable to do so because priority has to be given to EU nurses.
Pat Glass
If we look at EU immigration, we can see that it is almost the same: 2.3 million people from the European Union are in Britain; and 2 million Brits live in the European Union. Many of them are working in and contributing to European countries and some of them, having worked hard all their lives, have retired and are now living in the European Union. We must be absolutely clear about what “out” would look like for those people. At the end of this debate, I want us to be very clear about that. We know what “in” looks like—we have had 41 years of what “in” looks like—but we absolutely no idea what “out” would look like for jobs and the economy, or for people from the EU working in this country and people from this country working in the EU.
Mr Ellwood
It is not my description. Provocatively, my hon. Friend is putting words in my mouth. We can step back from this particular issue to all the other issues, saying that in each case Britain would have the ability—in fact, we would have the obligation—outside the EU to step up and do all that work as well, whether it be on sanctions on Iran or any other relationships. The question is: on our own, can we exert greater leverage on a country such as Iran, which continues to have a proxy influence in Bahrain, Damascus and Syria, Baghdad and Iraq, and Yemen and Sana’a, or would we have more leverage and power by leading from within the EU? That applies right across the board.
Mr Chope
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the way in which he is responding to the debate. May I ask him about the Syrian refugees? I think our Prime Minister and our Government have the right idea in saying, “Let’s take the refugees from the area of the theatre, rather than encouraging them to make the dangerous journey to Europe.” Why does my hon. Friend think the European Union has not been prepared to listen and respond positively to that common-sense approach from our Government?
Mr Ellwood
I am not sure that is quite correct. Federica Mogherini, who leads on these matters for the European Union, is very much in alignment with that view. We discussed these things in Rome recently when we looked at Syrian and Iraq matters. My hon. Friend is right to say that there are a number of challenges—first, the genuine Syrian refugees caught up in the region. We should pay tribute to Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and other countries, for the massive burden that they have taken on. We have chosen to support those refugees who are most vulnerable. The challenge that has come across Europe comes not just from Syrians. Mixed in with them are Afghans and others from Africa, taking advantage of the patterns of migratory flow. We have said that if we open our doors to them, we are likely to encourage more. That is why we have been very firm.
The consequence is that thousands are still coming in across Europe every day and we need a solution to deal with that. If my hon. Friend visits Greece now, he will see the scale of the challenge there. On beaches that should be for holidaymakers, there are migrant camps and individuals everywhere, some in transit and some having put up a temporary home. EU countries are affected by that, which is why collectively we need a better solution.
Central to that is solving the problem so that people do not feel they want to turn their back on their country, thereby making it all the weaker. Many of the people who can make it and are making it to Europe are the ones with mobile phones, the ones who are fed and have a family. I do not doubt that they are going through an horrific time, but many of them are educated and if they depart from Syria, they deny it the doctors, nurses and engineers that will be needed once the guns fall silent and the country starts to rebuild itself.
Mr Ellwood
The first thing that has to be acknowledged is that the normal processes in place across Europe for dealing with refugees applying for status are going to be tested, because of the scale of the migration that we are dealing with. Under Germany’s current rules, they would have to wait a number of years—eight years, I think, but I stand to be corrected—before they can gain a passport. If they have a criminal record, they will not get a passport. So there is automatically a delay in the process of securing a passport. The German analysis is that in such a time frame, many will hope to return home or to remain in Germany. We need to keep the problem in context. If they are in Germany, have a German passport and receive benefits there, why would they want to come to the UK? These are big questions, but they are for further down the line. They should not be ducked. The scale of what we are dealing with is unprecedented since the movement of populations after the second world war.
I should just mention that much of the focus of the Syria conference that took place in the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre was on some of those questions as well. We raised an unprecedented amount of money—$11 billion was pledged in one day—from the international community. I spoke at one of the non-governmental organisation conferences, and much of the energy was focused on how the European Union deals with such challenges. If I am honest, the EU could be regarded as a fair weather organisation: when economies are doing well, that is all fine and good, but when something such as Ukraine comes up, that is when the mechanics of bringing countries together to achieve consensus has yet to be tested. That is where the European Union is having to learn far faster than NATO, which, from a security perspective, had the machinery in place to be able to react to these events on a more regular basis. None the less, my hon. Friend raises an important point.
I just want to talk a little about the consequences of exit, which is what this Bill is all about. In fact, as I mentioned earlier, we would have to delay the referendum. There is a trigger notice in article 50, which would prompt negotiation. A country cannot simply walk out of the European Union, nor can it tear up its membership card as one can do, presumably, with a political party. It needs to apply to leave, and in the good old European Union way there is a process to be followed. That process can last up to two years. It also requires the support of the 27 members, and that can take time. With all this, there is a question for those who are advocating departure: if the process were to last more than 24 months, what happens to businesses and where do they fit in? What will happen to deals, negotiations and reputations? How does the City of London continue to attract business if there is a question mark over the departure date—and that is before we have even considered what we might be entering into.
Michael Howard’s comments were referred to this morning. He talked about renegotiating to get back in. So, let us say that a country manages to get out of the EU in two years, it then might have to begin negotiations to get back in again. It took Switzerland eight years to consolidate its deal. That is time consuming. Arguably, the process can be faster. We are a far bigger country than Switzerland or Norway, so the process could be expedited. Again, there will be delays. There is a question mark over where we actually stand and what our relationship is.
It is just worth mentioning article 49, which does not get as much press as article 50 in the European treaty. It says:
“Any European State which respects the values referred to in Article 2 and is committed to promoting them may apply to become a member of the Union.”
Article 49 is all about what a country does to regain its membership. It says:
“The European Parliament and national Parliaments shall be notified of this application.”
All the national Parliaments then have a debate and discussion about a future British application.
“The applicant State shall address its application to the Council, which shall act unanimously after consulting the Commission and after receiving the consent of the European Parliament”.
So the country needs unanimous support. If one country were to say to us, “No, you can’t come back in on those terms” then we are stuck. Also, anybody who knows the European Parliament knows that it has myriad views.
It goes one to say that the European Parliament
“shall act by a majority of its component members…The conditions of admission and the adjustments to the Treaties on which the Union is founded, which such admission entails, shall be the subject of an agreement between the Member States and the applicant State.”
I could go on, but I think that the message is clear. There are an awful lot of hurdles to clear to complete the process. It is not a simple process.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend seems almost pleased to paint such a grim and complex scenario, but does he accept that that is only one possible scenario? Can he tell us what contingency plans the Government are making at the moment so that leaving the European Union after the vote on 23 June is much more straightforward and that there will not be all the problems that he is talking about?
Mr Ellwood
We will have to wait until 24 June to see whether what that crystal ball says is correct. I am not painting a scenario; it is in article 49 of the Lisbon treaty. That is what we must honour and what we signed up for. We do not have a choice in that matter—that is how it is.
Mr Ellwood
I will contemplate and reflect on what my hon. Friend has said, but my immediate reply is that we must honour the international law to which we have signed up. A nation must first consider article 50—that is about departure and getting out, which I always said is not an easy process—and then article 49, which states how we can get back into the treaty.
Let us pause for a second and think of the countries that are queuing up to join the EU. I was involved a little in encouraging Bosnia to meet the necessary requirements to be accepted into the European Union, and there is also Serbia and other countries. There is a long list of countries that want to become members of the European Union, or have some kind of status—it does not have to be full membership; it could be something similar to the arrangements of Norway or Switzerland. One argument could be that Britain has to get into line—
Mr Ellwood
My hon. Friend shakes his head. I hope that were that horrible scenario ever to take place, recognition would be given to Britain’s place in Europe, but other countries could quite rightly say, “Hang on a minute, We have dedicated teams looking at us. Why should Britain jump the gun?”
Mr Ellwood
I will heed the advice and encouragement, because other issues have been raised that we must also touch on. Let me be clear: there is a fair bit of bureaucracy to be gone through, but even securing a free trade agreement with the European Union would require a process to be followed and would not happen overnight.
Mr Ellwood
Let me come on to free trade, because those issues were raised in the debate and perhaps I can answer my hon. Friend’s point. The European Union is our main trading partner and, as has been said, that trade is worth more than £500 million a year. That is half our total trade in goods and services. However, we can still trade with the rest of the world as well, and the EU has free trade agreements with more than 50 countries—that is alongside the 28 countries in the single market. Around 45% of Britain’s exports are designed for the single market itself, while 56% go to the single market and to countries the EU has free trade deals with. [Interruption.] I will give way to somebody if they would like to give me a break so that I can clear my throat.
Mr Ellwood
I am grateful for that intervention—from a number of angles—and my hon. Friend makes an important point.
We have dealt with the delays, so I will move on to TTIP’s impact on the health service, which hon. Members raised. Many hon. Members have received emails on this subject questioning what the situation is. I should make it clear that TTIP poses no threat to the NHS whatever. It cannot force the UK to privatise public services, and any suggestion to the contrary is irresponsible and, indeed, false. The Prime Minister, the European Commission and the US Government have made that clear. The NHS—indeed, public services—will not be privatised through the trade deal, nor will the deal open NHS services to further competition or make irreversible any decisions on the provision of NHS services that are taken by the UK Government. I hope that that makes the position clear in answer to the many emails many of us have had on this issue—in fact, there might even be a 38 Degrees campaign on this.
Mr Ellwood
That is why these debates are helpful. I can only make clear what the Government’s position is. I can also ask the Minister for Europe to place a letter in the Library to set out in more detail what the consequences would be. Given the number of emails, there is clearly huge interest in this matter across the country, so I am pleased to have this opportunity to address it.
Guidance to the civil service was mentioned. The example was given of the fishing Minister’s dilemma in being unable to participate fully in the debate on the European Union. Of course, he can participate fully, but to clarify—the Prime Minister also responded on this issue at Prime Minister’s Question Time—the Government have a clear position, which is to recommend to the country that people vote to remain members of a reformed European Union.
Quite exceptionally, Ministers are being allowed to depart from the normal rules on collective responsibility, in order to dissent from the official Government position on the referendum question. However, the civil service exists—we cannot get away from that—and it is there to support the Government of the day and the policy agreed by the Government of the day. The letter published by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, and subsequently extended by formal guidance from the Cabinet Secretary to civil servants, does no more than give effect to that.
UK’s Relationship with the EU
Christopher Chope Excerpts(8 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Ah! Let us hear from one of the three musketeers at the back, Mr Christopher Chope.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
May I ask my right hon. Friend whether the draft texts incorporate the precise and clear manifesto promises on which Conservative MPs were elected last May to restrict the payment of in-work benefits and child benefit to foreigners? Yes or no?
Mr Lidington
We will have to see what deal emerges, if we get a deal at the February European Council. I think my hon. Friend would acknowledge that manifestos tend to be written in rather less technical language than do legal texts from the European Union. If he wants the language of any deal to effect changes in how the law is applied and how institutions work, we have to use technical language to describe those changes. I believe that the content and outcome of those reforms will, if we are successful, be significant, in line with what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has sought.
Child Prisoners and Detainees: Occupied Palestinian Territories
Christopher Chope Excerpts(8 years, 10 months ago)
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Sarah Champion
That is the nub of this debate and I appreciate the fact that my hon. Friend brought it forward. If there are no more interventions, I will make some headway.
UNICEF’s findings are corroborated by evidence collected by Military Court Watch, an organisation made up predominantly of lawyers working in the region, indicating that ill-treatment within the system still seems to be “widespread, systematic and institutionalized” as of last month. In spite of UK and UN intervention, the most recent evidence indicates that the majority of children continue to be arrested in terrifying night-time military raids. In the few cases when summonses are used, most are delivered by the military after midnight and much of the information is written in Hebrew.
Some 93% of children continue to be restrained with plastic ties, many painfully so, and the standard operating procedures are frequently ignored. Around 80% of children continue to be blindfolded or hooded, a practice that the UK and UNICEF reports said should be absolutely prohibited. Audiovisual recording of interrogations has been mandated only in non-security-related offences, which means that nearly 90% of cases involving children, including those accused of attending a demonstration, continue to take place without this practical safeguard.
Perhaps most disturbing is the fact that the reports of physical abuse—consisting mainly of punching, kicking, position abuse and slapping, but in some cases also including more serious allegations, such as of being mauled by dogs and receiving electric shocks—are now higher in number than they were in 2013.
As for the scale of the problem, Military Court Watch estimates that since June 1967 about 95,000 Palestinian children have been detained by the Israeli military. Of those, 59,000 are likely to have been physically abused in one way or another. That abuse is truly disturbing and is on an industrial scale. Why is it that after so much effort, so little progress has been made? Is there something inherent in the situation in Palestine that prevents genuine change? When I visited Israel and Palestine in September 2015 as part of a cross-party Council for Arab-British Understanding and Medical Aid for Palestinians delegation, it became apparent why little has changed during the three intervening years.
To understand the situation, one must think like an Israeli defence force soldier. Essentially, the Israeli military have but one mission in Palestine—to guarantee the protection of nearly 600,000 Israeli civilians living in illegal settlements in East Jerusalem and the west bank—an unenviable task for any military to be given. To achieve their mission, the military must engage in a strategy of mass intimidation and collective punishment of the Palestinian population, or risk the eviction of the settlers. That inevitably leads to fear, resentment and friction. [Interruption.]
Mr Christopher Chope (in the Chair)
Order. Somebody at the back of the room is taking photographs. That is not allowed.
Sarah Champion
Thank you, Mr Chope.
As I was saying, that inevitably leads to fear, resentment and friction, often resulting in the military detention of Palestinian civilians, including children, or, to put it another way, how else could 600,000 Israeli civilians safely go about their daily lives while residing in illegal settlements in occupied territory for nearly 50 years? It is no coincidence that the one thing that all detained children have in common is that they live at a friction point located within a few kilometres of an Israeli settlement or a road used by Israeli settlers. At those friction points, the military make their presence felt through night raids, violent incursions, suppression of demonstrations, arrests and roadblocks—a fact repeatedly confirmed by former Israeli soldiers in their testimonies to the group Breaking the Silence.
Mr Christopher Chope (in the Chair)
Order. As hon. Members can see, there are many more people standing than there will be time to accommodate, because we are going to start the wind-ups at 10.30 am. I therefore ask those who are fortunate enough to catch the Chair’s eye to exercise self-restraint, and I hope that an example will be set by Mr John Howell.
Mr Christopher Chope (in the Chair)
Order. I thought that the hon. Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah) had finished her speech, but—
Mr Christopher Chope (in the Chair)
I will allow the hon. Lady to respond, and then we will go on to the next speech.
Simon Danczuk
Absolutely. The hon. Gentleman makes an important point.
I am conscious of time, so I will turn quickly to the issue of parents and guardians not being able to accompany their children when they have to appear before court. Many such issues come up time and again, including how children cannot or do not have legal representation while they are detained. Military Court Watch reports that 73% of children detained said that they were simply not aware of their right to remain silent. What is also damning is that in 30% of cases, the prosecuted child was made to sign their plea in Hebrew.
To conclude—
Mr Christopher Chope (in the Chair)
Order. I am afraid we have already reached 10.30 am. We have to start the wind-up speeches; otherwise everyone will be squeezed out and it may not be possible for the proposer of the motion to respond, which is always desirable in a debate such as this.
Diana Johnson
I want to come on to deal with the point that the hon. Gentleman has just made. I think that every Member—[Interruption.]
Mr Christopher Chope (in the Chair)
Order. Up until now we have had mutual respect, and I think that should continue.
Diana Johnson
I think that every Member of this House would agree that the involvement of children in conflict is absolutely wrong. Before I go on to deal with some of the specific issues around the Israeli response to Palestinian child prisoners, I want to refer to the 2005 assertion from Amnesty International:
“Palestinian armed groups have repeatedly shown total disregard for the most fundamental human rights, notably the right to life, by deliberately targeting Israeli civilians and by using Palestinian children in armed attacks. Children are susceptible to recruitment by manipulation or may be driven to join armed groups for a variety of reasons, including a desire to avenge relatives or friends killed by the Israeli army.”
Moving on to the issue before us today—the treatment of child prisoners—in 2012 the Government convened a group of eminent lawyers with expertise in human rights and child welfare to investigate what was going on. I commend the Government for doing that and I commend all the lawyers involved, including my right hon. and learned Friend the Baroness Scotland. The report concluded that Israel’s treatment of Palestinian child prisoners amounted to a series of breaches of the rights of the child, including article 2 on discrimination and article 3 on the child’s best interests. More concerning still, the lawyers encountered significant evidence that Israel may be in breach of the general prohibition on cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
The following year, in March 2013, UNICEF released a report, “Children in Israeli Military Detention”, which prompted the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child to express,
“its deepest concern about the reported practice of torture and ill-treatment of Palestinian children arrested, prosecuted and detained by the military and the police, and about the State party’s failure to end these practices in spite of repeated concerns expressed by treaty bodies, special procedures mandate holders and United Nations agencies”.
UNICEF made 38 recommendations to improve the treatment of child detainees. Many of these overlapped with the 40 recommendations from the UK legal delegation, which covered the five clear areas of arrest, interrogation, bail hearings, sentencing and the investigation of complaints. Those were all important recommendations. In response, there have been a few welcome military orders issued by the IDF, including military order 1711, which reduces the time a Palestinian child can be detained prior to appearing before a military court judge, and military order 1745, which requires interrogations to be conducted in a language the child can understand, and to be recorded. However, this order does not apply if a child is suspected of committing a security offence such as throwing stones, and that is of concern.
A 2014 UNICEF working group on grave violations against children gathered 208 statements from detained children and found that, among other things, 171 reported being subject to physical violence and 144 reported being subject to verbal abuse. Of the 38 recommendations made by UNICEF in March 2013, only five were deemed to have been addressed by March 2015, although 15 were partially addressed and 14 were under discussion. It is important to note that Israel has rejected only one recommendation outright. The British Government need to do much more to hold the Israeli Government to account in terms of what they are doing to meet the recommendations that have been made.
In a recent answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter), it looked as though there was little tangible progress in implementing the recommendations that have been set out. Nor can I say there is much evidence that the Government are prioritising the issue. Although I welcome the efforts of our ambassador in Tel Aviv to raise the issue, I think Ministers can do far more. In conclusion—
European Union Referendum Bill
Christopher Chope Excerpts(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Lidington
My right hon. and learned Friend puts his view forcefully. That was the case the Foreign Secretary and I put on Second Reading and in Committee, but widespread concern was expressed on both sides suggesting that we were asking for something that was too broad in scope. That is why we have come forward today with something that is, yes, a lot narrower than what was originally in the Bill.
Mr Lidington
I want to touch on a further point about new clause 10, and then I want to try to bring my remarks to a close, touching briefly on some of the other amendments, because other Members wish to speak.
There has been some debate about whether individuals, including elected representatives, are caught under section 125. We have not proposed to alter the wording in this respect. It states that no material can be published in the final 28 days, and makes it clear that this applies not only to the Government and local authorities, but to
“any other person or body whose expenses are defrayed wholly or mainly out of public funds or by any local authority.”
Let me be straight about this. Both the Foreign Secretary and I were rather taken aback when we received advice saying that there was a risk that elected representatives or anybody else in the public sector might be caught by the provision. A literal reading of that part of section 125 suggests that that might be the case. It is also true that this does not seem to have been a significant issue in previous referendums. It has not been tested in the courts and there is room for legal argument. It would be possible under the automating power to put that beyond any doubt.
Mr Lidington
I am not arguing that there is legal certainty about this, but if my hon. Friend looks at the wording of the Act—this is not something invented by this Government—he will see that it refers to
“any other person or body”,
thus distinguishing between the two concepts. I am saying that this would need further discussion and legal analysis, but that if we came to the view that there was any sort of risk to individuals, there should be a power to make it possible to remedy the problem.
Mr Lidington
I shall give way to my hon. Friend, but then I am going to press on.
Mr Chope
Is my right hon. Friend prepared to accept manuscript amendment (a)? Why does he not bring before us a draft of the regulations that he proposes? That is common practice in the legislative context, and Committees are often allowed to look at the draft regulations, but we do not have them before us.
Mr Lidington
It would be premature to bring forward draft regulations before the Bill has completed its progress through this House and before it has even started in the House of Lords. The provisions in amendment 53 include a duty on the Government, following the Select Committee’s advice, to consult the Electoral Commission about anything we might want to bring forward under this measure. Then, of course, those have to be laid before Parliament in the usual way, be debated and be approved or not approved in the same way as any secondary legislation.
Srebrenica Genocide (20th Anniversary)
Christopher Chope Excerpts(9 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Christopher Chope (in the Chair)
Order. Three more people wish to speak. I do not wish to impose a time limit. If each Member speaks for a maximum of five minutes, we should be able to fit them all in.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. and gallant Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) on securing the debate and on all the work that he has done over the years with Remembering Srebrenica. I am the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Srebrenica, which was set up about three years ago. I want to thank right hon. and hon. Members who have supported it and its work.
My interest in what happened in Bosnia stems partly from having seen what happened during the war in the former Yugoslavia, as it disintegrated before our eyes. In addition, I worked for two years with the United Nations mission in Kosovo, from 2000 to 2002, so I had a chance to see at first hand some of the things that happened in Yugoslavia. I did not have the opportunity to travel to Bosnia, because of various security issues and concerns at the time, but I had the chance to speak to people who had been there—and, of course, to people generally across Yugoslavia. I am sure that Members are aware that there were many massacres in Kosovo too, carried out by Miloševic and his people. I had a chance to see mass graves there.
I am grateful for the fact that we are remembering Srebrenica and the 8,344 young boys and men who died in the massacre, but it is also right to remember that those were not the only deaths. About 100,000 Muslims died in the disintegration of Yugoslavia. In addition to the killings, as is almost inevitable in wars, thousands of women were raped. We have heard accounts of how that happened consistently—and it seems almost to be a pattern in war.
I was humbled yesterday to be one of the 20 people to light a candle in Westminster Abbey. It was a wonderful event. I thank not only Members of the House who have given cross-party support, but the United Kingdom; we were the country that years ago pushed in the European Parliament for an annual day to commemorate Srebrenica. It is sad that even though the Parliament passed a resolution that the event should be commemorated every year in all the European countries, we are probably the only one still doing it properly. The rest of Europe has a lot of catching up to do.
I pay tribute to our country and our Parliament for what they have done, and for the assistance given by the Foreign Office and the Department for Communities and Local Government. I hope that the commemorations will come to be held in not just a few towns and cities, but every town and city in the country. The events in question should never be forgotten.
Much has been said about the details of the horrific crimes that happened. I met some of the mothers and survivors about three years ago for tea on the Terrace. The hon. Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) spoke about dignity and forgiveness, and how the mothers bear no malice despite everything that has happened to them. Perhaps the world at large can gain understanding from such things. People were killed for their religion, sometimes by neighbours—one of the mothers said that some of the people who turned against her family were neighbours.
We need to learn the lesson from the fact that such dehumanising hatred can build up—that we are mistaken if we target groups and tarnish our view of them because of race, ethnicity or religion. Treating a group constantly as not part of our society, or not fitting in with our values or doing certain things, is the sort of thing that can lead to such genocide and neighbours turning against each other.
I want to touch on genocide or killing that is still happening; Syria has been mentioned. Conflicts are sometimes confusing, and the situation in Burma is also relevant. May I have another minute, Mr Chope?
Mr Christopher Chope (in the Chair)
The hon. Lady has the Floor, but I hope to fit in Mr Kerevan as well, and we need time for proper winding-up speeches.
George Kerevan (East Lothian) (SNP)
I pay tribute to my gallant friend, the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), for organising the debate. “Gallant” is an important word, because it is a truism—true in this case—that the people who hate war and its aftermath most are former soldiers who have experienced it. We should remember that.
I will briefly explain why this debate is of significance to me. I was born at the end of the 1940s and am of the generation brought up in the shadow of the Nazi holocaust. It was axiomatic to us that such mass, clinical, industrial murder could never take place again in Europe—but it did. I was shocked when it happened in Srebrenica. I had thought that it could never happen again, but it will always happen again if each generation does not learn the lessons and if we do not preach the lessons to the young of our country. We have to go on doing that; it will happen again unless we go on preaching the dangers.
I also want to speak because I have a Bosnian Muslim constituent. Campaigning in the general election, I knocked on a door in Haddington, a country town in Scotland, in East Lothian. A happy family from an immigrant community answered the door and it turned out that they were from Bosnia; they had come over as refugees in the aftermath of the war. I did not know that a number of refugees at that time had been relocated to Haddington to keep them together and to form a local community. It is now 20 years on, however, so I happily asked, “Are any other Bosnian families still here?” The people in the door laughed and pointed next door and up the street and I discovered that quite a significant community had made its home in Haddington. They were talking with broad Scottish accents, as is the way if someone lives there for a while. We have made them welcome, but they have joined us and entered our community despite all their traumas, so I thank them.
In my past life I was a documentary filmmaker, and I have been so moved by this issue over the years. We made a documentary film about the survivors of the massacre with Samir Mehanovic, an old Bosnian Muslim friend of mine who suffered and lost family in the crisis, but now lives here. It will be shown in an edited form on BBC World and we are premiering it in Sarajevo at the weekend. The film is designed for the cinema; we wanted people to see things on the big screen, in the dark, to achieve immediacy, rather than having it go on in a living room on the small screen, which does not have the same impact.
The hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) mentioned some of the footage taken by the Serbian irregulars and the Serbian army of the cruel things they were doing. I could only watch some of the scenes once. I actually argued with my friend Samir in favour of taking the footage out of our film, but he would not have it—it traumatises him to watch it, but he wants people to see.
The message of our film is the one I wanted to bring to the Chamber, however briefly: we should not only honour and remember the dead, but remember the living. There are many survivors—most are now in Tuzla—but they have found it difficult to find work, their memories are still in their heads and they still need help, support and solidarity. We must remember that fact, which I commend to the Minister. There is still work to be done for the living as well as the dead.
My final point involves Milorad Dodik, the leader of the Bosnian Serbs, who in the past few weeks has been doing his usual thing of denying the massacre. He has even been to the massacre site and denied that it ever took place. There have been contacts between the Bosnian Serbs and the Moscow regime; pressure is put on Moscow to continue to operate at the United Nations in an attempt to stop proper UN recognition and continuing investigation of the massacre. I commend that fact to the Minister.
There is still work to be done at the UN to ensure that we go on remembering Srebrenica, seeking justice for the victims and remembering those who are still alive.
Mr Christopher Chope (in the Chair)
I call Stephen Gethins for a maximum of five minutes.
Russian Membership of the Council of Europe
Christopher Chope Excerpts(9 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Brooke. I think this is the first time I have had that privilege and I fear that it might be the last, because of your impending retirement.
This is a great opportunity to discuss the importance of the Council of Europe and of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. I am delighted to see a number of my colleagues from the Parliamentary Assembly here today, along with the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Mr Hancock), who was a long-serving member of the Assembly until he retired at the beginning of this year after some 18 years’ service.
The statute of the Council of Europe was agreed in London on 5 May 1949. There were 10 founding members. Today, 47 countries belong to it, and Russia is one of those, having joined in 1996. All have signed up to the aims of the Council as set out in chapter I, article 1(a), which provides:
“The aim of the Council of Europe is to achieve a greater unity between its members for the purpose of safeguarding and realising the ideals… which are their common heritage and facilitating their economic and social progress.”
Article 3 of the statute provides:
“Every member of the Council of Europe must accept the principles of the rule of law and of the enjoyment by all persons within its jurisdiction of human rights and fundamental freedoms, and collaborate sincerely and effectively in the realisation of the aim of the Council as specified in Chapter I.”
If one recites the text of article 3 and sets that against the recent actions of the Russian Federation, the question immediately arises of what sanctions there are against members that are in breach or violation of article 3. The answer is contained in article 8:
“Any member of the Council of Europe which has seriously violated Article 3 may be suspended from its rights of representation and requested by the Committee of Ministers to withdraw under Article 7. If such member does not comply with this request, the Committee may decide that it has ceased to be a member of the Council as from such date as the Committee may determine.”
My first question for my right hon. Friend the Minister, whom I am delighted to see is responding to the debate, is, has the Russian Federation seriously violated article 3 of the statute? My view is that it certainly has, which I think is a view shared by all 18 members of the UK delegation and the 18 substitute members.
Mr Mike Hancock (Portsmouth South) (Ind)
What the hon. Gentleman is describing could have been the case on at least five previous occasions, but it would appear that this is the straw that broke the camel’s back, certainly as far as the UK delegation is concerned. We could have had this over South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Chechnya, the human rights issues relating to the death penalty and so on. All those have come up one time after another, so why now?
Mr Chope
I will go on to explain exactly why. It is not just the view of all the UK delegation’s members that the Russian Federation has seriously violated article 3; it is also the view of a substantial majority of the Parliamentary Assembly, as evidenced by the decision in January this year to impose sanctions against representatives of Russia, and of the European Conservatives group in the Assembly, which I have the privilege of chairing. It also must be the opinion of the Committee of Ministers, which has made various declarations calling on the Russian Federation to do this, that and the other, all of which have been ignored.
Sir Alan Meale (Mansfield) (Lab)
I confirm that that is also the view of the majority of the Socialist group in the Council of Europe.
Mr Chope
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for putting that on the record. I know that within the Socialist group, strong, differing views have been expressed, but the UK delegation in the Socialist group has been solidly supporting the notion that we must have application of the rules of law to the Russian Federation’s membership of the Council of Europe.
What has the Russian Federation done to put itself in fundamental breach of its obligations? First, it has illegally annexed the territory of another member country of the Council of Europe through the use of armed aggression. To make that worse, its President this week finally admitted that he ordered that annexation, and that there was no free will involved on the part of those living in Crimea. However, as recently as January this year, Mr Putin’s poodles in the Russian state Duma were trying to equate Crimea’s referendum with that the one that took place in Scotland last year and to say that the annexation was equivalent to the Federal Republic of Germany’s annexation of East Germany in 1989.
The hon. Member for Portsmouth South asked what is new, and I have here an article from a Russian newspaper, dated 28 January 2015, with the headline “Russian lawmakers to consider declaration on 1989 ‘annexation of East Germany’”. It states:
“Sergei Naryshkin, the speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament, has asked the parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs to look into the possibility of adopting a declaration which denounces the reunification of Germany in 1989”.
He goes on to say that the Parliamentary Assembly’s reference to the events in Crimea was unlawful and that
“‘97% of Crimean residents voted for reunification with their motherland’”.
The article continues:
“Following the logic of those who call this historical event an annexation, the Federal Republic of Germany annexed East Germany, Naryshkin stated.”
We now know, from Putin’s words a year later, that he ordered that, so all the subsequent bluff and bluster were lies, as we knew they were at the time, and as most of us on the Parliamentary Assembly realised.
The second thing that I hold against the Russian Federation is that it has deployed Russian troops across the border in eastern Ukraine who have used and continued to use heavy weapons against the Ukrainian people. I ask the hon. Gentleman, is that not enough?
Thirdly, Russia has brazenly defied the rule of law by harbouring Andrei Lugovoy, one of its own MPs, who was involved in the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006. As has become clear at the public inquiry currently taking place, Lugovoy achieved a score of minus 2 when asked during a polygraph test in Moscow in April 2012 whether he had handled polonium, yet at the time Russia claimed that the test had emphatically established his innocence. To add insult to injury, on Monday this week, President Putin awarded a state honour to Mr Lugovoy for what was described as “services to the fatherland”. That is putting the proverbial two fingers up to all the other members of the Council of Europe. What are those members doing in response?
The fourth charge that I levy against the Russian Federation is that it has refused to honour its obligations under international law to release from custody Nadiya Savchenko, who was an elected Member of the Ukrainian Parliament and a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. She was illegally abducted from Ukraine last July.
Then there is the Magnitsky case. That is a case of the Russians exercising impunity in relation to the killers of Sergei Magnitsky. A recently published book by Bill Browder, “Red Notice: How I Became Putin’s No. 1 Enemy”, is, according to the inside cover,
“a searing exposé of the wholesale whitewash by Russian authorities of Magnitsky’s imprisonment and murder, slicing deep into the shadowy heart of the Kremlin to uncover its sordid truths… With fraud, bribery, corruption and torture exposed at every turn, Red Notice is a shocking but true political roller-coaster that plays out in the highest echelons of Western power.”
On the back of the book, which, not surprisingly, has been banned in Russia, there is a quote from Bill Browder:
“I have to assume that there is a very real chance that Putin or members of his regime will have me killed some day… If I’m killed, you will know who did it.”
That is, sadly, rather reminiscent of what Boris Nemtsov’s mother said before his assassination in Russia last month.
In addition to all that, there have been multiple breaches of the accession document that Russia signed when it joined the Council of Europe. As Russia is still in deliberate breach of its obligations under article 3, why is nothing being done by the United Kingdom Government to trigger action against Russia under article 8? Indeed, one might ask what the purpose is of belonging to an organisation that manifestly shows so little respect for the values espoused in its founding statute.
There are precedents for suspension or expulsion from international organisations, and I want to touch on what happens in the Commonwealth. On Monday, Her Majesty the Queen, as head of the Commonwealth, attended the annual service at Westminster abbey, and her message for Commonwealth day was that the organisation’s values are
“more important and worthy of protection than perhaps at any other time in the Commonwealth’s existence.”
The same is true of the values of the Council of Europe. The principles of the Commonwealth were set out in the Singapore declaration of 1971 and restated in the Harare declaration of 1991. In essence, they talk about peace, democracy, liberty and the rule of law.
Nigeria was suspended from the Commonwealth in 1995 for breaching the Commonwealth principles. It was reinstated in 1999, when it had a democratically elected President. Fiji was suspended in September 2009 for being in breach of the principles and is still suspended. Indeed, I think it has now left the organisation. Zimbabwe was suspended in March 2002. That resulted in its leaving the Commonwealth in December 2003. There are well established precedents for exercising the power of suspension from an international organisation when a member of that organisation is manifestly in breach of the principles.
Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)
I have a word of caution for my hon. Friend, who is making a very powerful and correct point. I am a member of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, and one problem that we have had is that we are losing countries from the CPA because of the problems that we are facing. Australia is an obvious one. The problem in this case is that we may split the Council of Europe if we are not careful. The idea that my hon. Friend is putting forward is absolutely right—we have to have sanctions—but we do not want a polarised Council of Europe, in which countries feel that they are so bullied by Russia that they cannot continue to be within the Council of Europe. Does he see that that may be a problem, rather like what the Commonwealth has been facing over the last 20 years with the countries that we have had to suspend?
Mr Chope
There may be parallels. I defer to my hon. Friend’s superior knowledge of what happens in the Commonwealth. However, if we and the other founding members of the Council of Europe do not stand up for our belief in the principles of the Council of Europe, we make things much more difficult for other countries, particularly those that were formerly in eastern Europe and part of the Soviet bloc. It is much more difficult for them to try to comply with the principles of the Council of Europe if they can see that the bully boy next-door to them is being treated with impunity, which is exactly what is happening with Russia at the moment. We could send a very strong message if we took effective action and used sanctions against Russia. We would be sending a message to those other countries that we were on their side and would help them to stand up against their bully-boy neighbour.
Mr Mike Hancock
I am curious to know why the Conservative group stayed in the same group as the Russians for so long if it felt so strongly about Russian abuses that have gone on for the past 18 years or so.
Mr Chope
The answer to that is that the abuses that I have been describing have not been going on for the last 18 years or so. What has happened is that things have got very much worse within the last year. That is why the European Democrat group, as it then was, decided to take sanctions against the Russians, as members of that group, for being in manifest breach of the Council of Europe. What was the straw that broke the camel’s back in that respect? It was the motion, passed in the Russian Duma by elected members of the Parliamentary Assembly from Russia, supporting the illegal annexation of Crimea. It was not a situation, as sometimes happens in the Parliamentary Assembly—this has happened with the hon. Gentleman and to an extent with myself—in which we as elected members say that we are not necessarily four-square supporting our Government but are standing up for the values of the Council of Europe against our Government. What happened in that case was that the members of the Russian Federation delegation and members in the European Democrat group were actively undermining the principles of the Council of Europe and actively engaged in supporting the illegal annexation of Crimea and were thereby breaching the principle that the Council of Europe stands for the territorial integrity of all its member countries. That is the short history.
Mr Chope
The hon. Gentleman takes us back to what happened in relation to Georgia. He may recall that at that time there was a Labour Government in this country and one of the first international statesmen who spoke out in support of Georgia was none other than our present Prime Minister, so I do not think that we can be criticised for being slopy-shouldered in relation to what happened in Georgia. That was part of a continuing scenario. When it comes down to it, we have to face the fact that in Mr Putin we are dealing with a dictator and a tyrant. That is the scenario. In the same way, we have been dealing with a dictator and a tyrant in Zimbabwe. Eventually, patience ran out and Zimbabwe was expelled from the Commonwealth. It was not expelled immediately, because everyone was using the same arguments as are now being used in relation to Russia: “Isn’t jaw-jaw better than any alternative?” However, there comes a time when, if someone continues to be in complete defiance of the principles, we need to take, in my view, the only sanction that is available under the rules.
We are already in danger of being accused of double standards. When my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb) chaired the Joint Committee on the draft Voting Eligibility (Prisoners) Bill, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muiznieks, wrote to him on 10 October 2013:
“Thus, my message is clear: the Court’s judgments”—
Mr Muiznieks was referring to the European Court of Human Rights—
“have to be executed and the automatic and indiscriminate ban on voting rights for prisoners should be repealed. If the Court system is to continue to provide protection, there is no alternative to this for member states, other than leaving the system itself.”
He goes on to say:
“I think that any member state should withdraw from the Council of Europe rather than defy the Court by not executing judgments.”
Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that, until recently, the committee on legal affairs and human rights of the Council of Europe had for some time seen Russia engaging more, explaining its views about judgments and following up on some of them? That seemed quite encouraging, so it is a great pity that we have got into the current situation. Would it not be best for the Russians to follow the ceasefire agreement and find an honourable peace in Ukraine, so that the progress that has been made could resume?
Mr Chope
Of course it would be, but the point that I am making, and the reason why I have secured the debate, is that everything suggests that the reverse is true. In relation to the Court judgments, on 13 December 2013 President Putin praised the Russian Constitutional Court for upholding the Russian constitution by effectively stating that the Constitutional Court’s authority was superior to that of the European Court of Human Rights. As a result of that, did the Commissioner for Human Rights tell Russia that it should withdraw from the Council of Europe, as he told my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton that the UK should do? No, he did not. Has the commissioner said anything similar about the various actions that Russia has taken in defiance of its obligations under the statute? No, he has not, and that is where the double standards come in.
We are being told that, because of our failure to implement an interpretation of the European convention on human rights which is in breach of the original terms of the convention—originally, it was clear that they did not apply to prisoner voting, but the interpretation has been extended—the United Kingdom should expel itself from the Council of Europe. Meanwhile, the commissioner has not said anything to the Russians about their membership.
Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
I am following the trend of the hon. Gentleman’s argument, but I am slightly unclear about whether he is against Russia, against the Council of Europe, or against our engagement with either.
Mr Chope
I am very much in favour of engagement, but only with those who want to engage on the same page, if I may put it in such a way. My concern is that the Russians are not showing any willingness to do so. If we believe that there has been a fundamental breach of the statute, as I have set out, and if that is allowed to happen with impunity, it brings into question the whole purpose of this international organisation. What is the point of belonging to it? That is the question to which I hope we will get an answer from the Minister.
Mr Spellar
We are a member of the United Nations, in which there is a huge range of opinions, democracy and practices. How does the logic of the hon. Gentleman’s argument follow?
Mr Chope
The Council of Europe is different from the United Nations, and the statute spells out that it is separate from the United Nations. The Council of Europe covers only Europe—European values and principles. I would be concerned if the right hon. Gentleman wanted to be an apologist for the Russian Federation, although I do not believe that he does. Until now, cross-party concern has been expressed in the House about the behaviour of the Russian Federation. If we are prepared to take economic sanctions against the Russian Federation, why should we not take the sanctions that are available to us under the Council of Europe statute? The answer may be because certain other members of the Council of Europe are too frightened to want to join in, but my answer to them is that the United Kingdom has traditionally taken a lead in such things. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister, in his response to the debate, will say that we are taking a lead and explain what we will do.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. He talks about engaging with people. Does he agree that we should encourage engagement with the sections of Russian society that have taken a stand against Putin, and that we should ensure that they have a voice not only in the Council of Europe but across the globe?
Mr Chope
I agree, but how best can we do that? That is a question of judgment. I have heard it said, for example, that we must keep Russia in the Council of Europe because if we do not, it will reinstate the death penalty. In fact, however, we can see from recent events that the Russian Government exercise an extrajudicial death penalty by murdering enemies of the state in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. Do we tolerate such behaviour because we are fearful that Russia might reintroduce a judicial death penalty instead of the extrajudicial death penalty that is currently handed out by the President?
The extent to which we should impose sanctions is an eternal dilemma. Just as public opinion in this country is influenced by international events, if we took a firmer line against Russia on its human rights record and its breaches of the rules of the Council of Europe, we would support those in Russia who are trying to fight against the system. I know from having had the privilege of talking to Bill Browder that he also believes that it is better to try to sanction the regime in Russia than to continue to indulge it.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
We owe a debt to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) for securing the debate, because it encourages a useful exchange of views. He is the most distinguished leader of the European Conservatives Group on the Council of Europe. He has devoted himself body and soul to working on the Council in an often unsung role, and we are grateful to him. We all understand the depth of his feeling, and we can understand why he advances the argument that we should now expel Russia from the Council of Europe. I am sorry to say that I disagree with that argument. So far, Russia has behaved in an utterly lamentable fashion, and the Council of Europe has decided effectively to suspend it. In theory, Russia can turn up, but in practice it does not. It does not vote or speak.
Taking the next dramatic step of expelling Russia would be a mistake because, although my hon. Friend will not agree, as long as Russia is involved in the Council of Europe, whether on the death penalty, human rights or its position with regard to other countries, there is some sort of link and encouragement for it to make progress along the road of human rights.
Why was the Council of Europe set up? It is a very different organisation from the European Union. As my hon. Friend said, we are one of the creators of the Council of Europe. He referred to the famous remark of Winston Churchill in 1954:
“To jaw-jaw is…better than to war-war.”
That is what the Council of Europe is all about. I view it not as an executive body like the European Union; I view it as an inter-parliamentary assembly. I am a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and one of the Council of Europe’s values is that we recognise that our powers are extremely limited—in fact, they are virtually non-existent, with the exception of voting for judges on the European Court of Human Rights—but it is an opportunity to meet Members of Parliaments from across Europe to exchange views. That is what the Council of Europe is: it is an inter-parliamentary assembly.
Article 1 of the statute of the Council of Europe states that its purpose is
“to achieve a greater unity between its members for the purpose of safeguarding and realising the ideals and principles which are their common heritage and facilitating their economic and social progress.”
As long as Russia is, albeit suspended, a member of the Council of Europe, we can hope to press it to mend its ways. Expelling Russia would be a considerable step. My hon. Friend mentioned suspended members of the Commonwealth, but it has been a rare step to expel countries from the Commonwealth—South Africa might have been expelled, and it might even have expelled itself in the early years of apartheid—and expelling a member of the Council of Europe would be a dangerous precedent, particularly in our vulnerable situation, as has already been mentioned.
As I understand it, in our Conservative party manifesto, we will proclaim the supremacy of Parliament. We will proclaim that, if our Parliament votes for a particular position, such as on prisoner voting rights, the Court cannot gainsay it. If there is a Conservative Government and if we pass such an Act of Parliament, there will undoubtedly be a move from some of our friends in Europe to expel us, but I am pretty sure that we will not be expelled. It is pretty foolish for us to set a precedent by now expelling Russia.
What Russia is doing by invading a sovereign country, its neighbour, is infinitely more egregious, more damaging to human rights and more lamentable in every respect than our will and desire to proclaim the supremacy of Parliament—I recognise that—but we have a problem, have we not? As some people will articulate, we have signed various conventions and, in a very real sense, the European Court of Human Rights is a supreme court, an ultimate authority of laws. Although we will undoubtedly want to stay in the Council of Europe—my right hon. Friend the Minister can confirm that—despite proclaiming the supremacy of Parliament, we will be in some difficulty. It is not entirely useful for us to set a precedent.
Mr Chope
Article 8 outlines a two-stage process. The first stage states:
“Any member of the Council of Europe which has seriously violated Article 3 may be suspended from its rights of representation”.
That is what I am suggesting as a first stage. Article 8 goes on to say what can happen afterwards. My hon. Friend says that expulsion would be a very strong sanction, but my suggestion is that we should start off with suspension, using the powers under article 8.
Sir Edward Leigh
I apologise if I misunderstood my hon. Friend. I argue with the position that we effectively have at the moment. Russia might not be formally suspended, but it is effectively suspended, which is a sort of halfway house. We are rapping its knuckles. If he is now saying that under no circumstances does he wish to expel Russia and that he does not view this as a process towards expelling Russia, I am sorry that I misunderstood his arguments. I am in favour of giving a message to Russia, but I am not in favour of expelling Russia. If he wants to make it clear that he is also not in favour of expelling Russia, I will happily give way.
Mr Chope
There are two separate issues: the Russian delegation’s membership of the Parliamentary Assembly and Russia’s membership of the Council of Europe as a country. I am saying that article 8 should be applied on that latter point. I am not talking about the situation within the Parliamentary Assembly, which has already been well rehearsed. I am talking about the Government’s responsibility to do something under article 8.
Sir Edward Leigh
We now understand each other perfectly. I tell my right hon. Friend the Minister that I do not agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch. We have taken the right, measured steps within the Parliamentary Assembly. The process of suspension may result in expulsion, and there should be no route towards suspending or expelling Russia from the Council of Europe. I think we have done the right thing.
Sir Edward Leigh
I agree entirely. I was thinking of intervening on my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch when he introduced this debate. Has he been in touch with non-governmental organisations across Russia? Has he been in touch with people who are appealing to the Court, as my hon. and learned Friend said? My understanding—the Minister can confirm this or otherwise—is that the Council of Europe is valued by some people in Russia. They still have the right to go to the Court, and starting a process to expel Russia from the Council of Europe and denying those people the right to appeal to the Court would be dangerous.
Time is running by, and we do not want to get bogged down on the invasion of Ukraine. I am not pro-Ukrainian or pro-Russian. All I seek is to understand the mentality of the Russian people and the Russian Government, and that is part of the importance of sitting on a body such as the Council of Europe. Seeking to understand our opponent’s position does not necessarily mean that we agree with that position. It belittles and over-simplifies the debate to say that, because the current President of Russia, Mr Putin, is a tyrant—he may well be a tyrant and an extremely unpleasant person—this is somehow all his doing and that, if we in Britain were to apply certain pressures on him such as starting the process of expelling his country from the Council of Europe, we would somehow influence him.
We have to understand the attitude of many people in Crimea, eastern Ukraine and Russia. Thirty-four of the Council of Europe’s 47 member states have recognised the forcible division of Serbia after Kosovo proclaimed its independence. That is often cited, and it was directly cited by the Crimean Parliament when it voted to leave Ukraine and join the Russian Federation. It blames us for double standards on Serbia, and it asks us, “Where were you, Britain, and what debates were there in the House of Commons, when Khrushchev forcibly, by diktat, removed Crimea from Russia and gave it to Ukraine in the 1950s?”
I do not want to comment on whether this is right or wrong, but there is a substantial body of opinion—a majority opinion—in Crimea and Russia that thinks that the people of Crimea and eastern Ukraine, who are ethnic Russians and Russian speakers, have a right to self-determination. We can have as many debates as we like, we can pose as many sanctions as we want and we can criticise Mr Putin as often as we like, but we are up against the absolute, convinced opinion of an overwhelming majority of Russian people, who think that the people of eastern Ukraine have a right to self-determination.
Sir Edward Leigh
I am simply seeking to understand the Russian point of view. There is a difficulty with Latvia, because there are 300,000 ethnic Russian speakers in that country who are effectively denied their human rights. I am not going to get involved in a debate about whether that is bad or good, but my hon. Friend is right to say that it is often talked about in Russia. It is a real problem. However, there is a difference, because Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania are members of NATO. We decided to draw them into NATO, so we are bound by article 5 to defend them.
I must end in a moment, because I do not want to weary the House by speaking for too long. I believe—I have said this before and I will say it again—that Great Britain has an historic role. There is no history between us and Russia, so we are natural arbiters. We were allies in the two greatest conflicts of the 20th century, and in many ways we are natural allies. There is a way out of this impasse.
I spent an hour with the Russian ambassador recently, and I asked his opinion. Hon. Members may say that he is just another diplomat sent abroad to lie for his country. I did not believe everything that he told me, but he said that Russia’s position—take it or leave it, but it is not completely unreasonable, and it is the basis for some sort of negotiated peace—is that Ukraine should not join NATO. Apparently, we have no desire for Ukraine to join NATO. The Russians claim that they are reasonably relaxed about Ukraine’s moving further towards the European Union, but they would like that to be balanced with corresponding trade agreements with Russia, which is a perfectly reasonable position. They recognise that eastern Ukraine should remain part of the sovereign state of Ukraine, which should have self-determination. Those three points of view are not completely unreasonable; they are the basis for peace.
I believe strongly that we should keep Russia in the Council of Europe and that we should go on talking to it. We should seek a solution based on peace; otherwise, we will be in a situation of war without end. The Russian people, who suffered terribly during the 20th century, will not give up on this issue. It is not of massive strategic concern to the British people, although we have an interest and a role to play as an arbiter. I believe that we should go on playing the role of arbiter and be a proponent of peace in the Council of Europe.
Mr Hancock
But there comes a time when the credibility of the Council of Europe is at stake. That is the issue, is it not? Sooner or later, we come to a line in the sand and say, “Is it really worth belonging to this organisation?”
I do not want Russia to leave the Council of Europe, but I want to call the bluff of those who agitate time and again to nitpick—not “nitpick”, as that is the wrong expression—and to take voting rights away. Who gets cheesed off about having their voting rights taken away? Probably the wives of the Duma Members, who can no longer go to Paris and Strasbourg for sittings. I do not believe the politicians are particularly bothered that they do not have their voting rights. They know that in January next year there will be a vote and they will have their voting rights back. I am sure of that.
How can that be the case? The hon. Members who intervened on the hon. Member for Christchurch—the hon. and learned Member for North East Hertfordshire (Sir Oliver Heald) and the hon. Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger)—raised a point about Russia, saying, “Oh, well, if they agree to a certain line in the sand over Ukraine, that is okay.” Is it okay? Russia will never give up Crimea now, so where does the Council of Europe stand on the issue of Crimea? Forget eastern Ukraine; where does the Council of Europe stand on the issue of Crimea? I have friends who live in Crimea. They are Russian by ethnicity, have absolute faith that they are now back where they belong and are committed to staying there, and will fight very hard to do so.
Mr Chope
I share the hon. Gentleman’s concern that people can be in a parliamentary assembly and have their rights suspended while they still remain members of the Council of Europe itself, because if someone’s country is still in the Council of Europe there is an argument for saying that their parliamentarians should be in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. That is why I am arguing that Russia should be suspended from the Council of Europe itself.
Mr Hancock
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, and he presented his case extraordinarily well. I have no doubt about the merits of that case, but there is this other argument, which other Members have alluded to, that it is better to have people inside the organisation.
Would the human rights commissioner for the Council of Europe have the same facilities offered to them in Russia if Russia was out of the Assembly? I think not. Would people in Russia, who make up nearly two thirds of all the applicants to the European Court of Human Rights, have any access to redress if Russia was out of the Assembly? I think not. If the £24 million that the Russians put in, as a grand payer along with the UK, was removed from the Council of Europe, what would that do for the Court in Strasbourg?
Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
Thank you, Mrs Brooke, for calling me to speak.
It is a great pleasure to play a part in this thoughtful debate. It has been particularly interesting to be part of a debate in which a diversity of views has been expressed. Often, our relationship with Russia is seen in a monochrome way.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) on bringing this matter to the House. As he pointed out, the Council of Europe was established in the embers of the second world war and inspired by the need at that juncture to rebuild our continent. As my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) pointed out, it was Sir Winston Churchill himself who recognised that only shared standards and values on the law and human rights, alongside democratic development, would help to stitch Europe back together. However, I do not think there was any great naivety at that stage about those ideals. There was a recognition that the ideals would be perhaps honoured in part in their breach, but it was still important to be able to talk and to have some sort of relationship.
The hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Mr Hancock) made it clear that there are a number of glaring situations in our continent at the moment that do not pass muster, and that if we take this draconian step against Russia it would be very difficult to see that we would not do so against a number of other nations, given some long-standing issues. One that he did not mention that comes to mind is, as the Spanish would see it, the occupation of Gibraltar, which might also become an issue. However, perhaps it is better that we move on from that to something closer at hand.
The Council of Europe as currently constituted consists of 47 member nations, incorporating nearly all the European countries as well as the outliers in the Caucasus. It has, of course, become best known in this country for the European Court of Human Rights, which sits within its auspices. As hon. Members mentioned, it was almost 20 years ago, in 1996, that the Russian Federation was formally admitted as a Council of Europe member. Even then, its relatively dubious human rights record was overlooked, on the basis that it was making progress on implementing the rule of law alongside free and fair elections. That decision symbolised the west’s optimism, at that juncture, that Russia was on its way to a normalisation after the collapse of the Soviet Union only five years before. People were saying, “Give it time and patience. If Russia is brought into the international fold, it will eventually begin to act like an open, democratic state.” Or so we thought.
Since then, the relationship between the Council of Europe and Russia has at times been testy, particularly with regard to questions about legal supremacy. In 2014, the ECHR made more judgments against Russia than against any other country. The ECHR has been used by many enemies of the Kremlin, most notably the Yukos founder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, to bring cases against the Russian state.
After President Putin’s intervention in Ukraine, the Council of Europe deprived Moscow’s delegation of its right to vote, a move that has sparked wider discussion among Russia's ruling class—not just the wives of those in the Duma, I suspect—about whether Russia would wish to continue its membership of the Council. Many in Russia believe it has a negative influence on their nation and would like Russian sovereignty restored on matters such as the death penalty. If Russia withdrew from the Council, that would likely sound the death knell for some of the naive idealism that has guided western policy since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
I had a lot of sympathy with what my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough said in quite a brave contribution that was not something one necessarily hears on the Floor of the House. He is right: the simplistic way in which Putin is portrayed as a dictator and a tyrant in much of our press fails to understand some deep-seated issues in Russia.
I have long cautioned against assuming that Russia is on a steady path to becoming a functioning, multi-party democracy. We have always failed to understand that many Russians, to this day, see the Gorbachev and Yeltsin era as a time of chaos, uncertainty and utter humiliation. Putin has been able to maintain some domestic popularity by retelling a more traditional Russian story, filling the vast ideological vacuum left by the disintegration of the communist ideal with the notion of a Russian civilisation based upon patriotism, selflessness and deference to an all-powerful state. In doing so, he continues to tap into a pool of resentment that goes beyond Russian borders, to encapsulate many of those who dislike the global dominance of the USA over the past two decades. Specifically in relation to Georgia, there is no doubt that the Georgian leadership in that period, up to 2007-08, was little more than a CIA front. That was going on in Georgia and it is perhaps one reason why we have rapidly moved on from discussing that issue.
We are now faced with the Crimean crisis—let us be brutally honest: there is no going back from Crimea’s being returned as part of Russia—and the ongoing hostilities in eastern Ukraine. This continues to baffle many here in the west who fail to grasp why Vladimir Putin would wish to re-engineer an old-fashioned, imperialistic land-grab that risks western ire and Russian company balance sheets. The Russian President may well be a nasty piece of work—I am not in any way defending what he is doing—but he is a master at fashioning strength from weakness. From a position of fragile financial and geopolitical clout, Putin has boosted his profile with a domestic and global audience as a champion for the interests of Russia and, more worryingly, the Russian diaspora, which we have touched on in relation to Latvia and Estonia. I agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough said: there is a fundamental difference between the way that we will look at Latvia and Estonia in years to come—they are members of NATO, and therefore protected under article 5, and members of the EU—and how we view Ukraine. The “one step forward, one step back” approach that has characterised western diplomacy in Ukraine in the past 18 months will endanger the countries beyond and give Putin a sense that we will not be serious about where a line is drawn to defend countries that are in NATO.
I should not be too surprised if Putin were now to engineer a similar victory by pushing for Russian withdrawal from the Council of Europe, making the case that continued membership is untenable now that the institution has become a vehicle through which western policy alone is exercised. Mr Putin has already suggested that neighbouring countries’ membership of the EU and NATO is equivalent to those nations existing in a “semi-occupied state”. He may also try to present an exit from the Council as a proud declaration of the supremacy of Russian sovereignty, as well as a defence of his nation’s distinct world view and political culture when it is under grave threat. In doing so, Putin will hope to sow the seeds of discord among remaining Council members, particularly when it comes to the ECHR, already a subject of hot debate on these shores. Why not try to fracture the consensus on human rights by suggesting that the ECHR has diminished national sovereignty, blunting members’ ability to tackle dangerous terrorists and the like? That argument is made on these shores and I suspect it may be made by Putin’s Russia as well.
For nearly two decades, the ECHR has enhanced Russia’s domestic legal system and provided an important outlet of dissent for those most at risk in Putin’s Russia. Without it—we should remember this in debates that we will, no doubt, have in this country on the ECHR in years to come—many opponents of the Kremlin would not have been able to gain the same level of publicity for their day-to-day plight. Naturally, if Russia withdrew from the Council of Europe, the repercussions for such individuals would be considerable. Many colleagues have spoken about those issues in detail this morning.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend is making a thoughtful contribution, but where does that leave us in relation to the enforcement of judgments? For example, it is clear that the Russian Federation is not going to comply with the Yukos judgment against it. What sanction will there be when it does not?
Mark Field
I accept that. That is, I am afraid, part of the frustrating battle of diplomacy, which we can look at from afar, but which my right hon. Friend the Minister has to deal with day to day. I think diplomacy within the Conservative party is bad enough, let alone having to deal with the other 46 members of the Council of Europe, but my hon. Friend will appreciate that that is the nature of the steadfast, patient way in which we approach these issues. We need to approach the issue of Putin in a steadfast and patient way.
My long-term belief is that, looking at what is happening geopolitically, including with the rise of China, for example—I know it pains many to even think in these terms—our relationship with Russia has to be part of our solution, not part of our problem in the longer term. Putin will not be there for ever. We need to recognise the importance of Russia as a place with which we have to have a working, workable relationship. That is in no way to justify what is going on. It is right that we should try to work with whoever is leading Russia to ensure that, if we cannot solve the real problems that we face, diplomatically, at least we are able to move steadfastly in the right direction.
My main concern with a Russian withdrawal is that President Putin will use it as a sparkling opportunity to stoke division and sow doubt among remaining members of the Council of Europe. No nation has ever resigned its membership, just as no country has ever left NATO, the eurozone or the European Union, and I hope that will continue for the foreseeable future, although one or two of my hon. Friends do not take a similar view. I fear that, by demonstrating that the post-cold war consensus on democracy, human rights and rule of law might be shattered, Putin could challenge at a stroke other international institutions that have so painstakingly been built to serve our best interests and foster freedom in our continent over the past 70 years.
Commission Work Programme 2015
Christopher Chope Excerpts(9 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Lidington
If I get the chance, I will give my right hon. Friend the exact figures at the end of the debate, but only a relatively small amount of the European fund for strategic investments—the so-called Juncker package—is derived from reallocating parts of the existing EU budget. The majority of the proposed €315 billion for the EFSI relies very much on private sector input on the basis of gearing.
Perhaps my right hon. Friend will be reassured to know that when I visited the European Investment Bank recently to discuss its approach to the programme, it was very firm in saying that it took very seriously its responsibility to its shareholders—the member states—and that it would exercise its responsibilities as a bank, that there would be due diligence, that it was not prepared simply to wave projects through on the basis that any sector or country deserved a particular slice, and that it would look at the real economic benefit that each proposal for capital investment offered to Europe as well as to the member state.
One of the sectors that we think could benefit from the EFSI is energy, where there is a need for work on interconnectors that would not only make more possible a genuine single internal market in European energy, but meet the strategic objective of trying to reduce European energy dependence on Russia. We think that the Commission communication on energy union is an important step towards not only strengthening Europe’s energy security, but decarbonising our economies and deepening the internal energy market.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
On trying to reduce dependency on Russia, how does President Juncker’s recent proposal for a European army to stop President Putin in his tracks fit into the work programme?
Mr Lidington
In fairness to President Juncker, with whom I do not agree on that point, it is not a secret that he has held that view for a long time and I suspect it is held by pretty much every leading politician in Luxembourg. [Interruption.] That is the reality. A small European country would see an obvious benefit to its national interest from that sort of greater European action. The British Government do not share the view that a European army would be helpful or necessary. We believe that NATO is and should remain the centrepiece of our collective defence and security arrangements.
Were there to be any move towards establishing greater European military integration, it would first require consensus among member states, because such matters cannot be determined by a qualified majority vote under the treaty. Moreover, as I am sure my hon. Friend will recall, in passing the European Union Act 2011, this House required that there would have to be both an Act of Parliament and a referendum of the British people before any British Prime Minister could give consent to a proposal for the establishment of an EU army or armed forces in some hypothetical future.
Sir William Cash
That is completely right. People think—in elements of the BBC and elsewhere, I suspect—that this is somehow a matter of policy, and that by using the right words one can change the effect of European law. No, we cannot. We have to pass legislation. There has to be a majority in this House to override European laws and regulations. It is, ultimately and tragically, a legal framework rather than just simply a question of policy based on the wishes of voters, as expressed by their representatives in Parliament. This has only fairly recently begun to gain traction with some people in the public arena, but not sufficiently, I am afraid, to achieve the kind of impartial analysis I believe is needed, for example in the BBC. Without going into this now, I have invited—in fact, I have effectively forced—the director-general and the editor-in-chief of the BBC to appear before my Committee to explain this problem in the kind of language that ordinary people can understand. That will take place on Wednesday afternoon at 2.30 pm, for those who want to take note.
The Prime Minister’s speech had a lot in it, which demonstrated the extent to which he wants to try to resolve many of these questions. That is undeniable, but the question we have to address, and to which I now turn, is the extent to which it would require treaty change or otherwise—that is the acid test.
My first general remark is that the package includes only one proposal that directly limits or imposes a quota on the number of EU migrants. This would relate to future accessions and so could be part of normal negotiations. However, to impose a direct limit on migration from existing member states would certainly require treaty change.
My second general comment is that many of the relevant treaty obligations have already been interpreted in this context by the European Court of Justice. The Court plays a huge, vital and exceptional role, and cannot be appealed against. It has already interpreted these matters as providing limitation on the action that member states can take in this area. Indeed, the recent case of Dano, which is frequently referred to—the Foreign Secretary referred to it on “The Andrew Marr Show” only this weekend—demonstrates that the Court can change its approach.
However, some of the judgments mentioned are long-standing, well-entrenched and engage charter rights. Any change along the lines suggested by the Prime Minister would therefore not be sufficiently strong, to the extent that they rely on the Court of Justice changing its established jurisprudence. That is why we want the Commission to take account of these points—these are the issues. The European Commission is the legal guardian of the treaties. The point I am making in this speech is that, in order to change the law to ensure that we can actually deal properly with the problems that come from free movement, we have to persuade the Commission, in its work programme, to take account of such relevant questions. It could be inferred from what the Prime Minister had to say that he accepted that some treaty change would be required—and in fact, when he was asked questions, he accepted that towards the end—but there are a number of real problems, and I will now turn to them.
The first problem that the European Commission will have to consider in its work programme is a stronger power to refuse entry and to deport criminals. The free movement directive, which the European Commission has to enforce, requires decisions to be taken on a case-by-case basis on the grounds permissible by the treaty. That provision reflects Court of Justice jurisprudence extending across a wide range of treaty rights, including the freedom to travel to other member states to receive services, which is highly relevant to the work programme. It is likely that any significant stronger action will require treaty change, particularly if it detracts from the requirement derived from the principle of proportionality to look at each individual case.
Secondly, I believe a ban on re-entry for those who have abused EU rights may be possible, as this falls within the public policy exception to the treaty right of free movement. However, there are again questions of proportionality.
Mr Chope
Is this not all pie in the sky? There is no way in which the Commission or other member states will agree to these fundamental changes. Is that not why we need to go back to basics and have a free trade organisation without the free movement of people, just as we have free trade agreements with other countries without having to take in all their people as a right, without any control over them? Would it not be better to work towards, for example, visa waiver systems?
Sir William Cash
I very much agree with what my hon. Friend says. In fact, if I may say so, I have said it many times in the past myself. However, we have to be able to identify the problems that have been presented by making assertions that we want this and we want that, in order to demonstrate the fact that it cannot be done before we move to the next step, which is of the kind that he and I would want: to address this on a realistic footing and to say to the European Commission, the European institutions and the Government that these proposals are simply not going to stack up because they are not going to happen. There is no chance of a treaty change as far as I can see—my hon. Friend and other hon. Members in the Chamber obviously agree—that will result in getting rid of the dangers presented to the United Kingdom as a result of imagining we will be able to do things, when in practice we know perfectly well it is not going to happen because we will not get the treaty change.
There is also the problem of access to tax credits, housing benefits and social housing for four years. The law of the Court of Justice indicates that an attempt to do this would be contrary to the treaty rights of free movement insofar as the limits on benefit extend to benefits for jobseekers linked to labour market participation and benefits to those who are classified as workers. Such persons are entitled to equal treatment as a treaty right. There is another problem. These things are not going to go away. My hon. Friend is completely right, as I have said so often, not to allow ourselves to be induced to believe that because we say something it will happen, particularly when we are dealing with the acquis communautaire and the rules and regulations that are imposed, which we voluntarily accepted in this House under the 1972 Act. We are the only country of the 28 member states that has the right, because of our constitutional arrangements—we do not have a written constitution—to make changes and override that legislation if we so wish to do. We can do it. The question is: have we got the political will in relation to matters of vital national interest?
Any restriction on access to social housing would likely be regarded as discrimination on the grounds of nationality. Thus, that too would be contrary to the treaty. There is then the question of removal if jobseekers do not find a job in six months. The law of the European Court of Justice overrides even this Parliament, by our voluntary agreement, but we can unwind it if we wish to do so by using the notwithstanding formula to override it and pass a law in this place. If jobseekers do not find a job in six months and are faced with removal, we could legislate. Under sections 2 and 3 of the European Communities Act, however, Court of Justice law prevents it, on the grounds that it interferes with the treaty right of free movement—insofar as a jobseeker can demonstrate that he or she is continuing to seek work and has a genuine chance of being engaged. Thus—again—treaty change is likely to be necessary.
Then there is the requirement for a job offer before entry—the same case law points to the requirement for treaty change on that account, too. Then there is the further restriction on the entry of non-EU family members. The rights of family members to enter with someone who has rights as an EU worker are set out explicitly in the free movement directive and could in principle be adjusted by amendment to the directive, but limits to wholesale change are set by the requirements not to undermine the essence of the treaty right of free movement and to respect human rights.
As I mentioned in my lead letter in yesterday’s The Sunday Telegraph, there is also the problem of human rights issues in respect of the deportation of terrorists, who can also insist on the right to family life under the present arrangements. We have to get real about this. We have to change it. So far, the Court has taken a consistently firm approach in favour of ensuring family life where these matters arise in the context of free movement, and it is likely to continue to do so—with huge implications for the number of people who can enter.
Finally, there is the question of whether there should be no child benefit for non-resident children. The requirement to pay child benefit for children in another member state is currently in the social security co-ordination regulations. It is theoretically possible to amend the regulations to end these payments, but it would raise the serious question of indirect discrimination on nationality grounds—again contrary to treaty free movement rights— and the same would apply to the proposal to limit child benefit paid abroad to that paid in the child’s country of residence.
I do not mean to criticise for the sake of it. I have tried to present the House with a proper examination and legal analysis of the problems, which would not have been the case had we not been able to debate the amendment, and it is now on the record that these are serious problems that cannot simply be washed away with fine words and which in most cases will require treaty change. When I wrote to the Prime Minister 10 days before his speech, I asked if he would be good enough to seek the advice of the Attorney-General and Government lawyers on the questions I raised. I trust that the House, the Minister and the Prime Minister will listen, and that we will take the steps necessary to deal with the vexed issue of immigration in a manner that overrides the treaties and the charter, as and when it is in our vital national interest to do so.
Oral Answers to Questions
Christopher Chope Excerpts(9 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Hammond
We have heard a lot of noise from Moscow, but we have not yet seen any serious action. The omens are not promising. I heard just this morning that some countries’ intended high-level delegations to the funeral have not been able to obtain Russian visas. That probably tells us all we need to know.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
The intransigence of the Russians is exemplified by the fact that they still hold in custody two Members of the Ukrainian Parliament, both of whom are members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. When will my right hon. Friend get tough and insist on expelling Russia from the Parliamentary Assembly and the Council of Europe itself?
Mr Hammond
We do not have plans to take that step at this stage, but I assure my hon. Friend that we raise the matter regularly—indeed, the Minister for Europe raised it with the Russian ambassador only last week. I am going to Kiev later this week, and we will continue to work with the Ukrainians to try to secure the release of those two Ukrainians, as well as the Estonian border guard who was captured by the Russians six months ago.
Ukraine
Christopher Chope Excerpts(9 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Hammond
No, a good outcome would not look like that. It would look like an agreement to a ceasefire and a withdrawal from the current lines of contact, along the lines already suggested, and not just an agreement to its happening tomorrow, but evidence by the end of the week that Russian forces were pulling back; it would look like an agreement on the effective policing of the Russian-Ukrainian border so that once Russian equipment had moved back across the border into Russia, there was an effective, transparent regime for monitoring further equipment crossing the border; and it would look like an explicit withdrawal of Russian support for and endorsement of the separatist forces.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
If it does not look like that, what will happen? It is clear already that Russia denies it even has troops in eastern Ukraine, and the Speaker of the Duma denied at the recent meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe that Russia was even a party to the Minsk agreement and protocol, saying it was a mere bystander. What will happen? Russia could be playing for time, and in the meantime the frozen conflict is increasing. What will my right hon. Friend do to ensure that something happens? For starters, how about expelling Russia from the Council of Europe for being in breach of its statutes?
Mr Hammond
We do not know the Russian game plan—one difficulty is the absence of a debate about this in Russia; it is one man making all the decisions. We do not know whether Mr Putin has agreed to this process over the last few days because he has seen the light, understood the pressure on him and genuinely wants to find a solution, or because there is an EU Council meeting on Thursday. Traditionally, his tactic has been to ramp up the rhetoric of peace ahead of Council meetings, and then to drop it like a stone afterwards. In response to my hon. Friend’s specific question, however, the single most effective measure we could take to signal our continued displeasure at the failure of this initiative would be to extend the tier 3 sanctions to the end of 2015. That would send a clear message to the Russians.