Recognition of Western Sahara as Moroccan

Daniel Kawczynski Excerpts

Wednesday 8th May 2024 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Government policy on the recognition of Western Sahara as Moroccan.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. The debate is on pressing the British Government finally to recognise the sovereignty of Western Sahara as part of the Kingdom of Morocco. Morocco, of course, is our second oldest ally, a reliable partner and one that seeks our support in recognising Western Sahara as a part of the kingdom. The United States of America and Israel, two of our most important allies, have recognised the sovereignty of Western Sahara as Moroccan, and some of our other allies, Spain—the former colonial power in Western Sahara—France, the Netherlands, Germany and others, all recognise that the autonomy proposals that the Moroccan Government are putting forward for Western Sahara are the best option going forward, and yet we in the United Kingdom sit on the fence.

During the course of the debate, I intend to analyse why Morocco is such an important strategic partner for the United Kingdom. Ultimately, I will urge my own Government to get off the fence finally and to recognise the sovereignty of Western Sahara as being Moroccan, or run the risk of a major miscalculation in our geopolitical strategic approach, not only to Morocco but to the whole of north Africa.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

I am listening with interest to the case that my hon. Friend is making. In essence, he seems to be saying that, because Morocco is important to us, we should recognise that Western Sahara should be part of Morocco. Is it not better to say that Morocco is important to us, but so are the people of Western Sahara, and they should be allowed the self-determination that many other people are allowed?

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I gave way to my hon. Friend out of deference to the fact that he is Father of the House, but I will not give way to many interventions, because I have an awful lot to say in the limited time I have. Later in my speech, I will come on to the point that he so eloquently made.

The Arab League has 22 members, and I have visited 18 of them during the course of being a Member of Parliament and when I was in commerce, in exports, previously. When one travels across members of the Arab League, one comes across vast differences between those countries, whether it is Mauritania on the one hand, which I have visited on three occasions, or the United Arab Emirates on the other. There are huge differences between those Arab nations, many of them our neighbours. Over the past three years, however, I have been writing a book on emotional intelligence in politics—

[Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

Oh!

[Daniel Kawczynski]

As the hon. Lady will know, a key strand that runs through the whole concept of emotional intelligence is interdependence. That is a word that keeps coming back when one studies the concept of emotional intelligence. During the course of this debate, I intend to highlight our interdependence with the Kingdom of Morocco. Out of the 22, this is arguably the best Arab country to engage with. It has the most progressive society and one, most importantly, that shares our values. It is a reliable strategic partner, which pursues all the attributes of a modern democracy. We can and must build strong commercial, political and security links with this nation.

But we are in the process of jeopardising our potential with Rabat and falling behind our competitors—the United States of America, Germany, Spain and others—as a result of our refusal to understand from an emotionally intelligent perspective the huge importance that Morocco attaches to this issue. In the first part of my speech, I will examine why I feel so strongly about Morocco.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Daniel Kawczynski]

No, I will not give way at the moment; I am going to talk about women’s rights, religious rights and the rule of law—protection for citizens under the constitution.

When I visited Morocco, I saw at first hand its extraordinary protection of religious minorities. I have been visiting the country for many years, and I have seen a multi-faith, multicultural, inclusive society. I have visited many mosques, synagogues and churches during my visits. John Paul II visited Morocco in August 1985, when he was hosted by King Hassan; that was the Polish Pope’s first visit to any Muslim nation. Pope Francis visited in 2019, and during that visit he praised King Mohammed VI’s interfaith dialogue. I pay tribute to His Majesty Mohammed VI for his leadership and vision, and the way he pursues interfaith dialogue throughout his whole nation. It is not just interfaith dialogue among Jews, Christians and Muslims in Morocco; even more importantly, King Mohammed VI does important work in sub-Saharan Africa, supporting the nations bordering Morocco in trying to deal with the ethnic and religious tensions that have so blighted sub-Saharan Africa and caused so much instability in the region.

During the second world war, Mohammed V was pressurised by Vichy France and Nazi Germany to expel all the Jews from Morocco. I know there are hon. Members of this House with family links to Morocco. Mohammed V came under huge pressure by Vichy to do what some European countries did: shepherd their Jewish population into the clutches of the Vichy regime or Germany. Ultimately, we all know what happened to those Jewish people who were sent to Auschwitz.

[Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman mentions Members of this House who have family connections to Morrocco. Does he agree that the fact that my late great-uncle was the Jewish major of Tangier during the second world war proves the point he is making?

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I am very aware, through our discussions, of the hon. Gentleman’s family connections with Tangier. I pay tribute to him and his ancestors and relatives, who played such a critical role in Morocco at a particularly difficult time.

Mohammed V, in response to Vichy and Adolf Hitler, said, “There are no Jews. There are no Muslims. There are only Moroccans.” He refused to comply with the diktat of Pétain and Hitler and did not cave in to those demands. I think that is testimony to the way in which the royal family of the Kingdom of Morocco protects all religious minorities. I heard from one journalist that the late Yitzhak Rabin, the former Israeli Prime Minister, said that when he had difficulties with the Moroccan Jewish population, he sought the advice and support of the late King Hassan, who had such close links with that diaspora in his own kingdom.

Secondly, I want to talk about women’s rights. During my many visits to Morocco I have met women who are far more empowered in Morocco than in many other Arab nations. Having met many female journalists, civil engineers, women who work in construction, female politicians and female diplomats, one gets the impression that Morocco, out of all of the Arab League members, understands and recognises that it will become a true modern society only if women are empowered and supported, not only through the education system but by being able to reach the very top of all sectors in society and the economy, including those that have historically been dominated by males.

Finally, I turn to democracy. On my many visits to Morocco I have witnessed and experienced what I perceive to be a greater freedom of the press than I have come across in any other Arab nation. There is greater protection of citizens under the constitution, a genuine Parliament, a genuine system of checks and balances, and genuine power of the opposition. Having spoken to many opposition MPs in Morocco, one gets the sense that it is a genuine thriving democracy where the rule of law is protected and people can debate and challenge one another in the most robust way without fear of retribution.

The key issue facing Britain today is the growing spread of the malign Iranian influence across the middle east and north Africa. That evil, despotic regime, which came about after the fall of the Shah in 1979, with the mullahs that control Iran—I visited Tehran when I was on the Foreign Affairs Select Committee—is one of the most dangerous, violent, authoritarian regimes in the region. It suppresses and abuses its own people and throws gay people off buildings. It is a very dangerous country and its malign influence is spreading across the region.

I will briefly mention the allegations of Iranian influence in the disturbances and difficulties that Bahrain faced in 2011. Iran filled the void in Iraq, which Mr Blair helped to create in the second invasion of Iraq, and its malign influence is growing there. Our miscalculations over Syria have given the Iranians the ability to enter the country. It supports Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas, and the Houthi rebels in Yemen. Its influence is extending to north Africa, Libya and Algeria through its support of the Polisario movement.

In contrast, Morocco is a thriving democracy. When I went to Morocco, I saw the massive effort to stem the flow of illegal migration to Europe. I met many officials and heard how they have managed to prevent over 300,000 illegal crossings into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta and the Canary Islands. Bearing in mind how we are getting increasingly agitated and frustrated about the illegal migration operating in the English channel, we have to pay tribute to the extraordinary support and vision that Morocco has in policing its own borders and making sure that illegal migration does not end up in Europe and ultimately through Europe to the United Kingdom.

With the restrictions in the Red sea and ultimately the Suez canal as a result of the conduct of the Houthi rebels, the waterway around the Moroccan coastline will be even more important for our security and defence capability.

There are of course huge commercial opportunities. Between 700,000 and 1 million British tourists visit Morocco every year. We also have a company, Xlinks—its chief executive officer is Sir Dave Lewis—that seeks to export green energy by funnelling solar and wind power from Morocco through an undersea cable to Britain. That aspiration could ultimately lead to 8% of British energy requirements being provided by Morocco through green energy.

Earlier this year I visited Western Sahara, including Laayoune and Dakhla, with General Sir Simon Mayall. We spent a week together in Dakhla and the wider area. The highlight of our visit was our meeting the Foreign Minister of Morocco, Nasser Bourita, with whom we spent an hour and a half. Instinctively, when we started to talk to him, although, of course, I am not going to reveal the intricate discussions we had—[Interruption.] Does the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) wish to say something?

[Patrick Grady]

The hon. Gentleman does not need to go into the details, because we can read them in the press release that the Moroccan Government released after his meeting with the Foreign Minister, which I have just found online. I am not sure whether I caught what the hon. Gentleman said at the beginning of his speech; his trip was paid for by the Moroccan embassy to the United Kingdom, was it not? And it is recorded in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, is it not?

[Daniel Kawczynski]

Yes. That is why I just stated that I visited the Kingdom of Morocco on an official visit, and that is recorded in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. That is correct.

[Valerie Vaz (in the Chair)]

Order. Will the hon. Gentleman please stick to the motion?

[Daniel Kawczynski]

Yes, I will. I was trying to explain why I feel so strongly that Morocco is a reliable partner for the United Kingdom. I am not sure what point the hon. Gentleman was trying to make. Yes, we do go overseas on visits where we try to increase our understanding of other nations. We do not have a budget in the House of Commons to pay for those visits; we are guests of the foreign country, which is recorded in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

During our visit to Morocco, we had a very unsatisfactory discussion with the British ambassador on the telephone. As on many other occasions, the British ambassador tried to indicate that we cannot recognise Western Sahara because somehow it will impinge on or affect our relationship with our overseas territories, particularly the Falkland Islands. Yet, when I pressed the British ambassador to explain why and how that could be the case, no satisfactory response was forthcoming.

I seek clarification from the Minister on this point. Is it the fact that we cannot recognise Western Sahara as being Moroccan because there is some legal, constitutional or technical difficulty that might affect our relationship with our overseas territories? I cannot see that, given that France, which is in the process of recognising this issue, also has overseas territories. I would be grateful if the Minister could explain that point. We need to recognise Western Sahara, as Israel and America have done. At the very least, we should follow Spain, the former colonial power, along with Germany and France in recognising that the autonomy proposals are the only way forward.

I have mentioned women’s rights; during my visit to Dakhla we had the opportunity to visit the new port that is being constructed in Western Sahara, and I was able to speak to Mrs Nisrine Iouzzi, who is the lady who runs the 1,600 engineers and construction workers at the port. It is going to be an extremely important link, not just for Morocco but for the whole of sub-Saharan Africa, including Niger, Chad, Mali and many other countries.

One way to deal with illegal immigration in Europe and to support Morocco is through a programme of support for illegal migrants, which I saw at first hand in Dakhla. The Moroccan Government are helping illegal migrants to settle there, training them and giving them opportunities.

Only four Arab nations have signed the Abraham accords, of course. The first contact between the Egyptians and the Israelis in the 1970s was brokered by Rabat, leading to Sadat’s visit to Israel and, ultimately, the peace accord. In 1994 the late King Hassan hosted a World Economic Forum, inviting Israelis and Palestinians to Casablanca for their first joint session at an international conference.

Professor Marc Weller, chair of international law and international constitutional studies at the University of Cambridge, has submitted a report to the Foreign Office. He was commissioned to evaluate the concept of why the United Kingdom may find it difficult to recognise Western Sahara, bearing in mind the intricate relationship we have with our overseas territories. I have met Professor Marc Weller here in the House of Commons on two separate occasions over the past few weeks. He submitted his report to the Foreign Office three weeks ago; I would be grateful if the Minister could recognise whether it has been received and say whether his officials will brief him on it.

Let us not forget that Professor Marc Weller, chair of international law and international constitutional studies at Cambridge, is one of this country’s leading academics on international law and works in the sphere on which I am pressing the Minister directly. He says that when he took on the commission he found it a potentially daunting prospect, yet after the research he has done he has come to the conclusion that recognising Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, and indeed recognising the autonomy proposals, would actually strengthen our relationship with our overseas territories and with the Falkland Islands. Professor Marc Weller from the University of Cambridge says the direct opposite of what we hear from our own ambassador in Morocco.

During my visit to Western Sahara, we came across representatives of 30 countries that have set up consulates in Dakhla, and more than 90 countries around the world have recognised Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

The hon. Member has obviously done detailed research; did he have a chance to meet the Polisario, and has he visited the refugee camps in Algeria?

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I rather suspected that the right hon. Gentleman would ask that question. I will come to that later in my speech. I have not been, as yet, to the Tindouf camp in Algeria where the Polisario are, but I have received very serious allegations from various friends in the Moroccan Parliament. I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman referred to the Tindouf camp, because we have received very serious allegations about the promotion of terrorism within it. We have received transcripts of audio discussions from the Tindouf camp in which various members of the Polisario Front urge young female fighters to plant bombs in Dakhla and to try to murder their way back to the Western Sahara. That is a great concern if it is true, and I strongly urge the Minister to take up the matter with his Algerian counterpart to seek the veracity of the situation.

We here in the United Kingdom have had to deal with terrorism ourselves during the course of our lifetime, have we not? We have experienced bombings in this country by the IRA. We have experienced innocent men, women and children being murdered and bombed in Manchester, London and other places. Indeed, there was an attempt to assassinate the leader of my party in the Brighton hotel bombing. So we, of all countries, should recognise the difficulties that Morocco is facing, if the allegations are correct and it is true that the Tindouf camps are still being used by the Polisario as a hotbed to promote terrorist activities across the border in Morocco.

Finally, there are allegations from organisations, even including Amnesty International, which I am sure the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) respects and recognises, of human rights abuses in the Tindouf camps. I will put those allegations into the House of Commons Library. Will the Minister take that issue on board?

I hope that hon. Members will forgive me for talking about Morocco rather than just Western Sahara. When we discuss Western Sahara, I do not think we can discount why and how certain parliamentarians have so much confidence in Morocco, because of the strategic bilateral relationship we are creating with the country. I pay tribute to the Moroccan ambassador, who works tirelessly and very effectively on behalf of his nation in trying to educate us parliamentarians about the Moroccan perspective.

I recognise and understand that there are hon. Members with views different from my own, and I am sure we will hear those views later in the debate. From my perspective, I want the Minister to realise and recognise that in the remaining time we have in government, however short or long that is, this issue will not go away. We are falling behind our main competitors, such as Spain, France, Germany and America, and unless the issue is resolved satisfactorily for the Moroccans and unless we recognise Western Sahara, we will be jeopardising our relationship with them.

[Valerie Vaz (in the Chair)]

I expect to move to the winding-up speeches at 10.28 am. I remind Members to refer to their entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests at the start of their contribution.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

I thank the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) for securing the debate. We should also put on the record our thanks to the Library for a very good briefing on the situation of the Western Sahara. I listened carefully to what the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham had to say. It is unfortunate that the first 21 minutes of his speech were taken up by talking about Morocco and he barely mentioned the issue of the legality of Morocco’s occupation of the Western Sahara. That is the subject of the debate and the area we should be talking about.

I first raised the issue of the occupation of the Western Sahara in this House in 1984. I have had the good fortune to visit the refugee camps in Algeria on two occasions and to visit the part of Western Sahara that is controlled by the Sahrawi people—a small part of it—near the border with Mauritania. I have also visited the occupied territories and Morocco, and met many shades of opinion, both within the Polisario and within Morocco itself. I have done my best to take a view on the situation based on its history.

Western Sahara was occupied by Spain; it was a Spanish colony. On the return of democracy to Spain in the 1970s, Spain withdrew from Western Sahara. The United Nations General Assembly requested that, as part of a process of decolonisation, the people of Western Sahara—the Sahrawi people—should have the opportunity to decide their own future; they should have a choice they could make. The choice has now come down to the three options that have been put, which I will come back to in a moment: independence, autonomy or incorporation within Morocco.

We must recognise that if we just say, as the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham appears to be saying, that Morocco’s illegal occupation of Western Sahara should now be confirmed and condoned and we should trade with Morocco absolutely normally, as though nothing had happened in Western Sahara, we are failing in our duties under international law. The issue was taken to the International Court of Justice in the 1970s, and an advisory opinion was issued requiring a referendum for the people of Western Sahara. That referendum has never taken place.

The United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara was established to ensure that there was a peaceful future for the people of Western Sahara. There has been conflict in the past, and there is a danger that it will return. The hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham referred in his speech to issues surrounding Northern Ireland and to other issues. Surely, the way to avoid a conflict in the future is to look at the heart of the issue and to deal with it in a peaceful way, which is where the referendum comes in. The referendum has not happened.

UN representatives have tried hard over many years to get agreement on what an electoral roll would look like and who can vote on the future of Western Sahara—for example, the people in the refugee camps in Tindouf and the Western Sahara diaspora, as well as the Sahrawi people in Western Sahara itself. I hope that the UK Government will recognise the importance of international law in that respect and recognise the right of the people of Western Sahara to decide their own future. The hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham effectively is, effectively, denying the Sahrawi people any rights whatever. He is saying that the occupation of Western Sahara by Morocco on the departure of Spain should just be accepted as a done deal.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

In the right hon. Gentleman’s logic, the United States of America, Israel, Germany, Spain, France and the Netherlands are all wrong that the autonomy proposals from the Kingdom of Morocco are the correct solution going forward. Is he saying that all those NATO allies of ours are wrong?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

What I am saying is that international law should come first, so the decision by Donald Trump, when he was President of the United States, to recognise Moroccan occupation, which few other countries have done, is a backward step for international law. It will obviously make a lot of people—particularly Sahrawi people—extremely angry, because they see in it no right of representation for themselves.

My argument is that the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion was in terms of a process of decolonisation. The issue has been taken to the UN Special Committee on Decolonisation in New York, and I was there myself on that occasion, speaking about exactly this issue. Surely, the position we should adopt as a member of the United Nations and the Security Council is to support the General Assembly decision, the Security Council’s continued appointment of MINURSO, and the Secretary-General’s appointee to try to bring about a process for the future.

The hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham seems to be using the Morocco’s huge economic advances as a reason for overriding international law in respect of Western Sahara. I respectfully say to him that the two things are not connected. Morocco’s trade with Europe, its developing solar economy, the proposal for building an underground train tunnel to Spain and all those sorts of things are great and very welcome—many things in Morocco are extremely welcome and very good—but that does not take away the fundamental point that the occupation of Western Sahara on the departure of Spain remains illegal, and we should not be trading in goods produced in illegally occupied territories. That argument goes on all around the world.

What I hope comes out of this debate is a statement by our Government that we will continue to respect international law, engage with Morocco and Polisario and engage assertively with the United Nations to ensure that this long-running conflict can be brought to a conclusion by giving the Sahrawi people a fundamental right to decide their own future. That right can be supressed and wished away, but the desire for recognition and self-determination of the Sahrawi people, as with peoples all around the world, will not go away.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patrick Grady]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point, and climate change is causing displacement around the world. Indeed, if the UK Government do not want people to make their way here by irregular means, then it is in their interests to help people who are displaced and oppressed to tackle the climate crisis and be able to live fulfilling lives in their countries of origin—and to ensure that that happens through peaceful, democratically legitimate ways.

In some respects, it is remarkable that the UK Government have not simply followed the United States in recognising Morocco’s claim to sovereignty, and presumably the Minister will not be announcing a change to that policy in response to today’s debate. That clearly does disappoint some Members on the Conservative Back Benches. There are some Conservative Members who give the impression that they would happily outsource the UK’s entire foreign and defence policies to the United States, irrespective of who makes up the Government of the USA at any given time, just as, at the same time, they would happily withdraw from the global conventions, treaties and charters that have maintained stability and defended human rights for the past 80 years or so.

I appreciate that that sometimes makes it difficult for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office Ministers to call for the observation of international law and respect for the decisions of the global bodies that uphold and interpret that law, while many of their colleagues in other Departments are running around insulting international tribunals and dismissing them as foreign courts that the UK does not need to heed. Indeed, sometimes, the FCDO itself decides that it does not like the findings of such tribunals, such as the opinion of the International Court of Justice on the status of the Chagos islands. All that said, in this instance, the UK is wise to support the UN Security Council’s resolutions relating to Morocco and Western Sahara, and the calls for self-determination and for freedom of expression and association in Western Sahara.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

The hon. Gentleman is repeatedly referring to the United Nations and other organisations. Bearing in mind that there are about 195 countries in the world, will he recognise that more than 100 countries affiliated with United Nations recognise and support the Moroccan autonomy plans for Western Sahara? Does he recognise that figure at least?

[Patrick Grady]

The hon. Gentleman made that point in his contribution, but I think that the point is that the people of Western Sahara—the Sahrawi people—have to endorse whatever the ultimate autonomy arrangement is, so the UK Government are right to use not just the opinions of countries that are members of the United Nations and expressing their views, but the processes of the United Nations to reach determined conclusions. They also have to back up those words with action and, in particular, they need to be careful about the consequences of trade or other commercial arrangements that they enter into, or which they allow others to enter into. They will be aware of the decisions by the European Court of Justice to annul trade deals between the EU and Morocco that did not have consent from people in Western Sahara.

The Minister will have seen my recent written parliamentary questions, not least about the UK-Morocco strategic framework for co-operation on climate action, clean energy and green growth. It is important that that framework, and any other bilateral agreements, do not infringe the rights to self-determination of people in Western Sahara, or are seen tacitly or otherwise to endorse any unilateral claim or declaration of sovereignty made by Morocco. The UK Government’s position must be for a peaceful, democratic and negotiated settlement, agreed in a referendum. That could be a form of autonomy, or it could be full independence, which would by definition include obligations on any new nation state in Western Sahara to abide by the highest standards of democracy and peaceful international relations. Many of us in the SNP often say that independence is defined by our interdependence, a word that the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham used—our peaceful coexistence and co-operation with other countries on the global stage, respecting the framework of the rules-based international order.

At the end of the day, it must be for the people there to decide, as has been said. It is not for the Government of Morocco or the United Kingdom Government—and certainly not in the commercial or economic interests of any individual Government, mining company or multi- national conglomerate—to determine future sovereignty. As we often say in the SNP, that must lie with the people. That is the principle that the UK Government should seek to uphold, even perhaps against their instincts and their interests, not just in Western Sahara but around the world.

--- Later in debate ---

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I am grateful for the opportunity to have had this debate, which has encompassed some rather different views and objectives from various colleagues and parliamentarians.

I speak as one of the Prime Minister’s trade envoys. For me, exports are one of the most important things because they are about hard currency coming into the United Kingdom. We have just become the world’s fourth largest exporter and I am extremely concerned, as can be seen in my written parliamentary questions to Ministers, that there is no UK Export Finance facility for Western Sahara because of the ongoing conflict. During my visit to Dakhla and Laayoune, I met many British companies working in tourism, construction, engineering and many other sectors that want to invest in Western Sahara. That is not possible because UK Export Finance is prevented from affording credit facilities for Western Sahara. That is why it is so important for us to resolve this issue and I am grateful for the opportunity of lobbying the Minister today.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered Government policy on the recognition of Western Sahara as Moroccan.

Oral Answers to Questions

Daniel Kawczynski Excerpts

Tuesday 30th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

As the hon. Lady knows, UN resolution 2728, which was passed on 25 March, reflected the international consensus behind the UK’s position about the importance of getting aid in and the hostages out. That is what we are bending every sinew to achieve.

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

Bearing in mind Lord Cameron’s unique responsibility for Libya, following our intervention in that country during the Arab spring, what are the Government doing to help the Libyan Government to tackle the enormous fraud that is taking place from the sale of oil from the Libyan state oil company?

Oral Answers to Questions

Daniel Kawczynski Excerpts

Tuesday 12th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

Yes, the right hon. Lady is quite right: we are increasing the number of development diplomats—I thought she mentioned something about water, but I may have misheard. The point about the White Paper is that it sets out very clearly the aims and aspiration that Britain has to drive forward the sustainable development goals and ensure that we increase climate finance at this critical time. She will be pleased to have seen that and will note that we are now driving forward that agenda.

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

3. What recent discussions he has had with his counterpart in Mauritius on the negotiations on the sovereignty of the British Indian Ocean Territory.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (David Rutley)]

The Foreign Secretary has not yet had a chance to meet his Mauritian counterpart. However, the Prime Minister met the Mauritian Prime Minister at the G20 in September to assess the state of negotiations. They welcomed the progress made and agreed to meet again soon.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I thank my hon. Friend for that answer, but in my 18 years of loyal service as a Conservative Member of Parliament, I have never been more disappointed, alarmed and angry about the conduct of the Foreign Office. In this matter, it is negotiating in a neocolonialistic way with Mauritius—an entity that is over 2,000 km away from the British Indian Ocean Territory—without consulting the indigenous people, the Chagossians, whom we expelled in 1968 to make way for an American air force base. The time has come for us to respect the right of self-determination and ensure that the Chagossians are allowed to return to the British Indian Ocean Territory, and for them to decide the future of those islands, rather than handing them to the Chinese client and puppet state of Mauritius, which would be highly counterintuitive to our AUKUS commitments.

[David Rutley]

The UK has been working in close co-operation with the US since negotiations began in November 2022, and it supports our approach. The UK, the US and Mauritius have all made clear that protecting the base on Diego Garcia, including by preventing foreign malign influence, is a top priority. We will ensure that any agreement achieves that. It is in our national interest and that of our partners, and it is vital for regional and global security.

UK Support for Stability in Libya

Daniel Kawczynski Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2023 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

Thank you for calling me to speak, Ms McDonagh. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton) for securing this important debate.

My strong interest in Libya stems from my childhood experiences. As the only Conservative Member of Parliament to have been born in a communist country—communist Poland, of course—it is difficult to explain to young people today how there was no food in the shops and everything was rationed. We could not get chocolate, exotic fruits or anything like that, but my aunt and uncle were sent to work in Tripoli and would send back cases of oranges. For a child in communist Poland, oranges were like something extraordinary from outer space, because we could not see them or buy them. I took them to school; we drew paintings of them; we made marmalade out of the peel. We talked about Libya, looked at it on the map and thought of it as some sort of paradise because it had these exotic fruits that we in communist Poland could not have. That is why I became chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on Libya in 2006, shortly after being elected.

I then decided to write a book on Colonel Gaddafi. It is in my office; I forgot to bring it, but I wish I had. I wrote that book about Libya because I was extremely concerned about the rapprochement that Mr Blair, the then Labour Prime Minister, was implementing in trying to bring Gaddafi in from the cold. We all remember the scenes of Mr Blair smiling with Colonel Gaddafi in the tent outside Tripoli. I felt that that was the wrong approach, bearing in mind all our outstanding issues with Colonel Gaddafi. Simply to bring him in from the cold without dealing with those issues was, I think, wrong. More importantly, the Arab world thought it was wrong. Colonel Gaddafi was perceived as a recalcitrant, unstable and highly unreliable individual within the Arab world and among Arab leaders. For the United Kingdom to have so clearly bent over backwards to accommodate this man was felt to be inappropriate by many in the Arab world at the time.

I tried to campaign on the issue with the then Labour Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary. I got absolutely nowhere, which is why I decided to write the book. I have to say it was a fascinating experience. As the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) says, there are so many outstanding issues that were left unresolved. Lockerbie, the worst terrorist atrocity on UK soil, was a result of Colonel Gaddafi sponsoring the bombing of the airliner over Scotland in 1988. There is also the funding and sending of Semtex to the IRA. However, the most poignant issue that I came across during the time I was writing the book was the murder of PC Yvonne Fletcher in St James’s Square, just outside the Libyan embassy. When I go through the square now, I still pause for a moment in front of the beautiful plaque that commemorates her.

PC Yvonne Fletcher was a serving police officer who was guarding a demonstration outside the Libyan People’s Bureau when somebody from the embassy shot her. I have met PC Murray, who was at the scene and was with PC Fletcher in the ambulance as she was taken to hospital. He has led a decades-long campaign to find PC Yvonne Fletcher’s killer and have him brought to justice here in the United Kingdom. For her memory as a serving police officer, we must continue to raise the issue in the House of Commons.

The revolution came in 2011, one year after I wrote my book. I remember February 2011 so well: we had wall-to-wall coverage on our television screens of the revolution that started in Tobruk and swept across the whole of Libya. In the House of Commons, the scenario was that this disaster was happening and that something had to be done about it. I am not prone to criticising Conservative politicians, but I will on this occasion. Mr Cameron, the then Conservative Prime Minister, intervened; he planned the invasion with Monsieur Hollande, the French President, on the back of a fag packet, without any consideration. It is easy to kill the dictator, but what happens when we cut off the head? All the tentacles collapse. Like the hon. Member for Leeds North East, I have been to Libya on many occasions. The country was almost a carbon copy of President Saddam Hussein’s Iraq: everything—all the apparatus across the country—was controlled by one party and one man.

I remember well that we were whipped to vote for the invasion. From memory, I think that just a handful of Conservative MPs rebelled, and I very much regret that I was not one of them. The Conservative MPs who rebelled against Mr Cameron absolutely got it right, because there was not enough planning for the invasion of Libya. We bombed Libya back to the stone age. It is very easy to take on somebody like Colonel Gaddafi, who had obsolete Soviet-era equipment, poor radar and tanks and all the rest of it, but we bombed Libya with very little thought as to what would follow.

I asked to see Mr Cameron two or three days before Colonel Gaddafi was killed. I went to his office. I knew he was not listening to a word I was saying, because throughout the whole conversation he was signing bottles of House of Commons Scotch for raffle and auction prizes. One rather knows that somebody is not listening when, while one tries to raise important issues with them, they are doing a secondary task—signing their name on bottles of Scotch. [Interruption.] This is my book on Colonel Gaddafi, which I wrote in 2010; I spent over two years writing it.

[Mr Gregory Campbell]

Other books are available!

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I asked Mr Cameron, “What is going to happen to Colonel Gaddafi?” We all know how Gaddafi was killed: a convoy was leaving Sirte for the desert, and British and French military intelligence, in collaboration with the militants, got him in the tunnel and he was killed. Of course, he had to be killed. Some people said that he had to be silenced—that he knew too much. The hon. Member for Leeds North East will remember the allegations about all the funding from Colonel Gaddafi to Monsieur Sarkozy; apparently Gaddafi gave Sarkozy millions of dollars for political campaigns. He had to be silenced. I will never forget the words that Mr Cameron said to me. He sort of metaphorically patted me on the head and said, “Nothing to worry about—it’s all in hand, old boy.” Two or three days later, Colonel Gaddafi was killed.

I am no apologist for Colonel Gaddafi. He was a brutal, evil dictator who suppressed his own people, and my book chronicles the extraordinary human rights abuses that he implemented against his own people in Libya. Nobody here will shed a tear that Colonel Gaddafi is no longer running Libya or able to suppress his own people, but the reason I raise it is that we have to think about the mistakes we are making as a nation, whether that is in Iraq or Libya. Certainly in my time as a Member of Parliament, every time we have intervened in an Arab nation, rather than leaving it to the Arab League or the Arab people, and killed the dictator, what has ensued? Total chaos, total paralysis, internecine warfare, and brutality and killing that one could argue is of even greater consequence and destabilisation than what took place under the dictator. I very much hope that future generations of Members of Parliament will learn from our experiences and the mistakes we have made.

When I was on the Foreign Affairs Committee in that brief Parliament from 2015 to 2017, there was an attempt to investigate Mr Cameron. There was an attempt at that stage to investigate how he had brought us to intervene in Libya, but in reality it got us nowhere and little was done.

I would like to put it on the record how deeply disappointing it is that so few Members of Parliament are here. There is not one Conservative Member in this Chamber apart from the Minister and the Parliamentary Private Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory). Bearing in mind our responsibility as a party and as a Government for the intervention in that country and the extraordinary misery that the Libyan people continue to experience as a result, that is a very bad show from my party.

I thank the hon. Member for Leeds North East for bringing the debate here. Despite all the difficulties we are seeing in Israel and the Gaza strip and in Ukraine, we must not forget about Libya. These are our neighbours in the underbelly of the Mediterranean—in a country now being used, as a result of our intervention, for the massive trafficking of people from sub-Saharan Africa through Libya to Lampedusa and beyond. As British parliamentarians, particularly after our intervention in that country, we have a duty and a responsibility to continue to help the people of Libya.

[Siobhain McDonagh (in the Chair)]

There being no other Back-Bench speakers, I call the first Front-Bench speaker.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (David Rutley)]

As always, Ms McDonagh, it is an honour to see you in the Chair. I congratulate the hon. Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton) on securing this debate. He has a wealth of knowledge on things international, particularly in the middle east. It is very unusual to see him in his current seat—I normally associate him with the Front Bench opposite me—but reshuffles are what they are.

I welcome the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) to his place, and I welcome his wise words on these important issues. It is good to hear that views are generally shared across the Chamber. There is a real responsibility to help the situation in Libya, and I assure the hon. Member that we are absolutely committed to that task.

As the whole House heard from my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on Monday, following the absolutely abhorrent attacks on Israel, the Government are doing all they can to prevent instability spreading in the region. I therefore welcome even more the opportunity to debate our work on Libya in that context. Like other Members, I send my condolences and those of His Majesty’s Government to Israelis who have lost loved ones in the terrible attacks and to Palestinian people who are suffering. I am also very mindful of those here in the UK who feel threatened, whether by antisemitism or anti-Muslim views. This is a time for calm and for us to hold on to the British values of tolerance and mutual respect. I hope that that will continue over the days and weeks ahead.

I am grateful to Members for their contributions to this important debate and will seek to respond to their points. An inclusive, representative political dialogue is the only way to overcome the current impasse in Libya. The UK fully backs a Libyan-led, UN-facilitated political process, which offers the best route to peace and stability. Elections remain a clear goal, and addressing the obstacles that prevented them from taking place in December 2021 is key to getting Libya back on track. The UK is using our position as UN Security Council penholder and working alongside international partners to support the UN mission in Libya. It is clear from the response to the recent devastating floods that the status quo cannot deliver what the Libyan people need. The political impasse threatens stability in Libya and in the broader region, and the people of Libya are losing out every day.

Libya, as a country with enviable human and economic resources—as spelled out by my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski)—has the potential to be a global competitor on issues from healthcare to education, and a political settlement would unlock that potential. We also recognise the important role that a stable Libya could play, as a regional partner, in helping to address challenges from climate change to irregular migration, which has been mentioned a couple of times. The UK therefore supports initiatives on economic development and investment. UK and Libyan businesses have long worked hand in hand, with large volumes of trade between our two nations, totalling £1.5 billion in the past year. A thriving private sector can support stability, drive growth, create jobs and diversify the economy away from its dependence on oil revenues.

Although the UK and the international community are doing what we can, the onus must be, and is, on Libya’s leaders to fulfil their responsibilities, to uphold peace and security, and to find a lasting and inclusive political settlement. We engage with them regularly, encouraging them to work constructively with UN Special Representative Bathily as he seeks to facilitate a political agreement to address the underlying issues that prevent elections. The hard-working and dedicated team in our embassy in Tripoli also engage with a wide range of political actors and civil society organisations to encourage inclusive dialogue and negotiations.

My hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham reminded us about important points of history, and I am sure his book sales will do even better given the considered and important points that he made. I re-emphasise that the priority of our embassy remains building and sustaining strong and enduring partnerships in all parts of the country. The official reopening of the British embassy in 2022 was a demonstration of the strength of our relationship with the whole of Libya. The UK has played and continues to play a central role in supporting Libya on its path to becoming a more democratic and stable country. As I said to the hon. Member for Caerphilly, we are absolutely committed to continuing that task.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

Following our intervention in Libya, there are allegations that Haftar and his sons are committing serious human rights abuses against the people of Libya and are working with the Wagner Group. There is increasing Russian influence in eastern Libya. I very much hope that the Minister will address those points. At the very least—I have tabled written parliamentary questions on this—may we have an assurance from the British Government that sanctions will be placed on the Haftar regime if those people are proven to be carrying out abuses against their own citizens?

[David Rutley]

I thank my hon. Friend for those points. The UK is committed to ensuring that the Libyan sanctions regime set out in UN Security Council resolution 1970 is fit for purpose by working closely with the 1970 committee. We are negotiating UN sanctions mandate renewal, and we expect that resolution to be adopted soon. My hon. Friend makes an important point about sanctions.

Significant points were made on some of the legacy issues. WPC Fletcher’s death remains as shocking and senseless today as the day it occurred. I remember it well from the news reports at the time. It should not be forgotten.

The Lockerbie bombing was also referred to. The bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie on 21 December 1988 was a completely brutal act of terrorism. This year, on its 35th anniversary—I cannot believe it has been that long—we remember that tragic event and all the lives that have been blighted by its impact.

I want to highlight the importance of ensuring that we counteract the work that other countries are doing to exploit the instability in Libya to further their own malign objectives. We have heard today about the influence of Russia. Our efforts to stabilise Libya have been particularly disrupted by the Wagner Group’s illegal actions in the country. We condemn the Russian Government and the Wagner Group for those actions, which are a clear violation of international law and the UN charter, and we call for the withdrawal of all foreign fighters in the region. The UK will continue to work with international partners to strengthen Libya’s security institutions and combat extremism in the country. That includes supporting the development of national security institutions to ensure that they serve the interests of the Libyan people.

Libya has also been plagued by landmines and other explosives—the legacy of war. They not only pose a deadly risk to civilians, but hinder reconstruction and economic recovery. The UK has supported efforts to dispose of more than 6,000 mines, clear more than 400,000 square miles of minefields in the east—these are extraordinary figures—and train the first all-female de-mining team in Sirte.

As the hon. Members for Caerphilly and for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara) highlighted, the devastating floods have recently made a dire situation even worse. Many thousands of people have lost their lives, families have been torn apart and critical infrastructure, including hospitals and clean water supplies, has been badly damaged. The UN announced on 16 October that humanitarian assistance, provided by more than 24 humanitarian organisations, has now reached more than 146,000 people in need of support and basic services. I am pleased to see that report, because in the urgent question that some of us were involved in a few weeks ago concern was expressed about whether aid and support would reach the frontline.

The UK responded quickly with lifesaving aid. On 16 September, we announced a package worth up to £10 million to respond both to the floods in Libya and to the earthquake in Morocco. That built on the £1 million allocated in response to the floods on 13 September, and we have also committed £2 million to the UN’s flash appeal. On top of that, the UN announced $10 million from its central emergency response fund, to which the UK is one of the largest donors. UK-funded aid to Libya has provided emergency shelter to 14,000 people, 800 portable solar lanterns, and water filters and hygiene kits for 10,000 people. We have also supported the deployment of three mobile medical teams to provide primary healthcare in flood-affected areas.

We have been clear with key stakeholders in Libya that reconstruction, which was also talked about in the debate, must include institutions from both the west and the east, with full transparency and oversight of the funding by reputable international institutions. We have also allocated £6 million towards the Libya conflict, stability and security fund programme this year, which is facilitating peace-building efforts. That includes developing community-level councils, supporting civil society organisations and collaborating with Chatham House to help key Libyan institutions to become more accountable and transparent.

The UK continues to stand firm in our support for peace and stability in Libya. The UN-facilitated, Libyan-led political process offers the best hope of achieving that, alongside our wider diplomatic, humanitarian and economic development work. Members can be assured that we will do all we can to continue to help the victims of the floods and to support reconstruction, and we will continue to work closely with international partners and leaders in-country to help the people of Libya on their path towards a better and brighter future in the years ahead.

British Nationals Detained Overseas

Daniel Kawczynski Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2023 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

Thank you, Ms Ali, for calling me to speak in this debate. I very much agree with the comments of the hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) about the importance of how a country supports its citizens overseas when they are in distress, in particular in prisons. I congratulate her on securing this important debate.

I will speak briefly on behalf of my constituent, Saiful Chowdhury, who is a leading member of the Muslim community in Shrewsbury and does a great deal to support our mosque. He contacted me because of his two cousins, Murad Rahman Khan and Yadur Rahman Khan. They were at the airport in Dubai in February 2023, trying to secure a wheelchair for their elderly mother. They were travelling as a family, with their elderly mother and their children, on holiday in Dubai. They tried to secure a wheelchair because their mother had difficulties walking, but the staff were unhelpful, rude and confrontational.

Unfortunately, that led to a verbal confrontation between the two British citizens and the airport staff, resulting in them being convicted to a six-month jail sentence. They are appealing, but their passports have been stamped to prevent them from leaving the United Arab Emirates. They are in a hotel at their own expense. They have spent thousands and thousands pounds already on accommodation since February, while they wait for their court process to be concluded.

The Minister is a very good and responsive Minister, and I would like him to take a particular interest in this case. The reason why I feel compelled to raise it is that some of the allegations put forward include no CCTV evidence being presented to the court. The defendants are keen for that to be shown to demonstrate that the altercation was purely verbal, rather than physical in any way, and yet the authorities refuse to allow CCTV evidence from the airport. That is the allegation. Another concern relates to the repeated refusal of the Emirati authorities to facilitate ongoing and effective dialogue and communication with the defendants, our British embassy officials and indeed their lawyers. My concern is also about the length of time taken to date.

The hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston mentioned the United Arab Emirates as one of our closest partners in the middle east. I would go further: it is the closest British ally in the middle east. We have extensive commercial and political links with the Emiratis. I am extremely concerned to hear about this case, and I will give the Minister the details, via his Parliamentary Private Secretary, the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory). I will be extremely grateful if the Minister could look into it. I will also send a link to the debate to our British ambassador in the United Arab Emirates. I will be grateful to the Minister for any support that he can give to Mr Saiful Chowdhury, my constituent, who was clearly extremely concerned as to the welfare of his cousins and about the impact not just on them, but on their elderly relatives and children, who have come back to the United Kingdom and are separated from their loved ones.

[Rushanara Ali (in the Chair)]

I call Sir Chris Bryant.

[Sir Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Thank you for calling me to speak, Ms Ali. I had not expected to be called so quickly.

I warmly commend my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) for securing this debate, not least because I think all the members of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs have been making arguments about some of the issues for some considerable time.

In particular, there was the situation of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. The former Prime Minister managed to make things more difficult when, as Foreign Secretary, he suggested to the Foreign Affairs Committee that she was engaged in other activities. That possibly led to her being kept in an Iranian jail for much longer than was necessary. In addition, as the current Chancellor admitted when he was Foreign Secretary, sometimes we have not devoted enough energy to making sure that British citizens get a fair trial and are treated properly in prison, or that, if possible, their sentence can be served in the UK.

I will very briefly explain one of the things that I did when I was a Foreign Office Minister for five minutes. There was a British woman who was arrested in Laos. I will not name her, but she was pregnant, and she was arrested for an offence that would have been an offence in the United Kingdom. Laos is a very closed country, politically—a communist country and very difficult. At the time, we did not have an embassy in Laos and we were being helped by the Australians. I said, “Well, I’m sorry, but she’s pregnant; I don’t want a British child to be born in a Laos prison, in filthy conditions, and likely to have a miserable life, if a life of any kind at all. I want that child to be born in a British prison.” All the officials said, “No, that is nonsense, Minister. It is nothing to do with you. It will simply make life difficult.” But I went and I had a difficult but good, thorough meeting with my counterpart in Vientiane. We had a wonderful lunch afterwards, and it thawed the relationship. I said, “I’m going to ring you every Monday morning.” That is what I did, and after three months we got her out and she came back to a British prison. She has no idea; I am absolutely sure of that.

Ministers may be doing that all the time and we do not know about it—I have never told that story before—but I gently say to them that that is kind of what a Minister is for. There will be times when officials will go, “Oh, Minister, that is very brave, very courageous,” but I think there are times when Ministers need to do exactly that.

Another case that is very prominent for me is that of Jagtar Singh Johal, who is still in prison in India. As I understand it, our Prime Minister is going to visit India soon. I do not know why the Prime Minister is not saying clearly and categorically that he should be released. Every single independent assessment that has been done shows that this man is innocent of the crimes that he has been fitted up for, but, as I understand it, the Foreign Secretary has actually written to the families concerned to say that he will not raise this matter because it

“could impact the co-operation we depend on from the relevant authorities to conduct consular visits, resolve welfare cases and attend court proceedings”

I think that is to presume that the Indian Government will react negatively, but I think that every single time we do that, particularly with Governments who have a tendency towards autocracy—not so much perhaps in India but certainly in other countries—all we end up doing is inviting them to adopt a yet more hard-line attitude.

That takes me to the situation in China. My hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston is absolutely right about the situation facing Jimmy Lai. I understand that the British Government regular position is, “Well, we don’t want to push too far”. I am sorry, but I do not understand why a British Foreign Secretary would not say before going to China that some of the people in this Chamber should not be on a sanctions list. That is incomprehensible, because it is as if we are saying, “I’m sorry; our democracy doesn’t really matter. We don’t really mind what you’re doing.”

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I am very much enjoying the hon. Gentleman’s speech. Three Sundays ago, we joined the fastest-growing, biggest trading bloc in the world—the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-pacific partnership in the far east. Does he agree that we ought to use our position in the CPTPP to restrict Chinese entry to the bloc as long as it continues to behave in this manner?

[Sir Chris Bryant]

Yes, and not only because of the sanctioning of the right hon. and hon. Members present but because of the complete reneging on our agreement with China on Hong Kong. When I talk to Hongkongers who have left Hong Kong, who now nearly all leave with nothing, leaving everything behind them, they talk of genuine fear for their family back at home, if they have stayed.

UK-Mongolian Relations

Daniel Kawczynski Excerpts

Wednesday 12th July 2023 Westminster Hall

[James Gray (in the Chair)]

May I announce a rather unusual change to normal procedure? I intend to take part in the debate, but I am also a member of the Speaker’s Panel of Chairmen, and it has been agreed by all parties that in the absence of the regular Chairman, I shall chair the debate until Sir Roger Gale comes to relieve me, which should be in a few minutes. I hope that that is acceptable to the House.

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered UK-Mongolian relations.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray, during this important debate on Anglo-Mongolian relations. It was a tremendous privilege for me to be appointed as the Prime Minister’s trade envoy to Mongolia some two and a half years ago. I come from an exports background: before becoming a Member of Parliament, I spent my formative career after university in exports, and I fundamentally believe that the future prosperity of our nation is predicated on our ability to have the same strength in exports that we have in our indigenous economy. The UK is the fifth largest economy in the world, but not the fifth largest exporter. We have a target of £1 trillion of exports by 2030, and the role that the trade envoys play in promoting British exports is very important.

In January, we celebrated the 60th anniversary of our bilateral diplomatic relations with Mongolia, and 60 is an important number for Mongolians, so they held a large reception at the Dorchester hotel. I was pleased to speak at the event, together with the Deputy Prime Minister of Mongolia, to highlight the fact that the UK was the first European country formally to recognise Mongolia as an independent sovereign nation.

During my visits to Mongolia, the country’s geopolitical significance has become ingrained in my thinking. There are tremendous opportunities for bilateral co-operation, which I shall set out in the debate, but before outlining our goals and aspirations in Mongolia and the far east, let me describe the wasted decades of our obsession with the European Union.

Post Suez, we lost confidence as a nation. Suez was such a jolt for us—this is a subject I have studied extensively—that our mindset as a nation changed. We went through a period of economic and political malaise. Certainly, I believe, we went through a period of significant retrenchment, and we pulled away from many of our commercial and military interests in the far east. It was the Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew—as you will remember, Mr Gray—who remonstrated with us for pulling away from our bases there. We tended to focus purely on our own continent and the European Economic Community. At that time, civil servants and others peddled the narrative, “The empire has gone. We are too small to navigate the world stage, and we need the crutch of the EEC.”

There then ensued decades of political, economic and constitutional enslavement to the process of the supranational state. We watched the constant EU summits and the constant debates in which people tried to thrash into one policy the views and aspirations of 28 countries. We left the EU and, despite all the bullying from Brussels, we have kept our course to freedom and independence.

This Government have achieved two extraordinarily important goals during their tenure of office: entry into the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership, the world’s largest and fastest-growing trading bloc; and membership of AUKUS, the new naval agreement between Britain, Australia and America. If protected, those two extraordinary achievements will have a profound impact not only on the British economy, but on world security and peace. The CPTPP is the world’s largest trading bloc and contains some of the fastest-growing countries in the world, including Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Vietnam—in fact, the whole of the far east. Those countries are growing extraordinarily. The United Kingdom is the only European country that has been invited to join, and my understanding is that we will be signing the treaties to enter this month or next month—

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)]

Sunday.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

Sunday, in fact. The CPTPP involves no interference in our domestic affairs or our judicial processes, and no membership fees of £200 million a week—just pure trading. It is so exciting for the British people to enter a market that is growing at a phenomenal rate.

The second achievement, AUKUS—the new naval agreement with America and Australia—gives us the opportunity with our allies to re-enter the Indian and Pacific oceans in a meaningful way, for the first time in my lifetime. The British media’s obsession with scandal and petty domestic issues is of great regret to me, because it does not focus on the extraordinary achievements of the CPTPP and AUKUS. When we go to the Dog and Duck in our constituencies, how many people come up to us and talk to us about AUKUS or the CPTPP? Nobody comes to talk to me about those things in my surgery or the local pub, and yet I feel passionately about them because they signal a huge pivot for Britain away from this obsession with our inconsequential continent, which is shrinking every day as a percentage of global population and GDP, and instead towards the far east, where the real growth is, not just for ourselves but for future generations of British businesspeople and entrepreneurs.

We now have a Mongolian intern in my office on a three-month secondment: Lomax Amarsaikhan, who studied at the University of Bristol. He is writing a report about British entry into the CPTPP and whether Mongolia ought to emulate us. I would like to ask you, Mr Gray, and others participating in the debate who have experience of how Britain signed membership of that very important organisation, and the logistics and wherewithal of our experience of entering the CPTPP, to contact Lomax. He will spend the next two months with me, writing that report in Mongolian and English. It will be presented to the Mongolian Parliament, so that we can share with the Mongolians our experience of entering this huge new bloc and encourage them to consider whether it would be suitable for them to follow us.

[Sir Roger Gale in the Chair]

There are 195 countries in the world, yet only one has no coastline, with the Russians to the north and the Chinese to the south: Mongolia. What an extraordinary situation. More than any other countries in the world, Russia and China use brutality to oppress and subjugate their neighbours. They bully their neighbours and steal territory without remorse. That is quite extraordinary, given their status as permanent members of the UN Security Council. One would think that the five countries with the extraordinary privilege of being permanent members of the UN Security Council would be at the forefront of trying to uphold an international rules-based order predicated on the rule of law, democracy, human rights and all the other attributes of modern democratic societies and modern international relations that we feel so strongly about. Yet the Russians and the Chinese are doing the exact opposite: contravening the rules and regulations of the UN, the European Court of Justice and the International Court of Justice and trying to manipulate and threaten their neighbours.

Mongolia is a beacon of hope and democracy in that region. So many countries in that region—Russia, China, Burma—are oppressing their people. The reason I am so excited about Mongolia and feel so strongly about that nation is that despite its being subjugated by the Soviet Union as a satellite state and spending decades under a brutal, oppressive communist regime, whenever I go there I see the thirst and determination to grasp and nourish democracy and try to create a genuine democratic society in which there is rule of law and freedom of the press, and in which people can criticise politicians and get rid of them at elections.

We must support countries such as Mongolia, despite all the provocations from some neighbours and their past difficulties. We must support them economically and from a security perspective. For me, China is the biggest threat. I started to ask questions about China’s conduct in the South China sea seven years ago, of the then Foreign Secretary, Mr Hammond. I asked what the British Government’s attitude was to the Chinese seizure of hundreds of atolls in the South China sea—stealing them from Brunei, Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and others and militarising the whole of the South China sea, a waterway through which 60% of the world’s trade passes.

The response from the Foreign Secretary and the Foreign Office, which is indelibly imprinted on my mind, was that they do not take a view on the dispute of uninhabited atolls in the South China sea. I very much regret that answer, because I feel that the militarisation of the South China sea and our turning a blind eye to the Chinese stealing hundreds of atolls, pouring concrete on them and militarising the area are the thin end of the wedge. They give the communists succour and the ability to know that they can continue to push the boundaries in their expansionist policies in the region.

It is not just the South China sea. We all know the situation with Taiwan and the difficulties that the Taiwanese Government are experiencing. We know that the Chinese have trashed the agreement over Hong Kong that they signed with Margaret Thatcher in December 1984. We had a debate in the House the other day about the subjugation of democracy rights activists in Hong Kong. We know the allegations regarding the brutal suppression of the Uyghurs and, of course, the situation in Tibet.

Two gentlemen, Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne, made the biggest mistake in their determination to cosy up to the Chinese, because of the dollar, the huge power of the Chinese and their ability to invest money and provide big markets. We are rightly critical of other countries because of their human rights abuses, but we have turned a blind eye to the Chinese and their conduct. The mistake made by Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne was profound. I hope that this Government and subsequent Governments will be more adroit and more courageous in ensuring that we start to divest ourselves of our extraordinary overdependence on imports from China.

When I asked the former Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how we were going to become less dependent on China, she said one word: CPTPP. By entering the CPTPP, we enter a market in which 99% of goods will be traded tariff-free. What is it that we currently import from the Chinese that we cannot import from the Koreans, Japanese, Vietnamese, Singaporeans, Malaysians and others? That is the message that I want to get across to the Minister. I want us to use our entry into the CPTPP to encourage countries such as Mongolia to join us—fellow democracies like Mongolia and people who believe in the things that we do—in the new trading bloc. I want us to use our position to try to restrict Chinese entry into the CPTPP unless China starts to behave in a different way towards its indigenous population and its neighbours.

When I visited Mongolia, I was taken to the Gobi desert to inspect the Rio Tinto copper mine. Rio Tinto, based up the road in St James’s Square, is a major Anglo-Australian mining company. I spent the afternoon inspecting the world’s third largest copper mine in the world, the Oyu Tolgoi Rio Tinto mine in the Gobi desert. I was taken 1.5 km underground and spent the afternoon inspecting the honeycomb labyrinth of tunnels that make up the world’s third largest copper mine. It has an investment of over $15 billion and a massive impact on the Mongolian economy.

One thing I was particularly pleased to see was that 97% of all the mineworkers were Mongolian and that the mine had won major international environmental awards for the way that it mined and looked after the area in which it was mining. That has a hugely important economic benefit for Mongolia. I am proud and privileged to have played a small part in the negotiations between the Mongolian Government and Rio Tinto in reassessing and modernising the agreement so that it is now a win-win for both sides.

Let us not forget that only 7% of Mongolia has been explored. We already see vast opportunities in the mining sector, yet only 7% of this jurisdiction has been explored. The Mongolians are mining the copper and it is going straight across the border to the Chinese in its lowest-value form. It goes in huge railway compartments across the border to China, which, as the Minister knows, is so thirsty for all minerals. It seems to devour all these things so quickly.

I say publicly to the Minister that the way to compete against the Chinese in Mongolia is by demonstrating to our Mongolian friends and partners that we want a genuine win-win partnership rather than the exploitative type of approach that they have experienced in the past. I am talking to UK Export Finance about the possibility of trying to bring British technology and expertise in copper smelting and refining. What better way to send a signal to the Mongolians that we are interested in increasing their economy, bringing added value to their output and giving them the power of having that processing industry in their own country, not just for Rio Tinto but for many other mining jurisdictions across the country?

We have the opportunity to say to the Mongolians, “We are going to work with you. We are going to bring in this technology and, potentially, we are going to finance it.” I have £2 billion burning a hole in my pocket at the moment. I do not often say that, but that is what I have generously been given by the Minister’s Department and UK Export Finance for cheap soft credit loans to facilitate British entities operating in and exporting to Mongolia. The solution need only have a minimum of 20% British content, but it is a huge opportunity for us. I pay tribute to UK Export Finance, in front of the Minister.

My interactions with Mr Tim Reid, the chief executive of UK Export Finance, have been tremendous. He and his team are very agile and adept at meeting and trying to work productively and effectively with us trade envoys to provide additional resource and opportunities for us to promote British exports with those additional soft loans and credit, which are extremely important. Can I please ask the Minister to take an interest as I progress with others in trying to bring British expertise into the Mongolian copper refinery industry? I will keep her up to date on my meetings with the chief executive of UK Export Finance, to let her know the progress on what I consider to be probably the single most important economic solution on which we can work together with the Mongolians to bring value-added processing to their copper industry.

The second issue is the capital, Ulaanbaatar. It is a beautiful city, which I have had the honour of visiting on four separate occasions. Mongolia is a huge jurisdiction with massive opportunities but a tiny population of only 3 million. I think it is going to be the next United Arab Emirates, Kuwait or Qatar within our children’s lifetime, not from oil but from minerals. Such is the wealth of the country, and so small is its population, that there is a genuine opportunity to create huge prosperity.

I look forward to the Minister’s visit to Ulaanbaatar, which she has promised to make at some stage; as she will see, it is one of the most congested cities in the world. Unfortunately, the Mongolians have one of the highest cancer rates in the world as a result of the extraordinary pollution in that city. I have been warned not to go in January and February, not only because it is about minus 40°C, but because of the huge amount of pollution in the city as a result of the congestion.

The Mongolians have asked us to look at working with them to build a ring road around Ulaanbaatar—not quite an M25, but a ring road. That is their most important strategic project, because they can see that their capital city is slowly being choked off. It is expanding extremely quickly and cannot cope with the level of congestion, which is causing them a significant problem. I say to those watching on television who have expertise in the construction, architecture or design of such arteries, or in any aspect of construction, please contact my office. As we continue to engage with the Mongolians, we would be very interested in providing them with the maximum number of British solutions possible, and that project could be financed by UK Export Finance.

I move on to critical minerals. I have already spoken extensively of my concerns about China’s brutal communist regime. As one of the Tory MPs sanctioned by Russia, I have already been banned from entering that country. The Chinese have already threatened to ban me from China if I continue to express anti-Chinese sentiments in the House. Perhaps this will tip me over the edge. I would be proud to join other Tory MPs who have been sanctioned in that way by the Chinese and the Russians.

China controls 80% of the world’s rare earth minerals. I want people to remember that for a second—it is extraordinary. We went to war in ’56 in Suez because of our misunderstanding that Nasser would restrict the flow of oil. We were so profoundly concerned about our industry collapsing as a result of the restriction of that vital commodity that we went to war. It backfired on us spectacularly, but we are entering a period when critical minerals will have even more significance for our economy than oil did in the 1950s—I am absolutely convinced of that. When flying back to Heathrow across the North sea, we see the thousands of wind turbines that we are building. We have more offshore wind than any other country in Europe, yet not a single one of those turbines can operate without a magnet. That magnet is made from rare earth minerals.

How can we keep our wind turbines, cars and most of the economy and industry going in future without rare earth minerals? They will be hugely important and I am pleased that, as the Minister will know, we have a dedicated Minister for rare earth mineral strategy: the Minister for Industry and Economic Security, my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani). I am also talking to her about this issue.

When one country controls 80% of the world’s rare earth minerals, particularly a country as nefarious as China, we and future Governments need to start thinking about a strategy on becoming less dependent on the Chinese. At some stage in our lifetimes, they will threaten us by restricting access to rare earth minerals. I do not know when that will come—maybe over difficulties concerning Taiwan or difficulties with our freedom of navigation exercises in the South China sea; the only thing keeping that sea open is the implementation of those exercises by Britain and America. I do not know when the conflict will come, but I do know that, given the nature of the communist regime in China, it will attempt to restrict access to those vital minerals at some stage in the future.

We need to find alternatives, such as the mine in Mongolia that can potentially produce 10% of the world’s rare earth minerals. I have met representatives of the British company that owns the mine—they are based here in London—and I am very encouraged about the opportunities to exploit it, in collaboration with our Mongolian friends and allies, so that we can be less dependent on the Chinese.

The issue is not just about mining the rare earth minerals. We are bringing British processing industry to Mongolia to turn those minerals into magnets so that they can be air-freighted directly to Britain. That is the future. Relying on imports through China is no longer acceptable, whether from Kazakhstan or Mongolia. The next stage is for us to bring British processing industry to Mongolia. Again, that is a win-win situation for our Mongolian allies and ourselves, when it comes to turning the rare earth minerals into magnets. It is commercially viable, as the Minister will know, to air-freight magnets from a foreign jurisdiction directly to the United Kingdom, which would give us supplies of that vital commodity in the eventuality of difficulties or tension with the communist People’s Republic of China.

Before I finish, let me add a word about JCB, an extremely important British company based in Staffordshire, the county next to mine. No organisation or company better exemplifies the opportunities for British products in a country such as Mongolia. I visited the JCB dealership in Ulaanbaatar and met Gerry, the Mongolian gentleman who runs it with his wife and family. In the past eight years, the dealership has gone from 0% to over 25% market share for these sorts of machines in the mining industry in Mongolia.

I asked Gerry, “How do you do it? How do you compete against the machines from China? The Chinese just have a border to cross; we have to build these things in Staffordshire and get them across the world.” Gerry said it was about two things: the quality of the British goods and the after-sales service. We test these machines to destruction. The durability of the British products and the after-sales service are what differentiates British products from Chinese ones. That is what has given us such a competitive advantage over our Chinese competitors.

I was so impressed by Gerry and his team that on my last visit I invited the Mongolian Deputy Prime Minister to visit the dealership; I hope that the Minister visits it when she goes to Ulaanbaatar. Everything there is British-made—from the factory to the workshops and the areas where the goods are on display. There is even a golf driving range for customers that was built and designed by British architects and manufacturers. If we could bottle Gerry’s enthusiasm for selling British products, we would make a fortune. He is so proud of his partnership with the United Kingdom.

We need more political focus on Mongolia, and I have outlined to the Minister why Mongolia is so important. Earlier this year, I was in Kazakhstan as an election observer in Astana. While I was there, the Foreign Secretary visited Astana and signed some important agreements with this other extremely important democratic country. Kazakhstan is very similar to Mongolia: it has extraordinarily high levels of mineral production and is a post-Soviet satellite state, but it is a country that is inching its way towards democracy and the rule of law. I was impressed by what I saw as an election observer in Astana—genuine freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Mongolia and Kazakhstan, side by side, are the exciting democratic flowers that we need to water, nurture and bring into our rules-based order of democracy and freedom. They are two fascinating countries— Mongolia and Kazakhstan, side by side—and there is no greater contrast than that between them and Russia and China.

The other day, I briefed the Foreign Secretary about the need for him to visit Ulaanbaatar, and he promised that he would consider that. I hope that the Minister will take that away with her. She can see my motivation and genuine excitement about the country. Will she engage with the Foreign Office and the Prime Minister about the possibility of a state visit for the President of Mongolia, or the possibility of our own Prime Minister inviting the Mongolian Prime Minister to the United Kingdom?

Ulaanbaatar was flooded recently, and yesterday my Mongolian intern showed me a video of the destruction and devastation of Ulaanbaatar—some of the worst floods that the city has had for many years. I hope that when the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office looks at international aid, it looks a countries such as Mongolia. I want a team of British hydrologists and flooding experts at least to visit Mongolia and engage with the Mayor of Ulaanbaatar so that we can see how we can support our Mongolian friends and allies in dealing with what they perceive to be one of their biggest threats: their inability to control the flooding.

[Carolyn Harris in the Chair]

As the Minister will know from my Prime Minister’s questions, I always refer to the fact that my town, Shrewsbury, is flooded every year. We are working on a holistic solution to managing the River Severn and I chair the caucus of 42 MPs through whose constituencies the river flows. She will know the nightmare and devastation caused by a community’s flooding every year. That affects our friends in Ulaanbaatar, and I hope the Minister will take note.

When the Minister visits Mongolia, I will make sure she meets the only female governor in Mongolia’s 21 provinces, Bolormaa Enkhbat. She was chief of staff to the Mongolian Prime Minister and is now the country’s first and only female governor. She invited me to her province of Khovd, near Kazakhstan, which meant a three-and-a-half-hour flight from Ulaanbaatar. I was extremely impressed as she showed me around many opportunities for investment in her province. I very much hope the Minister will meet her.

Another thing I saw in the province, and which I hope the Minister will be able to see, is a hydroelectric power station built by the Chinese 10 years before my visit. I had never seen anything like it. I spent an afternoon walking around it and was blown away by the poor finish and poor quality. It is almost designed to fail—or disintegrate—at some stage. It would not pass muster here in the United Kingdom in a month of Sundays. If we are to compete against the Chinese on infrastructure projects such as that one, it is important we bring that expertise.

I want to pay tribute to Philip Malone, the outgoing British ambassador, who has had a career in the Foreign Office lasting more than 40 years. His first posting was in 1983 in Argentina, so we can imagine what a difficult slot that was. We did not have relations after the Falklands war and relations were done through the Swiss embassy. The professionalism and conduct of British ambassadors when one is overseas always gives one a tremendous pride in one’s own country. Our ambassadors—the men and women privileged to do that role—are the best, and Philip Malone has been exceptional. I also welcome the incoming British ambassador, Ms Fiona Blyth, who is the first female British ambassador to Mongolia. I had the honour of meeting her recently, and I wish her every success in future.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (James Gray), the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group for Mongolia, who does a great deal in promoting bilateral relations. I also pay tribute to the former Labour MP John Grogan, who tells me he is busy campaigning in Selby today and who I think will stand in Keighley at the next general election. He does a tremendous job as chairman of the Mongolian British chamber of commerce. I also want to thank Kevin Ringham, the civil servant who runs the Prime Minister’s trade envoy programme.

Mrs Harris, you have been the third Chair today, so I cannot say it has been a great privilege to serve under your chairmanship only, as you have been there only part of the time. I hope the Minister realises how being trade envoy has given me a huge enthusiasm for Mongolia. It is a very important democratic partner for the United Kingdom and I look forward to her work and that of the Government in continuing to nurture relations with Ulaanbaatar.

[James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

I thank the Chairman of Ways and Means for kindly allowing me to take part in this debate after having opened it in the Chair. It is an unusual thing to have done, and I am glad to have set a new record.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski), whose speech was wide-ranging, geopolitical and extremely interesting. He is a true master in the development of our relationship with Mongolia, and I thank him for the work that he does as our trade envoy. The way he has made a real presence in Mongolia, and a real presence for Mongolia here in London, is superb. The work he has done is outstanding. His speech today will go down in the history of UK-Mongolia relations as being extremely important in laying out the significance of our trade relations with Mongolia.

I hope the House will forgive me if I am a little more parochial than my hon. Friend and deal with the country of Mongolia rather than elsewhere in world—that is more my level. I want to let the House know that I am a bit of a fraud; the reason for my interest in Mongolia is that throughout my entire childhood my father used to threaten to send me there if I was naughty. I had no idea where Mongolia was; I thought it was somewhere extremely remote, very strange and unusual, and pretty awful. When I came to Parliament 27 years ago and had the opportunity to visit Mongolia, I thought I had better find out what it really was like. I am delighted to say that my late father could not have been more wrong in his description of what an awful place it was; I am delighted to have had my relations with Mongolia develop ever since.

Mongolia is a very interesting place. It is a huge country—something like 10 times the size of the United Kingdom. There are only 3 million people, more than half of whom live in Ulaanbaatar. There are a very small number of people, largely herdsmen, elsewhere across the country. They preserve their magnificent traditions, which stretch back to earliest times, encompassing Genghis Khan and the great Mongol empire in the 13th century—the largest empire the world has ever known.

Incidentally, the Mongol empire of Genghis Khan was largely dependent on the fact that he invented stirrups. For that reason, he was able to have his warriors charging with swords and bows and arrows and fighting from horseback, while the enemy could not. The same applied when the Saxons lost in 1066; they rode down to Hastings and then got off their horses—they did not have stirrups. Genghis Khan did have stirrups, and that accounts for the greatest empire the world has ever known.

It is important that Mongolia maintains those traditions. When one goes there, one stays in a ger—it is not a yurt, which is a Russian word. One must ride a Mongolian horse, as I have done many times. Although given my height, I can actually run along the ground as I ride because the horse is so small. It is quite an experience. One must buy some Mongolian traditional dress—people wear it to this day, particularly in the countryside, but also in Ulaanbaatar—and take part in all the magnificent and important cultural events there. It is a great way to remember the past.

The Mongol derby happens next week. My friend Philip Atkins is taking part in the 1,000-mile race across the steppes on Mongolian horses—what a magnificent way to commemorate the great postal runs across Mongolia. My best wishes to Philip for what lies ahead. I would not do it for all the tea in China—or in Mongolia, come to that—so well done to him for doing it. Those kinds of tradition, and the history and culture of Mongolia, are of huge significance.

One of the main reasons I am in love with Mongolia is that—as my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham mentioned—it is a little beacon of democracy. The little Parliament, the State Great Khural, operates in a region that is not at all friendly towards democracy. Mongolia is surrounded on one side by Russia, and on the other by China—both are hostile, and the Mongolians dislike both equally. The country is reliant on both to some degree, but is certainly not friendly to either, and for good reason.

There, in the middle of nowhere, Mongolia maintains proper democracy, based on our system in Westminster, which is to be encouraged. It is therefore important that we find ways of assisting Mongolia in the constitutional changes coming up—it is just about to change the way the Parliament is elected. We should assist it in every possible way to make those changes and to continue to develop that important democratic beacon in the middle of an anti-democratic desert.

With that in mind, I am very glad that I have often visited Mongolia with the Inter-Parliamentary Union. The IPU do great work in encouraging democracy in Mongolia. It is disappointing that we were not able to be there this year, which is the 60th anniversary of our recognition of Mongolia, but I hope we will be there soon none the less. The all-party parliamentary group for Mongolia might organise a trip, if we can find some funding to do that, and I hope the IPU might reconsider the decision not to visit this year and find time do so shortly. It is terribly important that we here, with 1,000 years of democracy in this building, make use of our knowledge and experience in countries such as Mongolia, which are desperately trying to hang on to democracy.

I join my hon. Friend in welcoming the new ambassador, Fiona Blyth, to her place in Mongolia. She is a great woman—I have met her many times—and she will do a superb job in representing Britain’s interests. I also thank the outgoing ambassador, Philip Malone, who did the job with great distinction indeed. We do wonderful work in supporting democracy in Mongolia and we must make sure that we continue to do so.

In passing, may I refer to the all-party parliamentary group, which is very active in this place? We see a lot of Mongolians coming through Parliament, and I am most grateful to a member of my office staff, Oscar Harrison, who runs the group for me. He does a first-class job. This is an important APPG. This Parliament has far too many APPGs, and I only run those that are very active and do things. The Mongolia APPG does a great deal, and I am most grateful for it.

In my 25 years of visiting Mongolia, I am delighted to say that I have seen huge changes. I remember going there shortly after the Soviets had withdrawn. Ulaanbaatar, or UB, was a pretty rundown little Soviet-type place with one major hotel, which had one thing on the menu, namely mutton. If guests did not like mutton, they did not get anything to eat.

All those years ago, Mongolia was a pretty rundown ex-Soviet country, but the changes I have seen since then are extraordinary. UB has doubled in size—with some environmental consequences, as my hon. Friend mentioned—and some worthwhile modern technologies and industries are developing there, particularly with regard to the Oyu Tolgoi mine and other mining and mineral interests.

I have also been glad to see the cashmere industry develop over the years. Some 30 years ago, the Gobi Cashmere factory in Mongolia was extremely basic and grey cardigans were all that was available. Today, the cashmere industry is fairly modern and widely advertised, and the industry exports to the UK, which I am glad about, although more could be done. I think I am right in saying that the company is still owned by the state, and if it were privatised it might become even better. None the less, some of those new industries—

[Daniel Kawczynski]

Will my hon. Friend give way on that point?

[James Gray]

I do not have much time. My hon. Friend spoke for 45 minutes—[Interruption.] Let us not bother with that for now. I hope we will see Gobi developing further in the years to come.

We in this country have an enormous amount to contribute to Mongolia. I have already mentioned democracy and the free-market economy, both of which we can lead on for Mongolia and the rest of the world, and we can contribute a huge amount with regard to commerce and industry, as my hon. Friend has described. I am glad that there is, for example, a big relationship between the London stock exchange and the Mongolian stock exchange, and the Mongolian stock exchange can learn an awful lot from us.

In a variety of other economic and trade aspects, we are developing our relationship with Mongolia, and we can also do a lot with regard to education and science. English is now the second language of Mongolia, which I am glad about, and we can do a huge amount to promote industry, science and education there. I am pleased that there is also a defence relationship with Mongolia, and 6,000 Mongolian troops served in Afghanistan alongside us. Those troops made a useful contribution to the defence of the world.

Mongolia is no longer the outer extremity of the world, which is how my father described it to me all those years ago. It has a great distance to go before it becomes a fully integrated, fully modern and fully democratic nation state. We all want that to happen, but the changes I have seen in 25 years of going to Mongolia are quite extraordinary and very worth while.

I send the Mongolians every good wish, and I hope Mongolia keeps on its steady track of movement towards democracy and a free-market economy. I hope Mongolia maintains its fine old traditions as it does that. We must remember the country’s culture, language and education. If it continues in such a way, people in 60 years will be able to look back from the 120th anniversary of our recognition of the country and be proud of the contribution Britain has made to Mongolia.

--- Later in debate ---

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I will not say much, because I have already spoken for a long time. My hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (James Gray), the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for Mongolia, referred to Gobi Cashmere. Of course, cashmere is one of the most important exports for Mongolia. I know that Gobi Cashmere is setting up operations in Europe from the United Kingdom and will want to export more cashmere. Being 6 feet 9 inches, the tallest Member of Parliament and officially a giant, it is not possible for me to buy suits easily, but I am modelling my Gobi Cashmere suit, which I purchased in Mongolia. Once you try Mongolian cashmere, you never go back. For anybody who is in the market for a new suit, this is what you can get—Gobi Cashmere from Mongolia.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered UK-Mongolian relations.

Overseas Territories

Daniel Kawczynski Excerpts

Thursday 11th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House is committed to upholding the interests of British Overseas Territories and their citizens; recognises the special historical, cultural, and social bonds that bind the United Kingdom and Overseas Territories; and calls upon the Government to ensure that British Overseas Territories citizens’ rights as British citizens are upheld, to defend the sovereignty and borders of Overseas Territories from foreign powers, and to consider the unique circumstances of each Territory when formulating policies which affect them.

I declare an interest as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on the Turks and Caicos Islands. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate on the day of the Joint Ministerial Council, the annual summit of British overseas territories here in London. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland), who is a great friend of the overseas territories and whose application for this debate I inherited, and all those who have come to the Chamber today to speak about the great British overseas territories.

I invite the whole House to join me in welcoming representatives, civil servants and elected representatives from seven overseas territories, who have come to the House today to observe the debate from the Public Gallery. It is a joy to have them with us.

Over the last week, we have witnessed our global British family at its very best. The coronation of His Majesty the King was a special moment, and to see the leaders of British overseas territories at the coronation, representing their communities with great pride, was a historic moment. While Westminster Abbey may be only a short distance from this place, it is a mighty long way away for someone who has come from Tristan da Cunha or the Pitcairn Islands. The long voyages undertaken by the leaders of every overseas territory demonstrate the bonds that unite our global family.

As I mentioned, the JMC, where the leaders of overseas territories come together, is taking place today. Last year, the JMC was cancelled at extremely short notice, when some leaders had already begun their journey to London, because that journey can take over two weeks for some of them, so I am keen that today’s JMC is a particular success.

British overseas territories span Europe, the Caribbean, the Pacific and the Atlantic. They vary in size, population, culture, climate, food, tradition, challenges and opportunities. The British global family is diverse and requires policy that recognises this diversity. That is what we will debate today. I hope the Government will adopt an ethos that recognises the unique circumstances of each territory and that makes sure they feel heard, valued and supported.

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the bedrock of the 16 British overseas territories is the concept of the right of self-determination, and yet in the case of the British Indian Ocean Territory, this Government are ignoring the views of the Chagossian people and negotiating directly with a third-party country, Mauritius, against the interests of the indigenous people?

[Alicia Kearns]

I am sure a number of colleagues plan to talk about that in their speeches, so I will make progress with my own points so that colleagues will not have their speeches cut short.

Our debate today is one not of a paternalistic House of Commons, but of a body of representatives that recognises that within families there are responsibilities but also great opportunities. Today, I will set out specific requests but also commonalities that need to be raised within our family. In response to the point made by my hon. Friend, it is worth reiterating that all British overseas territories enjoy the right to self-determination, as set out in article 1 of the UN charter. They decide their own Government and their own constitutional relationship with the United Kingdom. The fact that they have decided to maintain a constitutional link with us does not diminish this most sacred of rights. I am sure the whole House will join me in reiterating our wholehearted and unwavering commitment to defending that principle, in spirt and in law.

While we believe that there is no question or debate over the right to self-determination, some members of our family face those seeking to undermine that fundamental right. At the G20 talks in March this year, Argentina unilaterally ended the 2016 pact on the Falkland Islands. That was wrong. The Government must continue to reject any demands from Argentina to revisit the issue of the sovereignty of the Falklands. We must be clear that the right to determine the future of the Falkland Islands is the sole prerogative of its islanders. In 2013, 99.8% of all Falklanders who voted chose to remain British. There is no debate over the right to self-determination.

I draw the House’s attention to another area where the Falklanders require our support. Under the United Nations Committee of 24, the Falkland Islands is currently classified as a non-self-governing territory, but we know that is factually incorrect, both under the first Falklands constitution, signed in 1985, and under the new constitution, signed into law by Her Majesty the Queen in 2009. The Falkland Islands is self-governing but willing to refer its foreign and defence policy to the United Kingdom. The Government should help the Falklands to correct that misclassification, so that the Falkland Islands will be recognised at the UN as the proud, self-governing territory that it is.

On the subject of sovereignty, I turn to Gibraltar and its right to remain a UK overseas territory. Under the double lock guarantee, the UK has given a solemn assurance that it will never enter into any negotiation on Gibraltar’s sovereignty in which Gibraltar is not content. The post-Brexit negotiations are not yet concluded and we must ensure they are guided by the double lock principle. I am sure the House would condemn any future compromise on that. If, for whatever reason, Gibraltar is left with no negotiated outcome, I would urge the Government to provide the support needed to deal with any economic uncertainty and ensure the continued success of the Rock.

While overseas territories choose to remain part of our global family, that does not mean we should blindly accept the status quo. We should challenge ourselves to provide the best possible support for their individual hopes and needs, and try to support them to achieve those. We should embed engagement across Government directly with overseas territories, rather than relying on all manner of priorities to be dealt with through the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office as some sort of arbiter.

There is widespread frustration about just how difficult it is to engage in even basic dialogue with Government Departments. Surely, given our belief in self-determination, it is only right that overseas territories make their own case to Government Departments, rather than relying on the Foreign Office to act as messenger. They make their own case best when their voices are heard. That will also help to tackle any lingering belief in paternalistic governance.

The Foreign Affairs Committee made that recommendation in 2019, because neither the territories nor their citizens are foreign. Therefore, it is fundamentally at odds to have them supported through the Foreign Office. I urge the Government to drastically change how OTs are treated. That starts with beefing up the powers of the overseas territories directorate so that it is not seen as some sort of backwater—I apologise to civil servants observing the Chamber today—and ensuring it has the powers that are needed and that Ministers give it sufficient focus. I also urge the Minister to have all Government Departments update their strategies on the OTs, because not one of them is less than a decade old. That cannot be right; we need to update the individual strategies.

The UK’s relationship with OTs is characterised by obligations and opportunities on both sides. We face problems, including in protecting our oceans. The British maritime estate is the fifth largest in the world. It offers sanctuary to a plethora of wildlife from the south Atlantic to the Indian and Pacific oceans. Some 94% of unique British wildlife can be found in the territories, from breeding turtles in Ascension, coral reefs in Pitcairn and great whales in the Falklands to the many species that call the tropical forests of St Helena and Montserrat home. In addition, I encourage all wildlife lovers to make sure they follow the long-awaited hatching of osprey eggs in Rutland, which is expected in the coming days.

Britain plays a leading role in global conservation, thanks to the partnership of our territories and two key initiatives: the Blue Belt and Darwin Plus programmes. Without our global family, this would not be the case. It is safe to say that our overseas territory communities contribute more to protecting the ocean, per head of population, than anywhere else on earth, so we should be grateful for their contribution as part of the global British family.

Environmental initiatives demonstrate the power of partnership, but there are other areas in which the UK can do more as a partner. One such area is education. All overseas territory citizens are British citizens, yet they were finally granted access to tuition loans when studying in the UK only in 2022. The process for applying for a tuition loan remains far too complicated for those from OTs, not least because they have to send in their applications by post, which may be convenient for people who live in Rutland or lovely Melton Mowbray, of pork pie fame, but is slightly more difficult for those who live in St Helena, which is nearly 5,000 miles from the UK.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)]

I am privileged to be called so early in the debate, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns) for picking up the baton of the debate. I refer members to my registration of interests.

As vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on the British overseas territories, as well as the chair of a number of individual overseas territory groups, my personal interest in the subject goes back a long way. I am perhaps one of the few members to have served in Cyprus, in Gibraltar, the Falklands, Ascension, South Georgia and Diego Garcia. I am very lucky to have done so.

The overseas territories are a vital part of our UK family. They are strategically essential in terms of footprint basing and geography, but they are also essential to the projection of UK soft power around the world. They have a common language and culture, they have similar hopes and aspirations and we must not underestimate or take for granted their value to the UK. If I have to make one point today, and one point only, it is that our overseas territories need more love. In this era of global competition, the hunt for resources and strategic basing, and instability across the world, our foes are circling and we need to cement what we have as a nation.

To admire the problem, if I may, for a moment, Brexit was not kind to the overseas territories. What we must do now is lock the overseas territories into free trade deals with us and all our partners and think more broadly, to the Commonwealth. How fantastic would it be for global Britain to have such a network of trade arrangements, particularly with the Commonwealth? Just think of what that might be worth to the UK. Think of the potential. The 2019 UK White Paper has gone nowhere, so where is it, please, Minister?

Of course any work that we do—I welcome the point about the new strategy—has to be done with the overseas territories, not for them. Last year’s ill-fated Joint Ministerial Council has at least been put to bed now, with an excellent session this week. Of course, the Minister is in the Chamber today, which is entirely appropriate, but ministerial visits need to be a lot longer. Does it need a Minister in the House of Commons? Perhaps.

We need to station civil servants in the overseas territories for longer too, and delegations from the overseas territories to the UK visiting the FCDO need more than 30 minutes at a time. We must roll out the red carpet for these very important people and listen to their concerns. We also need a clear and regular bilateral dialogue to fix specific issues because, of course, the OTs are very different. One size does not fit all.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

My hon. Friend and I recently visited the Falkland Islands together to celebrate the 40th anniversary of their liberation from Argentina. We were told at the time of our visit that we needed to do more to support the Falkland Islands in their negotiations with the European Union over tariffs on their squid exports to the EU. Does he agree that we need to be more robust and supportive of the overseas territories when they are negotiating with the European Union?

[James Sunderland]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. I need to be careful about what I say, for obvious reasons, but I entirely agree that that needs to be the case. For example, the Falklands are suffering from tariffs on fish right now. We need to do that very quickly indeed. Why not also create a specific department in the FCDO for the overseas territories and the Commonwealth? We could have longer JMCs, perhaps, and a new strategy. There is lots that we need to do.

What about the specifics? I cannot hope in five minutes to cover the totality of the subject, but we need a new trade arrangement with the overseas territories to reflect the changes in the arrangements with the European Union and with other countries. The British Virgin Islands, in particular, wants its prescriptive court order lifted. It has a new Government and a superb new Prime Minister, so it is time for the BVI to fulfil its potential and move forward.

Tristan da Cunha needs a boat, as we heard, for obvious strategic and medical reasons. And we cannot concede sovereignty of the Chagos islands until we fully factor in the Chagossians. The archipelago is also militarily important. South Georgia’s fisheries could be brought under the governance of the Falkland islands.

The residents of all the OTs must benefit from their potential, and all the overseas territories need support on infrastructure, utilities and climate change. The UK’s relationship with the overseas territories has recently been referred to as “benign neglect”. I do not subscribe to that powerful phrase, but it is a wake-up call for us in this place. We need to do more to cement our relationship with the overseas territories. They should not be seen as somehow subordinate to the UK. They simply want to be partners, and self-determination must therefore be perceived as well as real.

One size does not fit all, and this must be reflected with each overseas territory being given more red carpet and more bilateral arrangements. The OTs are very special, and they are very proud to carry the UK flag. The UK must therefore seek to get more from them while offering more back, as true partners for mutual benefit. Nothing is broken, far from it. This is a fantastic opportunity that the UK and its partners in the overseas territories must embrace.

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

I had the great privilege and honour of visiting the British Indian Ocean Territory in 2019 when, at the invitation of the Foreign Office, we had the opportunity to inspect the extraordinary naval facilities that we share with the Americans on those islands. The right of self-determination is a bedrock of all the British overseas territories, yet, in the case of the British Indian Ocean Territory, the right of self-determination is being trashed and completely ignored by this Government.

I rise to express my dissatisfaction with this Government and their handling of the situation. The Chagossians, those beautiful people, were expelled from their islands in 1968 to make way for an American military base, and they were treated appallingly by Mauritius. Some Chagossians came to the United Kingdom and some went to the Seychelles, but others went to Mauritius, and the Mauritians treated them as second-class citizens. Mauritius spent the money it was given to look after them on other things.

The Chagos islands are 2,000 km from Mauritius and have never been part of that country. When we gave Mauritius her independence in 1965, it was made abundantly clear that these islands were to be portioned off and would remain under British control. Moreover, we gave Mauritius more than £3 million of British taxpayers’ money as final settlement for the islands. Think for a moment just how much £3 million was worth in 1965, yet now, more than 50 years on, Mauritius is determined to overturn this agreement and seize the islands from Britain. We have lost rulings on this issue in the International Court of Justice, where Mauritius has taken us for arbitration. The right of self-determination should be at the forefront of our conduct. The negotiations with Mauritius must stop, and the Chagossians, of whom there are about 4,000, must be allowed to return. There must be a referendum of the Chagossians in the British Indian Ocean Territory on whether they want independence or to remain British. I know from all my conversations with the Chagossians that they are proud Brits, and they want to remain part of the British family.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

The total territory of the Chagos islands is 10 times the landmass of Gibraltar, which we also use as a naval and military base. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that a thriving community could be created in those islands alongside and supporting the military? The binary option being pushed by the Government is detrimental to all sides.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I completely concur with the hon. Gentleman’s sentiments. The Chagossians are descendants of slaves from Africa and Madagascar. They have their own language, their own food, their own music and their own traditions. Their 58 islands are a paradise in the middle of the Indian ocean, and to hand their territory to a foreign country is colonialism on steroids. It would be an absolute disgrace if that were to happen.

Let me say how disappointed I am with other British overseas territories—some of them are with us in the Gallery today—who are eloquent in demanding their rights, including the right of self-determination. Gibraltar, in particular, is always effective in lobbying us. However, a key term of emotional intelligence, which is a subject I have recently been studying, is interdependence. The overseas territories are letting themselves down by not putting enough pressure on the British Government over the rights of the Chagossians. If the Chagossians’ rights are ignored today, it will be the rights of the other overseas territories that are ignored in the future.

We are re-entering the Indian and Pacific oceans. As you will remember, Mr Deputy Speaker, Lee Kuan Yew remonstrated with us in 1971 for leaving our bases in Singapore. We were going through a period of malaise at that time, lacking in confidence. The AUKUS naval agreement we have signed with the Americans and the Australians to re-enter the Indian and Pacific oceans is essential, particularly as we see growing Chinese expansion in the South China sea, stealing hundreds of atolls from the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and other territories, pouring concrete to turn them into giant military installations.

I asked the then Foreign Secretary about this seven years ago, and the response was, “We don’t have an opinion about the disputed uninhabited atolls in the middle of the Indian ocean.” We are turning a blind eye to Chinese expansionism in the South China sea while bending over backwards to accommodate Mauritius’s spurious claim to our islands. This year we are entering CPTPP, the world’s fastest-growing trading bloc, so this area will become increasingly important to the United Kingdom.

I feel so passionately about this issue because it goes to the nub of how our relationship with the British overseas territories will develop and be protected for the future. Please let us combine to challenge the Government on their outrageous, nefarious and immoral conduct over the British Indian Ocean Territory.

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[Daniel Kawczynski]

The hon. Gentleman is making the very serious allegation that some British overseas territories are tax havens or being used in some nefarious way for funds. Which ones is he referring to and what evidence does he have for that?

[Alyn Smith]

I was going to be more polite and say some are and indeed some are not, but if the hon. Gentleman wants some statistics, in February 2022 Transparency International linked £830 million-worth of property in the overseas territories and Crown dependencies to individuals close to Russian President Vladimir Putin. In 2018 Global Witness said £34 billion was currently invested by Russians with links to the Russian Government in overseas territories. The Global Witness report of 2018 also said that £68.5 billion in foreign direct investment from Russian residents had been directed towards the overseas territories from 2007 to 2016. I acknowledge progress has been made by some of the overseas territories, but we also must speak frankly to our friends and there is an issue that needs to be dealt with.

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[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

I also thank the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns), for securing this crucial debate and ensuring the concerns and priorities of the overseas territories remain within the focus of this House and for the Government to hear. As shadow Minister in that capacity, I draw attention to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, in particular my visits to Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands as a guest of their Governments in the last year.

I also thank the members of all the overseas territories and their representatives who are here today in the Gallery to watch the debate and who have been at many events this week. It was a pleasure to speak at the United Kingdom Overseas Territory Association conference yesterday and to meet many of the chief Ministers and representatives over the last few days. I particularly thank the presidency of UKOTA for the work they have done this year around the coronation of His Majesty and Her Majesty. It was a pleasure to see representatives of the overseas territories marching in that parade, as well as the flags and all the other things we have seen. I also want to thank the Speaker for his leadership and work on this issue and his generosity in hosting us all this week in Speaker’s House.

The UK’s overseas territories are indeed an integral and cherished part of the global British family, and it has been a profound honour for me in my role as Labour’s shadow Minister to have now met, I believe, all of the democratically elected leaders of the overseas territories. I have also been able to visit four of the overseas territories: I have seen at first hand the warmth, innovation, diversity and distinctiveness of the people and environments in each. I have swum with penguins in the south Atlantic in the Falklands; and indeed I have taken tea at the Rock Hotel in Gibraltar.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Stephen Doughty]

I will not as I know what the hon. Gentleman wants to say; he is very kind, but we do not have a lot of time.

On that more humorous note, I also want to be really serious, candid and honest. Far too frequently, debate and discourse on this issue have been based on glib generalisations and a lack of understanding that fails to take account of the uniqueness of each overseas territory, be that constitutional, environmental or economic.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

Will the hon. Member give way now?

[Stephen Doughty]

I will, briefly.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I am grateful. The hon. Member rightly refers to the overseas territories as being cherished. I rather doubt that I will get a commitment from the Minister for a referendum for Chagossians and the British Indian Ocean Territory, so will he and the Labour party, in the spirit of what the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) said, at least give a commitment that a future Labour Government would give those people the right to a referendum on self-determination?

[Stephen Doughty]

The hon. Member knows my views on the Chagos Islands; indeed, I set them out clearly in Westminster Hall in a debate he initiated a few months ago. I will come to that later in my speech.

Despite some extremely committed individual officials and Ministers in the FCDO and those who work alongside the Administrations, we have seen far too little consistency, understanding, engagement and, crucially, listening. A future Labour Government would set out five key principles to guide our relationships with the overseas territories. First, we believe in devolution and democratic autonomy, and establishing clear consistency on constitutional principles of partnership and engagement. Secondly, we believe in listening. I firmly believe in the principle of “nothing about you without you.” Thirdly, we believe in partnership. A future strong and stable relationship between the UK and each of the overseas territories must be built on mutual respect and inclusion; indeed, that involves all Government Departments, not just the FCDO. We also believe that rights come with responsibilities. In our British family, we share common values, obligations and principles including a robust commitment to democracy, the rule of law and liberty, and the protection of human rights, including, as rightly mentioned, those rights of LGBT+ people, women and girls, and people living with disabilities. We also believe in the advancement of good governance and, of course, ensuring proper democratic accountability and regulation.

Finally, let me be clear that for as long as the people of the overseas territories wish to remain part of this British family, we will robustly defend their security, autonomy and rights. As has been rightly pointed out, that is not least in the case of the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar, where a firm commitment to self-determination has been expressed by their peoples. That is Labour’s commitment, and I know that it is shared by many across the House. We would also move away from the notion that one size fits all. It does not when it comes to the overseas territories.

We need to ensure that our constitutional relations are diverse and nuanced in law and practice. On sanctions, I agree with the point made that in many circumstances we saw the overseas territories and crown dependencies move faster than the UK Government in implementing robust sanctions regimes. We have also heard that, in many decisions, whether on our relationship with Europe, trade negotiations or climate negotiations, the overseas territories have not been heard, respected or engaged in processes at the heart of Government.

We also want to see transparency in how the territories are administered. I believe that many overseas territories have called for a code of conduct for governors and for robust processes and consistency in how they operate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Daniel Kawczynski Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Leo Docherty]

Many students are, of course, still going to receive an education in Europe. The Erasmus programme was financially unbalanced on our side, and the advantage of the Turing scheme is that these opportunities are now global.

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

6. What recent discussions he has had with his counterpart in Mauritius on the sovereignty of the Chagos Islands.

[The Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (James Cleverly)]

My written ministerial statement on 17 March noted that the UK and Mauritius are continuing negotiations on the exercise of sovereignty over the British Indian Ocean Territory and the Chagos archipelago. I met Foreign Minister Ganoo on 1 March, when we discussed a range of issues, including of course the British Indian Ocean Territory.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. At the invitation of the Foreign Office, some of us went to the British Indian Ocean Territory in 2019 and inspected the extraordinary naval and military installations on the islands. The Secretary of State will agree with me that the British Indian Ocean Territory is vital for our AUKUS agreement with America and Australia. Why are we negotiating with Mauritius—a third-party country 2,000 km away from the British Indian Ocean Territory? Why are we not putting at the forefront of this issue something that is essential for all British overseas territories, which is the right of self-determination? When will the Chagossians—the indigenous people of these islands—finally get their say?

[James Cleverly]

The UK is committed to the agreements made in 1965, and while there are no plans for a referendum, we do of course consult with the Chagossians, among whom there is a range of views. I assure my hon. Friend that the issues that he raised in his question remain at the heart of our thinking during the negotiations.

Financial Security and Reducing Inequality in the Caribbean: Government Role

Daniel Kawczynski Excerpts

Wednesday 8th March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Clive Lewis]

I thank my hon. Friend for her points, which I will come to in my speech. One key thing she pulled out is that successive Governments have made many arguments about why this should not happen, but they should be making the argument about why it should. I want to pick up on one thing she said that I will not have time to cover in my speech. One argument that Governments have often made over the past 20 or 30 years, in the postcolonial period, for why we should not pay reparations for the slave trade and colonialism is that it was legal at the time. Not only do this Government make that argument, but our Labour Government made it in the noughties. We have to remember that throughout history, including in the 20th century, countries treated people brutally and exterminated them ostensibly under their own laws, so we cannot allow that argument to be made against reparations.

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

I speak as the chairman of the all-party group on St Kitts and Nevis. All Members will be incentivised and motivated to ensure that there is the greatest flow of capital to our allies in the Caribbean, but does the hon. Gentleman think that giving the Caribbean states tariff-free access to the United Kingdom, the world’s fifth-largest economy, is more important than reparations? That would contrast with the protectionist racket they have experienced from the European Union, which, inherently, tried to restrict the flow of goods from the Caribbean to the EU.

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[Clive Lewis]

I thank my hon. Friend for her wonderful intervention—it is almost as though she is reading ahead in my speech, and I will come to some of those points. I would go further: this country will be unable to move on as a cohesive whole until these issues are resolved. I think that that everyone in this room would want to see that happen as this country goes forward, post Brexit, into the big, wide world yonder.

I was in the middle of my discussion about the Commonwealth being a relationship—a relationship between Britain and her former colonies, which, like a partner that has endured 400 years of the most hideous abuse, seek not charity but restitution. The alternative is divorce in the form of growing republican sentiment across the Caribbean. Abusive partners who cannot say sorry cannot change, can never grow and can never develop. Who in their right mind would want to stay in an abusive relationship like that?

But do not take my word for it. King Charles III, through his goddaughter Fiona Compton, has shown an intimate understanding of the necessity for this national conversation—knowing, as he does, that he could well be the last king of anything resembling an international Commonwealth. As such, the monarch has shifted positions. He believes, we are told, that British history “should not be hidden”, and that, in the same way that we are taught about the holocaust,

“we should be open to speaking about Britain’s involvement in the slave trade”.

For it seems that this country still finds it easier to remember the transgressions of other nations than it does its own.

Let me turn to the issue of those transgressions. What happened such that Britain, or any other European colonial power, should be expected to apologise and pay reparations? As any student of history would attest, history is littered with ancient atrocities and what would now be called crimes against humanity that elicit no such reactions or demands. Why is what took place in the Caribbean so different?

Sir Hilary Beckles, a historian and vice-chancellor of the University of the West Indies, nails a key part of the explanation in his book “How Britain Underdeveloped the Caribbean”. He states:

“The modern Caribbean economy was invented, structured and managed by European states for one purpose: to achieve maximum wealth extraction to fuel and sustain their national financial, commercial and industrial transformation. Therefore, for each European state, the Caribbean economy was primarily an external economic engine propelling and promoting national economic growth.

No other large and lucrative colonized economy in the five-hundred-year history of Western economic development has ever been created for such a singular purpose. No such economy has ever been as intensively exploited as that of the Caribbean by imperial entrepreneurs and nation states.”

It continues that European countries, Britain chief among them,

“called into being a new, immoral entrepreneurial order that defined the Caribbean…economy as a frontier beyond the accountability of civilization, where crimes against humanity became a cultural norm”,

with the ability

“to accumulate wealth without cultural or ethical constraints.”

That involved

“the institutionalization of piracy and plunder, genocide and slavery, violent hostility and hatred, and notions of black subhumanity. These were the driving forces in Europe’s wealth extraction as it rose to economic dominance”—

a dominance that, we know, it still enjoys to this day.

Sir Hilary goes on to describe slavery as “systematic genocide”, because although around 3.5 million Africans were brought to the Caribbean in those 400 years, only 600,000 were in the region by the time of emancipation, which is unsurprising, given that the average useful lifespan of a West Indian slave was five to 10 years. That went on for 400 years, so extreme was their treatment. British history books might tell us that the first African slaves landed in the British empire in 1624, but when we listen to that, the reality is that black people, Africans, did not land in the British empire; the British empire landed on them. That is what happened in 1624 and continued to happen for 400 years, to this very day.

This is not just about Africans. Indians were also forcibly indentured in the Caribbean by the British. Let us not forget the 3 million indigenous peoples estimated to have inhabited the Caribbean in 1700. I have some Carib Indian in me, which I can trace back through my great-grandmother. Those people were deliberately wiped out by those European forces, so now only 30,000 survive.

As the fabulous research of University College London shows, even the abolition of slavery in the 1830s saw no justice, because it was the slavers, not the slaves, who received the vast sums of compensation—billions in today’s money—that taxpayers in the UK, including the Caribbeans who came here in the post-war period to rebuild this country, after it had fought a war ostensibly against racism and fascism, finished paying off in 2015, so vast was the debt. Let us think about that: the people who had been brutalised and exploited for 400 years came back to the mother country, after it had fought a war against racism, to rebuild this country, leaving theirs in poverty, and paid taxes to pay their former slave masters.

This does not end there. Some of those same people, decades later, having worked for this country, were deported as illegal immigrants in the Windrush scandal. You could not make this up. If it was written in a book, some would say it is fiction. It gets worse, because the Windrush compensation scheme was made so difficult to apply for that fewer than one in four people eligible for compensation have received it. That is not a scandal; it goes beyond scandal.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

The hon. Gentleman is making an impassioned speech. He is talking about immigration and the rights of people. As the first Polish-born British Member of Parliament, who came to this country from Poland, I say to him that one reason I campaigned for Brexit was that I felt the current immigration policy was racist. We gave automatic access to fellow white Europeans to the exclusion of Commonwealth citizens.

I want everybody to be treated in the same way when they are at our border, irrespective of their colour, religion or where they are from. It should be based on their skillset. The Labour party and the SNP—[Interruption.] I hear chuntering from the SNP—campaigned for a system that would have allowed that ongoing racism to take place: automatic access for Europeans to the exclusion of Commonwealth citizens.

[Clive Lewis]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for those points. We can have both a fair immigration system in this country, which we do not have at the moment, and justice for the Caribbean. The two are not controversial or incompatible.

The money paid to the slave owners in the 1830s poured into the British economy, paying for Victorian infrastructure and modernisation. That includes the embankment over there, across from where we sit; the first underground, the Metropolitan line; and new modern insurance companies, with the capital to go global. That was all generated by the investment that came from the compensation given to slave owners.

That compensation in part funded what would eventually become the insurance giant Aviva, based in my Norwich South constituency and formerly known as Norwich Union. It financed vast cultural and learning investment in universities, the creative arts and science. It financed a modern 19th century military industrial machine, one finally able to colonise Africa and vast swathes of Asia in that fast phase of 19th century colonialism, finishing what had been started in the centuries before.

For former slaves in the Caribbean, there was no such economic renaissance. The century after emancipation was one of racist brutality, the suppression of basic human and labour rights, bloodshed and massacre. Even in the 1930s, people in Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados, St Lucia, St Vincent and St Kitts witnessed violent suppression and death at the hands of British colonial police forces for seeking basic labour rights in the colonial sugar factories, mines and fields that they still toiled in, for poverty wages—and all the time, the profits rolled out of the Caribbean, not into it.

Already I can hear the howls of those opposed to the reparations and the apology that no British Government have ever given: “Move on! Get over it! Don’t linger in the past; look to the future!” But there is no future worth looking forward to in the Caribbean until we confront the past. If people go to the Caribbean, what they will see is the past alive and well today. There is poverty, racism still, inequality, and debt. But do not confuse an honest appraisal of the situation across much of today’s Caribbean for victimhood, because although the peoples of the Caribbean have been wronged, they are a proud and capable people, whose 400-year baptism of fire has made them strong and resilient, with great potential—potential that now needs to be realised.

Let us take, for example, the University of the West Indies. Despite the past, it ranks among the top 1.5% of universities globally. That is evidence of how far ahead the Caribbean could have been had three quarters of the population not been unable to read or write just 60 years ago. That was the condition they were left in when they were given independence—illiteracy rates of 60% or 70%. So when, as happened this week, the Prime Minister of Grenada, Dickon Mitchell, invites British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, another son of empire, to discuss reparations, he does so with full understanding of that potential.

It is potential that CARICOM—the Caribbean Community—and its 10-point plan for reparatory justice also recognises. Its reparations commission is working with initiatives such as Repair, set up by the entrepreneur Denis O’Brien. Their joint mission is for an EU and UK 25-year, multibillion-pound programme of reparation and repair and investment in the Caribbean, involving education, physical infrastructure and science and technology, replicating the EU’s structural investment funding, which transformed the poorest countries and regions of the EU, including Ireland and Poland. The same can be done for the Caribbean. It can be given the tools to prosper, to make the jump to clean energy technologies, and to adapt to the climate crisis, by which it will be disproportionately affected. There have been centuries of carbon-intensive manufacturing, which the bodies of its people financed, but it receives no share of the bounty. The irony of the climate crisis is never lost on me—or on millions of other people around the planet.

I am sure that the Minister will tell us today of the largesse of Britain and its generous overseas development packages. Let us unpack that. Forget for now that this Government oversaw a 21% drop in aid spending since 2020, as a result of their decision to cut aid budgets from 0.7 of GDP to 0.5% of GDP. I have the Library figures for the British Government’s overseas aid to Caribbean countries in millions of pounds, not adjusted for inflation, over a series of years. For Grenada, the figures are 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.1, 0.2. This is the reality of overseas aid for the Caribbean. Let us go down the table. For St Lucia, the figures are 0.0, 0.0, 0.2, 0.2, 0.1. The 0.2 is a fraction of a million—hundreds of thousands of pounds. St Vincent and the Grenadines: 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.1. We get the picture.

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[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

Thank you for calling me to speak in this debate, Mr Davies. I start by paying tribute to the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) for securing this debate. I want to offer him some form of cross-party collaboration focusing on the Caribbean.

This country—I speak as an immigrant myself—has benefited enormously from the British-Caribbean diaspora, not just in London but across the whole of the United Kingdom. That community has some of the greatest skillsets imaginable; we want to harness the skills in the diaspora to help us build a bridge between London and the Caribbean, post Brexit. The paucity of Members attending this debate is rather regrettable, bearing in mind how important the Caribbean is to the United Kingdom and to our relations with that western sphere of the world.

I chair two all-party country groups: the APPG on Poland, not surprisingly, which is the third-largest in the House of Commons. We now have 97 parliamentarians in that APPG. We make regular visits to Warsaw with Members of Parliament who have never visited Poland. I also chair the all-party parliamentary group for St Kitts and Nevis, which we set up last year. One reason why I set it up is that I am particularly interested in evaluating how, post Brexit, the United Kingdom will strengthen links with the Commonwealth.

You and I entered the House in the same year, Mr Davies, in 2005. We were both Brexiteers. One of the reasons why I campaigned so assiduously for Brexit is that I recognise the extraordinary power of the Commonwealth—a global network of 54 nations around the world, representing a third of the world’s population. In our obsession with the European Union over the last 50 years—this tiny, almost inconsequential continent, whose population as a percentage of the global population, and whose GDP as a percentage of global GDP, is shrinking every day—we attached ourselves to a shrinking market, and allowed protectionist barriers to be imposed between us and the Commonwealth. That is probably one of this country’s greatest acts of self-harm in our lifetime.

What I want from this Government, post Brexit, in a country freed of the European Union’s artificial constraints, is for us to turn the Commonwealth into something meaningful and economically viable. The hon. Member for Norwich South said that King Charles may be the last titular head of the Commonwealth. I do not believe that. I believe that Prince William will continue in that role, as will his children, but only if we demonstrate to these 54 nations that we want to give them the maximum tariff-free access to our markets and build up those economic partnerships. Politicians are transient figures, here today, gone tomorrow. It is businesses and economic joint ventures that solidify and strengthen links between countries.

This year, we enter the CPTPP—the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership. It is a partnership with the world’s largest trading bloc in the far east. We should also focus on the Caribbean, and on making sure that we challenge our American allies’ position as the major investor and exporter to the Caribbean. As you will know if you have visited the Caribbean, Mr Davies, the vast majority of products there, whether it be a car, or a pencil in a school, come from the United States of America. In this modern era of transportation, with high-velocity cargo ships crossing the Atlantic, we can compete against the United States of America. That is the best way to strengthen our relationship with the Caribbean.

When we set up the APPG for St Kitts and Nevis, would you believe, Mr Davies, that it was the first time that such an APPG had been set up in this Parliament since 1983, when St Kitts and Nevis achieved independence? I find that staggering. St Kitts and Nevis may have a small population, but let us not forget that it has one vote at the United Nations. There are only 195 votes in total—there are 195 countries in the world. St Kitts and Nevis has one of those precious votes. We ought to do everything possible to demonstrate to our partners in St Kitts and Nevis that we do not take their votes at the UN for granted, and we are doing everything possible to show them a genuine partnership.

I am very honoured to be hosting His Excellency Dr Kevin Isaac, the high commissioner to St Kitts and Nevis, today in the House of Commons. He has been the high commissioner for St Kitts and Nevis to the Court of St James’s since 2011. When I spoke to him this morning—I do not want to embarrass him—he said he could not remember reference being made to St Kitts and Nevis in the British Parliament in the last few years. He could not tell me the last time he heard such a reference. Between us, we need to make as many references to St Kitts and Nevis as possible. His Excellency Kevin Isaac was awarded diplomat of the year from North America and the Caribbean in 2015 and 2022. That is an award adjudicated by other diplomats and senior political figures. He has won it twice. If someone wanted to understand about international diplomacy, they should go and talk to him.

In my discussions with His Excellency Kevin Isaac, we have talked about an important project in his country: the construction of a major bridge from the island of St Kitts to the island of Nevis. I will talk to bridge builders in my constituency of Shrewsbury; we have a famous bridge builder in Leebotwood, Shropshire, and I will write to them about this opportunity. It is essential that the Minister is cognisant of this huge infrastructure project that St Kitts and Nevis is investigating. Can the Minister give me an update on what his Department is doing in conjunction with the Department for International Trade to ensure that there is a British proposal on the table to build that highly strategic and important bridge?

The Government of St Kitts and Nevis are building a climate-smart modern hospital and a senior high school. They are also seeking support for extending their international airport. There should be British construction proposals for all those projects. I am keen to hear from the Minister what we are doing to ensure that we bid for those important projects. Speaking as one of the Prime Minister’s trade envoys, it is important that we use UK Export Finance to help British companies bid for those projects. UK Export Finance has billions of pounds at its disposal, with which it can give companies soft loans and credits to help them compete against Chinese construction companies.

I have a great concern about the way that the Chinese are taking over the whole of the Caribbean, in terms of infrastructure projects and commercial opportunities. It is not just Africa where the Chinese are stealing a march on the United Kingdom; it is also in the Caribbean. If we look at the figures for investment in the Caribbean nations, we will see that we have fallen behind the communist dictatorship of the People’s Republic of China in this critical part of the world—a part of the world that has such historical links to the United Kingdom, and that is so close to our major ally, the United States of America. Somehow, this Government are allowing the Chinese to steal a march on us in the Caribbean. You couldn’t make it up, Mr Davies.

Before I conclude my speech, I will make one strong appeal. We need a trade envoy for the Caribbean. I know that the Minister is from the Foreign Office, but I would like him to take that message to No. 10 Downing Street and to the Department for International Trade. As one of the Prime Minister’s trade envoys, I have dozens of meetings every month in the House of Commons. The trade envoy is like a telephone switchboard operator, putting British commercial entities in touch with opportunities from the jurisdiction that they represent. Here in the House of Commons, we take advantage of the prestigious building that we work in to bring together people from the UK with people from the country to which we are trade envoy. We ensure that Britain is doing everything possible to take advantage of the opportunities. We need an envoy for the Caribbean. We had one in the past. A trade envoy acts as a totem pole; they encourage, facilitate, represent, and lobby on behalf of British business. They work with not only the Department for International Trade, but, most importantly, UK Export Finance.

Lastly, let me refer to compensation. I could see how emotional and passionate the hon. Gentleman was, and I am not going to demur from anything he said as it would be inappropriate for me so to do, even though he and I might not entirely agree on the matter. However, I would say to him that I have campaigned for many years for compensation for Poland from Germany, because 98% of the city of my birth, Warsaw, was destroyed in 1944. The Germans still refuse to pay that compensation, so I entirely understand his motives and strength of feeling. I respect that and his right to raise the issue, but I say to him again—gently, delicately and irrespective of the differences we have—that I hope we can agree to work together to slash those tariffs and restrictions, which have existed for decades with respect to Caribbean countries and their commercial entities.

We have been part of the European Union. As I said, I go around universities in this country and try to explain to young people that we gave automatic access to Poles—fellow white European Poles—but that somebody from the Caribbean would have to go through a different channel and jump over higher hurdles to get into this country. That is pure, unadulterated racism. It is staggering that for so many years we accepted a system—I look to the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady), who actively campaigned to remain in the European Union—that tolerates such extraordinarily profound discrimination between European citizens—fellow white Caucasian citizens—and Caribbean citizens. That is an absolute outrage.

I want every single individual at the border crossing to be assessed on their skillsets, their ability to learn English and their ability to convince a British entity to hire them. Those are the attributes that should be tested, not which part of the world the individual is from.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Norwich South on securing the debate. I hope that he and I can stay in touch and work together to facilitate and send a strong signal to Caribbean nations that we value their partnership and their friendship, and that we are determined to create the strongest possible economic links between us.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) on securing the debate. I also congratulate him on bringing some important and challenging issues to the House during what has turned out to be an extremely lively debate, involving brief but passionate and important contributions from the hon. Members for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome) and for Brent Central (Dawn Butler), and indeed the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski).

I echo the welcome from the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham for the high commissioner from St Kitts and Nevis. I quickly checked Hansard when the hon. Gentleman was speaking: since 2005, there have been 16 on-the-record references to St Kitts and Nevis—I suspect that by the end of the debate he will have gone a long way to doubling that. The name “Nevis” is derived from the Spanish for Our Lady of the Snows, which is appropriate considering the weather we are experiencing today.

I cannot speak to lived experience of the kind described by the hon. Members for Norwich South and for Shrewsbury and Atcham, but it is my privilege as Member of Parliament for a Glasgow constituency to represent an incredibly lively and diverse community, particularly those constituents with Afro-Caribbean heritage. That community itself is extremely diverse, and it draws on the heritage and experience of many different cultures. As we have heard, the Caribbean is not a homogenous entity, place or territory; it is culturally, politically and economically diverse. The region encompasses some of the most and least privileged communities in the world.

In choosing the title for the debate, the hon. Member for Norwich South was right to draw attention to the inequalities across the region and the challenges they bring. Take the disparities between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, for example. They are two countries on the same island—not a concept we are unfamiliar with in the United Kingdom—but a person born in Haiti is two and a half times more likely to die as a baby, has a much shorter life expectancy, and will grow up to be almost 10 times poorer than a counterpart on the other side of the island.

The hon. Gentleman is also right that the Caribbean’s social, political and economic landscape cannot and must not be understood outside the region’s colonial past, the effects of which live on to this day. It has been irrevocably shaped by the history of western imperialism, the slave trade and the colonial—and perhaps ongoing—extraction of natural resources.

The juxtaposition of extreme wealth and poverty across the region speaks to wider global challenges that emerge when excessive concentrations of wealth come at the expense of sustainable public services and transparency. Transparency International said:

“far from being victimless crimes, corruption and tax evasion deprive citizens around the world of much-needed public services while at the same time undermining institutions and democracy. Developing countries alone lose an estimated US$1 trillion each year to illicit financial flows.”

The UK Government know that only too well because several of their overseas territories in the region effectively operate as tax havens. The Cayman Islands alone are home to 85% of the world’s hedge funds and an estimated 100,000 registered companies, and report banking assets in excess of $500 billion.

The UK Government have to step up and play their part in tackling the illicit finance in their overseas territories. They could establish an illicit finance commissioner to monitor the presence of assets in overseas territories and Crown dependencies. They could ensure that their refresh of the integrated review has a dedicated focus on countering illicit finance flows and addressing corruption. They could establish a transparent and accurate ultimate beneficial owner register, enhance verification of that register, initiate investigations into known weaknesses, and accelerate timelines for entries linked to British overseas territories.

The Government also have to step up and do more to address challenges at the other end of the spectrum, as the hon. Gentleman said, including high poverty levels, instability and the legacy of slavery and colonialism. I talked about the extremes of inequality and instability that Haiti has experienced in recent years, through a combination of natural and man-made disasters that have made it the poorest country in the western hemisphere. The UK could take simple steps such as uplifting its emergency aid provision, working with the non-governmental organisations that are still present in the country, liaising with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights when he makes an official visit, and exploring what the UK embassy in Port-au-Prince can do to formally document and escalate human rights abuses witnesses by British diplomats on the ground.

As the hon. Gentleman said, climate change is another major driver of inequality and instability. Again, people in the Caribbean are particularly at risk. Of the 511 natural disasters worldwide since 1950 that have hit small states, 324 have been in the Caribbean, killing more than a quarter of a million people and affecting more than 24 million through injury and the loss of homes and livelihoods. It is expected that by 2050, 1 billion people in low-lying coastal areas will face escalating climate risks that undermine adaptation efforts. Of the Caribbean’s 40 million inhabitants, 28 million live on the coast.

In addressing financial security and reducing inequality, the UK Government ought to address some of those points. They could learn from the Scottish Government’s commitment to a comprehensive sustainable loss and damage package to help developing countries tackle climate change. They could pledge to target the most climate-vulnerable countries first, which would include nations in the Caribbean. Of course, they will find it difficult to do that precisely because of the aid cuts that the hon. Gentleman spoke about.

Of course, the majority of the hon. Gentleman’s speech focused on the legacy of colonialism. He spoke incredibly powerfully about that, and he is right to put challenging questions to the UK Government and all of us in positions of responsibility.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

Does the hon. Gentleman, on behalf of the SNP, agree that irrespective of what the aid budget is today, a greater percentage of it ought to be going to Caribbean nations?

[Patrick Grady]

The distribution of aid should be determined on a needs basis, and it would be easier if there was more of the pot to go around. As I understand it, under the OECD and official development assistance rules, there are issues with how much of their budget the UK Government can give to countries that are essentially their own territories and have that counted as aid. However, they should be providing support of the kind that has been discussed, to enable those countries to raise themselves and their people to the standard of living that the rest of us take for granted. That is why I spoke earlier about addressing the impact of tax evasion and financial corruption. Huge amounts of money are flowing through some of these countries, but not everybody living in them is feeling the benefit. Perhaps if there was more transparency and fair taxation, some of those issues would be addressed.

I turn back to the question of colonial legacies. In recent years, many Governments and authorities across the United Kingdom, the US, Europe and other countries with historical involvement in the slave trade and colonialism have been asked, or are asking themselves, searching questions about how that legacy can be recognised and understood, and how amendments and apologies can best be made. The hon. Member for Norwich South was right to acknowledge the ambitious and pioneering actions of the Trevelyan family, who I know are paying close attention to today’s debate. I think we can all recognise that, in many cases, there is still quite a distance to go before justice is fully served, but there are exemplars and initiatives that point in the right direction. 

In recent years, the city councils of both Glasgow and Edinburgh have examined their historical involvement in the transatlantic slave trade, and have adopted motions of regret and apology for that. The review for City of Edinburgh Council was chaired by Sir Geoff Palmer, who was Scotland’s first black professor, and Glasgow’s report was conducted by Dr Stephen Mullen of the University of Glasgow and championed by Councillor Graham Campbell, Glasgow’s first councillor of Afro-Caribbean descent, who has been a real driving force in taking this issue forward.

When the report into Glasgow’s connections was published, the leader of Glasgow City Council, Susan Aitken, said that

“the tentacles of the slave economy reached far into Glasgow and helped build and shape this city. It also talks about the legacy of enslavement in the form of institutionalised racism in today’s Glasgow.

And this must be publicly acknowledged. We need to be honest about Glasgow’s history, our involvement in the slave economy, the attempt at creating a Scottish empire and our deep role in the British Empire. There are people who live every day with the legacy of their ancestors having been enslaved. We need to step up and apologise, to express contrition and sorrow for our part in the moral atrocity of slavery.”

As I said, the basis of that report came as a result of work by Dr Stephen Mullen of the University of Glasgow, who audited the city’s connections to the transatlantic slave trade. The university, which I am proud to represent in this House, has taken its own steps and committed to pay £20 million over the next 20 years in reparations, in recognition of its role in the slave trade. That money will be used to support a centre for development research at the University of the West Indies, which the hon. Member for Norwich South spoke about so highly.

There are therefore calls for the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government to act at a national level in this regard. Of course, there is a time of change upon the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government, so perhaps some of the concerns should be drawn to the attention of those aspiring to be our next First Minister. But we are here today to hold the UK Government to account, so I hope the Minister will look at the steps being taken by local authorities, universities and other institutions across the UK, and consider how the Government can recognise and respond to the legacy of slavery and colonialism, in which their predecessors were complicit. 

It is clear from the debate that people in the Caribbean, like people anywhere on this planet, deserve to live lives of dignity and respect, and enjoy basic financial security and freedom from stark inequalities. There have been significant suggestions today as to how the UK Government can work to achieve that, and I hope the Minister will respond appropriately.

British Indian Ocean Territory: Sovereignty

Daniel Kawczynski Excerpts

Wednesday 7th December 2022 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the sovereignty of the British Indian Ocean Territory.

Before I start to talk about this British overseas territory, I would like to say that I returned last week from another British overseas territory—the Falkland Islands—with my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland) and the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), who is the shadow Minister for the overseas territories. We have just spent nine days together in the Falkland Islands, inspecting the defences of the islands, meeting islanders and, most importantly, commemorating the 40th anniversary celebrations of the liberation of the islands in June 1982. I pay tribute to the shadow Minister. During our visit, he and I disagreed on almost everything: politically, culturally, socially—everything. But we were in unison and total agreement on the need to protect the Falkland Islands and their right to self-determination, a concept to which I will return over and again during my speech and this debate. It is the lesson we have learned from the conflict in the Falkland Islands.

I recognise that the British Indian Ocean Territory is different from the Falkland Islands, and there are different perspectives, narratives and parameters, but one thing that is not divisible and is equally important in any British overseas territory is the concept of self-determination; we cannot negotiate sovereignty of a territory without the legitimacy of consultation with the islanders and the people originally from that territory.

I mention the Falkland Islands because we have to learn from our mistakes and from the mistakes the Foreign Office has made in the past. Something I was told over and again during our visit to the Falkland Islands was that Lord Chalfont, a Labour Minister in the Foreign Office in the late ’60s, was sent to the Falkland Islands in 1968 by the Foreign Office to try to convince the islanders to abandon Great Britain, ditch their links with Britain and become Argentinian. The Falkland Islands’ people repeatedly referenced—and have written pamphlets and books about—that occasion, when a Labour Foreign Office Minister was sent to the Falkland Islands to try to entice, cajole and manoeuvre an entire people to abandon their cultural heritage, their links and their status as part of the British family. I am pleased that the Falkland Islanders sent Lord Chalfont back home with the unequivocal message, “We wish to remain British, we are British and we are determined to continue to be part of the British family.” I would argue that the poor handling of the Falkland Islands situation by the Foreign Office in the late ’60s and ’70s led and contributed to the war that then was instigated in 1982.

Something I will not forget from my visit to the Falkland Islands is when my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell, the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth and I were taken to the top of Mount Tumbledown, and saw the horrendous situation our armed forces faced in trying to retake the islands. We paused on many occasions during our trip to lay wreaths and spend time quietly together, commemorating the lives of the British soldiers who gave up their lives to protect that British territory.

When the Foreign Office makes mistakes and miscalculates, it is not civil servants or politicians who suffer, but British soldiers, who sometimes have to lay down their lives. Now I believe the Foreign Office is making the same mistakes with the British Indian Ocean Territory that it made with the Falkland Islands. I am deeply concerned that the former Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), made the decision in her extraordinarily brief premiership to start negotiations with Mauritius over the sovereignty of those 58 beautiful islands in the Indian ocean.

I have debated this issue with many colleagues, and the message from some of them is this: we are in negotiations with Mauritius, due to rulings against us at the United Nations and at the International Court of Justice, so let us conclude those negotiations and then at some stage we will consult the Chagossians. Those are the responses I have received to many written parliamentary questions: “Do not interfere in the negotiations now. Let us conclude these sensitive negotiations—it is all rather discreet—and at some stage in future we will consult the Chagossians.” No, no, no. That puts the cart before the horse. If the Government have any intention to transfer even one of those 58 islands, they need to have a referendum of the Chagossian people. They need to make a decision themselves, rather than our Government even starting to negotiate with Mauritius.

Right hon. and hon. Members will know that the Labour Government of the late 1960s expelled between 1,400 and 1,700 Chagossians. I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Henry Smith) is here, as he represents a large contingent of Chagossians who settled in his constituency when they arrived in the United Kingdom. I look forward to hearing what he has to say. The hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane) also represents 400 Chagossians. Between them, those two gentlemen represent the lion’s share of Chagossians who live in the United Kingdom.

[Sir James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way; he is making an excellent speech. Who would vote in that referendum—Mauritian Chagossians, Chagossians in the constituencies he just mentioned, second generation, third generation, people who have moved around the world? There is no one on the islands who is Chagossian. Who would the referendum be for?

[Daniel Kawczynski]

That is a pertinent, sensible and critical question, but not one I have an answer to in this debate. I want to raise the concept and the extraordinary need to ensure that Chagossians are consulted. In written answers, the Government have stated they will consult the Chagossians. If we secure a commitment to a referendum of the Chagossians, it is for the Government to work with legal minds far superior to mine to create the framework in which a referendum could take place.

I want to apologise, as I am sure others will, to the Chagossian people. Those beautiful people were expelled from their islands in 1968 to make way for an American military base. Nothing can erase the shame we feel as British citizens that our ancestors treated the Chagossians in that way. To rip them away from their beautiful islands and cast them to the Seychelles, Maldives, Britain and Mauritius is unforgiveable. At this stage, we can only apologise for what happened to them.

The military base was set up to counter growing Chinese and Soviet belligerence in the Indian ocean and beyond. Today we see a similar belligerence from Russia and especially China. That is the point I want to get across in this debate: we have to look at what is going on in that region.

[James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)]

I may be one of very few parliamentarians, if not the only one, who has been to the British Indian Ocean Territory on duty as a military person, so I have seen at first hand how important that base is to NATO and beyond. For me, it is clear; we have two submarine Z-berths there and a large airbase, which was directly involved with the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is an American airbase that is owned by the British. To my mind, it would be pathological nonsense to concede access to that part of the world.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend and I am grateful to him for his intervention. I will not give way again for a few minutes, because I have a lot to get through.

Let me explain the key issue. I want to put it on the record and I want to criticise my own side. I am not prone to criticising the Conservative party, but I will enjoy myself this afternoon; I want to let rip.

Seven years ago, I started to ask questions of the Conservative Government, including on the Government’s understanding of the situation in relation to another member of the UN Security Council. By the way, it is a situation peculiar to only five nations in the world to be a permanent member of the UN Security Council, and with that status comes a tremendous amount of responsibility. I asked the then Foreign Secretary, Mr Hammond, “What is this Government’s perception of the fact that China has hoovered up hundreds of atolls in the South China sea—stealing them from Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines—poured concrete on them and turned them into giant military installations, which extends China’s reach by over 1,000 kilometres by stealing all those islands from all those countries?”

I have met the ambassadors of Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and others, who have expressed to me great concern about what the Chinese are doing. It is only because of British and American freedom of navigation exercises through the South China sea that this waterway, through which 65% of the world’s trade passes, is still open. Otherwise, the Chinese would have tried to turn it into a Chinese lake.

The Government’s response was extraordinary. Mr Hammond said: “The British Government does not get involved, nor has any opinion, on the disputes about uninhabited atolls in the South China sea”. How regrettable that that answer came seven years ago, because I would argue that it was the Government’s lack of action in response to China stealing hundreds of atolls that was the thin end of the wedge; Britain’s inaction gave the brutal Communist dictatorship of China a green light: “Yes, it’s okay for us to steal other people’s territories. Yes, it’s okay for us to pour concrete on to these atolls and turn them into military installations, because the British aren’t going to do anything about it”.

[Sir James Duddridge]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way; he is making very strong points about China and its influence on the atolls. Is it his impression that that is about China setting up military bases, or is it about telecoms—listening in and disrupting global communications—rather than establishing military bases? That would be even more worrying than the assertion he has made.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I agree with my hon. Friend; of course, it is a combination of both factors, with the Chinese trying to extend the tentacles of their reach throughout the whole region in order to put smaller countries under pressure.

The Chinese control Mauritius through their belt and road policy, as they do so many other small nations around the world. Guess which is the first African nation that received a free trade agreement with China? Mauritius. Guess which country—a tiny island, with a small economy—has received over $1 billion in investment from China over the last few years? Mauritius. The moment that we give Mauritius some of the outer islands, of which there are 58, it will lease one or some of them to the Chinese almost instantaneously. We do not know what conversations are taking place between Beijing and Port Louis, but we cannot discount what the financial statistics say about Chinese control of Mauritius.

Certain politicians and colleagues have made a nuanced argument to me: “Do not rock the boat; these are very delicate negotiations. We have to maintain our control over Diego Garcia. If that means giving away some of the other islands and coming to a compromise, so be it.” No. If the mantra is to keep Diego Garcia while giving some of the other islands away, imagine what would happen to the viability and sustainability of UK and American bases on Diego Garcia. It would be absolutely intolerable for us. I have visited our military bases on Diego Garcia. I have spent days meeting with American officials on the islands; they briefed me and showed me around the naval vessels and installations. Having those huge military bases with the Chinese just a stone’s throw away from us on the other islands would be completely unacceptable.

I visited Peros Banhos, one of the outer islands, after sailing overnight from Diego Garcia, which is where the military base is. Islanders on Peros Banhos were expelled in 1970 because the island was perceived to be too close to our military base. The Chinese have shown form. They are the world experts on turning atolls into military installations. There is an argument that Peros Banhos and the other islands are too small, too insignificant and too far below sea level for them to be viable. Well, the Chinese have proved that concept completely wrong; they have created installations successfully in the South China sea.

There has been an appalling injustice, which we must now right. Rather than accommodating the spurious demands of Mauritius, we need to consult the indigenous people living in Britain, Mauritius, the Maldives and the Seychelles. I want to read a statement from Frankie Bontemps, who is a constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley. He is an NHS worker at the hospital in Crawley, and is from the Chagos islands. I had a long and somewhat emotional telephone conversation with him last night. He is a tremendous man, whom I look forward to meeting in the House of Commons. He writes:

“I am a founding member of Chagossian Voices. I don’t agree that islands should go to Mauritius. Chagossians have never been consulted at any stage and Chagossians were never represented, either at the International Court or before. Chagossians have been used by the Mauritian government at ICJ to get sympathy by providing an account of suffering…Then they were dismissed…as ‘Mauritians of Chagossian origin’. They have erased our identity.”

That is the allegation: “they have erased our identity”. The statement goes on:

“The Mauritian Government was also complicit in the exile of Chagossians and the ‘sale’ of the islands in 1965.”

That is a fascinating concept. Mauritius took £3 million of our taxpayers’ money in 1965. Think for a moment how much £3 million was in 1965. It took our money as final settlement for the islands. It was complicit in helping the removal of the Chagossians from Diego Garcia and the other islands, and now, 60 years on, it wants to overturn that agreement and take away from us islands that are more than 2,000 km away from it.

Mr Bontemps goes on to say:

“Chagossians do not feel they are Mauritians and Chagossians feel they are still being exploited by the Mauritian government. Mauritius wants sovereignty of the islands for financial gain and I do not think there will be resettlement of Chagossians”

under Mauritian rule. He goes on to say this, which is very evocative, powerful and emotional:

“It is wrong to describe Chagossians as Mauritians. Their origins are as slaves from Africa and Madagascar. The Chagossians have been there for 5 or 6 generations with their own language and culture, food and music traditions. It is a remote and unique culture different to Mauritius…The judgment of Lord Justice Laws & Mr. Justice Gibbs in November 2000 said Chagossians are the ‘belongers’ on the islands. As ‘belongers’ Chagossians should be their own deciders of their futures, not the Mauritian Government. Self-determination should have been for the Chagossians, not for Mauritians who have their own island more than 2,000 km away. So far only UK and Mauritius have been consulted. Chagossians have never been allowed to participate in decisions about their future, from exile until now. Chagossians should now be asked to decide the future of the islands. Chagossians should be around the table. It’s our human right.”

Mr Bontemps then goes on to say that he has written a letter to the Foreign Secretary asking for those assurances, dated 11 November 2022, and he has not as yet received a reply.

I would like to thank Rob Crilly, a reporter from The Daily Mail USA edition, who has written a story about this debate. As a result of it, I was contacted this week by Republican Congressman Mike Waltz, a ranking member of the military readiness sub-committee of the Congress of the United States of America. He is now likely to become chairman of that powerful and important group, as the Republicans recently won the congressional elections. US bases are under its jurisdiction. I had a long, fruitful discussion with Congressman Waltz’s team and highlighted my concerns about the negotiations that our Government have entered into with Mauritius. I briefed them about this debate, and they are extremely concerned by the news. They are worried about the ramifications for them and what will happen to their naval base if they have to share the archipelago with the Chinese.

Even if we retain Diego Garcia, the other islands will be up for lease to the Chinese. We have seen what Mauritius is doing with Agaléga—

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (Ind)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Daniel Kawczynski]

In a second.

Agaléga is one of the Mauritian islands, which it has leased to the Indians. The indigenous population of that atoll has been removed and massive destruction has taken place on it to accommodate an Indian military base, so the Mauritians have form. They understand the importance of the Indian ocean and how geographically significant it is. Mauritius is in the market to gain as many of these atolls as possible and ultimately to sell them to the Indians, the Chinese or whoever is the highest bidder. That is in stark contrast to the United Kingdom, which is seeking to protect the 58 islands. A massive conservation area twice the size of the United Kingdom has been created around the islands, which is protecting marine and wildlife. There is no fishing and no oil drilling—nothing takes place. Anybody interested in what Mauritius is doing with these atolls should google that information. Mauritius wants the islands to sell them to make money. Ultimately, if we allow it to do that, it will facilitate the militarisation of the Indian ocean.

[Patrick Grady]

rose—

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I am concluding my arguments—I will give way in a second—but what I would like to say is this. We have beaten the French to secure participation in AUKUS, which is one of the most important miliary agreements signed in the Government’s tenure in office, and we are re-entering the Indian ocean and the Pacific through our arrangement with the Americans and the Australians. AUKUS is essential.

It was Lee Kuan Yew who remonstrated with the United Kingdom when we left Singapore in 1971. He understood the ramifications for that region were the United Kingdom to abandon her bases. In that period of retrenchment and lacking in self-confidence that we went through in the early ’70s, we left all those areas, and Lee Kuan Yew and others foresaw the difficulties that would ensue. Finally, we have the confidence to re-enter the Indian ocean and the Pacific. The AUKUS military agreement is essential, in conjunction with our membership of the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership—the far east trading bloc—which we are entering next year.

The islands are essential for our geopolitical strategy of supporting allies in the Indian ocean and the Pacific from growing Chinese belligerence. I speak as the only Member of Parliament to have been born in a communist country and the only British Member of Parliament who has lived under communist oppression and tyranny, so I know what the communists are capable of and I know how the Chinese communist Government threaten and bully many smaller countries in the region. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland) said, it would be madness to allow the Chinese to enter the Indian ocean through its puppet client state of Mauritius.

I hope that the Chagossians following the debate across the United Kingdom, as well as those in Mauritius and the Seychelles, listen to us and hear the strength of feeling that many hon. Members have, demonstrating that we, as a former imperial power, recognise the mistakes we have made and that, in a new modern era, we will put the concepts of integrity and self-determination at the forefront. If any of the islands is to be abandoned, that can be done legitimately only through the acceptance of the Chagossian people, and the fascinating thing is that I do not think that that is there. I look forward to hearing from my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Henry Smith) and will stop shortly so that he can speak. However, in all my discussions with the Chagossians, I hear that they are up for this—they are up for remaining British. We can convince them to vote to remain British in a referendum. Will the Minister tell us why we are negotiating with the Mauritius Government before the Chagossians have been consulted?

The last thing I will say—I will use parliamentary privilege for the first time in 17 years—is that British citizens, who I will not name, are actively conspiring to aid and abet Mauritius to take these islands from the United Kingdom. I will not begin to tell hon. Members what I think of those individuals, but I very much hope that they will be thwarted in their actions.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (Ind)]

I am not entirely sure where to begin. I suppose I congratulate the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski), and I welcome his interest in this issue. Many of us in the Chamber are members of the Chagos islands (British Indian Ocean Territory) all-party parliamentary group and have spoken frequently in Westminster Hall and the main Chamber on the question of sovereignty and the rights of the islanders and their descendants. I do not recall ever seeing the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham at those APPG meetings. I have not gone through the minutes of all 30 meetings that have taken place since I joined in 2016, so perhaps I missed him.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

Can I put on the record that I have attended some of those meetings? I suspect that he is getting wrong information. We can show him accounts of me attending those meetings.

[Patrick Grady]

I am happy to stand corrected on that. As far as I could tell from a search of Hansard, the hon. Gentleman has mentioned the British Indian Ocean Territory once in his career in this place, which was last year in a debate on AUKUS. His peroration probably gave us a sense of the real priorities behind this debate.

At base level, I do not disagree. The Chagossian community should absolutely be involved and consulted in the negotiations on the future of the islands—many of us who have been involved in the all-party group have been campaigning on that for many years. I say “good luck” to him getting the United Kingdom Government to recognise the sovereignty of a people and that their democratic future should be decided in a referendum on the future of their territory, because the UK Government are very clearly against that kind of democratic process. It is important that we find a way to make sure that the community are properly consulted.

I suspect that the issue will divert away from the specific question of sovereignty and to their rights and the future of their connection with the islands themselves. As the hon. Member recognises, the community is quite widely dispersed because of the historical actions of the United Kingdom Government. It is incredibly diverse as well, and different groups will have different views on exactly what a resolution should look like.

A mechanism that can include the diaspora would be welcome. It might be impossible, as he alluded to, but there is no reason that the Governments that represent them cannot put their interests at the forefront when they are at the table. He is right that there is a Chagossian community represented by the United Kingdom Government. There is a Chagossian community represented by the Government of Mauritius and a Chagossian community represented by the Government of the Seychelles, and there will be smaller diasporas elsewhere in the world. That is what parliamentary democracies are for and what democratic representation is for. That is what many of us would want to see achieved.

Human Rights Watch, which I am sure is an organisation that the hon. Gentleman engages with on a regular basis, has called for the inclusion of community voices, saying:

“Righting the half century of wrongs to the Chagossian people means full reparations – their right to return in dignity and prosperity; full compensation for the harm they have suffered; and guarantees that such abuses never happen again.”

That is where we ought to try to find some kind of consensus.

I come from a political tradition where sovereignty lies with the people; not with a Crown, not with a Parliament and certainly not with a Government. In reality, sovereignty always ultimately lies with the people. People have the fundamental human rights to freedom of speech, thought and assembly. Those are manifested in the right to live under the rule of law. Those rights can be denied, as they have been in the case of the Chagossians, but they cannot be taken away. That is why among all the negotiations are questions about the future of the base on Diego Garcia, which, incidentally—I wanted to ask about this in an intervention— probably took quite a lot of concrete to establish.

I am not sure if I completely understood the hon. Member’s argument. It appeared to be that in the 1960s it was okay for the United Kingdom to buy an island, militarise the south Indian ocean, pour lots of concrete on Diego Garcia and forcibly displace a population in doing so, but now it would be completely wrong for any other Government to consider such course of action.

The notion that we should tell other countries to do what we say and not what we do is not always the most conducive to building world peace and stability. In among all those questions, we have to put the interests of the community first. We as Members have a duty to scrutinise the Government and speak out on behalf of our constituents, whether they are members of the Chagossian community or—like those who contact me—committed human rights activists who believe that everyone in the world should enjoy the rights we too often take for granted here in the United Kingdom. I hope the Government’s movements on this issue will at last lead to some kind of equitable status that resolves the question of sovereignty in international law, but more importantly, achieves justice at last for the people of the Chagos islands.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Mrs Cummins. I thank the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) for securing the debate at this critical time of change for the Chagos islands, and I thank colleagues for the range of comments and contributions they have made to the debate.

I am not sure whether to thank the hon. Gentleman for the comments he made about me at the start of the debate, but we had a very enjoyable trip to the Falkland Islands. I will be making declarations about that trip in due course. I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s characterisation of our united position on the Falkland Islands and our resolute support for them. That is the Opposition’s long-standing position, which I have reiterated on many occasions, including well before the visit and in relation to our position on other British overseas territories.

From the outset, I gently say that I do not accept a number of the hon. Gentleman’s historical analyses and comparisons. Neither are they supported by the House of Commons Library briefing that has been provided for this debate, or by statements made by the Governor of the Falkland Islands and the Chief Minister of Gibraltar. When we talk about our overseas territories, it is important that we understand their distinct and different situations. The situation around the Chagos islands is particularly complex and nuanced, and we should take it in that vein and not make comparisons to other overseas territories.

I pay tribute to colleagues across the House, particularly those with Chagossian communities in their constituencies, for the advocacy and support they have provided over many years on this issue, which is sensitive and painful for those communities, and for raising concerns about our diplomatic standing and commitments internationally. I express my gratitude to the all-party parliamentary group on the Chagos islands, of which I am a member, for its tireless efforts in keeping the Chagos islands on the political agenda and for meticulously scrutinising the policies of successive Governments.

The Opposition welcome the Government’s decision to begin discussions with Mauritius about the future of the islands, but I will set out some detailed questions and concerns on the matter. We have to be guided by a few key principles, so my questions are not in order of priority. We must understand concerns about our national security and that of our allies and strategic partners; our compliance with international law and upholding our international obligations, and the consequences if we do not do that; and the rights and wishes of the people of the Chagos after decades of pain and hardship.

I have personally met and heard from many different representatives from the Chagos community over many years. I have heard different views expressed by different parts of the community, but it is crucial that their distinct and different voices are heard in the process. We should also be concerned about other crucial issues, particularly the protection of the environment and the marine ecosystems around the archipelago, which a number of hon. Members have raised.

This is a deeply complex issue, and I want to start with the question of the rules-based international order, which must be central to UK foreign policy. This historic injustice continues to prevent us from adhering to that, and I share the absolute and deep regret for the past actions of previous Governments, including Labour Governments. The actions taken in the late 1960s and early 1970s were completely unjustifiable. A number of us will have read the shocking documents from that period and the language expressed in them, which was completely and utterly unacceptable. We have a fundamental moral responsibility to the islanders that will not go away. I remain convinced that there must be a lasting resolution to this challenge that lives up to our moral and legal obligations, that draws on the views of Chagossians around the world and that is reached in co-operation with our partners and allies. There must be an apology from all of us—there certainly is from our side—for those past actions, but we need to look to the future and to what is being done for Chagossians today, not just in relation to the situation in the archipelago, but for Chagossians here in many communities.

The ICJ in 2019 was unequivocal in its ruling that

“the United Kingdom is under an obligation to bring to an end its administration of the Chagos Archipelago as rapidly as possible”.

That was adopted after a vote of 116 to six by the United Nations General Assembly, which called on the UK to

“unconditionally end its occupation of the Archipelago as soon as possible.”

That was supported by the 2021 ruling of the special chamber of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. Although the tribunal did not have competence on territorial disputes, it stated that

“Mauritius’ sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago can be inferred from the ICJ’s determinations.”

Unfortunately, the Government have spent several years simply ignoring and denying these developments, and that has damaged our diplomatic reputation with not just Mauritius but many other countries across Africa, Asia and the Pacific, and with a range of international legal and human rights bodies. Even the Maldives, which historically has been aligned with the UK Government position on this matter, recently changed its position to align with the rest of the international community.

I take on board the comments made by the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham on China and its expansion in the South China sea, the Indian ocean and beyond, and he raises some legitimate concerns, although I do not accept his wider characterisations of Mauritius. It is a fact that China has made increasing encroachments into the territorial waters of its neighbours and vast claims in the South China sea while ignoring judgments against itself. That has been matched by a growing assertiveness, and even belligerence, towards some of our allies and partners in the region, so I hope the Minister can set out what assurances we have had on these matters and on China’s activities in the region.

It is my view that the inverse will play out if we do not resolve this matter, because if this is unresolved in terms of international law, it will only play into the hands of China and others who seek to undermine international judgments and law. When we want to call on China to comply with the Permanent Court of Arbitration’s judgment on the South China sea, it will say, “Well, you are not in compliance with the ICJ or the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea”. That could be the case for a number of other maritime and territorial disputes that it is in our interests to pursue and defend resolutely. We cannot have one hand doing one thing and the other doing the opposite.

Of course, we must also do the right thing for the Chagossians. The various support packages that were announced have not been followed through, and very little money from that £40 million package has been spent. The last answer I had said that only £810,000 of it had been spent. That is completely unacceptable, and I hope the Minister can say something about that. What discussions has she had with all the different Chagossian groups located not just here in the UK, but in Mauritius, Seychelles and elsewhere?

[Daniel Kawczynski]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Stephen Doughty]

I am conscious of the time, so I will not. I want to speak about the costs the UK Government have incurred defending the indefensible on the legal position. An answer I received said the UK had spent nearly £6 million on external legal services relating to defending cases that the Government then lost in the ICJ. That is clearly unacceptable at this time of pressure on the public purse. Could the Minister update us on how much money has been spent on defending the previous position?

Citizenship has rightly been raised by a number of hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane). The Nationality and Borders Act 2022 created an entitlement for direct descendants of Chagossians who were not already citizens to acquire British nationality. I understand that the process opened in November, but I hope the Minister can set out what will be done to address the issue of Chagossians being denied that right to British nationality and to ensure they get what is rightfully theirs. We know that previous negotiations have not gone well and that they broke down in 2009, 2016 and 2017. Will the Minister speak about the tenor and tone of the negotiations and how we will ensure that they go forward in a constructive spirit to achieve an agreement?

On defence, it is crucial that we understand, as many Members have rightly said, that the United Kingdom-United States defence facility in the territory plays a vital role in keeping us and our allies safe. It plays a role in monitoring drugs and piracy, and in the national security activities of regional partners. It supports allies from many countries, and it carries out nuclear test ban monitoring and regional humanitarian efforts. Can the Minister say what discussions have been had with our allies, particularly the United States, about those negotiations and ensuring we maintain our defence capabilities in Diego Garcia?

On the environment and the maritime importance of the islands, we recognise the judgment in relation to the Mauritius Ports Authority, but, given the importance of the archipelago, it is clear that we need to protect that environment. What discussions have been had on that with Mauritius and other partners in the region, as well as with the Chagossians, who believe in protecting their environment and historical homeland?

I will conclude by saying there have been some important questions asked today and some very reasonable contributions. I do not agree with all of them, or with the tenor of some of them, but this is a complex and nuanced issue and it requires a complex and nuanced solution. We want to engage with Chagossians here in the UK, and we will work constructively with the Government to find a permanent and equitable settlement that will end decades of pain for so many, while addressing legitimate concerns about defence, security, the environment and the right of return for Chagossians.

The ultimate problem here is that this issue is hampering our diplomatic position in the world and having much wider implications. We must remember that this was an historic injustice committed against a people by a past Government, and those people have to be at the heart of any solution.

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) for securing this important debate. Hon. Members have all highlighted the UK’s recently opened negotiations with Mauritius on the exercise of sovereignty over the British Indian Ocean Territory, also known as the Chagos archipelago. The Foreign Secretary announced the beginning of the negotiations on 3 November. That followed discussions with Mauritius at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in June and at the UN General Assembly in September.

I can confirm that negotiations have formally begun. Officials from the United Kingdom and Mauritius met on 23 and 24 November, and they had constructive discussions. They will meet again shortly to continue those discussions and negotiations. Hon. Members will appreciate that we will not provide any detail on the content of ongoing discussions or speculate on the outcome. However, I commit to and reassure Members that we will keep them and Parliament informed at key junctures through the process.

The UK and Mauritius intend to secure an agreement on the basis of international law to resolve all outstanding issues. I anticipate any agreement will be subject to parliamentary scrutiny under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 in the usual way. Let me be clear that both the UK and Mauritius have reiterated that any agreement between us will ensure the continued effective operation of the joint UK-United States defence facility on Diego Garcia. For more than 40 years, this joint base has contributed significantly to regional and global security. It is the result of a uniquely close and active defence and security partnership between two longstanding allies.

The base helps the UK, US and other allies and partners to combat some of the most challenging threats, including from terrorism, organised crime and instability. The base is well positioned as a key enabler for maritime security, including the protection of regional shipping lanes from threats such as piracy. Diego Garcia also plays a key role in humanitarian efforts, ready for a rapid response in times of crisis or disaster in the region. That includes during the 2004 earthquake and tsunami in the Indian ocean, the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan and the 2013 typhoon in the Philippines. The base plays an important part in assisting the operation of the global positioning system, GPS, and helping the international space station to avoid space debris and prevent satellite collisions.

We are alive to concerns about influence from malign actors in the Indian ocean. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary acknowledged these concerns when he gave evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee on 14 November. He assured the Committee that this is an issue we take very seriously and that we will ensure it is at the heart of our position during the sovereignty negotiations with Mauritius.

Reaching a negotiated agreement on the archipelago will allow the UK and Mauritius, as close Commonwealth partners, to work even more closely together. This will help us to tackle the regional and global security challenges that we both face, along with our wider partners, and avoid the expansion of malign influences into the Indian ocean. It will include promoting human rights and maritime security while tackling illegal migration, drugs and arms trafficking.

We are also keen to strengthen significantly our co-operation with Mauritius on marine and environmental protection in particular. My hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Henry Smith) set out some historical issues where those challenges were perhaps not managed as well as they needed to be. The archipelago boasts incredible marine biodiversity, as well as some of the cleanest seas and healthiest reef systems in the world. They support six times more fish than any other Indian ocean reef.

The marine protected area is one of the largest in the world. It prohibits all commercial fishing and extractive activities, such as mining for minerals, oil and gas, and it forms a substantial part of the UK Government’s Blue Belt programme. The area hosts many scientific expeditions, as part of our call for an international target to protect at least 30% of the global oceans by 2030. We will push for this ambitious target at COP15 in the weeks ahead.

We recognise the views of the diverse Chagossian communities in the United Kingdom, Mauritius and the Seychelles. We recognise the diversity of views in those communities and we take those views very seriously. Although the negotiations are between the UK and Mauritius, we will ensure that we engage with the communities as negotiations progress, and I note the kind invitation from my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Paul Bristow) to meet some of those communities.

The UK has expressed our profound and deep regret about the manner in which Chagossians were removed from the islands in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and colleagues have done so again today. I hope that sense of horror and dismay at what happened all those decades ago continues to be reiterated. We are committed to supporting Chagossians, wherever they live, through the £40 million Chagossian support package, which is funding projects in the UK and overseas. I commit to writing to the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane) to set out in more detail how that work is progressing.

We have taken other steps to support the community. On 23 November, the UK Government launched a new route to British citizenship for all Chagossian people and their children, free of charge. This new route will give anyone of Chagossian descent the opportunity to build their future in the United Kingdom should they wish to do so, holding British citizenship.

I have talked about ways in which the UK and Mauritius could strengthen our work together. The backdrop to this is our close Commonwealth partnership and our deep historical ties. We are the second biggest export market for Mauritius, while Mauritius is our sixth biggest market in Africa for trade and investment. We are proud of the active Mauritian diaspora in the UK, and hundreds of Mauritian students study in our universities every year. Meanwhile, our tourists flock to Mauritius, accounting for 15% of its visitors annually.

Mauritius is a leader among small island states in tackling climate change. The UK welcomes it as a new pioneer country for the Taskforce on Access to Climate Finance and will act as an anchor donor for Mauritius.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. The main tenet of my discourse this afternoon was to try to get a commitment from her for a referendum of the Chagossian people before any decision is taken. Can she give me that commitment?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

As I have set out, we will be making sure that we have close discussions, not only with Mauritians but with those communities as well. As the negotiations progress, we will keep colleagues and Parliament abreast of how they are developing.

As we look forward, we aim to work even more closely with Mauritius to tackle the incredibly important regional and global security challenges that we all face. We remain fully committed to ensuring the effectiveness of the base on Diego Garcia, for the benefit of regional and global security.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend the Minister for the assurances that she has given, and for agreeing to write to the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), on some of the points that he raised.

I heard the Minister say that there will be extensive consultation with the Chagossians, but I still have not heard from her lips that there will be an internationally recognised referendum. My hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East (Sir James Duddridge) rightly asked questions about how it would come about—the matrix, framework, dynamics and legality of it. I could not agree with him more. There have been referenda in other parts of the world under difficult circumstances and people were able to cast a vote.

I should let my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Henry Smith) know that I hope to meet Mr Bontemps next week. Mr Bontemps told me in no uncertain terms that, wherever the Chagossians are—Mauritius, Seychelles, Britain or anywhere else—they are up for remaining British. As part of the British family, our duty and responsibility first and foremost—trumping even international court decisions—is to those Chagossians.

[Jim Shannon]

On a point of order, Mrs Cummins. I have spoken to the Doorkeepers about this room. It is so cold you could hang dead people in here and they would not go off. The Doorkeepers have asked the staff to do something with the heating. They say the heat is turned on. I am not sure where it is, but it is not on here. Can I ask, Mrs Cummins, that you use your power as Chair to do something about that?