Humanitarian Crisis in the Mediterranean and Europe

Debate between Hilary Benn and Bob Stewart

Wednesday 9th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. The Government will use the international development budget, as the official development assistance rules allow, in the first year to support local authorities, but she raises the question of what will happen the following year. I have no doubt that one of the first questions local authorities will ask Ministers when they meet will be, “If you’re going to help us in the first year, how are we going to sustain that support?” Every one of us knows the extraordinary pressure that local authority budgets are under.

Turning to the cause of the crisis, the Prime Minister was right to say that it will be solved only when peace and stability return to Syria. Despite considerable efforts, no progress has been made and yesterday the UN envoy, Staffan de Mistura, said there was no more time for a long political process, and he is right. He urged Saudi Arabia and Iran finally to start talking to each other, as Russia, the United States and other countries are doing. We need an urgent diplomatic effort, under the auspices of the United Nations, to work out a future for Syria. It is time that Syria’s neighbours started trying to solve the conflict instead of continuing to fuel it. They should also discuss—I understand that this is extremely difficult in Syria—whether it is possible to establish safe havens to help those who are fleeing violence, and they should talk about the humanitarian funding crisis that we have just discussed.

We also have a responsibility, as part of the international coalition, to defeat ISIL/Daesh, politically and militarily, and to confront its brutal ideology. We should be unashamed in proclaiming our values of openness and respect for others in direct opposition to its brutality and ignorance, which have forced so many people to flee for their lives. One of the best ways in which we can give expression to the best of British values is to welcome and take in those who have fled, because we have a long and honourable tradition as a nation of giving shelter to those fleeing further persecution.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for allowing me to intervene. What really concerns me is that within Syria there are huge numbers of would-be refugees. In my experience people who have no resources whatsoever, who are traumatised and terrified and who are being beaten up and killed are stuck. It is our duty, as the shadow Secretary of State has said, to sort out what is happening on the ground in Syria as part of an international effort.

[Hilary Benn]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman, who has great experience in these matters and is a true humanitarian. We need to put as much effort as possible into putting pressure on those who hold in their hands the future of this conflict and its resolution.

I want to reflect on what else this crisis and the wider points it raises tell us. It shows us that the Dublin agreement, which says that people entering Europe should seek asylum in the first country in which they arrive, and the Schengen agreement, which allows free movement but does not apply to the United Kingdom, are both creaking at the seams. It is unsustainable—this was the argument I made to the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) when he intervened earlier—for some countries, just because of their geographical position, to bear the full weight of responsibility for refugees when they clearly cannot cope.

It shows us that the idea that leaving the European Union would somehow make the problem go away is absolute nonsense. A refugee fleeing with her family and her children is not suddenly going to stop at Calais and say, “Ah! Britain’s not in the European Union any more. I’m not going to take another step forward.”

It reminds us that we live in an increasingly interdependent world: what happens in one country will affect all of us who live in another country, even if we happen to be far away. In the 21st century we cannot, as human beings, shut the doors and close the curtains and wish that the rest of the world would go away.

Britain in the World

Debate between Hilary Benn and Bob Stewart

Monday 1st June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I shall deal shortly with the hon. Gentleman’s point about that part of the franchise.

Let me also say to the Foreign Secretary that reform in Europe is not solely down to what one country asks for at one moment in time. It is about building alliances and making friends, as the Prime Minister is now discovering, and that approach too can bring big change over time. The fundamental challenge that we face now is to make the case that Britain’s place lies in a reforming European Union. Why? Because this is about jobs, investment, growth, influence and security.

Last year we marked the centenary of the outbreak of the great war—the muddy slaughter that claimed the flower of a generation from Europe—and this year we commemorate the end of the second world war. We should never forget, bearing in mind that what we thought would never happen again is now happening in other parts of the world, that as the leaders of post-war Europe looked upon the names of the fallen carved on their gravestones, row upon row upon row, they resolved they would bring the nations of Europe together in the interests of peace. Seventy years on, that has lasted, but we can never take it for granted, and we can never take for granted the other benefits that membership of the EU has brought.

The removal of barriers to trade has helped to create and sustain jobs. It gives us access to a market of 500 million people. Nearly half the trade and foreign investment in this country comes from the EU, and competing in the single market with the best companies in the world helps to drive innovation and creates new markets for British businesses. The EU has improved living standards throughout Europe and for British workers by giving them, for instance, the right to paid holiday and equal treatment.

Given all that, it makes no sense for us to turn our back on Europe, and to leave it on the wing and a prayer of a better deal outside. Those who point to Norway and Switzerland should note what the Foreign Secretary himself told the House recently, when he drew attention to the terms that those two countries had negotiated for access to the single market. He said:

“those terms require the Swiss and Norwegians to accept wholesale the body of EU law without having any say in the making of it, to contribute financially and to abide by the principles of free movement.”—[Official Report, 3 March 2015; Vol. 593, c. 807-08.]

Those are some of the many reasons for Labour’s belief that the European Union is central to our future prosperity, and by the end of 2017 the British people will make the most important decision about our place in the world that they have faced for 40 years when they vote on our membership of the EU. We will campaign for a yes vote, and we will argue for British 16 and 17-year-olds to be given a say in that decision, because it is about their future too—just as we argued in the general election so recently fought that the franchise for all elections in this country should be extended to them.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Would the right hon. Gentleman argue that 16 and 17-year-olds should be sent into battle? I think it wrong that although we do not allow our soldiers to go into battle until they are 18, we—or some people—are quite prepared to envisage 16 and 17-year-olds voting to send them into battle.

[Hilary Benn]

No, I would not change that age, but I say to the hon. Gentleman that, when one thinks that the law allows a 16 or 17-year-old to give full consent to medical treatment, leave school, enter work or training, join a trade union, pay income tax and national insurance, obtain tax credits and welfare benefits, consent to sexual relationships, get married—albeit with the parents’ consent—change their name by deed poll, become a director of a company and indeed join the armed forces, it seems to me that we ought to be able to trust them to participate in that democratic decision.

Ensuring peace and security around the world must be at the heart of our diplomatic and security efforts. We live in a differently dangerous world today, with a multiplicity of threats, military, political, natural and cyber. The ultimate responsibility of Government is to defend the nation, and we remain committed to a minimum credible independent nuclear capability delivered through continuous at-sea deterrence while supporting global, multilateral disarmament negotiations and further reductions in stockpiles and numbers of weapons. We are also committed to upholding the rights of the Falkland islanders to remain British, including by ensuring the defence of the islands.