The Growth Plan

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Kwasi Kwarteng

Friday 23rd September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

That is absolutely right. The whole premise and basis of the investment zone conversation is mutual consent. There has to be mutual consent—they will not be imposed in any area. Absolutely, local residents and councils will have a huge say in how the investment zone develops.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

Will the Chancellor of the Exchequer explain where the morality is in giving a huge increase in income to the very richest in our society and threatening the benefits of the very poorest in our society, who are trying to get by on universal credit? What estimate does he have of the levels of inequality that will exist in this country in one year’s time and in five years’ time as a result of his statement today?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

It is always our duty to help the most vulnerable in society. That is why we have had the energy intervention and the covid-19 pandemic intervention. It is also incumbent on the Government to seek to enable growth. That is what we are focused on, too, in this plan.

Egypt

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Kwasi Kwarteng

Wednesday 29th January 2014 Westminster Hall

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. Naturally when we go on such delegations, we tend to gravitate towards Cairo, which is the centre and capital of Egyptian life. I might add that as a capital, it is very significant. Twenty million Egyptians live in Cairo, which is a high proportion of the total population. However, he is absolutely right that Egyptians across the country are less interested in the power dispute and are more concerned about economic stability and the future for themselves and their families. I will talk about the consequences of the dispute between the Muslim Brotherhood and the army.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I compliment the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. He seems reluctant to describe what happened last year in Egypt as a military coup, which, in reality, it was. Is he not concerned that that is a precedent, and that large numbers of opposition people have been arrested in the same way as many were arrested under Morsi? There is a serious denial of many people’s human rights throughout the country at present.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. It is undoubtedly the case that the army has been very heavy-handed in dealing with protesters and dissent. There is a new protest law under which people have been put away for three years simply for protesting and being out on the street. I am tentative about describing what happened as a coup, because the army’s view is very much that it was a popular uprising. The army would suggest that—I heard it many times in Cairo—although the events of February 2011 have been described as a revolution, what it feels was another revolution in June last year has been described as a “coup”. We have to be careful about the language we use.

Clearly, it is true that the army flexed its muscles at the end, but there was popular support, with Tamarod and people on the streets, so to describe what happened as a coup does not perhaps get the right tone. Generally, coups around the developing world are led from the top: a general and a few of his associates might seize power for themselves. The army in Egypt would very much contest whether a coup is an accurate description of what happened last summer and no doubt historians, politicians and diplomats will debate how to describe it for years to come. I am very reluctant to use the word “coup”, even though I appreciate that it has been widely used in the media.

The big question at the moment is how to deal with the Muslim Brotherhood. Clearly the army has gone down one route, which is heavy-handed—really the iron fist. Our perception was certainly that the army was willing and ready to deal with, in an uncompromising fashion, any attempts on the part of political Islamists to use violence. It was expressing the view that it had had enough of the Muslim Brotherhood and of trying to accommodate them, and that it would handle any threats from that quarter with a great deal of repression. Those were not the words that the army used, but that was very much the indication that it gave us. There is clearly a massive problem with that, potentially, because—

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[Kwasi Kwarteng]

My right hon. Friend the Minister can speak with more authority than I can on this, but our Government have been absolutely clear about our commitment to human rights and to religious freedoms in Egypt. What the right hon. Gentleman should be aware of is that the Copts—we talked about a coup last year—were very much in favour of the military stepping in. They saw the Muslim Brotherhood as no particular friends to them. Indeed, they felt that the incidence of religious violence and of terror against their community increased dramatically in the brief period of Muslim Brotherhood rule.

There are many conflicting issues that we have to deal with. On one side is the protection of minority rights; on the other is the democratic will as expressed by the majority. Often in these cases in the Arab world, those two things are in conflict. One justification for military involvement was on precisely this issue. The army would say—it did say to us—that the Muslim Brotherhood did not look after the human rights of all Egyptians; it was sectional, and it looked merely to its own. In that context, the army has taken on itself the role of guardian of minority rights.

Egypt’s parlous economic situation is the context in which that military strongman, for want of a better term, may well emerge. The budget deficit has risen to $34.8 billion, which is 14% of GDP. To put that in context, our deficit was 12% of GDP in 2010, which was the highest proportion it had been in our peacetime history. Public debt in Egypt is running at about 90% of GDP. Clearly, there has been a massive economic crisis and the country is under a lot of pressure. There are also problems with terrorism and the rule of law. When we first arrived in Egypt in 2010, we managed to drive through the Sinai peninsula on our way to Gaza, but the presence of armed militias and armed forces in the Sinai peninsula, and the battles that rage there, make such a trip impossible today. The country suffers under massive economic pressure and the spectre of renewed terrorism.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The hon. Gentleman is being most generous in giving way. Does he concede that the new Government have displayed a disappointing attitude by not opening up the Rafah crossing, which has created further problems and tensions in Gaza? I recognise what he says about the journey across the Sinai; that is a fair point.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

In the Sinai peninsula, which has generally been, for the past 40 years, under Egyptian control, the situation is one of relative anarchy. In that context, it would be asking a lot to expect any Egyptian Government to open the border. I cannot see such a development taking place, given where we are today. The army has a real job on its hands in trying to introduce some element of rule of law in the Sinai peninsula.

I conclude by making one or two remarks about our response. We went to our embassy in Cairo, where we received generous hospitality, and we encountered some hard-working and committed diplomats. The feeling that we received from people to whom we spoke in Egypt, at all levels, was that the west had failed Egypt and that we, as one of Egypt’s longest-standing partners, had not fully grasped the nature of the situation. That might be a misrepresentation, but I can only report what I was told. There was a perception that we had been slightly wrong-footed by events. In a fast-changing environment it is easy to back the wrong horse and then find that the winning horse is suspicious of people who have not fully supported it.

For decades to come, we will have to question the operation of the multi-party system. Over the past four years, secular parties have not emerged. The two power blocs of the army and the Muslim Brotherhood are the dominant forces in Egypt, and they may well be for some time to come. The Al-Nour party, which won a quarter of the parliamentary seats, is a Salafist party inspired by political Islam. It is difficult to see how a multi-party secular democracy can emerge in a country in which the army and political Islam, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood, play such dominant roles.

In Westminster and across western capitals, we will have to come to terms with that. We will have to reassess the somewhat naive idea that Egypt might become a multi-party system like Australia, for example. If anyone thought in 2011 that that might happen, it was a rather naive assumption. We simply have to describe what we see on the ground and how popular will is expressed. Secular parties have not developed as many of us anticipated, and it is an open question whether we should try to encourage their growth or simply focus our attention on the humanitarian and economic situation in Egypt.

I am grateful for the care and attention with which Members of the House have listened to my remarks, and I look forward to listening to and participating in the subsequent debate.

Bank of England (Appointment of Governor) Bill

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Kwasi Kwarteng

Friday 6th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am suitably bullied and shall proceed as I intended.

The Bill raises important constitutional issues. We have a Parliament, we have the honour of sitting in the House of Commons, and we all know the struggles the House had in order to assert its primary function and its principal character as the legislature and main law-making organ of government. I am afraid that the Bill represents a further encroachment of the powers of the House of Commons. I am a Conservative. I happen to think that there should be a balance and distinction between the Executive and the legislature. As someone who has read a little of the history of this place, I also recognise that the position of the House of Commons in the constitution should be guarded, but this new development—this assertion that the Treasury Committee should have a power of veto or even a power of appointment over the Governor of the Bank of England— represents an unprecedented extension of the powers of this House.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point, but will he not care to look at the matter slightly differently? Yes, the Bill extends greater powers to the House of Commons, but in reality these are currently powers of patronage over which the House has no control. The Bill represents a very small encroachment on those powers of patronage, which are the Achilles heel and bedevilment of the British parliamentary system.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point, and he talks about patronage, which is a feature of our system, but if we are to talk about patronage, we should do what other Members in the debate have suggested and talk generally about the powers of the Select Committee system. It seems rather bizarre that in the Bill we should debate the appointment of a single public official, because we should debate—if that is what we want to do—the powers of Select Committees over other appointments.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I agree that we should debate and, indeed, extend the powers of Select Committees, because I do not see any reason why, if a Select Committee is so minded, it should not be allowed to introduce legislation as well as to supervise appropriate appointments within its purview. That after all is one reason why we are elected to Parliament—in order to have some democratic influence over what in our society are largely undemocratic institutions.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s remarks, but Mr Deputy Speaker, with your forbearance, I suggest that this debate is about the appointment of the Governor of the Bank of England. We can have more extensive and general debates about the appointment of other officials, but I think that our current system works well. I would not want to see, for example, the Archbishop of Canterbury hauled up in front of a religious affairs Committee for “ratification”.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

We can leave that very difficult problem of the Archbishop of Canterbury to one side by simply disestablishing the Church of England.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The hon. Gentleman leads me down a dangerous path.

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[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The right of veto proposed in the Bill, which apes the structures in the United States of America, is totally inappropriate and would take the constitution down a road that we have not travelled down before. My hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk talked at length—but to the point, I must say—about the structures in the United States. It is important that we understand what goes on in the United States in order to understand what might happen here if the Bill becomes law.

We well understand the recent financial history of the world. I was working in the City in 2000—[Interruption.] I am not ashamed that I had a job outside this House. I do not think that it is something I should apologise for. I worked on a dealing room floor in 2000 at the time of the election in the United States. The financial uncertainty that prevailed in the markets as a consequence of the indecisive nature of that election, with the fight between Bush and Gore being taken up to the Supreme Court, was debilitating. I have first-hand experience of that.

I would not want to see a situation in this country in which a candidate to be the Governor of the Bank of England was scrutinised by the Treasury Committee and an impasse reached, resulting in days or even weeks without an appointment being secured. I know from first-hand experience that that is the worst message that could be sent to the financial markets in what are perilous and uncertain times. It would be irresponsible of us to delay or complicate the process in that way.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Does the hon. Gentleman not feel that in his opposition to the Bill, he is in danger of treading down the rather dodgy road of saying that he supports some kind of technocratic Government, with democratically elected politicians becoming observers, rather than the participants and the controllers? Surely the whole point of the US constitution was that democratically elected politicians were trying to assert their power over the structures of society. I realise that there is much corruption in the US financial system, but surely the principles of the US constitution are not entirely wrong.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. All I am suggesting is that the balance of powers is about right. We know that the House of Commons had a long struggle against King Charles I and the Executive. However, I think that the current constitutional balance is about right.

I do not think, as I suggested earlier, that the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Chief of the Defence Staff or the chairman of the BBC should be scrutinised by Select Committees, but that is a debate for another time. I cannot support this Bill because it would add an element of uncertainty to the financial markets, which is the last thing that we need at this time. I thank Members of the House for indulging me in my brief remarks.