G7

Baroness Harman Excerpts

Wednesday 10th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Ms Harriet Harman (Camberwell and Peckham) (Lab)]

I thank the Prime Minister for his statement. I welcome the conclusions of the summit, including the reaffirmation of the G7’s aid commitment and the commitment to fighting corruption and to fighting disease overseas. I particularly welcome the support for Nigeria.

As the Prime Minister said, this is the second G7 summit from which Russia has been excluded. It is right that there should be consequences for what it is doing in Ukraine, and Russia should continue to be excluded until President Putin changes course. Sanctions against Russia should remain until the Minsk agreements are fully implemented. European Union sanctions will expire at the end of July, and the Prime Minister has said that they should be rolled over. He said in his statement that the G7 stands ready to take further restrictive measures, so will he argue at the next EU Council for sanctions to be strengthened?

At the summit, the Prime Minister acknowledged that sanctions are also having an impact on those who are imposing them, so it is right that G7 leaders agreed that more must be done to support those EU member states that are being particularly affected. Will the Prime Minister tell the House what that could mean in practice?

The Prime Minister mentioned the fight against ISIL, and we have seen the horrors of what they are doing in Mosul. It is extremely worrying to see their advances in recent weeks, particularly into Ramadi. A strong and united approach to tackling ISIL continues to be vital. We back the UK’s contribution to that effort and welcome the extra 125 military trainers being sent to Iraq at the request of the Iraqi Prime Minister.

As the Prime Minister said, the Iraqi Government must be supported in their efforts to push back ISIL’s advance and to restore stability and security across the country, so is there a need to further accelerate the recruitment, training and equipping of Iraqi forces? An inclusive and enduring political settlement is vital, so is Britain continuing to press the Iraqi Government to do more to reach out to Sunni tribes, who are key to that?

The summit also reached important conclusions on the global economy and climate change. Can the Prime Minister confirm whether, in discussions on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, he sought specific assurances from President Obama that our NHS will be protected? On climate change, will the Prime Minister clarify whether the G7’s commitment to a global goal of greenhouse gas emissions reductions will, like our Climate Change Act 2008, be legally binding?

Most of the press coverage of the G7 summit was not about the global economy, climate change or ISIL; it was once again about the Tories rowing about Europe, and it was entirely of the Prime Minister’s own doing. On Sunday, he spent the flight to Germany boasting to journalists that he would sack any Cabinet Minister who did not toe the line on the referendum. On Monday, a loyal Minister was dispatched to the “Today” programme to drive home the Prime Minister’s tough line.

Later that very day, however, the Prime Minister sounded the retreat: the travelling press had apparently misheard—it was a case not so much of collective responsibility for the Cabinet, but of collective mishearing by the travelling press pack. That sometimes happens on a flight: your ears get blocked. The Prime Minister graciously and kindly said to them:

“If you’re not certain about something I said…ask”.

May I say how grateful I am for that new approach? There are things that people are still uncertain about, so I ask the Prime Minister: what are his reform proposals and his red lines? Will he say clearly now whether, when he has finished negotiating and he comes back arguing for a yes vote, he will sack Ministers who do not agree with him, or does he agree with the Mayor of London, who says that Ministers can vote as they want? What about the Work and Pensions Secretary? Will the quiet man be here to stay, or will he be allowed to turn up the volume?

Yet again, another international summit vital to our national interests has ended in the usual way: a Tory Prime Minister fighting with his own party on Europe.

[The Prime Minister]

I enjoyed the last bit of the right hon. and learned Lady’s speech; that was going back to the old Punch and Judy that she rather restrained herself from at Prime Minister’s questions. There was only one problem, which is the premise that all this happened with journalists on the plane and their not being able to hear. I can confirm that there were no journalists on the plane, so next time she might want to get the details straight.

Let me go back to the beginning of the right hon. and learned Lady’s speech. On Russia, I am very grateful for her backing for the sanctions. She asked about the EU Council in June and the aim there will be a full rollover of the sanctions. More sanctions would be produced, I believe, if Russia took further aggressive action. We hope that that does not happen, but Russia needs to know that there would be costs if it did. We need to be cautious on the question of helping other EU states. Putting in place sanctions damages all European countries in different ways, and Britain itself faces some damage, but our argument should be not that we can individually compensate EU states but that it is in all our collective and individual interests that the rules-based system of our world continues to work and that Russia does not violate it. We should make that argument first before we consider whether there are separate measures we can take.

I thank the right hon. and learned Lady for her support of our campaign against ISIL in Iraq. She is absolutely right that that is being driven by the Iraqi Government and the long-term answer to the problems in Iraq and Syria is inclusive Governments that can represent all of their people. I am grateful for her support for the extra 125 personnel we have sent. She asked whether, in our view, Iraq needs to do more to reach out to the Sunni tribes and to train more of the security forces. She is right on both counts and that needs to happen.

On the question of TTIP, I would argue that the NHS is protected. There is no way that a TTIP agreement can lead to changes in our NHS. I suggest to the Labour party that instead of raising the profile of a threat that does not exist and trying to seek false reassurances, it would be better if the whole of the UK political system could come together and push the Americans to go further and put more on the table, so that this trade deal benefits working people in Britain. That is the argument we need to make.

The right hon. and learned Lady asked about the climate change agreement. Our view is that it should be legally binding and that is what we are pressing for. The language in the communiqué is progress and America is pitching into these arguments, but of course we would like them to go further.

I think that we dealt with all the European stuff during Prime Minister’s questions. We should lift our eyes to the horizon. The right hon. and learned Lady says that we are back to the usual service of the 1990s, but there is something very different about this Government compared with the Governments of the 1990s, either of a Labour persuasion or of a Conservative persuasion, in that we have made the historic decision to let the people decide when it comes to Europe.