NATO

Hugh Bayley Excerpts

Thursday 4th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered NATO.

Let me begin by thanking the Backbench Business Committee for granting us time for this afternoon’s debate. I thank colleagues, particularly fellow members of the UK delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, for joining me in requesting this debate. We used to have three or four defence debates a year in this House in Government time, but when the Government allocated time to the Backbench Business Committee they gave up, among other things, those general defence debates. I am therefore grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for giving those of us with an interest in defence and security some of that time back. I hope that when members of the Committee read the report of the debate they will feel that it was worth while and that if we make applications in the future we might get similar debates, perhaps twice a year after the two annual sessions of the Assembly.

As delegates to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly—I see in the Chamber many colleagues on both sides of the House who are part of the delegation—we have a responsibility to report back to colleagues on the work of our Assembly and of NATO. On my way into the House today, an hon. Member who had seen the agenda for this afternoon simply said to me, “You are having this debate, but why do we need NATO?” It is a question that those of us who believe that there is still a need for collective security and joint action with our allies must answer convincingly, not just for fellow Members of the House who do not share our view, but for members of the public who are often sceptical about the defence and security missions with which our country is involved and increasingly want a say in defence and foreign policy matters.

NATO, in a attempt to address that question, recently adopted a new strategic concept to define its role and mission. I do not believe, however, that we can any longer be satisfied that Ministers, ambassadors and generals understand what NATO is for. We need to explain to the public—and, clearly, from this morning’s conversation with a colleague, to other Members of Parliament—why it is still relevant and necessary.

[Angus Robertson (Moray) (SNP)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman and others for securing today’s debate. Will he confirm to other Members that his dealings with delegates from other NATO member states, particularly those from northern Europe, including Norway, Denmark and Iceland, show that they believe that the challenge of the Arctic and high north—in our backyard—should be taken seriously? Does it concern him that the Arctic and high north did not feature once in the last strategic defence and security review published by the Ministry of Defence and that the UK has declined to take part in NATO air policing operations operating from Keflavik in Iceland?

[Hugh Bayley]

I certainly agree that that is an extremely important issue in security, trade and environmental terms. The Arctic Council is one of the forums in which NATO member countries—the United States, Denmark and Canada—meet and discuss matters with Russia and other Scandinavian countries that border the Arctic. I do not think they would want the United Kingdom to join the Arctic Council as a full member, but we most certainly need to co-operate on these issues.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Hugh Bayley]

I will, because I know that my hon. Friend has taken a particularly strong interest in this matter within the Assembly.

[Mrs Moon]

Let me reassure Members that NATO takes the high north seriously. I have been fortunate enough twice to go as a delegate to the high north and a NATO conference was held in Tromsø two years ago to consider the issues of climate change and the defence risks to our back door, which is largely vulnerable and undefended by NATO.

[Hugh Bayley]

If we go back to the time of the cold war, we can see why it was relatively easy to explain why we needed collective security.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

I do not wish to delay my hon. Friend, but I thought it important to intervene following the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) to point out that one of the sub-committees of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly will visit Greenland in September, which shows NATO’s interest. British Members of this House, including me, will participate in that visit.

[Hugh Bayley]

I am glad that my hon. Friend will be on that visit, discussing the matter with colleagues from other NATO countries. I look forward to hearing from him when he reports back.

During the cold war, it was fairly easy to explain why we had NATO and why we needed to work jointly with allies to defend ourselves. Europe was divided by an iron curtain. We in democratic states to the west wanted to preserve our freedom, our human rights, trade union rights, property rights, freedom of speech and freedom to protest while the states in the east—the USSR and its fellow travellers in satellite states—did not share those values. The Soviet Union was well armed with conventional and nuclear weapons and demonstrated that it was prepared to use those military assets to crush the Hungarian uprising in 1956, to blockade Berlin, to invade Czecho- slovakia in 1968 and to try to destroy the Solidarity movement in Poland. It was quite clear to most of the public why we needed military assets to protect ourselves and why we needed to co-operate with other countries to do so.

That was long ago. We still have foreign policy differences with Russia—for instance, over Syria.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and putting NATO in its historical context. Does he not think that with some hindsight, the 1990s, when the Warsaw pact collapsed, was a time when we should have promoted European security and co-operation rather than developing NATO as a stronger, bigger military force, and that that could have brought about a level of disarmament rather than rearmament?

[Hugh Bayley]

There has been considerable disarmament and a big peace dividend on both sides of the former iron curtain since the collapse of the Berlin wall. An attempt was made to rebuild a different relationship in Europe in which the Assembly played a large part, working with the emerging democratic movements in central Europe and in the eastern European countries to help them establish the institutions that enabled them in the fullness of time to join both NATO and the European Union. The door remains open—to countries such as Georgia, for instance. Indeed, I have had heard Russian delegates—they attend the Assembly as a confidence-building measure and because we have a joint NATO-Russia parliamentary committee—ask whether if, at some future date, Russia were to want to form an association with or to join the alliance, it would be possible for it to do so. It is important not to build new barriers between parties in Europe or between Europe and other parts of the world but to seek to build co-operation where we can.

[Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)]

In connection with the intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), does not my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Hugh Bayley) think that it is a bit peculiar that Croatia, a former Soviet bloc country, entered the European Union a few days ago whereas Turkey, which has been a staunch ally of European countries for many years and is a member of NATO, still finds considerable opposition to its membership of the EU from within the EU?

[Hugh Bayley]

I must say I strongly agree with my hon. Friend, but I do not want to turn the NATO debate into a debate about the future of the EU. Turkey plays and has played an important role ever since it joined the alliance in helping to defend our freedoms in Europe, and that ought to guide the views of other EU member states when decisions are made about Turkey’s accession to the EU.

I mentioned the history, but only to show that things have moved on. Despite our foreign policy differences with Russia on certain matters, such as Syria, we co-operate on many matters. Russia provides the land bridge to convey NATO’s non-military assets to Afghanistan and will help us remove many of our assets from Afghanistan as we bring our troops home.

The question that we must answer for Members of this House who do not share our views and for the public is, “If the cold war is history, why isn’t NATO?” It is not history because we still need international co-operation and solidarity with our allies and shared and permanent structures to plan to deal with the security risks we face, to deter those risks and, when things go wrong, to manage military action.

No single NATO state, with the possible exception of the United States, has sufficient military assets to protect itself from today’s risks without the help of colleagues. Actually, I do not think the United States should be excepted, because it needs and gains international legitimacy at the UN and elsewhere when it engages in military action that is supported by its allies.

Since the end of the cold war, we have needed NATO to end conflict in the heart of Europe—in Bosnia, for example; to respond to the threat of global terrorism, which had devastating effects on the streets of New York, London, Madrid and a number of cities in east Africa and elsewhere; and to protect human rights and stop ethnic cleansing, as in Bosnia, Kosovo and Libya. We needed NATO to provide humanitarian assistance during the 2005 floods in Pakistan and, indeed, following Hurricane Katrina in the United States, when other NATO states sent humanitarian assets. We have needed NATO to counter the threat of piracy off the horn of Africa: the losses suffered at the hands of pirates now cost insurers and shipping companies many hundreds of millions of pounds less than they used to, thanks to NATO and EU coastal patrols. We also need to work collectively with our allies to deal with new and emerging threats—cyber-attack, transnational crime, people trafficking or the drugs trade. All are threats that affect the United Kingdom, but none is a threat to which we can successfully respond and against which we can protect ourselves on our own.

What does the NATO Parliamentary Assembly bring to the table? Where is our added value? After the fall of the Berlin wall, as I said in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), the Assembly sought to build bridges with democrats in the former Warsaw pact countries that wanted to move closer to the west. Indeed, the Assembly moved faster than NATO itself or the Governments of many member states to open a dialogue with those democrats.

At the end of last week, General Nick Carter, the UK soldier and deputy commander of the international security assistance force, said that peace and reconciliation talks with the Taliban should have started a decade ago, and he is right. There were people engaging with moderate leaders in the insurgency in the mid-2000s, and I met them during some of my visits to Afghanistan; but there were disputes at the time about who should do this—whether it should be the Government of Afghanistan, or perhaps the United States. I remember when two people who had been involved in talks with elements within the insurgency were expelled from Afghanistan.

Last week, lead responsibility for security passed from ISAF to the Afghan national security forces in every part of Afghanistan. As our role changes so that we no longer provide the security lead in that country, we need to learn lessons from NATO’s biggest, longest and costliest military operation. Our Parliamentary Assembly has visited Afghanistan 11 times in the past eight years, and when preparing for this debate I looked back at our reports.

In 2004, we argued that NATO, which at that time had a role in Kabul but not throughout the country, should expand its presence throughout Afghanistan. In reports in 2004, 2005 and 2006, we called for a unified command, encompassing both ISAF, the NATO mission, and the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom. Between 2005 and 2008, we published reports calling for better burden sharing between NATO member states and for caveats imposed by some of the national contributions to NATO to be lifted. As early as 2004—nine years ago—we highlighted the need to accelerate the build-up and strengthen the training of Afghan national security forces; we stressed that particularly strongly from 2006 onward.

Even in 2002—more than a decade ago—we were stressing the link between security and development assistance; and from 2006, in reports and resolutions we called for what is now described as the comprehensive approach: diplomacy, defence and development co-operation. Again as early as 2004, we identified that much aid was used inefficiently because it was not channelled through Afghan institutions, and now even 50% of US aid is channelled through the World Bank’s trust fund and the Government of Afghanistan. Interestingly, in 2006—seven years ago—we called for reconciliation talks with moderate elements in the insurgency. Since 2006, we have stressed the need to challenge the safe havens in Pakistan and we have been involving Pakistani MPs in meetings of our Assembly. I have visited Afghanistan five or six times during the period our forces have been in the country, and I have to say that many of the prescient ideas reflected in reports of our Assembly came from British commanders, British diplomats, DFID staff or British aid workers.

The Assembly is an effective forum for sharing good ideas and good practice and, where we identify good practice adopted by one country, we try to persuade others in the alliance to support similar approaches. Often, it is easier for legislators who do not have executive responsibilities to reach conclusions on these matters than it is for members of a Government. We are still, even now, debating defence budgets, following the reports we produced some years ago on burden sharing. As we know, Robert Gates, the former US Defence Secretary, in his outgoing statement, called on Europe to step up to the mark on defence spending, and it is clear to our Assembly that most countries in Europe do not spend enough on defence. Indeed, only two—Britain and Greece—spend the 2% of GDP that NATO recommends.

When I put that point to our Secretary of State, as I have a number of times, he says that, with the economic situation so fragile, now is not the right time to press Governments of other countries to increase their defence expenditure, but I believe it is necessary for security reasons, and that the way to get through the difficulty is to seek commitments that, as the economic situation improves and Governments receive a taxation dividend from growth, they will devote a proportion of it to greater defence expenditures. I do not think we have public opinion on our side for that proposition at the moment, which is another reason we need to do more to explain why we have the security structures we have in NATO and why it is necessary to maintain them and finance them properly. Both the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and NATO itself need to do more to get their case into the public domain, and I congratulate the Secretary-General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. May I gently say to the hon. Gentleman that he has been speaking for 20 minutes, and it was to be 10 to 15 minutes? I am sure that he is nearing the end now.

[Hugh Bayley]

Mr Deputy Speaker, I should not have taken so many interventions.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

You have had some extra time.

[Hugh Bayley]

I simply want to say this: we have a responsibility to make the case for defence spending in our constituencies and through debates such as this.

We need to stress also—this is the final point that I shall make—the importance of maintaining the trans-Atlantic relationship, which underpins NATO as an alliance. We share much with the United States and Canada in terms of our culture, history, family links from not just the United Kingdom but many European families, and trade links. The United States and Canada exported more to the European Union last year—$304 billion worth of goods and services—than they did to Japan, China and Korea combined, to which they exported $266 billion. EU exports in the opposite direction are more than $400 billion to the United States and Canada and $300 billion to east Asia.

We need to stress these things that we have in common. Of course the United States should focus on security concerns that it faces in the Pacific, but it should not forget the common interests it has with us in Europe, on which we need to work together.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hugh Bayley]

rose—

[Mike Gapes]

I give way to the president of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.

[Hugh Bayley]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about the new military co-operation between Britain and the Irish Republic. When I was in Mali, just a week or two before him, I saw a training unit led by a British major and, from the Irish Republic, an Irish captain. However, my hon. Friend made a slip of the tongue: he referred to the Royal Irish Regiment, but of course those forces were from the Republic of Ireland.

[Mike Gapes]

I am grateful for that intervention.

Let me turn to some of the other issues that have been raised. An important point was made about the internet and cyber-warfare. NATO has a facility in Estonia—I have visited it with the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs and I know that the NATO Parliamentary Assembly has also visited it—to bring together best practice for dealing with cyber-warfare. As we have seen from the media headlines in the last few days, we will face significant challenges, not just from states but, I suspect, over the coming decades from private interests and private companies spying and stealing data and commercially sensitive material. We also know of reports—I am not in a position to say whether they are true—that the Iranian nuclear weapons programme was seriously set back because of the activities of some countries and the so-called Stuxnet, and there are other areas where these matters are also of great importance.

International security is enhanced by co-operation, not just in hardware and personnel but in intelligence and security sharing. We need to be honest: these are not issues that can be dealt with by simplistic headlines in The Guardian or any other newspaper. They have to be looked at seriously. There needs to be international co-operation to deal with threats to our security, which might come not from terrorist bombs but from somebody sabotaging a banking system or undermining the supply of electricity or water to our major cities by making a minor change to a software programme, albeit one with potentially disastrous consequences. We need to look at those issues. I believe that NATO has a role in that respect.

My final point relates to the United States, which has already been referred to several times. We have heard about the so-called pivot towards Asia, President Obama’s strategy of leading from behind and all the other concerns that we have as Europeans. The NATO Parliamentary Assembly provides one of the few forums for members of the US House of Representatives and the Canadian Parliament to come to meetings at which we can have regular discussions with them. Sadly, given the nature of the insane political system in the United States and two-year elections to the House of Representatives, it is difficult for its members to get abroad very often, because they have to spend all their time raising election campaign money or fighting re-elections, normally in their primaries.

The NATO Parliamentary Assembly is important, because it means that there is a group of Americans from the Republicans and the Democrats who have had contact with and learnt about European politics. In the same way, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly provides a way for people from European countries to understand the politics of other countries better. The current President of Turkey, Abdullah Gul, was a member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly for many years. I am sure that that was important, given that he comes from the AK party, which comes out of an Islamist tradition. He has clearly learnt a great deal and built confidence and understanding with other European parliamentarians and those from across the Atlantic.

The forum that is provided, the specialist committees and the reports that the NATO Parliamentary Assembly publishes provide members of Parliaments in different countries with vital information that they would not always get from their own Ministries of Defence—I am glad that the Minister is in his place to hear this. In the more than 10 years that I have been attending meetings of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, I have found that the access we get to high-level meetings and the information we get in those meetings is often far superior to the level of information I used to get as a member of the Select Committee on Defence or the Foreign Affairs Committee. That is not something to be proud of.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hugh Bayley]

I cannot respond to all the wonderful, well-informed, thoughtful and powerful contributions that colleagues have made to this debate.

I will respond briefly to the exchange between the hon. Members for St Austell and Newquay (Stephen Gilbert) and for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) about NATO’s initial reluctance to get involved in the former Yugoslavia. In the early ’90s, before I was a member of the Parliamentary Assembly, I was part of a cross-party delegation to NATO along with Max Madden, who would have been close politically to my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), and the late Michael Colvin, who was a mainstream Conservative. We went to ask how practical it would be in military terms to intervene. Everybody at NATO said that it was utterly out of the question, until we got to meet the chairman of the military committee, Sir Richard Vincent. He said that it would have to be done sooner or later, and the longer we waited, the more difficult the military options would be.

I welcome the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North. He is very much in a minority in the Chamber, but he speaks for many people in the general public whom we have to convince. The Chairman of the Defence Committee, who made an extremely good speech, said that he disagreed with me on one point. He said that the NATO Parliamentary Assembly is not doing enough to make the case for the Assembly or for NATO itself. I would agree with him about that. Perhaps we have made a start today in this debate.

This has been an exceptionally good debate. It is my intention to go back to the Backbench Business Committee and request debates twice a year after the spring and autumn plenary sessions of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. If they are as good as this debate, they will be worth while and will help to explain why we are a member of the alliance and what the Parliamentary Assembly does.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered NATO.

Oral Answers to Questions

Hugh Bayley Excerpts

Tuesday 18th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Swire]

Indeed, and narcotics impinges on the human rights of people in Colombia and, unfortunately, of people here in the UK, Mr Speaker. Yes, we will give our full support—we are giving our full support—to the Government of Colombia. President Santos is a keen Anglophile, and we are very supportive as a Government of what he is doing in leading his country from the dark days of the past to a much brighter future.

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

11. What matters he has recently discussed with the US Secretary of State.

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)]

I met Secretary Kerry in Washington last week. Our talks covered Syria, the middle east peace process, the G8 summit, Afghanistan and climate change.

[Hugh Bayley]

At the start of his first term, President Obama said that he would close Guantanamo Bay within a year. Will the Foreign Secretary tell us how close the prison now is to closure, what is being done in the interim to ensure the health and well-being of Guantanamo detainees, what steps the Prime Minister has taken to secure the return of Shaker Aamer and whether it will be discussed during the G8?

[Mr Hague]

The President has made a number of statements about Guantanamo Bay, including in the last few weeks reiterating his determination to close it. We welcome that. I have discussed with Secretary Kerry the position of the last remaining UK resident, Shaker Aamer, and expressed our wish to see him return to the UK. We will see after the G8 whether it has provided an opportunity for the Prime Minister to raise the issue with President Obama.

Iran

Hugh Bayley Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend is right to remind the House of all those things. We have discussed the opportunity for Iran to play a constructive role. Let us be absolutely clear that it does not do so at the moment in regional relations or in many of the conflicts around the middle east, most spectacularly of all in the case of Syria, where Iran is actively fuelling the oppression of the Syrian people. My hon. Friend’s words are wise and should be heeded.

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

Will the Foreign Secretary say a bit about Iran’s relationship with its eastern neighbour, Afghanistan? As our troops leave Afghanistan over the next 18 months or so, stability in that country will depend on its having good relations with all its neighbours. Both Iran and Afghanistan would gain from better bilateral relations. What can the UK do to make that happen?

[Mr Hague]

That is a very important point. There are reasonably good relations between the Governments of Afghanistan and Iran. I hope that any new Government in Iran would want to build on that. Those relations are important given their common border and their common interest in counter-narcotics. It is important that they are able to work together. The United Kingdom does nothing to obstruct that, despite all our difficulties with Iran. We will continue to believe that they ought to have good, constructive relations.

Mau Mau Claims (Settlement)

Hugh Bayley Excerpts

Thursday 6th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his support for the statement. The relationship with Kenya is very important to our country, and I mentioned a few moments ago the many different dimensions of it. It is a relationship that we want to expand, in terms of trade in particular, to the benefit of both nations. It is also very important for stability in east Africa. Given the UK’s leading role there, for instance in the work we do on Somalia, our relations with Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia are of great importance, and we give great attention to them. I hope relations between the UK and Kenya will develop over the coming years and decades in a true sense of partnership, with the new generations moving on fully from everything that happened in the colonial era. A sense of equal partnership with African nations is now how we should approach our relationships with these countries.

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

I welcome the statements, expressing regret, made by both the Foreign Secretary and the shadow Foreign Secretary. The ghastly impact of Mau Mau on African Kenyan citizens as well as European settlers is well documented in the wonderful books by the Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o, but we must accept that there were totally unacceptable actions by British colonial authorities, and I am glad that has happened today. We have an important development relationship with Kenya, and important joint security concerns, such as on piracy off the coast of Africa. To what extent will this statement make it easier for our countries to co-operate, and to do so better than before, on issues of common interest?

[Mr Hague]

I hope it will make it easier. It should remove one of the areas of contention between the UK and Kenya—or the people of Kenya. The hon. Gentleman rightly notes the breadth and importance of our co-operation, so I hope it will smooth the path for our effective co-operation in the future. Of course that relies on many other things, however. It relies on the daily commitment of each nation to make our bilateral relations work successfully, but I certainly hope this settlement will be a help, rather than a hindrance, in that very important process.

Oral Answers to Questions

Hugh Bayley Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

12. What progress has been made on rebuilding democratic and accountable institutions in Mali; and if he will make a statement.

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

The UK’s primary goal in Mali is to encourage the transitional authorities to pursue an inclusive political process that supports long-term stability. We welcome the commitment to a road map and the creation of a national commission for dialogue and reconciliation, but rapid progress is required if that is to stay on track.

[Hugh Bayley]

The French Parliament has just voted to extend France’s military mission to Mali at least until the end of the year. A French colonel is reported in Le Monde as saying that the Malian military remains ill-equipped and ill-trained. How long does the Minister think the UK will contribute by deploying troops to the EU training mission?

[Mark Simmonds]

Let us be absolutely clear that the UK is offering the French deployment, at the behest of the civilian-led sovereign Government of Mali, limited logistical support. Approximately 40 UK military personnel are deployed as part of the EU training mission, three of whom are specifically related to the Foreign Secretary’s initiative on preventing sexual violence in conflict. They are there to train the Malian army with respect to human rights. Other international and multilateral discussions are taking place on deploying AFISMA—the African-led international support mission to Mali—to replace the French troops and, ultimately, a UN mission.

G8 Foreign Ministers

Hugh Bayley Excerpts

Monday 15th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

We heard from our hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), who is no longer in his place, about how unpredictable world events are, and it is not wise for Foreign Secretaries to express complete confidence in a happy outcome for every single situation. I am confident, however, that the international community is united on both those issues, and given that unity it would be wholly irrational on the part of North Korea or Iran to continue down the path they are following at the moment. One cannot, of course, rule out miscalculations and sometimes irrationality, but I am at least confident that all countries that should be working together are doing so. I mentioned the unity on North Korea, and on Iran we work as the E3 plus 3, which includes all five permanent members of the Security Council, including Russia and China. There could not be stronger international unity on those subjects.

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

Humanitarian needs arising from Syria and work on violence against women both require aid. The last time the G8 met at a Heads of Government meeting in the UK, they came to an historic Make Poverty History deal to increase aid. The new Government support that decision but some G8 countries are backsliding from the commitments they made at Gleneagles. Will that be discussed when the Heads of Government meet in G8 format later this year?

[Mr Hague]

That was an important agreement and across parties we should be proud that this year we are hitting the 0.7% UN target on overseas aid. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that not all G8 members have done that—not all are even increasing their aid, let alone hitting the target. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will be chairing the Heads of Government meeting, and he is of course passionate about this subject. I will put the hon. Gentleman’s point to him.

Syria

Hugh Bayley Excerpts

Wednesday 6th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend described that case very well, but, as he knows, such decisions are for the Home Secretary. I cannot say that in all circumstances we will be opening doors for people to come to the United Kingdom. As I have said, there are now 1 million refugees in other countries. It is the responsibility of the countries that receive the refugees to look after them, with international support, and I pay tribute to the generosity of the people of Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan and Iraq in what they are doing, and we are doing our best to assist. That is the prime way for refugees to be assisted. My hon. Friend’s question serves as a reminder, however, that not only are 4 million out of the population of 21 million displaced or in desperate need, but many of the remaining people are in extremely dangerous and stressful conditions and are unable to pursue normal life in any way, so this is affecting the great majority of the whole country.

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

The divisions among factions in the moderate and democratic opposition not only make the extremists stronger, but make the process of staging negotiations very difficult and the ability to determine who will form a Government of Syria when the regime falls absolutely impossible. What are our Government and allies doing to get greater coherence and common purpose within the moderate opposition?

[Mr Hague]

There is much greater coherence now than there has been for a long time. In the circumstances, it is not surprising that it is difficult to bring together something like the national coalition, but it is very much the best attempt that can reasonably be made to bring together those moderate and democratic forces, and it is now there to be negotiated with. Quite often over the past two years the refrain of some of the other countries on the Security Council and of the regime has been, “We want to negotiate, but we do not have someone to negotiate with.” Now they do not have that excuse. The national coalition is there for them to negotiate with, and it is willing to negotiate, so the onus is now on the regime to show that it can seriously negotiate.

Syria

Hugh Bayley Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

As I have mentioned, it is impossible from outside Syria, or even from inside, to quantify that balance precisely. It is the contention of leading figures in the National Coalition that the great majority of those taking part in the fighting, and those opposing the Assad regime peacefully, want a free future for their country and their people, want rid of the regime and do not have an ideological or religious fundamental agenda. Certainly, acquaintance with the leading figures of the National Coalition corroborates that view. Their sincere contention is to bring about a free and democratic Syria. The longer the conflict goes on, the greater the opportunity for extremist groups to establish themselves. I do not want to offer any quantification of that, but the balance of opinion among opposition forces is still, thankfully, on what we would call the moderate side.

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

I hope that the Patriot missiles and the American, Dutch and German troops operating them will deter further attacks and incursions from Syria into Turkey. Will the Foreign Secretary explain to the House under whose command the missiles are and in what circumstances an order could be given to use them?

Middle East and North Africa

Hugh Bayley Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Yes, I assure my hon. Friend that our diplomats are religiously neutral about religion. We support the rights of minorities throughout the world, including the right to freedom of worship. In that, we do not differentiate religions and that should apply all over the world.

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

I have profound respect for the role of our armed services in Libya. However, we know from experience in Afghanistan and Iraq that the challenges of post-war reconstruction can be as taxing as military operations. Will the Foreign Secretary soon make a written statement to spell out our plans for post-war reconstruction in Libya and for the development of democratic institutions using agencies such as the Westminster Foundation for Democracy? Will Britain support the inclusion of Libya in NATO’s Mediterranean dialogue?

[Mr Hague]

I will seek every opportunity to keep the House updated on what we are doing. To give a brief answer, I stress that this is a very different situation from Iraq or Afghanistan: there is no serious damage to the civilian infrastructure, it is a Libyan-led effort and there is no occupying army. The hon. Gentleman asks about our plans, but I stress that they are Libya’s plans for the stabilisation of its country. They are not plans for reconstruction, because the children are at school, the shops are open and the traffic is running, as I have seen for myself in Tripoli and Benghazi. We are involved in many ways, some of which I listed in my statement. As matters develop, as the transitional Government come in and as the UN mission expands its work, I would be happy to spell out in more detail in a written statement or in another statement to the House what we will be doing.

Libya (London Conference)

Hugh Bayley Excerpts

Wednesday 30th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. We have not, so far, been using our armed forces to deliver humanitarian aid, although contingency planning done by various nations includes the ability to do that. However, it is better, if at all possible, to deliver humanitarian aid in a way that does not get that aid involved in the conflict that is going on in Libya. So we are trying to get that aid in by supporting other organisations and by some direct deliveries from our allies. As the Secretary of State for International Development made clear at his Department’s Question Time, that has enabled us to provide essential supplies for a very large number of people already.

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

What assessment have the Government made of the risk of civilian casualties if the insurgent forces were to get to Tripoli and start fighting, street by street, for control of the capital? What likelihood is there that the political track would create some kind of solution and a ceasefire before that situation arose?

[Mr Hague]

Obviously, what we are hoping for and looking for is a genuine ceasefire—that is what the whole world wants to see. If the Gaddafi regime would accept that on the terms that I was discussing earlier with the right hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mr Alexander)—it should not be difficult to do that—we would have a ceasefire and everybody would be able to proceed from there. All I can say about the opposition forces and the danger of civilian deaths from their activities is that, so far, we have no record of their being engaged in attacks on civilians. For one thing, they have not made frontal attacks on civilian areas and, for another, where they have managed to gain territory they have generally been welcomed by the local people. It is certainly part of the beliefs of the opposition that in most of the western towns and cities of Libya there would be a very strong welcome for the opposition forces. So they have avoided civilian casualties in their own operations so far, and we look to them to continue to do so.