Government Policy on Russia

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Tuesday 6th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

I think the hon. Lady may have been in the House when we introduced the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill, when I explained that although we may be leaving the EU, we are not leaving Europe, and we will be intimately involved in the development of sanctions and other foreign policy. That is the intention of not only the UK but all our European partners. Fully half of EU sanctions listings depend on UK intelligence. We are an integral part of the European sanctions environment and will continue to be so.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

We could speak softly if we carried a big stick, so was not the peace dividend at the end of the cold war utterly misconceived?

International Development Committee: Burma Visas

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Wednesday 28th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

The hon. Lady will appreciate that these are very difficult issues. We are doing our best to work bilaterally and within the international community to secure that sort of access. We are also working quietly behind the scenes. Individuals known to Aung San Suu Kyi over many years have paid visits to Naypyidaw at least to advise her of the displeasure and concerns of the international community. As I think we both agree, the truth really is that the military to a very large extent have the whip hand in all that is going on in Burma.

We will continue to work tirelessly to ensure that we move forwards. We want to see some accountability for the crimes that have been committed. The UN fact-finding mission will come forward with an interim report in the weeks to come. With Mr Speaker’s permission, I hope that we will then have a statement in the House setting out our position regarding the issue of impunity for the future.

I return to my initial point and the point made by the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg). It is my strong belief that we have always to remember that, frustrating though this situation is, the work done for the most vulnerable must continue. The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) pointed out that we spend £100 million a year on aid in Burma. It would be perhaps very easy for us to walk away. To be absolutely honest, we want to try to find more moderate elements within the military that we can begin to work with. We have stopped programmes of training for the military, but we are open-minded. If there are individuals with whom we feel that we should try to keep lines of communication open, we will continue to do so. In many ways, this is one of the frustrations of democracy and diplomacy, but we will continue our work patiently—although with some urgency, for the reasons that I have set out and given the humanitarian catastrophe that is taking place on the Bangladeshi side of the border.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

Mr Speaker, your own role was instrumental in setting up that parliamentary strengthening programme, the purpose of which is to make Burma’s Parliament more like ours. Therefore, it would be folly to stop it, no matter how insulted we properly feel.

[Mark Field]

I share my right hon. Friend’s concerns. During the previous Parliament, I was part of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy and played a role in working together with the Burmese Parliament. We do have integrated programmes. On a cross-party basis, I think, we would not wish to desert—in perhaps Burma’s biggest hour of need—some elements in the country who feel strongly about this matter. Equally, my right hon. Friend will recognise the deep concern that we cannot continue as though it is business as usual in all our relations with the Burmese authorities. I very much hope that we will be able to work with some individuals to make that country a better and more democratic place in the years to come.

Palestinian Children and Israeli Military Detention

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Wednesday 7th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Champion]

I share my hon. Friend’s concern, and I will address that point. Arabic is an official language in the state of Israel, so why are the documents presented to children in Hebrew? I will let my hon. Friend draw conclusions.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

Before the hon. Lady leaves Military Court Watch, will she give way?

[Sarah Champion]

That was quite a rude interruption. Please go ahead, though.

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

What evidence is there that NGOs such as Military Court Watch and other Israeli NGOs that perform this valuable function have themselves been subject to a measure of harassment at an official level?

[Sarah Champion]

I am afraid I cannot answer that, because I do not know the data. I hope that any organisation that is trying to speak on the basis of facts does not suffer harassment, but as the right hon. Gentleman knows, too often, when we put our head above the parapet, it gets shot off multiple times.

A year before the UNICEF report, a group of senior UK lawyers published an independent study entitled “Children in Military Custody”. Published in 2012 and funded by the Government, it found that Israel was in breach of at least eight of its international legal obligations under the UN convention on the rights of the child and the fourth Geneva convention, due to its treatment of Palestinian children held in military detention.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Champion]

I agree with my hon. Friend. There are many, many examples in which there is no parity. That is one of the things that I urge the Israeli Government to look at, because it is blatant discrimination and is not necessary.

Military Court Watch reports that, in the 80 testimonies it collected in 2017, 81% of the children reported not having access to a lawyer before interrogation. As a result, most children still consult a lawyer for the first time in a military court, after the critical interrogation phase is over. Given that context, the UK legal charity Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights has implemented a Know Your Rights campaign in partnership with Defence for Children International-Palestine to empower and educate Palestinian children in the occupied west bank to secure their basic rights if detained in Israel’s military detention system.

The campaign started in 2014 and is ongoing, due to the Israeli authorities’ continuing non-implementation of basic human rights and due process safeguards. I therefore ask the Minister to engage with the Israeli authorities to ensure, as a bare minimum, that: first, all children are, at the time of arrest, informed in their own language of their right to silence, and relevant documents are provided to them in that language; secondly, all children are able to consult a lawyer of their choice before their interrogation and, preferably, also during interrogation; and, thirdly, in order to ensure compliance, a breach of those principles results in the discontinuance of the prosecution and the child’s immediate release. I further ask the Minister to urge the Israeli authorities, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Martin Whitfield) suggested, to allow a parent or guardian to accompany the child during questioning—a right afforded to Israeli children when questioned by the Israeli police.

Audio-visual recording of interrogations is a practical safeguard. The UNICEF and UK reports recommended audio-visual recordings of all interrogations of children. Such recordings provide an essential further safeguard against potential ill-treatment or coercion; they also provide protection to interrogators against false allegations of wrongdoing. One would assume that that would be a win, win outcome. Perhaps in response to the recommendations, the military authorities issued military order 1745 in September 2014, requiring the audio-visual recording of all interrogations of minors in the west bank. However, the order limited that protection to non-security offences, thereby rendering it largely redundant, as most offences involving Palestinian children, including stone throwing and protesting, are classified as security offences. I ask the Minister to urge the Israeli authorities to remove the security offence exception from the military order providing for audio-visual recording of detainees and to ensure that all interrogations of children are audio-visually recorded and the tapes made available to the child’s lawyer before the first hearing.

I will now say something about the prevalence of confessional evidence in the military court system, and the process by which those confessions are obtained. It is extraordinary and disconcerting that Israel’s military court system has a conviction rate of 95%, according to its own figures. Confessional evidence is central to securing convictions in that system, whether direct confessions or confessions by others. Effective scrutiny of those confessions is virtually impossible, due to the lack of basic legal safeguards to which I have already referred. There is compelling evidence that the lack of legal protections for Palestinian children is destructive of their safety and welfare. An expert psychiatric opinion from Dr Carmon, commissioned by Physicians for Human Rights Israel, considered the emotional and developmental factors that lead children to make false confessions during interrogations. The implications of such confessions should be understood by all of us. Dr Carmon says:

“The violent arrest process and psychological interrogation methods mentioned…lead to the breaking of the ability of the child or adolescent to withstand the interrogation and flagrantly violate his or her rights. These interrogation methods, when applied to children and adolescents, are equivalent to torture.”

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Sarah Champion]

Let me finish the quotation first—it might answer the right hon. Gentleman’s question.

“These methods deeply undermine the dignity and personality of the child or adolescent, and inflict pain and severe mental suffering. Uncertainty and helplessness are situations that can too easily lead a child or adolescent to provide the requested confession out of impulsiveness, fear or submission. It is a decision that is far from free and rational choice...These detention and interrogation methods ultimately create a system that breaks down, exhausts and permeates the personality of the child or adolescent and robs him or her of hope. These methods are particularly harmful to children and adolescents who live in poor, isolated populations, in a state of conflict, political tension, and/or severe social stress, such as the occupied Palestinian population. The harmful effects on children can also harm the society to which they belong.

Every child has the right to be a child, to his or her dignity, and to protection from all forms of violence.”

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

A retired Israeli soldier told me that the explicit instructions for night operations were to carry them out in such a brutal manner as to achieve exactly the effect that the hon. Lady refers to.

[Sarah Champion]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman of making that point. I too have spoken to retired Israeli soldiers and have, sadly, heard similar tales.

Refugees and Human Rights

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Emily Thornberry]

Particularly given its current role in Bangladesh, because of the distress of the Rohingya refugees, it is clearly important to put renewed focus on that organisation. It is also unfortunate that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is not given a greater role in Bangladesh.

In my speech, I shall talk about each of those five challenges and the countries they affect—countries where the humanitarian crisis is clear and the need for global leadership is clear, but where, at present, the Government’s response is anything but.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

I have not heard much in what the right hon. Lady has said with which I disagree. The difficulty as I see it is how we use the UN when Russia and China block any attempt to move forward. Of course, Russia and China are also known for using international aid as, effectively, a loss-leader for their exports, rather than in the way we use it.

[Emily Thornberry]

The right hon. Gentleman advises the House simply to give up. We do not give up. We must work in a multilateral way, within the United Nations, and fight our corner. We should be a force for good. We should not allow the difficulties that we face make us say that it is all too hard and that we should simply walk away.

Let me make some progress. There no shortage of state persecution in our world, whether it is done by states such as Russia and Iran, which the Government rightly criticise, or those such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Philippines, whose abuses they choose to ignore. As we saw in Darfur exactly 15 years ago, when the state turns an entire group of people—even the children and the elderly—into military targets, it leaves families with an impossible choice: they must risk their lives by staying put, or risk their lives by fleeing. That is exactly what we have seen in Myanmar.

No one present needs any reminding of the horrors and hardship that the Rohingya have faced ever since the attacks in August. No one needs any telling of the desperate humanitarian situation in the camps on the Bangladesh border. No one needs any warning of the dangers of the proposed repatriation of the Rohingya. What we need to know is what action our Government are actually taking—not just to alleviate the situation, but to resolve it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

In seeking to speed up progress, I look with enormous confidence to Sir Desmond Swayne.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

8. What diplomatic steps he is taking to promote global ocean conservation.

[The Minister for Europe and the Americas (Sir Alan Duncan)]

The Government are on track to meet their manifesto blue belt pledge. This will deliver marine protection across nearly 4 million sq km of the earth’s oceans and seas around our overseas territories by 2020. We are also working through the Commonwealth marine economies programme to enable small island Commonwealth states to conserve and use their maritime space sustainably.

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

How will it be enforced?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

Very succinct, Mr Speaker! This is a wholly good news story. The BBC’s “Blue Planet” series has inspired millions of viewers, and we are putting that into practical effect. I can make it very clear to my right hon. Friend that we are working with our overseas territories to ensure that each of our marine protected areas is backed by robust legislation, effective monitoring and the very strong enforcement that he would wish to see.

Israel: US Embassy

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her comments. I agree that a difficult consensus has been broken. She is right that the international consensus around the status of Jerusalem has been one of the things we have all held on to during a period when the ultimate settlement—the final settlement—has yet to be agreed. It has always been seen as part of the process that, at the end of that negotiated settlement, the status of Jerusalem would be confirmed. The United States has taken a decision about itself and about the location of its embassy. In answer to her final point about the United Kingdom’s position vis-à-vis President Trump and the United States, we make it clear that we disagree with the decision. The Prime Minister has said that it is unhelpful. It is not a decision we would take.

We have now to decide, as the right hon. Lady said, what we do now. The first thing we have done is to co-sponsor a meeting tomorrow at the UN Security Council when this will be discussed. We have co-sponsored that with our European partners because it provides the opportunity to take stock of where we are and how we can move forward. There are two options: one is that we just dwell on this particular decision of the United States, as people will for a while, and just leave it sitting there; and the other is to decide what we do now. It is imperative that we now see the work that the President’s envoys have been doing, which they have shared with a number of partners. That now needs to come forward—more quickly, perhaps, than people anticipated—and then we can see what there is to work on for friends both of Israel and of the Palestinians. The process has to move on. If the process were derailed by this, it would compound the unhelpfulness of the decision. That is what we want to talk about.

The right hon. Lady mentioned our longer-term relationship with the United States, which is very deep: defence, intelligence, security, trade—it covers a multitude of things. It has been in place for centuries and it will go on for centuries, regardless of leadership. We respect an elected President but we know that the relationship with the United States is much deeper, and the United Kingdom will continue to honour that relationship in its many forms.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

If the President has a cunning plan which he has not shared with any of his allies, may I invite my right hon. Friend to speculate on what it might be?

[Alistair Burt]

If there is, this is a decision that has clearly been welcomed by the Israeli Prime Minister and the state of Israel. There is no doubt that Israel sees the United States as a great friend. There is no surprise to any of us in relation to that, and nor does it change anything particularly markedly in terms of relationships in the region. Perhaps, when proposals come forward, if concessions are needed by the state of Israel in order to make the agreement that we all wish to see which will be supported by all sides, there just might now be an extra area of pressure that can be applied because a friend of Israel has done what the President has done.

I have no inkling of the thinking of the President of the United States. But, as everything in this whole business is used in one way or another, there are just possibly those within the state of Israel who will recognise the limb that the President has gone out on, and perhaps, when push comes to shove, that might be of some assistance. As for us, we are very clear on our position. We disagree with this and we will continue to work with all partners to seek the peace settlement that is so urgently needed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Tuesday 21st November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Our early lunchtime exchanges would be incomplete if we did not have the participation of the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne).

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

15. When a Minister of his Department last visited Bangladesh.

[The Minister for Africa (Rory Stewart)]

Ministers regularly visit Bangladesh, with which we have a very special relationship. I have had the pleasure of visiting, as have my right hon. Friends the Ministers for the Middle East, and for Asia and the Pacific, who visited Bangladesh on 27 and 28 September.

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

Is the Minister satisfied with the level of support we are providing for the Rohingya?

[Rory Stewart]

More support can always be provided for the Rohingya. The situation is horrifying: nearly 600,000 refugees—Burmese citizens, we should emphasise —driven out of their homes by horrific actions provoked largely by the Burmese military. We are providing £47 million of assistance, which makes the UK the largest bilateral donor, and we have just sent experts on preventing sexual violence in conflict to the camps in Bangladesh, but there is always more to be done.

Yemen

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Monday 20th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

Again, I come first to the hon. Lady’s last point: how will this conflict come to an end? This conflict will come to an end when both sides are brought together by people who make it clear that there is no military solution to it, and that there has to be a political one. That is what the United Kingdom has sought to do for many months, through meetings with appropriate parties here in London, in New York and in the region. We share her frustrations because, like others, we can see the impact.

I will comment on one or two of the hon. Lady’s other perfectly proper remarks. First, the key test for our continued arms exports to Saudi Arabia in relation to international humanitarian law is whether there is a clear risk that the items that are subject to the licence might be used in a serious violation of international humanitarian law. That situation is kept under careful and continual review, and, like all other aspects of the United Kingdom’s arms control policy, it is subject to rigorous examination here and by the law.

Secondly, the hon. Lady is right to raise the question of access, as we have done. The restrictions on access do not mean that our work now is meaningless, as she indicated; I am sure that she does not mean that. We are working through partners who are there on the ground, but distribution is, of course, harder. That is the case not just in coalition-controlled areas, but in Houthi-controlled areas; I have to remind the House that there are two sides to this.

Lastly, I will deal again with the subject of arms exports, because I know that it is fundamental. I related this to the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) the other week, and I shall do the same thing again; I do not mean to be harsh about it. If we thought that our not sending support to our allies—who are facing attacks on their own soil, from missiles imported into ungoverned space, where they are trying to support an elected Government against the insurgency—would send the right signal in the region and would prove to be of any use, it would be a course of action, but I do not believe that that is the case. I do not believe that if we were to take that action, it would not fundamentally undermine a number of other regional issues and make our allies wonder, when they faced an attack on their Heathrow, whether we were making the right judgments. We have to pursue other means of bringing the conflict to an end, and that is what we seek to do.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

Is Yemen subject to a blockade?

[Alistair Burt]

Yemen is subject to restrictions brought in by the coalition parties following the attack by a Houthi missile on Riyadh, and because of the smuggling of arms and weapons that has threatened the coalition in the UAE and Saudi Arabia for some time. I am not sure that the nomenclature adds a great deal, but that is the reality of the situation.

Israel: Meetings

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Tuesday 7th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

No, I do not think the Chancellor was informed, because it never became a policy, or had the chance to become a policy, to fund the Israeli Defence Forces in the Golan Heights. Secondly, as I said a moment ago, as far as the ministerial code is concerned, the Prime Minister has seen the Secretary of State, who has explained and apologised again for not informing people beforehand. The Prime Minister regards the matter as closed, but she is looking to tighten up the ministerial code to make it very clear what the process should be. Do I have full confidence in my right hon. Friend? Of course I do.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

When I met the Israeli Deputy Prime Minister, he stormed out of the meeting. The Secretary of State got a much more cordial reception. Is it just because she is a lady?

[Alistair Burt]

I am not sure if it is appropriate for me to answer on either how my right hon. Friend was treated or the reception for the Secretary of State for International Development, but I am quite sure that both meetings were perfectly proper and appropriate.

Balfour Declaration

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Monday 30th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

I completely agree with the aspiration the hon. Gentleman sets out. I believe that the future is economic interpenetration and mutual prosperity. That is why next year we are investing £3 million in co-existence projects of exactly the kind he describes.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

Is there anything we can do about illegal settlements beyond saying that we are very, very cross?

[Boris Johnson]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, who makes a valid point. Beyond our repeated statements of disapproval, Members may recollect that we led the way just before Christmas last year with UN resolution 2334, which specifically condemned new illegal settlements. The Prime Minister and I have been at pains to point out to Prime Minister Netanyahu, both here in London and in Jerusalem, our view that the settlements are illegal. That is a point on which we will continue to insist.