Venezuela

Debate between John Spellar and Alan Duncan

Thursday 7th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

I would certainly have hoped that Andrew Neil’s recent demolition of Ken Livingstone had put to bed any claims that there had been general sanctions on Venezuela, rather than targeted ones on regime individuals. So I welcome Britain’s recognition of Juan Guaidó as the lawful President of Venezuela, and I welcome the announcement of the current aid effort. My hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) kindly referred to my call for a Marshall plan for Venezuela, so may I again urge imaginative and detailed plans for the rapid subsequent reconstruction of Venezuela’s economy and infrastructure? Are the Minister’s Department and the Department for International Development getting on with that work, and if not, why not?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I fully acknowledge the right hon. Gentleman’s point. He is very wise to be thinking ahead in this way, because the inevitable need for rapid delivery of resources can suddenly become apparent, and it is important that the world is ready to leap straightaway into action. As I said earlier, I have seen this through pledging conferences in various countries, and I have no doubt that there will have to be extensive multilateral assistance to help Venezuela to rebuild, after which I think they will be able to rebuild themselves; but a bit of pump-priming and basic food and medicine and the addressing of disease and malnutrition needs to start as soon as possible. As I said, first that will be multilateral; there will need to be a lot of UN effort, to which we are a major contributor. I am due to see my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development next week, having spoken to her on Monday, and I will convey, as strongly as I possibly can, the views of the right hon. Gentleman to ensure that she is aware of the sort of plan that may be necessary.

Venezuela

Debate between John Spellar and Alan Duncan

Tuesday 29th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I will make some progress, but if I have time, I will give way later.

When I spoke about Venezuela at Chatham House in October, I described the demise of a once vibrant nation, charting, for the benefit of the hon. Member for Derby North, the many decisions that had been taken to prove that this was a Chavista-made crisis and not a US one. Since then we have seen no improvement; in fact, the situation has gone from bad to worse. The social implications are astonishing: four-fifths of Venezuelans are living in poverty. They are vulnerable to malnutrition and disease because of shortages of food and medicines. The poor are not just poorer—they are destitute. More than 3 million people have been driven to leave the country—10% of the population. In the UK, that would equate to almost the entire population of London. That massive exodus puts enormous pressure on neighbouring states, particularly Colombia, Peru and Ecuador. We applaud the remarkable generosity towards Venezuelan migrants of those countries, and that of Brazil and other countries in the region.

As well as punishing his own people, Maduro has damaged Venezuela’s reputation and relations in the region and the wider international community. Instead of diplomacy, he has chosen confrontation. He has deliberately sought confrontation through reckless border incursions by the Venezuelan security forces. He has cut off any means of diplomatic engagement, including by announcing Venezuela’s withdrawal from the Organisation of American States in 2017, and his conduct inexcusably threatens the peace process in neighbouring Colombia.

Under the Maduro regime Venezuela’s democratic institutions, including the judiciary, the national electoral authorities and local government, have been systematically undermined, while political repression and electoral malpractice have increased. The creation of an all-powerful Constituent Assembly in August 2017 was clearly a deliberate attempt to neutralise the democratically elected National Assembly. Over the past two years, election after election has been manipulated, culminating in a presidential election in May 2018 that few apart from the Government themselves considered free and fair. At Saturday’s United Nations Security Council meeting, which I attended, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Arreaza waved a copy of, and spoke passionately about, the constitution, yet it is Maduro who has trashed that constitution and Juan Guaidó who has upheld it.

The political Opposition have been suppressed and intimidated, their leaders have fled or been imprisoned, and we will never forget that the Opposition activist Fernando Albán was detained and then found dead beneath the windows of the national intelligence facility. Some leading Opposition leaders have been imprisoned, forced into exile or banned from holding public office. Maduro has cynically used his control of supposedly independent institutions such as the Supreme Court and the National Electoral Council to cement his position. There was global criticism of the May 2018 presidential elections, with allegations of electoral malpractice and the banning of Opposition parties.

Those actions, along with the recent brutal suppression of demonstrations in Venezuela, are symptoms of an increasingly intolerant Government turning to repression simply to cling on to power. Ironically, Maduro’s re-inauguration on 10 January might just have been a catalyst for change, but a clumsy attempt to intimidate the new president of the National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, by temporarily detaining him backfired spectacularly.

We know what has happened recently. During an Opposition protest on 23 January, Guaidó declared the May 2018 presidential elections fraudulent—and they were. Citing article 233 of the Venezuelan constitution, he declared himself interim President of Venezuela, and he was swiftly recognised by the United States and 12 Lima Group countries. As of this moment, 22 countries have recognised him as the interim President.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

Very briefly.

[John Spellar]

If we get Juan Guaidó as the full, proper President, he will still need to reconstruct the economy, which has been wasted by the Maduro regime. Will the Minister look again at my suggestion yesterday that we need a Marshall plan to get Venezuela’s resources up and running as quickly as possible so that it can, like post-war Europe, sustain itself?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

One of the blessings of Venezuela is that it has resources; its tragedy is that they have been exploited and destroyed by Maduro and his cronies. The right hon. Gentleman is right. We will look at anything to try to get those resources serving the needs of Venezuelans, who I hope will be able to return in their hundreds of thousands, if not their millions, to the country they have fled.

As my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary said in Washington on 24 January, the UK believes that Maduro is not the legitimate leader of Venezuela, and that Guaidó is the right person to take Venezuela forward. As I said at the UN Security Council meeting on Saturday, we will recognise Guaidó as constitutional interim President if new elections are not announced within eight days of that meeting. The sorts of actions called for by my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) will be addressed then, as we assess what needs to be done after the world comes together, as I hope it does, to point out and act on the fact that Maduro is not the legitimate President of Venezuela.

Venezuela

Debate between John Spellar and Alan Duncan

Monday 28th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

My right hon. Friend is right. This has significance across the world because large amounts of drugs are trafficked through Venezuela. Of course, one cannot tackle that problem with the Government of Venezuela because they are party to that inappropriate drug trafficking themselves. Therefore, the solution for the streets of Harlow when it comes to Venezuela is to deal with a legitimate Government who are prepared to tackle the problem head-on in Venezuela.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

After a proper ballot and, hopefully, the election success of Juan Guaidó— whose party, incidentally, is a member of the Socialist International—Venezuela will still face an existential crisis, with the Maduro legacy of economic meltdown, a collapsing oil industry, hyperinflation, food shortages and 3 million citizens in exile. Should not the UK, the EU and the international community be preparing a Marshall plan for the reconstruction of Venezuela?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

One of the tragedies of Venezuela is that it has massive resources of its own. If only they were properly used, invested in and managed, no Marshall plan would be necessary in the way the right hon. Gentleman suggests. The country would be able to take advantage of having some of the greatest oil reserves in the world.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Spellar and Alan Duncan

Tuesday 4th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I must say that I do. Venezuela enjoys the world’s largest proven oil reserves and it has the largest gas reserves in Latin America, but all of these are being squandered. It has had years of economic mismanagement based on outdated and misguided ideologies, and it cannot even provide the most basic necessities for its people. The country is facing rampant inflation. This is an example of how one man at the top of a country can destroy that country’s economy and prospects.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Clearly, a precondition for resolving the dreadful situation in Venezuela is an early end to the disastrous communist Maduro regime and a return to parliamentary democracy, but the desperate people of Venezuela—those in the country and the millions in exile—need food and medical supplies now. What are the Minister and the Department for International Development doing about that?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I have to say to the right hon. Gentleman that DFID has limited experience in Latin America. We would like to be doing more, and there has been the provision of humanitarian advice, but I would be the first to admit that that is not nearly enough to address the seriousness of the plight that Venezuelans face. As he rightly says, millions of people have left Venezuela and these problems are now affecting neighbouring countries in a serious way. We are working closely with the Lima group, led by the Peruvian Foreign Minister, to do what we can to try to change the disastrous situation in Venezuela.