Ukraine, Middle East, North Africa and Security

Elfyn Llwyd Excerpts

Wednesday 10th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

May I first say that I very much enjoyed and agreed with the remarkable speech by the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood)? I seldom agree with him. We were not exactly the best of friends when he was Secretary of State for Wales, but his contribution today was remarkable and I was very pleased to hear it. I also agree with the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) that we need to toughen up our stance on Israel.

I want to concentrate my remarks on Iraq, Syria and the ISIL threat. The middle east is, evidently, in a state of crisis and the need for humanitarian aid is overwhelming. I would be lying, however, if I said that I was happy that the drumbeat of war seems to have started again. I understand that earlier this week the Prime Minister and the American President contacted the leaders of Gulf states in a bid to secure support for military intervention in both Iraq and Syria. Yes, the circumstances are different, but those of us who were here in 2003 will be feeling especially uncomfortable that the rhetoric is being ratcheted up as we edge ever closer to entering another unwinnable war in the region. Those of us who were against the incursion in 2003 had warned of the dangers of entering into a conflict that would result in a power vacuum in Iraq.

On 24 September, a United Nations summit will meet in New York to discuss the ongoing situation. To continue the comparison with what happened in 2003, I am grateful that that is happening, but we still cannot be complacent about the dangers of mission creep. It is, after all, largely down to the UK’s own incursion into Iraq a little more than 10 years ago that that part of the world is in such dire straits today.

Let us not deceive ourselves: this state of affairs cannot somehow be solved by western military intervention. The situation is, of course, complex and volatile, and will require the decisive involvement of moderate powers in the region, including Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon. In the short term, if the involvement of the international community is to gain support in the region, we will presumably need to engage with states that are considered to be stable, such as Syria, and this House will need to ruminate very carefully indeed on the implications of that.

In recent weeks, the Prime Minister has argued that the old maxim, “My enemy’s enemy is my friend,” will certainly not apply in this situation. As we know, however, the turnover of events is so rapid and the ramifications so critical that the UK may not have the opportunity to stick to that principle. I am by no means advocating such a course of action—indeed, I would evidently hesitate before entering into any conflict in the region—but I think that Members on both sides of the House should be aware of what this could lead to.

Over the weekend, the former US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger—yes, he of the Contras in Nicaragua—argued that the US should launch an “all-out attack” on ISIL extremists after the killing of its citizens, saying that it was a direct “insult”. Speaking to The Sunday Times, Mr Kissinger said that America had failed to appreciate that countries in the middle east yearned for “leadership” from the US and that the latter somehow has a duty to establish a “new order” in the region. This follows an article he published in The Wall Street Journal at the end of August, in which he wrote:

“The concept of order that has underpinned the modern era is in crisis”

due to civil war in Libya, unrest in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, and the resurgence of tensions with Russia.

Henry Kissinger is certainly correct about the notion of order being eroded, but we must not forget that the borders of many states in the middle east have been flashpoints of violence since their very inception. The order he mentions was nothing more than an illusion. That is precisely why we in my party of Plaid Cymru and those in the Scottish National party on whose behalf I am also speaking—we are better together today, by the way—have argued that moderate powers in the middle east should lead any intervention. I fear that any action led by the US and the UK will smack of imperialism, but I do not think that it will come to that.

We of course abhor the brutal and shocking actions that ISIL has undertaken in recent weeks and months, and we are repulsed by the threat to our own communities across the UK from radicalised individuals who return here. We believe that the most effective way to undermine ISIL in its base is to encourage and support elements in their territories who hold contrary views. We recognise the need to arm the Kurdish forces. The Kurds are a minority whose plight we have long supported in times of relative peace, and their right to self-defence is absolute.

In spite of what the Prime Minister has said in recent days, I believe that we need a full debate and a vote, and I am gratified that the Secretary of State said that today. However, I cannot help feeling that we have been here before. We must be aware that ISIL is a successor to al-Qaeda, so another force would be likely to follow in the wake of ISIL being destroyed. Full-blown western intervention is likely to lead to the further radicalisation of another generation of disaffected Muslims in the area and across the world. We should play our part in aiding those who need help, but we must be honest about our previous complicity in bringing about the latest instability. We can assist such states towards finding new cohesion, but if Iraq and Afghanistan have taught us anything it is the assertion that a new order cannot be imposed, but must be nurtured.

Oral Answers to Questions

Elfyn Llwyd Excerpts

Tuesday 17th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mark Simmonds)]

I know that my hon. Friend takes a keen interest in progress in Djibouti and the important UK-Djibouti links. He will be aware that we held a highly successful and well-attended Djibouti-UK trade and investment conference in London last year and there has been follow-up from that. We hope that will continue by taking UK companies to Djibouti, particularly in key economic sectors that are aligned with the priorities of the Djibouti Government.

[Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

Those of us who voted against the incursion into Iraq did so honourably on two main bases—first, there was no imminent threat to the United Kingdom, and secondly, the humanitarian problems that would be created and future discontent. How, therefore, can the Foreign Secretary now defend the actions of Tony Blair, who took us to war on a tissue of untruths?

[Mr Hague]

All hon. Members on all sides of the House debated and voted honourably on that issue and we should respect the arguments made then and now on both sides. As I said to the House yesterday in the course the statement, we must await the outcome of the Chilcot inquiry before we try to pass judgment on those events, and we must concentrate for the moment on what we do now. I made it clear that we are not planning in these circumstances a British military intervention in Iraq.

Iraq War (10th Anniversary)

Elfyn Llwyd Excerpts

Thursday 13th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas]

I will give way shortly. Let me make a little more progress.

I keep coming back to the importance of MPs—ourselves—scrutinising the decision-making process that took place at the time. In that context, I was surprised and disappointed when, back in March this year, the Foreign Secretary, for whom I have a great deal of respect, wrote what was intended, I think, to be a confidential letter to members of his party, telling senior members of the Government that they should not be drawn on the controversial issues that drew the UK into the Iraq war. They should, he suggested, wait until Chilcot had reported, but that of course might not be until the next election—who knows? We are still waiting after five years, and in any case, Chilcot does not have a monopoly on the issue, and I doubt whether he or his team would want one.

I turn now to what went wrong. There is plenty of evidence that shows that the case for war set out by the Blair Administration in 2003 was deeply flawed. Intelligence was misused, concerns expressed by experts were suppressed, and the legal and political position was misrepresented. From this arises the belief among many journalists and members of the public as well as Members of this House that they were misled into supporting the war in Iraq. In fact, when one reads the documents and listens to the testimony, it is hardly far-fetched to call it a conspiracy.

In brief, Tony Blair decided to join the US in invading Iraq and removing Saddam Hussein. He knew that the British people and their representatives were dubious about the wisdom of this, to say the least, so he used every opportunity to twist the evidence to isolate his critics and encourage his supporters. Britain was indeed spun into war. This is the foundation of the familiar position that many former war supporters now take. Often they will say, “If I had known then what I know now, I would not have supported the war”, but is that enough? Does that really explain what happened?

[Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

In 2005 I went out to Iraq. Then, even senior military officers were questioning the legality of their being there and having gone in. So it is not simply a matter of us doubting it. They were unsure of the legal position as well.

[Caroline Lucas]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

I am very pleased that the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) has been able to secure today’s debate. It is timely, obviously, and it is important that we should have plenty of time to talk about this issue, even 10 years down the line. She made a fine and impassioned speech and set the tone for the debate.

I do not always see eye to eye with the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas), who speaks for the Labour party, but I must say that he made a very fine speech. It was a balanced speech, it came from the heart and it was refreshing to hear such a speech from the Front Bench. It is also a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), who speaks with great knowledge about things diplomatic and military. They are things that I know very little about—I will place that on the record now, lest it becomes too obvious later on.

[Paul Flynn]

Does the right hon. Gentleman follow the significant point made by the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) about the unimportance of being right on these decisions? Those who sided with error saw their careers flourish, while those who were right and objected to their Ministries saw their careers wither.

[Mr Llwyd]

That is absolutely right, obviously. That is a feature of the system that we are all embroiled in at the moment, imperfect—greatly imperfect—as it is.

I want to start by quoting something that was said recently:

“I let Parliament have the final say on me decision to go to war. I made statements, answered questions, took part in debates. But in the end there was a decision that had to be made: on the basis of the information available, to decide whether to join the US coalition and remove Saddam; or to stay out. I decided we should be in. The job of the Prime Minister is to make such decisions based on what he believes is in the interests of the country.”

Those words are taken from the end of former Prime Minister Blair’s statement to the Chilcot inquiry—an inquiry that, as we have heard, has so far failed to report, despite almost exactly four years having passed since it was first announced in this place by the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown). As I shall briefly outline today, I have reservations about the Chilcot inquiry, which I suspect was as flawed and compromised from the outset as the then Government’s decision to go to war.

Let me nail one other myth. The Liberal Democrats are very pleased to go around saying that they were the only party to vote against. We voted against, the Scottish National party voted against and many Members of other parties voted against. We were described as jellyheads and all kinds of things.

[Martin Horwood]

I do not recall us often saying that we were the only party to vote in that way. I am happy to acknowledge publicly the support of Plaid Cymru and the other parties that stood alongside the Liberal Democrats in the Chamber in opposing the war. Is not the truth that the most chilling words were those of Tony Blair in the recent BBC documentary, when he said that he had reflected that it was time to remake the middle east? Did not the combination of that kind of messianic leadership and the enormous momentum towards war mean that no amount of political or even expert diplomatic advice would have changed their minds?

[Mr Llwyd]

I am very pleased to agree with the hon. Gentleman. He has made a good input into the record.

Between 2002 and 2003, my then Plaid Cymru colleagues Adam Price and Simon Thomas and my hon. Friend the Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams), along with our colleagues in the SNP, were unanimous in our opposition to the incursion into Iraq and, on 18 March 2003, we voted against the invasion. We did not believe then, and nor have we ever believed, that the dossiers produced by the then Government displayed any credible threat from Saddam Hussein’s regime. In the words of Mr Blair that I quoted a moment ago, the former Prime Minister said that he had let Parliament have the final say on whether we should go to war, but the motion on which Parliament voted asserted:

“That this House…recognises that Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and”—

crucially—

“long range missiles, and its continuing non-compliance with Security Council Resolutions, pose a threat to international peace and security”.—[Official Report, 18 March 2003; Vol. 401, c. 760.]

The motion was flawed in several regards, so we were meant to vote on a flawed motion in any event, quite apart from the fact that the evidence did not stack up to create a credible or immediate threat from Saddam’s regime. Thus the basis on which Mr Blair led Parliament to decide was a false premise. The jury is still out on the extent to which Mr Blair and the Cabinet knew that the claims were counterfeit.

On the day after the House voted for the invasion, the Prime Minister said:

“We want to ensure that any post-conflict authority in Iraq is endorsed and authorised by a new United Nations resolution”.—[Official Report, 19 March 2003; Vol. 401, c. 932.]

There were of course those of us who argued even then that the Government were not acting under the endorsement of an existing UN Security Council resolution, because as Sir Jeremy Greenstock admitted, there was no automaticity in resolution 1441 and our incursion into Iraq was therefore illegal under international law.

On 24 November 2004, an impeachment motion was tabled in the name of myself, the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier), Douglas Hogg QC and the First Minister of Scotland. The motion had been supported, in writing or otherwise, by 24 Members of this House, but it was never called for debate. However, the Impeach Blair campaign had the support of the Stop the War Coalition, the Green party, Frederick Forsyth, Terry Jones, Brian Eno, the late Harold Pinter, the late Corin Redgrave, the late Jimmy Reid and, last but by no means least, the late—alas—Iain Banks.

With hindsight, and following debates on this topic, that one sentence of Mr Blair’s seems almost to override all else: he had decided that “we should be in”. He had made that decision without a second UN resolution, when most of the world was against the incursion. He had decided that the UK would lend its support to President Bush’s war on terror, whatever the cost. Let us be realistic; Bush had the might to do this in short order in any event. He wanted a cloak of legitimacy, and that is how he lured Tony Blair in to support him—and at what a cost it has proven to be.

Today, Iraq is the state fifth most at risk of terrorism in the world, and the eighth most corrupt. It is a country marred by car bombs and corruption. Under the Shi’a Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, power is divided along ethnic lines. Economically and physically, the country has been all but destroyed. In a poll published in September 2011, 42% of Iraqis said that they were worse off as a result of the invasion, compared with only 30% who thought themselves in some way better off.

The war has arguably resulted in the other members of the so-called axis of evil, Iran and North Korea, obtaining nuclear weapons, and the risk of terrorism at home has definitely increased. We have heard quotes from Eliza Manningham-Buller and others on that subject. There is no basis for claiming that al-Qaeda had a real presence in Iraq before 2003, but the war itself has established one. The human cost has also been devastating. Between March 2003 and the end of UK operations in May 2011, 179 UK armed forces personnel died as a consequence of operations in Iraq. Of those, 136 were killed in combat. I join other Members across the House in paying tribute to them. Whatever foreign policy decisions are arrived at in this place, they always do their best and carry out their duties bravely. I respect them for that. The question of whether the war was lawful or otherwise is our problem.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I accept everything that the right hon. Gentleman is saying, but does he not agree that there also needs to be some reflection on the treatment of prisoners in Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, and on the many atrocities that were perpetrated on ordinary Iraqi people by occupying troops in that country?

[Mr Llwyd]

Absolutely; the hon. Gentleman is quite right. He also voted against the war and took part in the debates at the time. We have not even touched on that important subject in today’s debate, but I hope that, if he catches the Deputy Speaker’s eye, he will develop that theme. It is vital that it should be brought into the debate.

According to the Iraq Body Count project, an unofficial survey of Iraqi civilian casualties, between 113,000 and 123,000 civilians have died as a result of violence in Iraq since March 2003. According to the same source, 883 civilians died in May 2013—the highest number of civilian deaths in any month since April 2008. That is the ugly legacy of this war.

Let me tell the House that it gives me no satisfaction whatever to stand here today and say that we who voted against the motion were proved right. The damage to Iraq, has, as they say, already been done. However, many unanswered questions remain about our descent into war in the spring of 2003. I want to quote from the words spoken by the then Member for Blaenau Gwent, Llew Smith, who said:

“We…need to know whether Ministers simply proved to be very bad judges of geopolitics, stubbornly refusing to listen to the millions who marched against the war…or—worse—deliberately distorted the evidence, cherry-picked the details that suited their case for invading Iraq, and pressed the Attorney-General to provide an opinion that endorsed a political decision already taken two years earlier to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam.”—[Official Report, 9 March 2004; Vol. 418, c. 1426.]

Personally, I have little doubt that the evidence was indeed distorted, as the decision to go to war had already been made months, if not years, before a motion was ever put before the House. I saw proof of this dating from 2002, and I will return to that point later if I may.

On 9 March 2004, I opened a debate calling for the advice of the Attorney-General on the legality of the war in Iraq to be published in full. I said during that debate that Treasury counsel would have received instructions when they were advising the Attorney-General, and that, had counsel been ill informed or misled in those instructions, the advice would have been flawed ab initio. I said that it was of the utmost importance to establish whether the instructions given by the Attorney-General contained reference to the now infamous 45-minute claim. Had these instructions contained such references and had counsel accepted them as valid, the whole basis of that advice would obviously have been flawed. I made it clear in the debate that the ministerial code holds no bar on publishing such advice. In fact, the code states:

“Holders of public office should be as open as possible about all the decisions and actions they take. They should give reasons for their decisions and restrict information only when the wider public interest clearly demands.”

I argued at the time and I argue now that it is in the wider public interest on going to war that disclosure should be made, for heaven’s sake. What is more, I set out the precedents for publishing the advice of the Attorney-General—including, for example, the Belfast riots and the Archer-Shee cases. I cited the opinions of five distinguished international lawyers who each had differing views about whether the war in Iraq had been legal, but who were unanimously in favour of publishing in full the advice of the Attorney-General. One of these, James Crawford, who was then—and still is, I believe—professor of international law at Cambridge, observed:

“If the war was conducted in private, there would be every case for hiding the advice. If it’s going to be fought with public funds, in public and expending the lives of members of the public, then it should be published”.

Another, Lord Archer, QC, said that the Attorney-General’s arguments constituted

“the most important legal opinion given in the last quarter of a century.”

To this day, however, that advice has remained unpublished.

Interestingly, that debate was tabled by us in Plaid Cymru and our friends in the Scottish National party. What I think was then a joint group of nine secured a vote of about 285, as I recall, so there clearly was some concern around, and I am pleased that we brought the matter to the fore.

As I have outlined before, in 2002 I was sent documents from an unknown source which put me in no doubt whatever that Mr Blair had been determined to go to war with Iraq from the very outset. The documents had with them a note saying that they were top secret documents, some British and others appearing to emanate from other intelligence sources—American, I believe. The documents showed me that as early as 2001-02, discussions were being held about toppling Saddam, in which mention was made of the term “regime change”—which we all know is unlawful in international law.

Soon after I received the memorandums, my then colleague, Adam Price, and I were visited by two senior police officers from a special section of the Metropolitan police. I did not have the documents in my personal possession at the time, so I was unable to surrender them to those police officers. When the Chilcot inquiry was established in 2009, however, I decided to hand over the documents. I searched for them, found them and handed them over to the inquiry. I took them down to Victoria street and handed them over to the secretary of the inquiry, Ms Margaret Aldred.

Several months went by without my receiving any response to my submission. Nine months later, following a number of unanswered letters, I was finally granted the courtesy of a reply. As a result of this treatment, I had my misgivings about the secretariat of the inquiry, which I set out in full during a Westminster Hall debate on the issue on 25 January 2011.

Suffice it to say here that I discovered that Ms Aldred, the gatekeeper for the inquiry, who had previously acted as the Cabinet’s deputy head of foreign and defence policy secretariat, was put forward for her new role, in which she would inquire into the actions taken in that same foreign and defence policy, by the Cabinet Secretary himself, Sir Gus O’Donnell. The potential conflict of interest was breathtaking. I discovered that in her previous role, Ms Aldred had regularly chaired the Iraq senior officials group. Let us not forget either that it was the Cabinet Office, for which Ms Aldred had worked previously, that drew up plans for regime change and that it was the Cabinet Office and the Joint Intelligence Committee and its staff that produced the “dodgy dossier”. Her hands were hardly clean for that particular job. Thanks to the detective work of Dr Chris Lamb and others, we further discovered that this appointment had not followed the procedures set out in the civil service code and was neither open nor indeed transparent. I countered that her appointment to this role obviously made it questionable whether the inquiry was a Cabinet Office subsidiary. In the continued absence of the Chilcot inquiry’s report into the war, I am unable to comment further on this issue. But let us not hold our breath, folks.

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

By way of a parallel and supporting point for the case that the right hon. Gentleman has just made, when I was a Back-Bench Member of the Education Committee in the last Parliament, there was an independent inquiry led by Lord Sutherland. I found out that the personal secretary to the permanent secretary at the Department for Education was one of the tiny number who made up this “independent inquiry” team. In fact, when we looked at the report in Word, we could see who authored certain parts of it. It was frightening to discover that the author of the section that exculpated the Department from all responsibility for the SATs fiasco was none other than the former personal secretary to the permanent secretary at that Department.

[Mr Llwyd]

There we are—another unhappy coincidence. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, which shows that this kind of conduct may be prevalent in this place. Clearly, going back to what was said by the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border, we need to look more into the procedures of this place and to challenge them; otherwise, we might be in throes of a similar disastrous position again. There is a still a catalogue of unanswered questions.

In a memorandum from Mr Blair to his chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, dated 17 March 2002, which was unpublished until the Chilcot inquiry, Mr Blair says of the problems in Iraq:

“The immediate WMD problems don’t seem obviously worse than three years ago. So we have to re-order our story and message.”

Why, then, did he tell Parliament mere months later that Iraq’s WMD programme was growing? The re-ordering to which Mr Blair referred in his memo was his decision to focus on Saddam’s monstrous nature. He went on to say:

“A political philosophy that does care about other nations—eg. Kosovo, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone—and is prepared to change regimes on the merits, should be gung-ho on Saddam.”

There can be little wonder, then, why Hans Blix was denied the further two months he had requested to continue his weapons inspection in Iraq. His testimony would not have been necessary.

I noticed that when we began this debate, the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) was firing off interventions at a rapid rate at my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion. If his points were so valid and so worthy of consideration, it is a shame that he did not stand his ground and make a speech, as we are all doing.

Mr Blair began this same memo to his chief of staff by saying:

“I do not have a proper worked-out strategy on how we would do it…I will need a meeting on this with military folk.”

“It”, we can surmise, refers to military action. Mr Blair had evidently decided, even in March 2002, that “we should be in”—despite the fact that, as I have said, regime change is unlawful under article 2, paragraph 4 of the United Nations charter.

What is all the more deplorable is the fact that Mr Blair’s deception in the run-up to the vote in March 2003 had disastrous consequences for post-invasion Iraq. Military plans were not constructed properly because they were not properly discussed. In his evidence to Chilcot, Mr Blair admitted that only 14 of the 28 meetings he held with key figures to discuss the possibility of war were in fact minuted. The most compelling documents, of course, have not been made public. The still classified material includes the exchanges between the former Prime Minister and President Bush.

In March 2005, I visited Iraq, going to Baghdad and Basra. During the visit, which was arranged by the Foreign Office, I had the opportunity to meet local politicians and women’s groups as well as national politicians and trade unionists in Baghdad. It was obvious that while there had been great efforts to plan for war, there had been little or no effort to plan for the peace. There were open sewers and people were complaining—I presume that the Foreign Office approved of our meeting these people. They were saying openly that they used to have electricity, running water and a decent sewerage system, but that they had nothing of that kind now. I am led to believe that, in many instances, that remains the position. We have left the country in a terrible state.

We met several senior military officers. It is interesting that they were prepared to confide to someone like me, who could hardly be described as a renowned establishment figure, their concern about the lawfulness of their being in Iraq in the first place. They were greatly concerned about whether the war was legal. I gave them my opinion, for what it was worth, but I also told them “You are doing your duty, as you are trained to do. Any question of illegality is not on your desk, but on the desks of people like me—the politicians back at home—so please do not divert your attention to that and put yourselves in harm’s way.” However, I respect the fact that they were asking those questions then; it demonstrates the feelings that were around at the time.

Saddam, as we knew, would be overthrown in days, or weeks at the most. The Americans could have done it themselves. The only plan for peace was to allow some limited western-funded repair of the Iraqi infrastructure to be carried out by American companies in which the neo-cons advising Bush had considerable financial interests. There is no interest now in returning Iraq to anything resembling a 21st-century country. Shame on them!

In February, Caroline Hawley, the BBC’s Baghdad correspondent between 2003 and 2005, wrote this in the New Statesman about her recent return to Iraq:

“Iraq remains a troubled place. During my recent visit, I saw little of its restored oil wealth being spent on badly needed social services. The nation, collectively traumatised, has only three child psychiatrists. The ubiquitous checkpoints and blast walls fail to stop…many bombers. Iraqis complain of rampant corruption. Nouri al-Maliki’s Shia-dominated government is seen as increasingly autocratic and its relations with the country’s Sunnis continue to sour. That Iraqis now seem to be fighting on both sides of Syria’s war…doesn’t bode well.”

As we teeter on the brink of entering yet another conflict in the middle east, I urge the Prime Minister and his Cabinet to learn from the obvious mistakes of our recent history. Mr Blair decided that we should go in; the history books will be the judge of why.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

I have just returned from a brief all-party visit to Berlin, where, with other parliamentarians, I had the opportunity to visit checkpoint Charlie. Anybody who visits will be aware of the big sections of the Berlin wall that remain, covered in graffiti, as symbols of how divided that city was. We find the same walls and constructs—blast containers—all over Baghdad, Kabul, Helmand and so on. When will sections of walls in Baghdad or Basra serve no other purpose than to remind us and remain as symbols of events in the past?

I congratulate the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) on securing this important debate. I am grateful for it. It is appropriate to discuss the lessons learned, considering that almost 200 lives were lost, and that the campaign cost the taxpayer almost £8 billion. I declare an interest as a former regular member of the armed forces and a serving member of the reserve forces. I pay tribute, as other hon. Members have, to those who served and to the fallen—those whose lives are permanently changed through injury and, particularly, those who did not return.

The analysis should be divided into three different areas: first, the justification for intervention; secondly, the military campaign and defeating the enemy; and thirdly, the stabilisation and reconstruction phase. General Petraeus, who had a long-term involvement in Iraq, famously said that it was not enough to defeat the enemy, and that, if we are to intervene, we need to enable the local. Those are wise words to remember no matter where we want to go, whether upstream or on any campaign or intervention.

Although we might disagree with intervention, I am not sure we would be having this debate and making the cases we are making if the stabilisation and reconstruction had been more of a success story. I would go further than that and say that Tony Blair would probably have continued as leader of his party and not been taken over by his Chancellor had peace prevailed, had Basra been a success, and had the situation not deteriorated as it did in the aftermath of the invasion.

Like other hon. Members, I await the outcome of the Chilcot inquiry, which will be illuminating. I and other hon. Members attended a number of its sessions. It was interesting to hear people giving direct accounts of their roles, small and large, in the decision-making process, not least the military leaders who gave evidence who felt pulled between commitments in Iraq and continuing commitments in Afghanistan, to which hon. Members have referred. Unfortunately, I believe the inquiry will make unpleasant reading for the Labour Government in respect of some of their decisions.

On the justification for intervention, I spoke out prior to invasion against intervention. I made that absolutely clear, even though the Conservative party seemed to be in favour. As a military person, I define a threat as it is defined militarily—a threat is the ability and intent to cause harm. A threat is not just the desire to cause harm to another person, region, community or state; it must be matched with the means. People must have capability to pose a threat. If the two are not together, in military terms, the threat does not exist. That is why I began to question the justification for the invasion.

I do not have the same problem as other hon. Members with the build-up of armed forces, because that shows intent. We needed to build up capacity to allow the politicians to make the decision. Building up armed forces can persuade the enemy to change their minds. We cut the oak for the ships used in the battle of Trafalgar well in advance of any admiralty decision to attack, but it was in mind and preparations needed to take place. I also do not have much of a problem with the vote in the House on the war itself. As I said, I would have put my hand up to say that I was not convinced. Many in the House were convinced by the intelligence that was presented to them.

We realise now that there were many flaws in the intelligence and that the House was misled on, for example, the 45-minute claim that our British bases in Cyprus were somehow under threat from tactical weapons of mass destruction. There was the very sad role of Alistair Campbell interfering with John Scarlett’s report and directing British intelligence dossiers to complement US intelligence. He was then forced to resign following the tragic death of David Kelly. There was the role of General Colin Powell, for whom I have a huge amount of respect. Not long ago, he admitted that his Adlai Stevenson moment—if I can put it that way—when he addressed the United Nations to give evidence for the justification of war in February 2003, was one of the most regrettable moments of his career. There was the CIA’s claim about yellowcake coming from Niger, which was used in President Bush’s state of the union address, leading, when the truth came out, to Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, going to prison.

The issue of what Hans Blix knew has been raised a number of times and is still debated. It is clear that while working for the International Atomic Energy Agency and leading the weapons inspectors, he continued to have full access in the country, even if Saddam Hussein was not co-operating fully. He had not found any evidence and could have continued in the country for as long as he liked, but was told leave by the Americans because of the impending invasion. We now realise that there was a single intelligence source—an exiled scientist living in Germany—stating that Saddam Hussein had tactical weapons of mass destruction. That was never corroborated. Finally, United Nations resolution 1441 did not actually give the right to invade—a point made clearly by France. It leant on previous resolution 687, which provided for the right to invade if certain conditions were not met. The UN Secretary-General said that he was uncomfortable with that.

I do not stand here as an apologist and say that war was not avoidable. It might have been, but I do not believe that invasion was justified at that juncture. As has been said a number of times, hindsight is a wonderful thing, but one wonders whether Saddam Hussein would have survived the Arab spring or whether, through a natural process of change in the middle east, we would have seen him removed. It is difficult to say.

In his book “State of Denial” Bob Woodward quotes General Franks, the United States central commander in the middle east, on being asked, in December 2001—when we had just gone into Afghanistan—to draw up plans to invade Iraq. That puts into perspective the energy and determination to push forward with intervention in Iraq.

On the intervention itself, Operation Telic went as well as it could have done. In the first three weeks of March 2003, we managed to defeat the enemy completely and were seen as liberators. I pay tribute to the 7th Army Brigade, which had to set up in a very awkward and difficult environment to establish the peace. The one lesson to be learned relates to the shock and awe policy. It is a matter for further debate, but I do not now think it is right for us, armed with these incredible long-range weapons, to destroy infrastructure on such a scale— the very same infrastructure that we will need a couple of weeks after putting boots on the ground. When a decision to invade is taken, we have to be more cognisant of the need to disrupt and take out the enemy without causing more damage and costing us more in the long-term.

It was not long after the initial invasion that the British started patrolling in berets, using our skills base from Northern Ireland to win over hearts and minds by looking less offensive in our military outfits in order to work with locals. It soon became apparent, however, after the successful invasion, that there was no plan or strategy—no idea what to do or how to harness the euphoria following Saddam Hussein’s fall in order to sow the seeds of governance—and so nothing happened and we went from liberators to occupiers. Where was the army of civil servants, linguists, engineers and planners—the people with the skill sets to rebuild Basra and help its people move forward? And let us not forget the significance of Basra, whose people were elated to get rid of Saddam Hussein, who was never a friend of the city, and whose strategic importance cannot be overestimated: as Iraq’s only port, it was a lifeline for moving oil out of the country.

Yet nothing happened. We created an umbrella of security, and our soldiers, having done a brave job, looked over their shoulders, expecting somebody else to come in and deal with governance, reconstruction and development, but nobody was there. I intervened on the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas)—who, as I said, spoke with passion and concern for the position of the then Government, and whom I congratulate on taking a stand at the time—and explained how Clare Short, then at the Department for International Development, which was the one organisation with the money to provide reconstruction and development planning, decided not to participate and sent a message around the Department to that effect. As a result, our armed forces were left on their own. She should have been sacked immediately. I am pleased to say that now the relationship between the Ministry of Defence, DFID and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has improved immensely, but the culture at the time, underlined—I am afraid—by her stance, did not allow DFID even to consider participating in war zones. It was focusing far too much on poverty.

[Mr Llwyd]

The former right hon. Lady to whom the hon. Gentleman refers made strenuous efforts to get the Prime Minister to plan for the peace, even before entering the war. She did everything she possibly could, and it was directly as a result of his not taking her advice that much of the reconstruction work was not done and the humanitarian resources were not invested immediately. She did everything she could, but she found it impossible to get through to him.

[Mr Ellwood]

I do not agree with the right hon. Gentleman at all. We had a debate on Iraq when Clare Short was in the Chamber. I asked her directly—it is in Hansard—whether she sent a diktat round her Department and to her directors saying, “Do not do any planning for participating in post-conflict reconstruction, because I believe the war is illegal and I do not want to get into trouble.” I paraphrase, but those were roughly the words. She replied, “Absolutely. I did that. That was my belief at the time.” That is what happened, but whether there is more to it—

[Mr Llwyd]

There is more to it.

[Mr Ellwood]

I shall wait for the right hon. Gentleman’s speech for him to elaborate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Absolutely. On something so fundamental as the deployment of armed forces, a free vote is the right thing to do. Many have said it is easy to send other people’s sons and daughters off to die and then hide behind a veneer of party loyalty, but the issue is much bigger than that.

[Mr Llwyd]

May I suggest a further prerequisite, which is that some machinery should be adopted whereby we are all made privy to a certain amount of the delicate intelligence information that has led the Government to their conclusion? Otherwise, we could be duped into acting the same way again.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The right hon. Gentleman is correct. The legal advice given to the Cabinet is still the subject of debate. The Chilcot report is yet to come out—I understand it is heading for 1 million words, leaving “War and Peace” well behind, and goodness knows how many volumes there will be when it is finally produced. The information we are given is very important if we are to make an informed decision. It is, however, simply not credible to say that we were unaware of the dubiety of the information we were given. I came here at 8 o’clock on the day the dodgy dossier was published to pick up a copy and read it, and by a quarter past 8, I had realised it was a load of utter bunkum and that we had been dragged back to the House on false pretences. The same is true of Colin Powell’s address to the UN that September, when he claimed that chemical weapons were hidden in ice cream vans all over Iraq.

I received hundreds of messages, e-mails and so on from people who were involved in the anti-war movement, and I spoke at 200 anti-war meetings in this country and others before the decision was taken. Just think of the commitment of those people who went on the march in February 2003. Many of them were not of the left and many were not necessarily pacifists—anti-war as such—but they were convinced that we were being led by the nose into disaster. Frankly, the whole political establishment should have woken up and understood that, because the consequences were so huge for us and for the rest of the world.

I say all this not because I am any apologist for Saddam Hussein—I am not—and not because I do not recognise the abominable human rights abuses he committed; I do. But I remember that, in the 1980s, raising questions about arms sales to Iraq, human rights abuses in Iraq and the British relationship and trade with Iraq was a very unpopular thing to do in this place. There were not many people supporting that. Even after Malabar—as I said earlier—in 1988, we still participated in the Baghdad arms fair only a year later to continue that relationship. Of course the west did support Iraq against Iran. The consequences of all this are absolutely huge.

I just want to raise a couple of more general points as a lesson from this. What happened in 2001 was wrong, obviously; what happened at the twin towers and the killings was a disaster. Then we merrily invaded Afghanistan, the point at which the Stop the War coalition was founded. We proceeded to occupy the country very quickly and then found that it was not as simple as that. Here we are 12 years later; still in Afghanistan, still not controlling the country and still losing lives there. We denied international law by allowing the Americans to call people enemy combatants, not prisoners of war. Guantanamo Bay was set up. Extraordinary rendition took place. The Homeland Security Act was passed in the USA and a whole raft of anti-terror legislation was passed in this country. Civil rights of people all over the world were damaged by the decision to invade Afghanistan, and that was compounded later by the decision to invade Iraq.

Then we invaded Iraq, after the infamous George Bush speech in 2002 in which he talked about the axis of evil without any evidence whatever and tried to claim that Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein were as one. They did have one thing in common, actually. There is some evidence that, at various points in their lives, each tried to kill the other. That was roughly the only thing they had in common.

The behaviour of the occupying forces in Iraq has been far from perfect. We have seen Abu Ghraib, Falluja, the bombing campaigns, the torture of individuals and the driving of hundreds of thousands of people into exile both as internal and as external refugees from Iraq. I have very sad memories of visiting a refugee camp on the borders of Iraq and Syria, where there were a few hundred poor benighted Palestinian people whose families had been driven out of Haifa in 1948. They had been though countries all through the Gulf states, ended up in Iraq and were driven out of Iraq into Syria. Goodness knows where those families are now. They have joined the steady stream of refugees across the region. We have to think for a moment about the Palestinians and so many others.

I conclude with this thought. We have to learn a lesson, and it is a harsh one. We are not a global power. We cannot afford to be a global power, and why would we want to be one? Have we been enhanced as a country by our activities since 2001 in Afghanistan or Iraq, or have we been diminished? Do we have a better image or a much worse image around the world? It is time for us to take stock. Do we have to be a nation with a predilection to go to war and to have a global reach for our armed forces? Or do we wish to become a force in the world that supports international law, human rights and recognises the limits of the environmental destruction of our planet? Do we need Governments or Prime Ministers who say, to use the words of Tony Blair, that this is a chance to remake the middle east? The best way of remaking the middle east is to recognise the injustices done by colonialism, occupation, wars and the treatment of people who are trying to live their own lives, and to try to promote peace. The legacy of this war is a disastrous one. The enmity between the west and the Muslim communities, the enmity that is played out on the streets of this country, is a result of that. It is time for us to learn some very harsh lessons and, above all, to put them into practice.

Oral Answers to Questions

Elfyn Llwyd Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

I am aware that my hon. Friend was in Iraq recently for the commemoration on the 25th anniversary of this dreadful massacre, and he also spoke with great passion in a recent debate in the House. Following the incident, there were extensive UN and UK investigations into the use of chemical weapons and any involvement of UK companies. Those inquiries were fairly comprehensive and did not illustrate any UK involvement. From a UK point of view, I am not sure that any further inquiries are necessary.

[Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

Recently, the Prime Minister made the very eccentric contention that North Korean missiles could reach the shores of the UK, apparently in an attempt to bolster support for Trident’s renewal. Is it not time to scrap the Trident renewal, save £100 billion, spend it on public services and avoid hitting the vulnerable in society?

[Mr Hague]

To be clear, the Prime Minister said that North Korea claimed that it had missiles that could hit the whole of the United States, and if that was the case, of course, it could also hit the UK. I mentioned earlier that it has paraded, but not yet tested, a 12,000 km-range missile. Looking decades ahead, as we do with these decisions, we have to be aware of the great variety of potential threats to the UK. It is vital, therefore, that we retain the ultimate deterrent in this country, the total cost of which is about 1.5% of the total welfare budget.

Syria

Elfyn Llwyd Excerpts

Wednesday 6th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Basically, I will tell him that—yes. That is part of the argument I stated earlier: Russia is rightly concerned about international terrorism—Russians have experience of that themselves—and if this situation goes on for many more months or years, we will see a much greater opening for such international terrorism. This is becoming a human catastrophe of immense proportions, so my hon. Friend can be confident that I will make this argument to my Russian counterpart in the robust terms he would want.

[Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the advance copy of the statement, and welcome its emphasis on humanitarian aid. I am sure we all agree that it is now time for all nations to focus on a non-violent resolution if at all possible. That is obvious, but yesterday Israel said—threatened—at the Security Council that it cannot “stand idle” if the Syrian civil war spills over on to its border. This is a very serious situation. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman is aware of that, and that we need to do everything we can to avoid further conflagration.

[Mr Hague]

Absolutely; the right hon. Gentleman is right. The danger of the spread of the crisis regionally, into other countries in different ways, is one of the reasons we cannot just watch it develop. We have to work out the best constructive approach, difficult though these choices are, to try to turn this crisis in the right direction, rather than let it drift in the wrong direction. Any of the neighbouring countries will take action if their borders are infringed, of course. We have agreed to the stationing of Patriot missiles by NATO in Turkey, Lebanon has been very concerned about clashes on its border, and the Jordanian border is a tense place—and that is even before we consider the Golan Heights and the Iraqi border as well. The regional dimension is of serious and increasing concern, which is one of the reasons for today’s package of policy changes and announcements.

Oral Answers to Questions

Elfyn Llwyd Excerpts

Tuesday 5th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

The key priority for the United Kingdom is to make sure, first, that we do not lose the strength of the text that was almost agreed last July. We also want to ensure that we can clarify and strengthen the text wherever possible, and transfers is indeed one of the priorities that we will be looking at in seeking to improve the text.

[Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

The UK director of Amnesty International has said that there are tighter international controls on the global trade in bananas than there are on arms. Will the Minister confirm that the UK Government will take this opportunity to push very hard for a very effective arms treaty that applies to all weapons and munitions and that ensures proper monitoring and an enhanced end-user certificate system?

[Alistair Burt]

The inclusion of all small arms and light weapons in the treaty is fundamental for us. I have had regular meetings with the director of Amnesty; I know her views and they are very similar to ours. It is vital that we get the broadest and most effective arms trade treaty out of New York. We will not be able to secure everything we would wish and we will not sign something just because it is a piece of paper. We want to ensure that it is robust and effective for those who use it and for end-users, too.

Oral Answers to Questions

Elfyn Llwyd Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

The measures we will take will go down the twin track of sanctions and negotiations. We now have unprecedented sanctions coming into force on Iran, including not just the oil embargo but a partial asset freeze on the central bank of Iran, and expanded financial measures against Iran, including on gold and precious metals. However, we are sincere about negotiations. I am pleased that the opening round of negotiations in Istanbul went better than previous rounds, and a second round has been agreed for Baghdad on 23 May.

[Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

I am pleased that the talks last weekend were described as “fruitful” and co-operative—I think those were the words—which is useful of course. Does the Foreign Secretary agree that we need to keep up a maximum dialogue between now and 23 May so that when the parties next convene for a formal discussion we can really look forward to concrete proposals?

[Mr Hague]

Yes, of course the dialogue will be kept up, as will the maximum pressure in the form of the sanctions coming into place. The commitment to a second round of negotiations includes a commitment to discussions between officials between now and then in order to prepare those discussions in Baghdad.

Iran

Elfyn Llwyd Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) on securing this important and timely debate. I will not go through the history of the sanctions, but I believe that more effort needs to be made along diplomatic lines. We need to consider smart sanctions and to think about hitting the elite in Iran rather than the most vulnerable, as has happened in the past. One problem with sanctions is that they can sometimes be a blunt tool.

I anticipate being in a small minority this evening when I vote for the motion. I was in that position in the Iraq debate, but I believe that I was right. The evidence was not in the least convincing, and the evidence now is not in the least convincing either. However many people criticise the way in which I vote this evening, I shall do so according to my conscience, and according to what I have learned, read and understood. We are all sensible to the fact that every possible effort will be made to go down the diplomatic route; everyone wants that to happen. I believe, however, that the sabre-rattling and leaving the threat of military force on the table could ratchet up the tension, making a diplomatic resolution impossible.

The Russia Today news channel reported two weeks ago that the United States was carrying out military drills based on simulations of the shape and width of the straits of Hormuz. The Iranians were participating in their own war games in the straits at the end of December, and if those news reports are true, they could indicate that the US is even now preparing for a stand-off, or worse. Similarly, concern has been expressed by Israel about the possibility of Iran developing nuclear weapons. The assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists and the threat of pre-emptive strikes from Israel both bring their own sense of chill. That would, of course, be the quickest possible way to inflame the situation outside of international diplomacy, and it would be a step that nobody in this Chamber or elsewhere wants to see. The same might be true of Saudi Arabia, which has spoken of increasing its nuclear power technology and has explicitly linked it with weapons technology. This has taken place in the context of various UN resolutions, with which it has to be said Iran is not fully complying—no one could say that it is.

It is important to have a level playing field in our approach to the middle east. That is why I believe the US diplomats who have spoken, via WikiLeaks, about Mr Amano are making a grave mistake and performing a grave disservice. They said:

“This meeting, Amano’s first bilateral review since his election, illustrates the very high degree of convergence between his priorities and our own agenda at the IAEA. The coming transition period provides a further window for us to shape Amano’s thinking before his agenda collides with the IAEA Secretariat bureaucracy.”

We need to show that international organisations are neutral, but that kind of talk is not conducive to such thinking, and I believe it will only inflame the situation so far as Iran is concerned.

There has been criticism of the positions adopted by Russia and China at the UN Security Council and of their unwillingness to support the US and UK position. We saw similar frustration over Syria a few weeks ago, when those two powers used their veto. Although the impulse to act is understandable, so is the rational concern that acting in haste might lead to a greater problem. That is clear for all to see if we reflect on what happened in Iraq, for example.

Some comments made about Iran sound like the echoes of the run-up to war in Iraq a decade ago—for example, the assertion that nuclear weapons existed, even though they could not be pinpointed or proved in the least; the stereotyping of a country so that it could be easily demonised through the media; and the ramping up of rhetoric to justify an invasion that could not be substantiated in international law or by the pretext of humanitarian assistance.

[Zac Goldsmith]

I share the right hon. Gentleman’s views on Iraq, which is why I strongly opposed the war. I agree with most people that war is an appalling prospect in any circumstances and I concur with his scepticism about the intelligence, but does he not agree that if this House were to rule out the possibility of war and if other Parliaments around the world were to do the same, it would almost guarantee giving Iran a green light to develop the bomb, which we all so fear?

[Mr Llwyd]

The hon. Gentleman is right that that is the core of the debate. It is where he and I disagree. He may be right; I may be right. I know not, but this is the debate we are having. I do not pretend to be an expert in international law, but I heard it said that Iran will not be favoured; nobody wants to favour its position.

[Paul Flynn]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the immediate priority is to ensure that the present war of words does not deteriorate into a war of weapons, and that our task should be to reduce tension, not to increase it?

[Mr Llwyd]

That is absolutely right. I referred to sabre-rattling, and the hon. Gentleman puts it succinctly. That is not the way to have a diplomatic dialogue with any country.

We might not like the Government of Iran. Its human rights record remains appalling, despite reports last week that it is looking at revising its penal code. There are many Governments around the world, however, with whom we would not agree. Iran is a highly developed and complex society, and stereotyping makes it easier to demonise and create an atmosphere of fear based around simple sketches of society and the dehumanisation of those within it. It seems we have quickly forgotten the scenes in Tehran in 2009 when the green revolution was taking place and millions voted for Mousavi. Iran has a highly developed middle class, which often disagrees with Ahmadinejad. My point is to remind us all that the spirit of democracy is alive and well, and that when we make international judgments we should remember that the Government are not always representative of the views of their people.

As a party, we believe in being internationalist and in being committed to peace and justice. We are also strong believers in the importance of international law and diplomacy. We support the United Nations and we would like to see it strengthened. We reject weapons of mass destruction and military alliances based on the possession thereof. We support a role for the European Union in conflict prevention and peacekeeping. These, I think, must be our core aims, but as we speak, the drums of war are beating—and they are a ghastly echo of the run-up to the Iraq conflict. We must ensure that we do everything possible through every diplomatic means to silence those drums of war.

I hope that the IAEA’s mission in Tehran this week is unequivocally successful. With elections in Iran and in the US this year, we know that there is a lot of political mileage in talking tough and ramping up the rhetoric. Our role in this House, however, is surely to listen to the facts, make a calm and reasoned examination of the situation and scrutinise the actions taken on our behalf by our Government. I hope that every effort is made to pursue each and every diplomatic avenue vigorously in order to avoid war and the accompanying destruction of countries and lives. We should pause and listen to reason from informed observers.

One such person is Hans Blix, whose essay was published in the New Statesman of 20 February. He said that the idea of a nuclear-weapon-free zone for the middle east was originally advanced in 1974 in a UN General Assembly Resolution sponsored by Egypt and Iran. That was obviously aimed at Israel. He continued by saying that

“the idea of an agreement between the parties in the Middle East—including Israel and Iran—to renounce”

nuclear weapons

“does not seem far-fetched to me”.

He went on to refer to a recent poll in Israel in which a substantial majority of Israeli people said that they thought it would be better to have no state in the middle east with nuclear weapons than to have two states with them. I commend this article to all those listening to this debate. I believe that the motion is consistent with the good thinking of that article.

Oral Answers to Questions

Elfyn Llwyd Excerpts

Tuesday 25th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his position on the Front Bench. We know that he will acquit himself of his duties extremely well.

Economically, an ultimate settlement of the issue between Israel and Palestine will bring benefits to all and is essential. We play our part by supporting the economy, with some £80 million this year going to the west bank and Gaza. However, the ultimate settlement will depend not so much on any universal declaration as on the process of negotiation. At present there has been no resolution put forward for the United Kingdom to vote on, and it is still not clear whether the UN process would be through the Security Council alone or through the General Assembly. However, the UK will always use its vote in the best interests of ensuring that the likelihood of negotiations towards a final settlement is assisted rather than hindered.

[Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

2. Whether he has made recent representations to the Government of Ukraine on the treatment of former President Tymoshenko.

[The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington)]

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister denounced the selective use of justice in Ukraine in the House on 12 October, and in late September my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister told President Yanukovych directly that cases such as Mrs Tymoshenko’s were a threat to parliamentary ratification of Ukraine’s association agreement with the European Union.

[Mr Llwyd]

I thank the Minister for that reply. Does not the behaviour of the Ukraine Government towards ex-President Tymoshenko show that Soviet-style show trials are unfortunately not a thing of the past? Does he agree that if Ukraine wishes to be taken seriously as a true democracy, it should start acting that way?

[Mr Lidington]

Since President Yanukovych took office, he has declared that his prime foreign policy objective is to secure Ukraine’s closer integration with the EU through an association agreement. We need to keep reminding the Ukrainian Government that that integration involves not only economic reforms but reforms of the political and judicial systems to bring Ukraine into line with what we expect of a modern European democracy.

Africa and the Middle East

Elfyn Llwyd Excerpts

Monday 4th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

This is a vital subject that we discussed in part of the London conference last week. It will be an important part of the discussion at the first meeting of the contact group, which, as I explained in my statement, will take place in Doha next week. The United Nations Secretary-General made it very clear at the London conference that the UN was prepared to take the lead in co-ordinating the stabilisation and humanitarian work, which was an extremely welcome commitment. The next stage, on top of the urgent work supported by our Department for International Development that I mentioned earlier, is to conduct more detailed consideration of Libya’s future stabilisation needs at the Doha meeting.

[Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

I thank the Foreign Secretary for an advance copy of his statement.

Of the 34 countries currently involved, how many are Arab states, and how many of that number are involved in front-line activities?

[Mr Hague]

The number of Arab states involved in military participation is two, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. They have both supplied fighter aircraft to support the no-fly zone. Of course, other states are involved in humanitarian assistance, and the 34 also include states that have given over-flight rights to assist in the implementation of the UN resolution. That would be a minority of the 34, but I do not have the numbers to hand for each different category of Arab support.

We should be clear that the Arab League continues to support the implementation of the resolution robustly. It attended our meeting at the London conference, and we will expect to see it in Doha as well. There were five or six Arab nations represented at the London conference, and I hope that more than that will join the contact group. The support of Arab nations for what we are doing has been maintained from the beginning, and it continues.