Military Action Overseas: Parliamentary Approval

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Andrew Selous

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Parliament’s rights in relation to the approval of military action by British Forces overseas.

It is great to see you in the Chair, Mr Speaker. All I have to say is that the nation stands in admiration of your constitution and as you were in the Chair yesterday from bell to bell for eight and a half hours we are all now in admiration of your personal constitution as well. I also thank you for granting this debate.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) was right in yesterday’s debate when she said, in quoting the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), that this is a hung Parliament and therefore political power must pass from the Cabinet to the Floor of the House. But I do not totally agree with that analysis; the lack of a majority makes it more urgent, but the principle of accountability to Parliament when it comes to war making was established in 2003, when the Labour party had a large majority, and that principle must now be enshrined in law. Indeed, the tombstone of the former Foreign Secretary, our friend the late Robin Cook, who warned so eloquently in this House against the decision to invade Iraq, records his words:

“I may not have succeeded in halting the war, but I did secure the right of Parliament to decide on war.”

I am sorry to say that the Government are now attempting to overturn that democratic advance.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that protecting the lives of UK servicemen and women will sometimes require the use of surprise and that therefore prior parliamentary approval could on occasion be life-threatening?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I will be dealing with that point during my speech. I do understand the point the hon. Gentleman is making and the need for urgent action at times, and there are provisions for that in the proposals we are putting forward.

During yesterday’s statement, the Father of the House—the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke)— the leader of the Scottish National party and the leader of the Liberal Democrats, as well as of the official Opposition, agreed that Parliament should have been recalled. That is a common position on all sides of the House, absolutely irrespective of our views on the action undertaken in Syria last Saturday morning.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Andrew Selous

Tuesday 17th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous]

I can tell my hon. Friend that we are improving significantly the amount of work and education in prisons. As the Secretary of State said, the number of qualifications has increased, and the number of courses is increasing as well. We will keep a focus on this important area.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

When the Lord Chancellor had the pleasure of meeting lawyers from all over the world at this global summit, how many of them came up to him and said what a great idea it was to advance the human rights cause around the world while withdrawing from the European convention on human rights, and did they offer him any advice on the need to remain within the orbit of international humanitarian law?

Iran (Human Rights)

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Andrew Selous

Wednesday 11th January 2012 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you, Dr McCrea. I congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) on securing this important debate. She may be interested to know that Michael Nazir-Ali, a Member of the House of Lords and formerly Bishop of Rochester, was very active on behalf of the Baha’i community in Iran in his recent travels to that country.

I want to echo some of the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson), who talked about the persecution of Christians in Iran, a subject I have raised on the Floor of the House with the Minister. It is important to say at the start that Christianity in Iran is as old as Iran itself. We know from the New Testament that Parthians, Medes and Elamites—all tribes from Iran—were present on the day of Pentecost. Furthermore, some of the earliest Christian missionaries to China were Iranians, and there is a lot of evidence that the early Church in Iran went back to the early centuries after the birth of Christ, and to people such as Tatian the Assyrian.

Any idea that the regime in Iran tries to put out that Christians are somehow not intrinsically Iranian, not patriotic or not part of the country is therefore historically wholly untrue and is not borne out by the facts, even though Christians are few in number in Iran. Their numbers are growing, however, and there is considerable growth in the Church. That is despite the fact that eight Christian leaders have been murdered for their faith since 1979. Open Doors, another excellent charity, which looks at religious freedom around the world, says Iran is the second-worst country in the world in which to be a Christian, after North Korea. Some colleagues in the Chamber were at this morning’s debate on North Korea, in which we looked at the position of minorities—Christians and others—in that country.

I was delighted by the Foreign Secretary’s intervention in the case of Pastor Nadarkhani, which was bold and clear, and it was heard in this country and around the world. I agree with the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), who said that our interventions do have an effect. Things may not change immediately, but countries do not like justified, evidence-based international criticism. Such debates are worth while in a small way, because when we mention the names of people who have been wrongly treated for whatever reason, we show our concern for them, and that has an effect. Those of us who are privileged to have a platform from which to speak in this place are called to be a voice for the voiceless, as my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough rightly said.

It is right that we go on raising the case of Pastor Nadarkhani, and that of Pastor Fahad, who is in detention. Pastor Fahad’s Christmas service was raided on 23 December, when many of us were enjoying the freedom to go to carol services and so on in our communities. Children in the Sunday school were arrested and taken into detention—what an appalling thing to do to children.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that intolerance in Iran towards Christians and, indeed, other religious minorities, including Jewish people, is outwith the traditions of Persia before the Shah’s time, when there was considerable religious tolerance of a wide variety of faiths?

[Andrew Selous]

That is a good point, and it adds to some of the historical context that I was trying to give earlier. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for quite properly putting that on the record.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough, I want to mention the case of Farshid Fathi, who was imprisoned just over a year ago, on 26 December 2010. He is still in Evin prison, and I have not met him, but I have met Dr Tony Sargent from the International Christian College in Glasgow, who knows him well. Farshid Fathi is a very bright and dynamic young man who is the life and soul of the party, but he is languishing in prison when he should be free to nurture a church, as he feels called to. Similarly, Pastor Behnam Irani was imprisoned in May 2011, and he, too, is someone we should not forget. I agree with the concerns my hon. Friend raised about the Islamic Penal Bill. There is still the possibility that the death sentence could appear in it for apostates.

In mid-August last year, 6,500 Bibles were seized in Zanjan province. It is illegal for Christians in Iran to print or sell Persian Bibles, such as the one that I am holding. Bibles have been seized, and there have been reports of some having been burned. Christians around the world rightly condemned the threatened burning of a Koran by a rather fringe and slightly lunatic pastor in Florida some years ago, so some condemnation by Muslims of what we have heard from Iran on the burning of Bibles would be welcome and would give us a bit of reciprocity.

I have had meetings with diplomats from the Iranian embassy, but I do not think that there will be many more, because they are back in Tehran at the moment. I met Mr Mousavi and Mr Sahabi, and got the impression that they were personally slightly uncomfortable with what is going on in Iran, which is perhaps a glimmer of hope for the future. When I met them in the Pugin Room, they gave me a document, which I have with me today, called “Minorities in the Islamic Republic of Iran”. It reads very well, as documents from Governments with poor human rights records tend to, and it says that Christians in Iran should

“Enjoy freedom in holding religious ceremonies and rites.”

We know from what my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough eloquently said that that is not the case at all.

It is right that we keep raising such matters and do not give up. History tells us that the cause of freedom shines through in the end. Whether one is in Islington, Bedfordshire or any other part of the world, such rights, as the hon. Member for Islington North said, are universal. We will continue to raise these cases for as long as it takes.