Middle East

Hywel Williams Excerpts

Monday 14th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

My purpose in visiting Bahrain was to discuss the situation in the region with Bahrain’s leaders, which I did with his Majesty the King, his Royal Highness the Crown Prince, the Foreign Minister and the Prime Minister, so I had extensive discussions—[Interruption.] No, I did not have time for any leisure, despite the aspersions of those on the Opposition Front Bench. I also visited the British maritime component of the military command there, which conducts counter-terrorism and counter-piracy operations, and saw some of the valuable work that our Navy is doing, based in Bahrain. I also met human rights activists there, because the British Government have given a great deal of support to their activity, recognising that many reforms have taken place in Bahrain in recent years, but also that improvements could be made in its human rights record.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

Egypt is often seen as the cultural powerhouse in the Arab world, not least because of the production of films and books in Alexandria. What steps can the Government take to promote those valuable cultural activities and so indirectly shine a light on other closed societies in the middle east?

[Mr Hague]

That is a valuable point. I hope that we can do more in the cultural area as we work with that country in the coming months. I hope that we can do more in promoting not only civil society and the building blocks of democracy, but educational and cultural co-operation. That is part of our programme for elevating relationships throughout the middle east, so we will attend to that in this case as well.