Oral Answers to Questions
Giles Watling Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Hunt
As my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Middle East said earlier, we do not agree with the American Administration’s decision on this issue. Today’s funding announcement is part of our response, but I reassure the hon. Gentleman that we will talk to other donors as well, to see whether we can make up the gap in funding to UNRWA that has been caused by that decision.
Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)
Russian Federation Activity
Giles Watling Excerpts(6 years ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship for the second time, Mr Bone, and to follow the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock). I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Seely) on securing today’s important debate, although my speech will be more about not letting our guard down than going through several points; I have no list.
As colleagues may be aware, this is an issue on which I have spoken several times since my election last year. Nevertheless, I continue to be concerned about Russia’s threatening activity. I grew up in the ’50s and ’60s, and I remember the practice sirens to warn us of impending nuclear attack. That was the most chilling time of anyone’s life, and none of us wants to go back there.
Russia’s activity undoubtedly affects our country, and we continue to see Russian military forces probing our boundaries. That aspect of Russian behaviour poses a real danger to the UK and our overstretched armed forces. Russian submarine activity has increased tenfold in the north Atlantic in recent years, and last year we had to respond to 33 of those incursions. That is a concern, but the threat from Russia goes far beyond that. It is growing and adapting and the threat has now taken on a more malign form. In this country, we know that all too well, given the devastating and seemingly effortless use of the nerve agent Novichok on the streets of Salisbury earlier this year. Although that was indeed a reckless action, we would be naive to think that that is all that Russia has planned, given our level of exposure to a potentially catastrophic cyber-attack, similar to NotPetya in Ukraine. That follows warnings from GCHQ and the FBI that Russia is currently targeting millions of computers in preparation for a major cyber-attack.
Moreover, some of the evidence that we took in the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee shows frightening use of bots and misinformation, which to my mind is aimed at driving wedges into the western alliance. We are not just dealing with traditional threats—those that come from land, sea and air. Hostile activity from Russia directed towards this country is becoming more common. It is also adapting and taking more aspersive forms: cyber-attacks. As I have said before, those are not the actions of a rational state with a stable leadership that wants to play by the rules. We should remember that when we consider our next steps.
When dealing with Russia we must try to look at the balance of power in Europe from a Russian point of view. As my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) recently pointed out, there has been a sort of Russian national paranoia for most of its existence—especially since 1917—and with some reason. The hon. Member for Aberavon touched on that. Consider the losses and upheaval suffered through two world wars, with 20 million dead in world war two alone.
The Russian people are kept in a state of constant existential threat by their leadership. I do not believe that we in the west deliberately create that threat. We must maintain a strong defence, but that is read in Russia as a threat because that is how the modern Russian leadership clings to power and, incidentally, to unbelievable wealth. By portraying the west as an evil coalition determined to bring Russia to its knees, Putin’s administration manages the outlook of the Russian people. They feel surrounded, and therefore do what history teaches us that states in that condition do: they cling to a perceived powerful leader. It is no accident that Putin is often shown in a heroic light—sometimes bare chested, riding a horse and carrying a gun. I am very glad that our leaders do not do the same, although I am glad that our Government are showing strength and sending the strongest possible message of condemnation to the Russian leadership. Their continued provocations must be met with an appropriate and sustained response.
That response, however, must come from the international community as a whole, as we are seeing similar activity from Russia around the world. To pick just a couple of examples, we have seen the use of hard power in Crimea and Syria recently, as we saw it in Georgia and Chechnya in the past. Although I have no doubt that we will see that again in the future, it is right that, in the face of such hostility and overwhelming historical precedent, we deploy a range of tools from the full breadth of our national security apparatus, to prevent it from happening again. It is appropriate that we continue to push for NATO to strengthen its deterrence and defence capabilities, while ensuring that dialogue with Russia continues, as part of the alliance’s commitment to avoiding misunderstanding and miscalculation.
We must also remember that the big scary bear to the east is not really that powerful at all, as was touched on earlier. Its economy is two thirds of ours; it is smaller than Italy’s. Its economy is also flatlining, showing no signs of growth. It does not stand a chance of competing seriously with us, Europe or America. So what does it do? It seeks to destabilise those around it, while concentrating the minds of its population on an existential threat. In the past, that meant massively investing in tanks, guns and aeroplanes, which they and we did, but they have discovered a new and much cheaper weapon of destabilisation, which could be equally devastating: the aforementioned cyber-attack. We have had several cyber-incursions of late. So far, we have dealt with them, but they are constant.
I have described Russia as not being so scary, but because it spends a significant amount of its GDP on defence, it has a very competent military—nothing close to the combined might of the west, but potentially devastating—and now the bear is wounded and cornered and therefore weak. Like any wild animal in such circumstances, it becomes incredibly dangerous. That is why we must maintain our alliances. We must maintain and enhance our defence spending. We need to secure our tier 1 military status as a matter of priority and maintain our position in NATO by increasing our own budget to 3% of GDP. We must also push for more NATO members to meet and exceed the target of investing 2% of their GDP on defence.
Overall, we must speak beyond the Russian leadership, who have a vested interest in maintaining the dangerous instability. We must speak directly to the Russian people, reassure them that we mean no harm and bring them into the fold of harmonious human co-existence. They might then rid themselves of their dangerous leadership and thus, as a peaceful neighbour, become a prosperous part of the European family.
We have no disagreement with the people of Russia, who have been responsible, as the Prime Minister said, for so many great achievements throughout their history—including the ongoing World Cup, which England will surely win. We must celebrate that which unites us, such as football, while being wary of that which divides us.
Oral Answers to Questions
Giles Watling Excerpts(6 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Speaker
I beg the hon. Gentleman’s pardon, but I think that Mr Mahmood wanted to come in from the Front Bench.
Sir Alan Duncan
As I have just said, we have. The answer again is yes, we would like President Erdoğan to lift the state of emergency. In the course of the elections, there were sort of commitments to do so, and we hope that those commitments can be fulfilled by lifting it as soon as possible.
Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Boris Johnson)
We believe that the illegal wildlife trade is not only odious in itself but associated with many other forms of criminality. That is why we are hosting a global conference on tackling the illegal wildlife trade in London this October.
Giles Watling
According to the International Fund for Animal Welfare, illegal wildlife trading is increasingly occurring on the interweb. Will my right hon. Friend tell me what steps are being taken to counter this?
Boris Johnson
My hon. Friend is right on the money there, and indeed ahead of the curve. We see that risk, and that was why the Foreign and Commonwealth Office hosted a group of leading technology companies only a few weeks ago to develop new ways of combating the online trade in these specimens that he mentions.
Oral Answers to Questions
Giles Watling Excerpts(6 years, 1 month ago)
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Harriett Baldwin
I am delighted that the hon. Lady has managed to get this important issue on the Order Paper and up for discussion in the House of Commons, because it is a serious situation. There is violence from all sides in Cameroon and we are extremely concerned about the situation. We are encouraging not only the Government there but all Cameroonians to participate in a process of inclusive dialogue. It is an election year and the election must take place without people resorting to violence.
Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Boris Johnson)
If every girl in the world had 12 years of quality education, this world would be infinitely safer, vastly more prosperous and better, which is why education for girls is at the heart of Government policy.
Giles Watling
I thank the Secretary of State for his answer, but I am concerned that, according to UNESCO estimates, 130 million girls between the ages of 6 and 17 are out of school and 15 million girls of primary school age, half of them in sub-Saharan Africa, will never enter a classroom. Will my right hon. Friend reassure me that tackling this issue will continue to be a top priority for global Britain?
Boris Johnson
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and the statistics are truly horrifying. There are countries around the world, including in sub-Saharan Africa, where female illiteracy is running at 60%, 70% or sometimes 80%, which is why the UK is in the lead in campaigning at the UN, the G7 and the G20 for focus on this issue. That is also why the Prime Minister announced a further £212 million for girls’ education at the recent Commonwealth summit.