Civil Society Space

Debate between Fiona Bruce and Khalid Mahmood

Thursday 26th January 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mr Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your stewardship, Mr Rosindell. I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for securing this important debate.

A well-placed civil society has always been a hallmark of a successful, stable democracy. A Government alone, no matter how efficient, cannot run a country effectively and harness all its potential unless they use the will and involvement of all the people in it. We want to ensure that people power, in tandem with government, starts to work effectively to provide proper and clear democratic structures for societies.

Unfortunately, part of the problem is that, when elections are held, we call the institutions and countries democratic. Democracy entails a structure—a structure of accountability, transparency and rule of law. Unless those things are taken into account by a nation or country, we should question whether they have democratic institutions or whether they are a democratic country. We get too easily waylaid by the perception of democracy as people having elections. First, we need to account for whether those participating in an election are properly selected to their posts. Is a democratic selection taking place? Do they have limits on their spending power and, I would go so far as to say, limits on their buying power in those countries? How are they elected? Is the value of that vote independent and transparent, or is it purely down to whom they can intimidate, what they can buy and what they can pressurise people to vote for?

[Fiona Bruce]

Does the hon. Gentleman recognise, as I do, an increasing trend of elected representatives and premiers staying on beyond the agreed maximum period that their nation’s constitution permits, causing huge amounts of distress and unrest in their countries? I am thinking, for example, of Burundi.

[Mr Mahmood]

I concur with the hon. Lady. There is a real problem that, when some people get into elected office, they assume it is their right to continue to rule. That is a real problem for us to address. It becomes not only a position for life for themselves, but a hereditary position for their kin. That is a real problem we have to look at when we talk about democracy.

Those three things I spoke about—transparency, the rule of law and accountability—come from civil society structures. If we have the right civil society structures, if the structures and the systems are accountable to people who work in communities, and if those people understand how Governments need to be accountable to them, accountability happens when an election comes. However, if people do not have access to those institutions, the rule of democracy and people’s presumption that it is working becomes dubious. The rule of law also has a huge part to play. When people are kept away or held in prison for a long time before their cases are even heard, that is a huge problem. Civil society needs to play a role there. When people are discriminated against on the basis of their ethnicity, religion or caste, or on the basis of where they come from, there are real issues for us to look at. We need to look seriously at those things in terms of civil society.

The Minister with responsibility for the Commonwealth is here, but unfortunately, his colleague the DFID Minister did not stay. Perhaps he was unable to participate in the debate. There are several important aspects of DFID funding that we must look at. It is crucial that DFID looks at the democratic structures that I pointed out and how we can best support them. We work in different parts of countries where such things are seen differently, and we need to start to address some of those issues.

We all cherish the fact that we have protected our fantastic aid budget in difficult circumstances here at home. We want to keep protecting that budget, but if we are to do that, it must be implemented properly in countries of operation, and DFID must understand that when it allocates money in those countries, it should keep the use of external contractors to a minimum. If they are used, such contractors must be able to leave a legacy by building capacity in those countries. Unfortunately, in certain cases where projects are taken on board and contracts are issued, the people who deliver those contracts remove themselves at the end and leave a huge vacuum; the budget goes, but there is no legacy. If we build capacity in a country, it can generate further capacity in those areas and move forward.

Several Members have made huge contributions. The hon. Member for Strangford, who is passionate about this subject, quite rightly raised the issues that he strongly believes should be looked at in Pakistan, Bangladesh and India. Where people go missing without any trace or are just moved out of place, and where people are detained for long periods without trial or justice, discriminated against because of their religion or victimised for who they are, that needs to be addressed. Those are important issues against which we need to assess countries and where we need to build capacity.

I was actually in Lahore in Pakistan over Christmas. I understand a lot of the issues that the hon. Gentleman raises, but I did see one bit of progress. In the majority of places, there was a huge celebration of Christmas. I saw a huge amount of decoration and many Christmas trees, which was very heartening. In the lobby of the hotel that I stayed in, carols were sung in the evening, and people came out. That is a good sign. If the mainstream of the community starts to accept things like that, where there are issues at a local level, people can be stopped from using the legislation that is available to them to persecute the Christian community in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh or anywhere else. That is a positive start, as far as I saw, but there are certainly issues that need to be looked at. Certainly issues have been raised in relation to the Ahmadiyya community. I understand that. All the people living in that country should be treated the same. Equally, I would say that to India.

We had a debate last week in Parliament about Kashmir and the issue of civil society being allowed into Kashmir, where mass graves have been discovered. There has been huge abuse, including the use of pellet guns. Those sorts of issues have been raised, and it is important for us to recognise that.

Extreme action has also been taken in Bangladesh. People there might say that that is because of terrorist activity and that that gives them carte blanche in most instances now to do whatever they want. A huge amount of legislation has come in that clamps down on civil society, justified by the use of the word “terrorism”.

It is right to say that a huge number of countries are now using different legislation to make it difficult for civil society organisations to register and start to get funding. There are significant issues that we need to address. The hon. Member for Strangford made that point very clear. The hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) also made those issues very apparent and was very positive in the way she came across and the way she wanted to deal with them. In particular, she spoke about the conditions that are imposed on non-governmental organisations in order to frustrate the process; they are not able to do the things that she mentioned.

The hon. Member for Glasgow East (Natalie McGarry) spoke passionately about her own experience and the current situation in Turkey. All of us need to be mindful of what is going on in Turkey and how we should deal with that. Certainly the Minister should seriously look at how we can address some of those issues. I know that the Secretary of State has refused to address any of those issues, but I think it is important that we look at that. This is a close neighbour of ours and it has a huge impact in terms of access from Syria, Kurdistan, Iraq and all those areas into Europe. If the country itself is not stable in the first instance, that makes it very difficult to provide all the necessary services.

My hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) made a very passionate case on behalf of the Welsh contingent about the inter-faith practices and civil society activities that they are carrying out to a great extent. That is really powerful if we are to be a role model—to move forward and say how it is best to deliver those.

I do not want to take up too much time, because I think that the Minister wants to wrap up as well, and will be very pleased to do that. There are some serious issues to address. I had hoped that his DFID colleague would respond to the debate, because many of the issues relate to DFID, but I am thankful that this Minister is here to do so. He has himself played a very active role on most of these issues over the years, but did so particularly in his former role as a Minister of State in DFID, and he understands the issues.

I will bring to the Minister’s attention again—he should perhaps pass this on to his successor—the way in which major contractors deal with DFID contracts, the capacity-building issue and the capability that should be left after they have finished doing that. That is a key issue. There are also trade issues. Obviously, post Brexit, we will be dealing with a lot of these nations, which want to trade with us. We now have another window to be able to deal with them. We should start to insist that they treat their NGOs correctly and improve civil society in order to be able to work with us. There are a number of important issues, but certainly those two issues I ask the Minister to look at.