Ukraine, Syria and Iran

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

We can do a great deal, as we have in many other countries. The hon. Lady raises an important issue. Through the work of our embassies, we can give the Ukrainian authorities clear advice, as I have been doing in public today, and shall do in private, about how matters should be conducted to achieve that free, democratic future with financial support from international institutions. However, it is also important to communicate that message more widely across many different sectors of society in Ukraine—our embassy has begun to do that —and it is possible to find in European Union countries funding to support democratic development and political capacity building. We will be ready to do that.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Whether we like it or not, Ukraine is a polarised society, with large parts looking towards the west and significant parts looking towards Russia. Does the Secretary of State think, therefore, that the constitutional advice we give should include a recommendation for some form of devolved government so that Ukraine does not become a focus for east-west tension or, heaven forbid, confrontation?

[Mr Hague]

That analysis is correct. I said earlier that it is important not to present this as a binary choice for Ukraine. My hon. Friend’s argument is the reason for that: a binary choice would always make it difficult for a nation with that composition to give a 100% clear answer. It is important to leave open the wider possibilities of co-operation, both with Russia and with the European Union in future. It is for Ukraine to decide its constitutional structure. We can support the objectives of territorial integrity and the workings of a democratic state, but it is for it to decide the means of doing so.

Egypt

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2014 Westminster Hall

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

The speeches in this debate so far have been measured, temperate and realistic—

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Until now!

[Dr Julian Lewis]

I pay tribute to both previous speakers and, despite the friendly sedentary intervention of my friend, the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), I intend to follow in their footsteps. I congratulate in particular my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng) on introducing such an important subject. I am pleased that people have not gone automatically into a mode of suggesting that all the good is on one side and all the evil on the other. In Egypt, we are confronted with a choice of which is the lesser evil. I agree with the hon. Member for Inverclyde (Mr McKenzie) that the correct course to follow is not to rush to endorse what has happened in Egypt. We should ensure that we maintain pressure on whatever Administration or regime emerges to follow a path back to constitutional democracy at the earliest opportunity.

It sometimes bothers me that people think that when a dramatic development occurs, it is automatically to be interpreted in the context of what we have experienced in recent European history. I felt the very coinage of the term “Arab spring” to be inappropriate. I did not feel that the spate of revolutions that took place in one middle eastern country after another should be compared to the attempt by central and eastern European countries, which had been well set on the path to constitutional democracy before they were hijacked by the Soviet empire, to go back to the democratic path. There was no direct comparison between those European countries asserting their right to return to democracy and what was happening in at least some of the middle eastern countries.

In 1941, Churchill was famously teased by one of his left-wing opponents when he spoke up for Russia after it was invaded by the Nazis. After all, Churchill was the architect of British intervention in the Russian civil war, and he famously wanted to “strangle Bolshevism at birth”. He had the right answer to his critic: he said that if Hitler invaded hell, he would at least have a good word to say for the devil in the House of Commons. In other words, he recognised that it was a choice between evils.

It is often thought that when a totalitarian regime emerges, based on a totalitarian ideology, it does so in a coup, with no popular support at all. That is not necessarily the case; in fact, I would say that it is not usually the case. There was certainly popular support for the Nazis, as well as for the communists in many cases where they succeeded in coming to power. The paradox in trying to deal with such situations was that there was a degree of democratic legitimacy to the initial taking over of the country, but once that had happened, the regimes proceeded to dismantle the very framework of democracy—however great or limited it was at the time—that had enabled them to come to power on the basis of some form of popular support. Such popular support was often allied to a specific type of devious perversion of political language when the regime was consolidating its grip on power.

The question that must be faced by democracies looking on as such situations develop is what we do when a group of people come to power, initially with a greater or lesser degree of democratic legitimacy, and proceed to subvert the system so that they will never again have to submit themselves to democratic elections. I suggest that what was happening in Egypt was a movement in that sort of direction. The country was faced with the choice of whether it wished to see Islamism take control, as it has done following what I prefer to call the Arab uprisings, to the disappointment of many of us who were hoping to see constitutional democracies emerge in other middle eastern countries. The issue is what we do about that. Do we simply rush to condemn the fact that Islamists have been ejected from power in Egypt, or do we recognise the real difficulty of the choice that Egyptians have had to make between one extreme situation and another?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The situation in Egypt was even more extreme than that, in terms of the groundwork laid for political Islam. In the parliamentary elections, 50% of the seats were won by the Muslim Brotherhood and 25% by Salafis, so 75% of the seats were won by parties that openly supported political Islam. There was no room for an alternative in that system.

[Dr Lewis]

That is absolutely correct. My hon. Friend will put me right if I am mistaken, but I recall that part of the deal at the outset was that the Muslim Brotherhood undertook not to run for the presidency—I think that I am right in saying that. That promise was very promptly broken.

In my time trying to comment as best I can on defence and security-related subjects in Parliament, not too many months—certainly not too many years—go by when I do not have recourse to mentioning one of my favourite political quotations from the late, great, Sir Karl Popper in his famous book, “The Open Society and Its Enemies”. I have quoted it before and I suspect that circumstances will require me to quote it again. The paradox of tolerance is that in a free society, people must tolerate all but the intolerant, because if you tolerate the intolerant, the conditions for toleration disappear and the tolerant go with them. I am sure that this is what the people who ousted the Islamists in Egypt would argue was their justification. Although I said earlier that one must not make simplistic comparisons, I am now probably about to do just that. Those people would probably point to the situation in Germany in the 1930s and say, “Wouldn’t it have been better if the army had thrown the Nazis out, once it became clear that they were going to rip up the constitution and remove any chance of a democratic future, and when it saw what the Hitlerites were trying to do to the German system—which had more or less democratically elected them to power in the first place—using the techniques that we are so familiar with in totalitarian takeovers, to get an iron and irreversible grip on the society?” How would we feel now if the army had stepped in then?

I worry when I hear people use phrases such as moderate Islamism. The description of Islamism is the description of an extreme, intolerant ideology; there is no moderate Islamism, any more than there is moderate totalitarianism or moderate extremism. The reality is that there was a choice in Egypt between an Islamist takeover and the ejection of a group of people bent on destroying any sort of emergent democracy in that country and making a terrible mess of running it in the process.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

While the hon. Gentleman is expanding on whether there can be moderate Islamism and the consequence of Islamism emerging in Egypt and other middle eastern nations, might I ask if he shares many people’s concern that religious minorities, including Christians and others, are being systematically purged, not just in thousands or tens of thousands, but in hundreds of thousands, from many nation states right across the middle east?

[Dr Lewis]

I endorse that, and pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman and his party colleagues for raising this question more consistently and more often than any other group of hon. Members in the House. They are right to do so. We have to try to take a long view of the prospects for the re-emergence of some form of moderate government in Egypt. Those of us who have been in, and aware of, politics for a long time can remember the bad old days of Nasser. I am sure that some people would say, “Ah, but those days are likely to come back,” but I remember that most sensible, pro-democratic people were relieved when Nasser’s successor, Sadat, showed himself willing to moderate the more extreme outlooks of Egyptian politics and to make peace with Israel.

I remember, when Sadat was assassinated by what, today, we would call Islamists, how relieved we were that somebody else came forward who carried on his policies. Nevertheless, as is always the case when people come forward and get a grip, as Mubarak did, and do not want to give it up, corruption became rife and the situation ultimately became unstable. Of course, understandably, the people became fed up with him. However, although it took quite a while for the people to become fed up with that form of dictatorship, it did not take them terribly long to be fed up with President Morsi and his group.

[Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)]

I appreciate the way that the hon. Gentleman is developing his argument. He is outlining the difficulties that we in the United Kingdom have in reacting to what is happening in Egypt, and the difficulties of choosing between two evils, as he termed it. Perhaps he will give us some specific steps that he believes the UK should take to stabilise the situation in Egypt.

[Dr Lewis]

I shall try to do so, although I am conscious that I am coming towards the end of my fair share of time. I shall try to make a remark or two along those lines at the end.

I do not hold myself out as being any form of expert on middle eastern politics, so I was pleased to see the comprehensive debate pack assembled for this occasion by Library researchers, who culled many good contributions from national and international media. I was struck particularly by the contribution of Dr Hazem Kandil, who is described as a lecturer in sociology and a fellow of St Catharine’s college, Cambridge, as well as being the author of a book entitled “Inside the Brotherhood”. He says:

“the Brotherhood’s opponents could not have fielded enough protesters to secure the cooperation of the high command had the common folk abstained. It was the Brotherhood’s shocking incompetence at government that drove millions into the streets on June 30. And it was the Brotherhood’s decision to turn a political clash into a religious war that guaranteed the public’s blanket endorsement for brutally repressing them.

The Brothers were ousted not because of their political duplicity, but because they were so bad at it.”

In other words, the people saw through them. He continues:

“they were later hunted down because they never understood that their countrymen preferred to risk backtracking into a functioning secular authoritarianism to the certainty of sliding into incompetent religious fascism.”

If I used those words, I might come in for some criticism, but when a knowledgeable fellow of St Catharine’s college, Cambridge, uses them, we all ought to take them seriously.

In response to the hon. Member for South Antrim (Dr McCrea), I simply say that we should have a policy of positive critical engagement with whatever Government emerges. We should at least recognise that the Government who propose to emerge are at least talking the language of democracy, and can be held to that agenda, in a way that the Islamists do not.

My last observation is this. A few days ago, I was listening to the “Today” programme and a representative of the Muslim Brotherhood was asked a simple question by the interviewer: “Will you take part in the forthcoming elections or not?” He could have had plenty of good reasons for saying, “We won’t do it.” He could have said, “We don’t think they’ll be fair,” or “We don’t think we’ll be allowed to campaign freely,” and so on. The fact was that it took the entire interview, with that question being asked over and over, to get any sort of final admission from this man that, no, it does not propose to take part. That reminded me of nothing so much as old debates with Marxists, 25 or 30 years ago: they never gave a straight answer to a straight question, because they were subject to a devious political ideology and had the language to match.

These people are not democrats. They were about to subvert democracy. The people who have ousted them may not be democrats, but we at least have a chance of making them work towards democracy in a way that the Muslim Brotherhood would never have wanted to do.

European Council

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

We make it clear every time there is a Spanish incursion into British Gibraltar territorial waters that that is unacceptable through a formal protest of some kind to the Spanish Government, which, depending on the circumstances, has ranged from a note verbale to a public summoning of the Spanish ambassador. We continue to make representations to Spain at the highest level about the fact that this sort of behaviour is not tolerable, as well as the fact that Spain would be better off recognising that a large number of Spanish citizens benefit from the prosperity of Gibraltar—from being able to take work there and from the spending power it provides to the Andalusian economy—and that it would be in Spain’s interest to start trying to make friends with Gibraltar, instead of issuing threats.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

A common defence policy for Europe would clearly undermine the crucial link between Europe and America that forms the basis of NATO. What assessment have our Government made of the number of our fellow EU member states that favour a common defence policy, and of their motivation for favouring such a dangerous step?

[Mr Lidington]

It all depends on what is meant by a common defence policy. There is widespread support, including in the United States and from the NATO Secretary-General, for European members of the transatlantic alliance to be more effective and cohesive in their contributions to our joint security arrangements. My hon. Friend is right that some people in Europe want to go a great deal further, particularly in some of the European institutions, such as the Parliament and the Commission.

For rather obvious reasons of parliamentary accountability and a consciousness of the importance of national sovereignty over defence and foreign policy, there is greater reluctance among national Governments. As a rule of thumb, smaller member states often see security advantages in closer European integration at defence level, and the significant defence players are generally the most conscious of the need to preserve national autonomy and to defend what the treaties lay down, which is that defence and security remain national competences and rights.

UK Relations with Ukraine

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 10th December 2013 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr Hugo Swire)]

I am grateful to you for chairing this important debate, Mr Havard. I am particularly grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) for securing this debate and for his continued engagement and interest in Ukraine and his support for democratic reform there. Given the fast-changing events on the ground, this is a timely and necessary debate.

Ukraine is an important friend and partner to the UK. We work closely together across a broad range of international issues and multilateral forums, and more so in the light of Ukraine’s chairmanship in office of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe. In fact, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe was in Kiev only last week to attend the OSCE ministerial council. We therefore welcome the latest news that President Yanukovych today agreed to round-table talks with three former Presidents, among others.

This Government have championed Ukraine’s closer integration with the EU, where it has the potential to make a significant contribution to stability, prosperity and competitiveness, and we will continue to support Ukraine’s European aspirations, including eventual membership of the EU, provided that the appropriate criteria are met and provided that it is what the Ukrainian people themselves want.

However, we have been watching recent developments in Ukraine with deep and genuine concern. Several hundred thousand Ukrainian citizens—perhaps more—have taken to the streets to express their views on Ukraine’s future. Also, troubling reports have emerged: of police violence in response to peaceful demonstrations; of journalists being beaten and possibly being deliberately targeted by security forces; and of disproportionate force being used. These things are completely unacceptable.

My right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe raised his strong concerns at these developments in Kiev last week. On 3 December, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, together with his NATO counterparts, issued a statement condemning the excessive use of force in Ukraine, and he called on all parties to refrain from provocations and violence. NATO members also stressed that a sovereign, independent and stable Ukraine, which is firmly committed to democracy and the rule of law, is a key to Euro-Atlantic security.

We have made it clear that, particularly as the chairman-in-office of the OSCE is Ukrainian, it is essential that the Ukrainian Government demonstrate—through actions as well as words—their deep commitment to OSCE norms and values. We welcome the Ukrainian authorities’ commitment to a thorough investigation of police violence. Those responsible for such violence must be held to account.

We firmly believe that the way forward is through constructive engagement and dialogue, and we continue to encourage the Ukrainian Government and opposition to enter into early discussions. When my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe visited Kiev on 5 December, he visited Maidan, or Independence square, and saw for himself the peaceful nature of the protests. He also met opposition leaders and encouraged them to engage seriously with ideas to identify ways to defuse the situation and map out a peaceful route forward.

This House is aware that the protests in Ukraine were triggered by the decision of the Ukrainian Government to put preparations for signature of the EU-Ukraine association agreement on hold. As my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has made clear to this House and in public statements, this Government’s view is that the Ukrainian Government’s decision represents a missed opportunity.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Have the Government had any opportunity to make an assessment of what measures the Russians may have brought into play to pressurise the Ukrainian Government to change their approach to this important matter?

[Mr Swire]

Not to date, but we—together with our EU partners—had hoped that the EU-Ukraine relationship would enter a new and fundamentally different phase following signature of the association agreement, which includes a deep and comprehensive free trade area, at the Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius on 28 and 29 November. What we have made a study of is the benefit that the agreement would bring to Ukraine and Ukrainian companies. It would give Ukrainian companies access to a market of 500 million consumers. Reliable studies have shown that GDP and wages would rise, and closer economic integration through the deep and comprehensive free trade area would be a powerful stimulant to Ukraine’s economic growth.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Unlike the Labour party we are capable of thinking of more than one thing at a time. There are five themes, and since I have set out five, asking for one is not particularly helpful. We have also delivered more than one. We have already cut the EU budget for the first time, which Labour did not do, and we have protected the rebate in full, which Labour failed to do. We have put a stop to involvement in eurozone bail-outs, which Labour never achieved, and we will go on sticking up for Britain in Europe on more than one subject at a time.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Should reasserting control of our national borders be a priority? For example, does it make any more sense to have a single European work force than it does to have a single European currency?

[Mr Hague]

As I said earlier, I think reforming the concept of free movement on a sensible basis is the right way to think about that. Freedom of movement of workers in the European Union clearly has many benefits, including for British people, but we also know that it is susceptible to being abused. I therefore think the reforms set out last week by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister are the right way to proceed.

Iran

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 25th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

We will take a step-by-step approach. Ajay Sharma, who, as the right hon. Gentleman says, is the new non-resident chargé d’affaires, has been closely involved in the talks and will visit Iran shortly. If visits in both directions by officials go well, we will contemplate other steps that could lead ultimately to the reopening of embassies, but I judge it better to take a step-by-step approach. In a different way from the nuclear programme, that, too, requires the building up of trust, confidence and, above all, clarity that a reopened embassy could operate properly and with all the normal functions of an embassy. We would have to get clarity from the Iranians on that before we could reopen an embassy, so we will continue to take a step-by-step approach.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Given that Syria and Iran are joined at the hip, is it not clear that no such agreement would have been reached had the plan for an Anglo-American military attack on Syria gone ahead? So while we are busy conferring praise on Governments past and present, can we at least have a pat on the back for Parliament for its role in preventing such an ill-considered move?

[Mr Hague]

I always want to pat Parliament on the back, even when I disagree with it, but I do not agree with my hon. Friend’s analysis. I agree—not with him, but with others—that the contemplation by the United States of military action produced a very important breakthrough on the dismantling of Syria’s chemical weapons.

UK Relations with China

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mark Pritchard]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. Tourism is critical for the whole UK economy and particularly for the Northern Ireland economy. I recently visited Belfast and saw the excellent Titanic museum. Of course, Northern Ireland is playing host as one of the cultural capitals of Europe, and I hear that that is going well. He makes a valid point. I am glad that the Government have liberalised the visa regime for Chinese visitors. Nevertheless, this new liberal visa regime should still be thorough, robust and vigilant. I am sure that he agrees.

I pay credit to the lord mayor of the City of London and his officials and support staff. It is good news that the Baltic Exchange has announced the opening of a new Shanghai office and that there is an agreement on London’s Cass business school being sited in Shanghai’s Fudan university, to undertake joint research on the growth and development of both cities, and beyond. I am sure that colleagues will want to join me in welcoming—later this year or possibly in 2014, date to be confirmed—the mayor of Beijing to London.

Despite the UK’s positive relations with China, in many areas China lets itself down, remaining in a cold war mentality, where communism still triumphs over consumerism, irrational fear still triumphs over freedom and ideology usurps individualism.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

May I congratulate my hon. Friend, not only on securing the debate, but on getting the tone right? I am sure that those of us who remember the era of Mao Tse-tung can see how gradually but significantly China has modernised and, to an extent, liberalised, but does my hon. Friend agree that the persecution of organisations such as Falun Gong and the repeated allegations of horrors, such as the harvesting of organs from people who have been executed, are still a stain on China’s reputation, which we must do everything, by increasing links, to encourage it to abandon?

[Mark Pritchard]

My hon. Friend speaks with a great knowledge of history and makes excellent points, both on religious persecution of the Falun Gong and on organ harvesting. Both those things are wrong and do not befit a modern society in any country, in any part of the world. If China is to be taken seriously as a modern society that is listening to the international community and to its own people, it will take action to remedy both those issues. I will touch on religious persecution later on. I am glad that he mentions organ harvesting. Time is limited in this debate, as he knows.

We have good relations with China, but how the Chinese authorities treat the Chinese media—I am focusing on the communist party, not the Chinese people—reveals quite a lot. Article 35 of the Chinese constitution guarantees freedom of speech, assembly, association and publication, but these rights are subordinated to China’s ruling communist party. With its tight control over print, broadcast and online media and through the use of its central propaganda department, there is no freedom of the press or media in China.

It is an unnecessarily paranoid regime—a paranoia that shows weakness not strength. The Chinese authorities need to stop imprisoning journalists and bloggers and need to either try those journalists in an open, televised court or release them from jail. China’s claims to modernity need to be manifest in the updating of its freedoms and laws, not just in the updating of its roads, bridges, buildings and infrastructure. Without such changes, China’s claims of modernity are false—a mirage.

China needs to unblock access to the BBC Chinese Mandarin website, blocked since 1999, and China’s jamming of the BBC’s English short-wave service, which also affects the reception in other Asian countries, should end.

China needs to do far more to stop the persecution of religious minorities. Again, this is a contravention of its own constitution, international law and UN conventions. Many cases exist today of Christians, Buddhists, Muslims and others, including Falun Gong, being imprisoned, beaten and tortured. Churches and other places of worship, outside the heavily controlled state religious institutions, face attack daily. The Christian house church movement is particularly prone to attack, being within the Protestant Christian religion.

From Roman emperors to Arab warlords and now, today, to China’s communist ruling elite, the Christian Church has always been subject to those who want to extinguish its flames of faith, but that will never happen. It is communism that is dying the world over, not the Christian Church. China’s ruling elite needs to get on the right side of history. Tertullian, in the second century, said,

“the blood of Christian martyrs is the seed of the Church”.

I shall highlight some of the many famous cases, although I do not have time to read the list in full, including that of Peter Xu Yongze and Gong Shengliang, head of the South China Church, which are infamous in China’s recent history. Christianity is not a western plot. It is not a western religion or faith. It is a faith born out of Bethlehem in the middle east, not in Bristol, Berlin, or Boston.

There should be an end to the persecution of and discrimination against China’s Muslims, particularly the Uighurs, living in the Xinjiang and Kashgar regions of China. Uighurs are discriminated against daily and weekly, especially in the jobs market. The New York Times reports that in the Kashgar region, where Uighurs make up 90% of the population, they are explicitly excluded from applying for any Government job. They are also frozen out of the region’s booming gas and oil industry.

If China wants to avoid jihadist violent extremism coming to its cities and towns in future, it needs to end discrimination against its increasingly marginalised Muslim population, especially young male Uighurs, some of whom will be returning from Syria and Afghanistan over the coming months and years. In countering violent extremism, the UK and the Chinese authorities can work closely together in their joint national interests. China’s ruling party needs to tackle the root causes of radicalism, not to be a contributing factor in its increase.

Let us be frank: China, the so-called country of the dragon, probably has the worst animal welfare record of any country in the world.

[Dr Lewis]

Just before my hon. Friend leaves human rights, did he notice that in the recent political assembly that was held in China, there was talk of doing away with the labour camps? I do not know how seriously that is meant. I do not know whether my hon. Friend has yet taken a view, but I hope that the Minister will shed light on that in summing up.

[Mark Pritchard]

Of course, the other place with labour camps—some large enough to contain 20,000 people—is North Korea, so it is rather odd that the so-called open and now modern society in China would have similar camps. If there is to be any credibility in the statement from the plenary session, which I will mention later, we must have a timetable on when those labour camps will be phased out and when they will close. The sooner, the better, because they are not befitting of a modern society in today’s world.

--- Later in debate ---

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

It is a pleasure, Mrs Main, to serve under your guidance and chairmanship this afternoon.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) on securing this important and timely debate and on the extremely knowledgeable and articulate way in which he introduced the topic. As other Members have said, he put his case across in a measured way, but he was also absolutely clear in highlighting the importance of China’s history, culture and historic civilisation and, importantly, in putting on the record the huge economic progress in China over the past 30 years or so, as well as the real progress in making it easier for and enabling United Kingdom businesses to invest in China. I also congratulate all other hon. Members who participated in this high-quality and well-informed debate.

Slightly unusually, I have time—hopefully—to address all the points made in speeches and interventions, so if hon. Members are patient, I will try to do so. At the beginning, however, it is important to say that the time is significant not only for the UK, but for China, in their relationship. The debate is particularly timely because of recent visits to China by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Mayor of London, as well as the visit to China mentioned by other hon. Members—to be made by the Prime Minister at the beginning of December.

November marks a year since the new leadership was anointed. President Xi is beginning to make his impact felt. This month’s third plenum was hailed as a key moment for economic and other reform by senior leaders—a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis). I will address that in a little more detail later. China’s rise represents a huge opportunity for Britain, but it has clearly prompted bilateral and regional stresses, which it is important for us to understand and to help to manage.

The hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) rightly outlined some of the key statistics of China’s economic rise and transformation, as did other hon. Members. The stark one for me was that McKinsey believes that China’s economic transformation is happening at 100 times the scale of the first country to urbanise—the United Kingdom—and at 10 times the speed. That is a really transformational and expeditious economic rise. That remarkable growth is primarily taking place in China’s cities. In less than 10 years, China’s urban middle class will be in excess of 600 million people.

That rapid transformation presents clear opportunities for the United Kingdom. Our economies are set to enter a new, more complementary phase. There will be a demand for products and services not only in the obvious economic sectors but in important sectors where the UK has expertise, such as in health care and education—exactly the point made by the hon. Member for Bristol East—as well as in the creative industries. Furthermore, luxury goods will continue to grow as urbanisation continues. Those are areas of British strength. We already excel at producing what the future Chinese economy will demand. In addition, our university sector is first rate. Expertise across the full spectrum of creative disciplines makes us unique in the world, and we are well placed to offer increased scientific collaboration.

China’s growing middle class increasingly sees Britain as a tourist destination and as a place to educate their children. In the second quarter of this year, we issued approximately 150,000 visas to Chinese nationals—40% more than had been issued in any previous quarter. In the five years to 2011-12, the number of Chinese students in the UK rose steadily, reaching more than 90,000, or 21 % of all overseas students in the United Kingdom.

The right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds), who is no longer in his place, raised an important issue in his intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin about the announcements made by the Chancellor in his recent visit to China. We are keenly aware of the issues arising from the Schengen visa system for Chinese visitors to Europe. The Chancellor has announced pilot measures to allow joint applications for UK and Schengen visas from certain tour groups taking part in the approved destinations scheme. We clearly maintain our own separate visa system—a point made articulately by my hon. Friend—but those administrative measures will help to address any issues. We estimate and anticipate that the number of visa applications will be more than 1 million a year by 2017. To make the process easier and faster for Chinese nationals who want to visit the UK for business, study or pleasure, the Chancellor followed up any concerns with his announcement in China of new measures, including a 24-hour visa service and streamlining the UK and Schengen visa application processes.

We have much to learn and gain from each other, not only economically but culturally, sharing each other’s rich cultural history and traditions. We can see that collaboration and the growth of societal knowledge in visitor exchanges between our two countries and in the important collaborations between our museums—there is currently an excellent and acclaimed exhibition of Chinese painting at the Victoria and Albert museum.

Before discussing the human rights issues rightly raised by hon. Members, I will turn to some specifics on trade and inward investment, which is an important component of the China-UK relationship, in part because the UK rightly has a reputation as the most open economy in the world, driving unprecedented Chinese investment into the country. We are also creating the right environment for Chinese businesses to operate in, and we are now home to more than 400 mainland Chinese companies

My hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin rightly mentioned the investment by Huawei, which is a prime example. Rather than blocking Chinese investment in that particular important economic sector, we have welcomed investment of £1.3 billion into its UK business over the next five years, including a new £125-million research base that will create up to 300 new jobs. As my hon. Friend also said, however, we of course take the security and integrity of all equipment used by the Government and the public seriously. GCHQ continues to work closely with Huawei, as with a number of other telecommunications suppliers, to ensure that the products are safe, secure and resilient in the United Kingdom.

We are particularly keen to encourage investment from China—as from elsewhere in the world—in our infrastructure, which we hope will bring about £200 billion of projects over the next five years. My hon. Friend mentioned the investment in the UK’s new generation of nuclear plants at Hinkley Point C, with two Chinese companies as minority shareholders.

Investment is only part of the story. Our bilateral trade with China is now worth more than $70 billion a year and we are on track to meet the target of $100 billion a year by 2015. UK exports of goods and services to China have increased 10% in the past year alone, and are growing at the fastest rate of any major EU nation—a testament to Government policies. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has put prosperity at the heart of its mission, and as part of our network shift we have 60 new staff working in China, a third of whom are focused on less well-known but increasingly commercially important provinces. Alongside the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, UK Trade & Investment has helped many companies to succeed in China by providing support and advice through a network of offices and in collaboration with the China-Britain Business Council.

In addition to our efforts to support British businesses, we want to help China to improve the environment for foreign business by developing the rule of law and enabling a stable, secure and corruption-free environment to allow foreign business to thrive there. My hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin and the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) were absolutely right about the necessity and importance of encouraging the Chinese not to block flow of information through the BBC or Google. We strongly believe that a modern knowledge economy must be built on the free flow of ideas. Freedom of expression is a fundamental right. We continue to raise concerns about freedom of expression with the Chinese authorities, and outline our position in our annual human rights report that the hon. Member for Cheltenham quoted.

China’s economic growth is only one part of a wider regional story. Asia-Pacific continues to be one of the fastest growing regions economically, and as British business seeks to take advantage of the opportunities offered by that growth it is fundamental that the region enjoys peace and stability. We have a clear interest in managing the security challenges that risk undermining the region’s economic and political development. The tensions between China and Japan are well documented. We do not take sides in the underlying sovereignty issues but urge all parties to seek peaceful solutions. The effective development of a regional security apparatus is important to stability and we are working closely with the US as principal security guarantor in the region.

I turn now to the important issue of human rights, which has been raised by a number of hon. Members. It is right to say that our prosperity, security, values and global interests are clearly interconnected. As my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has said, we must have a foreign policy based on our values, and the Government believe that respect for human rights is good for economic growth. We want China to continue to succeed. We believe that the development of an independent civil society and the application of human rights under the rule of law are essential for China’s long-term prosperity, along with the free flow of ideas that is an essential part of the growth of a knowledge-driven economy. That is why we welcome the reforms announced during the recent third plenum to deepen judicial reform, end re-education through labour camps—a point raised powerfully by my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East—and increase reproductive rights.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

The Foreign Office does not always receive praise when praise is due. Looking back to the era of the closing stages of the Soviet Union, the Foreign Office showed great skill in the way in which it interlinked progress on human rights with other issues of contact between the two countries. Will the Minister confirm what seems to be the case, namely that there is a good institutional memory of the techniques employed in that era, which can be applied now in trying to take matters forward with China?

[Mark Simmonds]

My hon. Friend makes, if I may say so, a typically intelligent and perceptive point. He is absolutely right to make that comparison and to comment on that interlinking, as well as the importance of engagement and external lobbying to ensure a transformation over time in these important areas. I assure him that the expertise that was gained in the Foreign Office from the positive activities and outcomes at the time he referred to is infusing and informing the direction of policy at the moment on engagement with China.

On the specific point my hon. Friend made about the ending of re-education through labour camps, although I acknowledge that we are still waiting for the detail about the time frame under which we hope that will be delivered, we welcome the progress that has been made. The new leadership is serious about both economic and financial reforms, and those other reforms. We hope that the authorities will plan not just to abolish reform through labour camps but to end all forms of arbitrary and extra-judicial detention. That is a priority for our engagement with China and was a key part of the statement we made on 22 October that was referred to by the hon. Member for Bristol East.

Where there are additional concerns about human rights, we raise them. To give confirmation to the shadow Minister, we are seeking to agree dates for the next human rights dialogue with the Chinese Government in 2014. We continue to discuss human rights issues with the Chinese authorities, including Tibet, which many hon. Members raised; I will say a little more on Tibet in a moment. We are concerned about the continuing arrest and disappearance in China of activists, lawyers and journalists and others who attempt to exercise their right to freedom of expression and association.

As my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin powerfully articulated, we remain concerned about the restrictions placed on freedom of religion in China. Freedom of religion and belief is a fundamental right, and we believe that everybody should be free to practise their religion according to their beliefs, in accordance with the international frameworks to which both the United Kingdom and China are party. We made a statement at the United Nations universal periodic review of China on 22 October, focusing on concerns about extra-legal and arbitrary detention, ratification of the international covenant on civil and political rights, freedom of expression and association, the death penalty, Tibet and Xinjiang. We consulted civil society when drawing up our recommendations. We also fund an array of strategic projects focused on areas including the rule of law, the death penalty, women’s rights and civil society.

We have different histories and systems, however, and are at different stages in our development, so there will be areas where we disagree. That is why we are committed to continued dialogue and that is why the Prime Minister told the House of Commons that we want to have a strong and positive relationship with China to our mutual benefit.

I turn now specifically to Tibet, so that colleagues will be under no illusions. The issue was raised by my hon. Friends the Members for The Wrekin and for Peterborough (Mr Jackson), the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes), and the hon. Members for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), for Cheltenham, and for Bristol East. We continue to have serious concerns about human rights in Tibet. We believe that meaningful dialogue is the best way to address and resolve the underlying grievances of the Tibetan communities, and we urge all parties to restart talks as soon as possible. However, the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary have stated clearly that our policy is unchanged, and is consistent with that of the previous Government, in that we recognise Tibet is part of China. The Prime Minister has no plans to meet the Dalai Lama.

I turn now to the particular and specific concern of my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin about illegal wildlife trade. He will be well aware of the Foreign Secretary’s engagement with the issue. I want to confirm that the Prime Minister has invited China to send a high-level representative to attend the London conference on illegal wildlife trade in February next year. We hope that that conference will agree to action to tackle the three main aspects of the problem: improving enforcement; reducing demand for illegal wildlife products—that aspect is particularly important in relation to China—and supporting sustainable livelihoods for communities affected by illegal wildlife trade. We hope to work with China and other global partners to address the destabilising effects of the trade, particularly on developing countries. I can assure my hon. Friend and others who are interested that in my travels across Africa, where countries are affected by this plight, I raise the issue as a top priority to try to encourage African Governments to engage with us.

Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Programme

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Hollobone]

Yes, I agree that Israel should be a signatory, but there would be no question of Israel giving up its nuclear weapons. Enough bad things have been done to the Jewish people over two millennia that they simply will not give them up.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I am keen to get the focus back on Iran. One way to do so might be to point out that if Israel were led by undemocratic, tyrannical religious fundamentalists and Iran was led by a democratically elected Parliament and Government who were constitutionally capable of being removed without strife, we might be having this debate about Israel’s nuclear weapons rather than Iran’s. The key lies in democratisation, or the lack of it, in the respective countries.

[Mr Hollobone]

As always, my hon. Friend is on top of matters. He makes an extremely pertinent point, and he is quite right to bring us back to Iran.

Yes, this is about Iran’s nuclear weapons programme. Would we be having this debate if the state of Israel did not exist? Perhaps, but the threat of Iran deploying a nuclear weapon would not be nearly as great. The mad and bad people in Iran have said often enough how much they despise the state of Israel. There has been argument about whether they have said that Israel should be wiped off the map, but that is clearly the intention of some people in positions of authority in Iran.

Iran is the biggest state sponsor of terrorism worldwide, not just in the middle east but in Europe and further afield, and it has an appalling human rights record. It is a very unpleasant country led by a very unpleasant regime. The idea that it should have at its disposal the ability to deploy a nuclear warhead or warheads should fill the world with absolute horror. Ever since 1945, with a brief interruption for the Cuban missile crisis, the assumption has been that nuclear weapons are so horrible that they will never be used, but I think that we could envisage a situation in which Iran, if it had a nuclear warhead, might well use it. If a future regime had the ability to manufacture a warhead and the ballistic capability to deliver it on Israel, it might well decide to take the chance to wipe out 7 million Israelis.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I am pleased to take part in the debate under your chairmanship, Mr Sheridan.

This weekend, we honoured the dead of two world wars. It was the horror of the first world war that led to a huge desire for peace and disarmament in the decades that followed. During the 1920s and 1930s, there were disarmament conferences and complex negotiations leading to impressive disarmament treaties, such as the Washington naval treaties. What happened afterwards was instructive. The democracies observed the treaties. The British Navy, for example, redesigned battleships such as the Nelson and the Rodney in strange configurations, to stay within the limits of the Washington naval treaties. The Germans had a much more practical approach to the matter. They simply lied about the tonnage of their battle cruisers, the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau, claiming to stay within the treaty terms, but actually breaching them.

We must therefore understand that, in disarmament negotiations and military confrontations, what matters is less the weapons systems than the nature of the Governments who possess them. An example of that is our attitude to the nuclear weapons that Russia holds today, compared with our attitude to nuclear weapons held by the Soviet Union. We were desperately concerned about its nuclear arsenal, because the Soviet Union was governed by a system with an aggressive ideology and a ruthless approach to what it regarded as the inevitable confrontation between communism and capitalism. Once the Soviet Union collapsed and Russia turned, however hesitantly, in a more democratic direction, we ceased to be anything like as concerned about its nuclear weapons systems. We became concerned about whether such systems would leach out of Russia into the hands of other totalitarian-inspired groups. We did not mind so much what arsenal Russia possessed—and continues to possess—provided that it remained in safe hands and not extremist hands.

That is why the comparisons between Iran’s possession of a nuclear weapon and Israel’s possession of a nuclear weapon are, frankly, unfounded. As I said in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone), whom I congratulate both on securing the debate and on the way that he introduced it, we would be concerned today about Israel’s nuclear arsenal if Israel were governed by an extremist religious clique, and we would not be worried about Iran having nuclear weapons to anything like the extent that we are if Iran were as democratic as Israel is at present.

Having said all that, we have to operate within the boundaries of what is or is not practicable. The reality is that if Iran chooses to acquire nuclear weapons, unless some state or alliance of states seeks to intervene in some military way physically to prevent it from doing so, Iran cannot be stopped from acquiring nuclear weapons if it wants them enough. As has been pointed out, Iran is signed up to the non-proliferation treaty. I quickly conferred with my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre and Preston North (Mr Wallace) and I think that we both agree that ultimately if Iran chose to leave the NPT, frankly there would be nothing that could be legitimately done to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons, any more than anything could have been done to prevent Pakistan from acquiring nuclear weapons in the way that it did.

I always refer to him as my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), although we are on opposite sides of the argument. In his contribution, I believe that he was trying to suggest that Israel perhaps ought to give up its nuclear weapons and that that might improve the situation, and he ended his speech by saying that he did not believe that the balance of power, or the balance of terror, was the right way to keep the peace in the middle east. I am afraid that I disagree with him on both counts. I think that Israel giving up its nuclear weapons—and Israel is not party to the NPT—would actually encourage other countries to commit aggression against it. I believe, however, that the possibility of the balance of terror may, in the end, come to be our only resource against Iran, because—as I said before —if Iran is determined to have nuclear weapons and if it is more important to Iran to have nuclear weapons than, for example, to have the sanctions against it removed, Iran will have nuclear weapons, unless somebody wants to launch a military strike against it.

In conclusion, we lived through—what was it?—70 years or more of confrontation with the Soviet Union, and we survived that period of intense confrontation through a policy of containment. The containment policy meant that we neutralised the weapons systems of the power that could potentially attack us, and we allowed the slow development of internal political forces until that country’s system of government changed. If ever there were a country that ought to be subject to a policy of containment, it is Iran. Sometimes I get the impression that the leaders of Iran are almost being deliberately provocative, so as to incite some sort of military strike against it to bolster their position with the population at home. I have no doubt that if Iran can be contained for long enough, democracy will emerge in the country and, as I said at the beginning, when democracy emerges the question of what weapons systems a country has or does not have becomes almost completely irrelevant.

Iran and Syria

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 11th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

This is not a position that we have just adopted in this country. The Geneva I communiqué of June last year sets out plans for a transitional authority formed from regime and opposition, as I pointed out earlier, and by mutual consent. It therefore does not exclude everyone in the current Syrian regime, but it would clearly be impossible—on the basis not only of Geneva I, but of any practical political consideration—to unite Syria again around an Administration centred on President Assad. After so much blood has been spilled and after a country has become so divided, it is inconceivable that that could happen. This is only the practical politics of the matter, and that is something that needs to be faced up to.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

But if there is no sign that the opposition will be able to overthrow President Assad, is not what the Government are doing and proposing rather unrealistic? Would it not be more practical, in terms of helping to stop the suffering, to try to negotiate a ceasefire between both sides without any preconditions?

[Mr Hague]

Neither we nor other members of the Security Council would be opposed to a ceasefire, but my hon. Friend is aware of the history of these things in Syria. If it were possible to negotiate and enforce a ceasefire, it would be possible to do a great many other things as well. We are not even able to secure humanitarian access to areas at the moment, let alone negotiate an agreed ceasefire, so I do not think it is unrealistic to try to assemble a peace conference, based on a communiqué that all the permanent members of the Security Council and many of the regional countries were prepared to support last year, and to get a process going on that basis, which of course could include ceasefires, if we could only sit down and start deliberating on these things together.

European Union (Referendum) Bill

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Friday 8th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman is very gracious to give way when we are so pressed for time. May I invite him to return to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash)? If the setting of an earlier date is such a problem, will the right hon. Gentleman explain why amendment 22, tabled by his own colleague, the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes), suggests the date of 2014? Although I was listening very carefully to the scintillating speech made by the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Bain), I am not sure that I heard him address that specific point. I would be very interested to know whether the Opposition intend to vote for that amendment.

[Mr Hain]

Although I have much respect for the hon. Gentleman, I invite him to wait and see. He might not even find out today, for all I know; that is not in my hands. If my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) has the chance to catch Madam Deputy Speaker’s eye, no doubt the hon. Gentleman’s question will be answered.

Consultation under new schedule 2 would reveal that retaining membership of a customs union only would be an inappropriate economic stance for the UK in the modern global economy. The CBI report suggests that, with non-tariff barriers often replacing tariffs as the major obstacle to trade, a customs union would not be sufficient to support Britain’s trading ambitions in the modern global economy, with its complex supply chains, and could limit UK access to EU markets in areas such as services, on which our economy is so based.