Iran

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his question. He makes a range of important points. The reality is that we still view the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action as the best means of restraining those in the regime who wish to pursue a nuclear weapon, and that is a top priority—our overriding priority—for this Government. In relation to the wider nefarious conduct of the Government of Iran, I share all of his concerns and then some. The reality is that that is why we have always supported the Macron and Trump initiatives to try to bring Iran back to the diplomatic table and deal with all of those issues in the round—if there is a choice to be made by the regime. We will continue to hold Iran accountable for its actions, while leaving the diplomatic door ajar. Ultimately, this will have to be resolved through a negotiated diplomatic route. Who knows what will happen given the current constellation of factors and the change of circumstances in Iran, but, at some point, it will have to come to the negotiating table.

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

Given the parallels between the ruthless and reckless behaviour of Iran, and the way in which the late and unlamented Soviet Union used to behave, does the Foreign Secretary accept that a policy of long-term containment, as worked in the one case, is probably most likely to work in the other? If he does accept that, is he satisfied that our American allies are now communicating with us to the extent that they need to so that our troops, who are their partners, are not unduly affected by sudden, dramatic initiatives without warning?

[Dominic Raab]

My right hon. Friend makes a series of important points, including about close consultation with our American partners. Of course, I discuss these issues regularly with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. I am not entirely sure that the analogy with the Soviet Union is quite right. There is at least the semblance of regular elections in Iran.

[Dr Lewis]

There was in the Soviet Union.

[Dominic Raab]

In fairness, not on the same level as in Iran. I think the question is the balance between containing the nefarious behaviour and ensuring—while holding Iran to account in the way in which my right hon. Friend and other hon. Members have mentioned—that there is still a route back to the negotiating table, and that is what we are seeking to pursue.

Britain in the World

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I am not sure it is likely to work exactly as my hon. Friend suggests, but I do take his point. We need to be very clear in our minds about the strategy we are charting and then reconcile our means, including our financial means, to those ends, so he makes an important point.

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

In support of what my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (James Gray) has said, may I remind the Foreign Secretary that, in 2017-18, we had a national security capability review that sought to look at both security and defence together, but it was so limited by having to be financially or fiscally neutral that it meant that extra resources for, for example, cyber-warfare would be granted only at the cost of making cuts in, for example, the Royal Marines? That is no way to conduct a review—to play off one necessary part, say security, against another necessary part, such as defence.

[Dominic Raab]

I think my right hon. Friend makes an important point, although at the same time we need to be mindful of the overarching financial parameters that any Government—any responsible Government—are going to be within if we are to make credible investment decisions. Certainly, on the issue of cyber and its being somehow nudged out of focus or set up as a zero-sum game with troops, I can assure him that that will not be the case. Cyber increasingly plays an important role not just in our security, but in our ability to project our foreign policy.

--- Later in debate ---

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

It was genuinely a pleasure to hear the hon. Member for Stirling (Alyn Smith) express himself in such fluent and consensual terms. The fact that he says his party is willing to agree with Government Members does not come as a surprise to me, because I know from my experience on the last two iterations of the Defence Committee, where I had the pleasure of serving alongside two Members of the SNP, that that is exactly true. That is how it was that, on a cross-party basis, all three parties represented on the Committee were able to agree at quite an early stage that defence expenditure is too low, and that something in the order of 3% of GDP is a more realistic target if Britain is to hold her head up in the world with safety.

Before I develop that theme, however, I want to pick up one point from the excellent speech made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), and that is his reference to the BBC, in which he concentrated on the World Service. In about 2011, when the then Sir Ming Campbell and I were both members of the Intelligence and Security Committee, I remember that we learned with alarm of the coalition Government’s plan to stop the ring-fenced funding not only of the BBC World Service but of the vital BBC Monitoring Service based at Caversham Park. We expressed the view at the time that the result of putting that funding on the shoulders of the BBC in return for allowing the BBC to have its usual requested rise in the licence fee would come back to bite us—and so it did, because both those budgets were badly squeezed, and I think I am right in saying that in the end the Government felt it necessary to restore separate funding for the BBC World Service, but sadly not for the BBC Monitoring Service.

[Mr Whittingdale]

The position is that the BBC continues to fund the World Service, but it now receives an additional grant from the Foreign Office that has allowed it to expand its services. I very much hope that the Foreign Office will continue—and perhaps increase—that funding.

[Dr Lewis]

Yes, but the trouble is that no such grant was made to the BBC Monitoring Service, which is our principal source of what is called open-source intelligence—or, as the BBC prefers to say, open-source information. The Defence Committee produced a hard-hitting report entitled “Open Source Stupidity”, because that was entirely our opinion of the effect of that cutback by the coalition Government. It led directly to the closure of Caversham Park, and although BBC Monitoring continues to do very good work, it is a shame and a disgrace that it is not specially separately funded, as it used to be.

Coming back to the main topic, this is, as we know, a debate on Britain’s future place in the world. However magnified, however static or even however reduced our future place in the world may be, we have to be able to keep our country safe. As I never tire of explaining to the House, the basis of any sensible defence policy depends on three concepts: deterrence, containment, and a realisation of the unpredictability of future conflicts. The examples I always give—I fear that people will start joining in in a chorus if I do it again, but I do so nevertheless—are the Yom Kippur war in 1973 that took hyper-sensitive Israel by surprise, the Falklands war in 1982 that took us by surprise, the invasion of Kuwait in 1990 that took everybody by surprise, and the 9/11 attacks in 2001 that took the world’s then only superpower by surprise.

What do I conclude from the fact that most wars in the 20th century—I could give many more older examples —were usually not predicted significantly in advance? I conclude that if we are going to have an adequate defence policy, we have to be able to defend flexibly against a whole spectrum of future potential threats because we do not know which of those threats is going to materialise.

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making an excellent speech and excellent points. I want to draw him back to his comments about spending at least 3%. I do not believe that it is about 3%; it is about having the capability we need. The key word he has used is “flexibility”, and that does not have a percentage price on it; it has an equipment and capability price.

[Dr Lewis]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. However, I have found through long experience that although it is a rather crude shorthand, this business of percentages is the one straightforward, simple and clear way of showing to the country what has been happening in relative terms, compared with other high spending Departments, to defence expenditure.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

May I urge the right hon. Gentleman not to oversimplify what is actually complex, and rightly so? Should not the debate be led by capability over the simplicity of saying that we meet a certain target? We do an assessment of where the threat picture is at, we determine what capability is required to meet that threat assessment, and we spend the money accordingly. Targets, while simple and easy to understand, do not paint the whole picture.

[Dr Lewis]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. He came in as if on cue, because I was just about to paint what I regard as the spectrum of threats that are necessary to give us the flexibility that we need to have if we are going to prepare an adequate defence policy.

[John Redwood]

Does my right hon. Friend agree as well that in order to have flexibility, it is very important that we have the key military technologies under our own control, and the industrial capability of flexing up and greatly increasing our output of weaponry should disaster hit and we need to respond?

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Lewis]

I do, and in this there is an important rebuttal of a point often made by those who think we can afford to cut out certain capabilities because we are members of an alliance and we can rely on other allies to supply capabilities that we ourselves do not have. That leaves out of account what happens if, heaven forbid, we are involved in a major conflict and one of our allies is knocked out and no longer able to supply us with the missing capabilities. So while we cannot do everything, we have to be able to do as many things as are possible within a reasonable financial envelope. My point about the percentages is that they give us a rough idea of what is reasonable at any given time in a country’s circumstances.

The spectrum of threats ranges from, at the most extreme end, nuclear obliteration, through conventional defeat and subjugation, to what is generally regarded in the terminology as 21st-century threats—terrorism, subversion, infiltration, disinformation, cyber and space. In the short time remaining, I want to focus on the point about which I had an exchange with the Foreign Secretary during his speech, and that is the question of the defence review.

My concern goes back to 2017, when, as I referred to in my intervention, we had something called the national security capability review. That was meant to look at defence and security altogether, but it was also meant to be fiscally neutral, which meant that if we decided that we wanted to spend more on dealing with so-called 21st-century threats—I am pleased to see the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) nodding in recollection of and, I hope, agreement with my analysis—such as subversion or disinformation or especially cyber, we had to start cutting core conventional capabilities.

I draw the House’s attention, not for the first time, to a very revealing article in The Guardian, no less, on 26 June 2018, in which it was reported that there had been an “increasingly bitter stand-off” between the Treasury and the Ministry of Defence. It read:

“The row has its origins in July last year, when the Cabinet Office announced the national security adviser, Sir Mark Sedwill, would conduct a review of the threats facing the UK and the capabilities needed to meet them. His brief was to look at the UK security needs in the round, taking in the intelligence agencies as well as the MoD. He was also to evaluate the risks posed by terrorists and cyber-attacks as well as from conventional forces.”

That sounds rather similar to what we heard today. The article continues:

“By the autumn, it was clear the intelligence agencies had come out on top and the MoD was looking at being forced to make cuts, with options ranging from reducing the size of the army from 77,000 to 70,000, cutting 1,000 Royal Marines and decommissioning two specialist amphibious-landing ships, HMS Bulwark and HMS Albion.

There was a consensus among mandarins involved in the negotiations the UK was less likely to need two specialist amphibious landing ships than the ability to defend against a cyber-attack on its infrastructure or financial networks.

But there was a backlash from an informal coalition led by Williamson,”—

my right hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson)—

“appointed in November, and the chairman of the defence select committee… as well as a score or more Conservative MPs (and Labour ones with defence jobs in their constituencies)...

One of the arguments from Tory backbenchers was the military were disproportionately represented”—

they mean under-represented—

“in negotiations dominated by politicians with no military background and by the intelligence agencies.

The counter-arguments were little aired in the media: that the UK should abandon its adherence to tradition and instead build a modern force, a pared-down one, with lower spending levels closer to comparable Europeans neighbours. Compared with the UK’s 2.1% of GDP spent on defence, France spends 1.79%, Germany 1.2%... Italy 1.1% and Spain 0.9%.”

The cat was out of the bag—the establishment and the Treasury wanted us to reduce our spending on what is conventionally understood as defence in favour of new capabilities. I entirely agree that we need to spend more on new capabilities, but why does that mean that we have to spend less on conventional capabilities when, as I set out at the beginning, we have no idea what the nature of a future conflict will be? As the threats are augmented and the dangers multiply, we should be spending more, not less.

I return to that rough yardstick of the percentage terms. The Defence Committee spent a lot of time trying to work out what really had happened to defence, because, as we know, the criteria were changed for calculating our GDP percentage expenditure on defence. We were able to establish objectively that

“calculated on a historically consistent basis”,

in the last four years for which figures are available, although officially we spent 2.2%, 2.1%, 2.1% and 2.1%, in reality—on the basis on which it used to be calculated —we spent 1.9%, 1.8%, 1.8% and, again, 1.8%.

I conclude by saying that it used to be the case that in the 1980s we spent roughly the same on defence, on education and on health. We now spend two and a half times on education and four times on health what we spend on defence. No one is asking to go back to the levels of expenditure, comparatively speaking, of the 1980s, but even in the mid-1990s we felt ourselves able to invest 3% of GDP on keeping ourselves safe, not the 4% to 5% that we spent in the 1980s. That is a worthwhile target, an acceptable target and a target to which the Government need to aspire.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call Chi Onwurah.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

We contribute to soft power in all sorts of ways, from our entrepreneurs and our world-beating innovators to the popularity of the arts and the English language overseas. The hon. Gentleman raises the specific issue of the British Indian Ocean Territory. We have no doubt about our sovereignty in that regard. It has been under continuous British sovereignty since 1814; Mauritius has never held sovereignty over the territory. We were disappointed that what was effectively a bilateral dispute was referred to the International Court of Justice and the UN General Assembly. The point of principle is that that circumvents the basic tenet that the ICJ should not consider bilateral disputes without the consent of both parties.

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

Congratulations, Mr Speaker.

In the light of the Foreign Secretary’s rather dismissive response to his predecessor on defence spending, is he aware that the Defence Committee, on which four parties are represented, has recommended 3% of GDP as a realistic medium-term goal? Does he accept that 2% of GDP on defence is a minimum? It is a floor, not a ceiling.

[Dominic Raab]

I pay tribute to all the work that my right hon. Friend has done in this House on security over the years. I certainly hope that I was not dismissive. We have just had one comprehensive spending review. There are competing bids going to the Chancellor on a whole range of issues, but he makes an important point. We are committed, as a stalwart NATO ally, to 2%, and we will certainly consider the report that he referred to as we consider the next CSR.

Harry Dunn

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I echo the hon. Gentleman’s condolences and thank him for the remarks he made at the outset. He asked about pressure on the United States. We have made very clear our disappointment with the refusal to waive, and we have requested a reversal of that decision at every level in the Administration, from the ambassador here through to the representations that the Prime Minister made to the US President.

The hon. Gentleman asked about requests for extradition. They would, of course, be made by the CPS under the UK-US extradition treaty. I am not aware of any obstacle, but I want to be very mindful of the responsibility I have not to say anything prejudicial. He also asked about the review of the arrangements at the Croughton annexe. I am keen for that to be conducted as soon as possible, and certainly before the end of year.

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

Although the Foreign Secretary has given a very full account of the representations made to the American authorities, he has not given any narrative of what the American authorities said in return, in justification of their behaviour. Can he throw any light on what their attitude and excuses are, and can he at least confirm that it had nothing to do with the nature of this lady’s husband’s job?

[Dominic Raab]

Nothing that was communicated to us touched on the point that my right hon. Friend made. There was not a particularly clear reason other than, as a matter of practice, the US made it clear that it would not waive immunity in a case like this. I appreciate that, from the point of view of the family and, indeed, the Foreign Office, that is unsatisfactory.

US Troop Withdrawal from Northern Syria

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

Of course, the SDF is part of the coalition against Daesh. I admire our Kurdish friends and partners enormously, and our posture has not changed at all. We are talking here about the possibility of Turkey moving into north-west Syria—we do not know how far that incursion is going to be—and the fact that the US has said that in those circumstances it would withdraw 50 of its people from the immediate area. So we need a sense of proportion on this, but of course we have to react to circumstances.

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

I am sorry to disagree with my friend the Minister, but saying, “Oh well, it is only a withdrawal of 50 people” is like saying, “Oh, well, it is only the withdrawal of HMS Endurance before the invasion of the Falkland Islands.” Is it not a fact that if the green light is given to Turkey, under its Islamist regime, to attack our allies, it will be an act of treachery and betrayal not dissimilar to what happened in 1944 when Stalin basically gave the green light to Hitler to crush the Warsaw uprising?

[Dr Murrison]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that. I disagree with his analogies, although we will be able to discuss that in some depth, perhaps when we have more time. The Government have been clear where we are on this: we would oppose any incursion by our good friend and NATO ally Turkey into Syria. He is tempting me to speculate on what we might do in the event that this happens. A lot of his remarks are probably better addressed to the US, and no doubt the US, which I am sure listens carefully to him, will have heard his remarks.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 7th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I am not interested in political point scoring. I am interested in getting Nazanin back home. I pay tribute to Richard Ratcliffe, whom I have had the pleasure of meeting. I was struck by his sincerity. He has done an extraordinary job on behalf of Nazanin, and I salute him for that. The hon. Gentleman is right—Iran is acting unlawfully under international humanitarian law, which it has clearly breached. It needs to be brought back into line. My advice to my interlocutors in Tehran, if it were sought, would be, “Do so, and your reputation will increase. You will be one step closer to being shoulder to shoulder in the international panoply of nations, which is where you desire to be.”

This does Iran no good. I appeal on humanitarian grounds in relation to Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. I would also appeal on the basis of Iran’s reputation. While these harrowing, dreadful cases continue, it cannot possibly expect to be able to deal with the wider world in the way that, I think, it wishes.

The hon. Gentleman asked about access. He must know that our access to Nazanin is non-existent. We are forbidden by Tehran to access Nazanin in the way that we would expect to have access to British nationals. I regret that. It would be extremely helpful to move this on if we were allowed to have access to Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. I would strongly urge my ministerial interlocutors to consider that as a reasonable thing for us to have. That is what we require as a minimum in the near future so that we can determine for ourselves many things on which the hon. Gentleman touched.

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

In the middle of last month, it emerged that yet another person, Kylie Moore-Gilbert, a Cambridge-educated British-Australian academic, has been banged up in Iran, probably as a hostage for something as yet officially unspoken, for anything up to a year of a 10-year sentence for spying, so-called. Are there any other cases, without going into specifics, of which the Government are aware of people being held hostage in this way? Given the track record from the earliest days of the Islamic revolution in Iran of taking hostages and using them for nefarious purposes, what advice does the Foreign Office give to British dual nationals and others about the wisdom or otherwise of visiting that country?

[Dr Murrison]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. Foreign Office advice is available on the Foreign Office website, and is updated periodically. On other cases, yes, there are number of cases with which we are dealing. I am afraid I cannot be drawn, for reasons that he will understand, either on the precise number of those cases or their identity, except insofar as they or their families wish the matter to be made public. We have to be led very much by individuals’ wishes, which is why I am being a little cautious about giving a full answer to the question that my right hon. Friend asked.

Hong Kong

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 26th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I know, but the hon. Gentleman made that reference. I do, however, share his sense that we need to make the UN work as effectively as possible. We have been out at the UN General Assembly this week. That has been curtailed, as he will know, but those are the kinds of things we talk about. Of course, China is a permanent member of the UN Security Council, so it is reasonable and legitimate to expect China to uphold the values of the United Nations when it comes to Hong Kong.

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

Following directly the point that was just made by the SNP spokesman, is there any evidence that the Chinese intelligence services, adopting classic communist methodology, are trying to discredit the protesters by infiltrating them with agents provocateurs, where the violent fringe is concerned? Will my right hon. Friend give special consideration to about 265 former members of the Hong Kong armed services, who should in the past have been offered the choice of a British passport but, I believe, have yet to receive that offer?

[Dominic Raab]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his remarks; I know that he follows these issues closely. I am going to be a bit careful about commenting on what is really happening in relation to intelligence services from any other country, but one thing I would say is that it is becoming increasingly clear, in relation to some of the counter-protests, that there are criminal gangs involved, and it is not clear entirely what their links may or may not be with the various administrations. I think, for our part, we need to play this in a very straight way, which is to say that there are some legally binding obligations on the Hong Kong Government, and indeed on China, to respect peaceful protest. Frankly, wherever those incursions or erosions or impingements come, we will call them out.

Iran

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Wednesday 25th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I totally agree with the right hon. Gentleman’s sentiments and objectives. It is quite difficult to say; it depends on what decisions are made and what the response of the international community is. We are at a very precarious point. The JCPOA is hanging by a thread. We want to continue it, but we also want to ensure in the terms I have described that we work with all our international partners to try to raise our game and have a more ambitious deal on both the nuclear side of things and the wider destabilising activity that Iran is doing to threaten the region.

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

Do the Government accept that when we are dealing with two adversarial powers, both influential and both in the grip of religious fanaticism, the best policy we can adopt is one of the traditional balance of power, making sure that neither becomes too strong, but not fooling ourselves that the enemy of my enemy is necessarily my friend?

[Dominic Raab]

I thank my right hon. Friend; I think Tito or Acheson put it rather less elegantly than he has. I agree with him about being clear-eyed about the countries in the region. Equally, we need to have some moral clarity about the aggressive nature of what Iran is doing. The way I view it is that this is less about the balance of power and more about ensuring that all countries in the region live up to the basic international obligations and responsibilities of the international community and international law.

Situation in the Gulf

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 22nd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

It is right and typically gracious of the Foreign Secretary that he congratulated the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) on her election, and I myself do so. I wish her every possible success in the important work that she now has to undertake.

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

Does the Foreign Secretary accept that the taking of hostages and the flouting of international law have been the signature strategy of Iran ever since the Islamic revolution in 1979? If he does accept that, was it not entirely predictable—and, indeed, predicted—that by impounding this Iranian ship, however legally justified that was, the consequence would be an attempt to retaliate by grabbing a British vessel? What consideration was given, before the original decision was taken, to the adequacy of the number of ships in the Gulf, either ours or those of our allies? What attempts were made to persuade vessels that had to navigate the strait that they should do so in small convoys, which would at least enable two, or at most three, frigates to protect a larger number of ships? Sailing independently and separately meant that one or more were bound to be seized.

[Mr Hunt]

My right hon. Friend is right: we did foresee that this could be one of the reactions from the Iranian Government. That is why we took a number of steps after the detention in Gibraltar on 4 July, including the despatch of HMS Duncan and a lot of extra activity from HMS Montrose over the past few days in escorting 30 vessels, a number of which were British-flagged. There has been a lot of additional activity, but we wanted to do it in a way that was not a red rag to a bull and did not end up with even bigger consequences than the ones we faced, and that gave diplomatic channels a chance to work. I think that it was right to start in that way, but regrettably Iran has not chosen to follow the path that we hoped, so we are taking much more robust action today.

Human Rights in Saudi Arabia

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2019 Westminster Hall

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

If ever there were a prime candidate to be the subject of that excellent BBC Radio 4 series, “Moral Maze”, it would be Britain’s relationship with Saudi Arabia. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on securing the debate and on the measured and temperate way in which he presented the case.

All the Back-Bench Members who have spoken have shown wisdom and moderation in their remarks. I was particularly struck by the contribution of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt), who knows more about the Arab world than just about anybody I have come across in 22 years in this House. Even he, though, with all his knowledge of the subject, made no bones about the extent to which one must be conflicted about a relationship as complex as this.

I mentioned that I have been in this House for 22 years, which takes us back to 1997, when the Blair Government came in on a tide of optimism and idealism, and Robin Cook, who became Foreign Secretary, stated his admirable objective of importing an “ethical dimension” into foreign policy. The problem with trying to find an ethical dimension, however, is that the choices we face, far from being between good and evil, are often about which is the lesser of two evils. I am afraid that that is the situation in which we find ourselves regarding our decades-long involvement with the countries of the middle east.

It is sometimes tempting to feel a sense of superiority about the way in which our society conducts itself, compared with the brutal and authoritarian regimes in other parts of the world in general, and in the middle east in particular. It is good to remind ourselves, therefore, that a few hundred years ago people in this country, who regarded themselves as Christians, thought nothing of inflicting terrible barbarities on one another, similar to what happened to poor Mr Khashoggi in that embassy, in the name of a belief as to which was the true branch of Christianity and which was what we would call, in another context, an infidel variation on that theme.

If we think of that in the context of our history and say, “What could have been done several hundred years ago to rapidly bring those societies to an appreciation of human rights and democratic politics?”, we realise how difficult that process is. That is why revolutions often have such bloody consequences and make bad situations even worse. That is also why I would like to think that most hon. Members believe in the evolutionary, rather than the revolutionary, process. If we are going to make improvements, we have to take society with us from the point at which we find it.

Let me give an example of the dilemmas that arise in relation to Saudi Arabia. On 20 June, I asked the Secretary of State for International Trade:

“Do the Government accept that, as the years have rolled by since the 9/11 atrocities, it has become harder and harder to justify the closeness of our relationship with Saudi Arabia, but in defence of what the Government are trying to do, would it not be sensible for my right hon. Friend to have conversations with the Foreign Secretary, perhaps with a view to publishing a digest of some of the representations that we make to the Saudis in trying to keep them from straying further away from acceptable standards of international behaviour?”

We could add to that the dimensions of human rights abuse. The Secretary of State’s reply, rather predictably, was as follows:

“The Foreign Secretary and I have answered numerous questions on this issue in the House of Commons, and we have certainly cited some of those incidents and been questioned on specific incidents in the House. On my right hon. Friend’s key point, I do not think the proximity or otherwise to 9/11 is the key determinant here; rather, it is whether Saudi Arabia acts as an important source of intelligence for this country in our shared combat against a global terrorism. It is a valuable partner in that particular battle and has helped to keep numerous UK citizens safe.”—[Official Report, 20 June 2019; Vol. 662, c. 379.]

This is where we begin to run up against a dilemma, because we all know that much of the problem of international Islamist totalitarian terrorism derives from sources in Saudi Arabia. When 9/11 happened, it was widely pointed out that there was some sort of pact between the authorities in Saudi Arabia and the totalitarian Islamist revolutionaries that basically they could do what they liked abroad, as long as they kept their activities limited at home. That is what we might call a form of the devil’s bargain.

Because I am not within the ring of secrecy, I am not in a position to know whether the Saudi intelligence services are really constantly feeding us vital information to thwart terrorist plots, or whether, as well as promoting and funding madrassahs all around the world that leach out this terrible form of totalitarian ideology, they are actually just giving us what I believe is known in the trade as chickenfeed, to keep us satisfied that it is better to remain, rather than cease to be, their friends.

[Crispin Blunt]

I think that the position in Saudi Arabia has radically changed since 9/11. Its Government have had to take on board some of the consequences of their policy up to that point, and of the large scale of their investment to support madrassahs in most of the rest of the world. As I understand it, it is now illegal in Saudi Arabia to make a cash donation within a mosque, and everything now has to be accountable in terms of where the money is going. That is the scale of change that is happening in Saudi Arabia, and it is why our Government are right to see it as a practical and important ally in this ideological battle in which we find ourselves on the same side.

[Dr Lewis]

That welcome intervention, if accurate—I have no reason to believe that it is not—is a powerful argument in favour of continued engagement with the regime, even though from time to time it does things that we would regard, with justification, as barbaric. That has often been the nature of international relations, and those are often the difficult choices that have to be made. To give the most extreme example, Sir Winston Churchill had a lifelong hatred of bolshevism and communism; he said at the time of the 1917 revolution that he wanted bolshevism to be strangled at birth. When he found himself in alliance with Stalin after the Nazi invasion of Russia in 1941, he was twitted by a political opponent who pointed out his lifelong hatred of communism. His famous reply was:

“If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.”

The history of diplomacy is that we often have to have relationships with unsavoury regimes in order to avoid something that would be even worse. However, having to have a relationship with a regime that does terrible things does not mean that we should go silent on criticising it. That is why I particularly welcome this debate. In some senses, it was a relief to discover that it would be more about human rights than about the arms trade. Believe me, if we had to have the same debate about the arms trade, which has been touched on slightly, we would face an infinitely more difficult dilemma. We would have to decide, as my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Reigate said in passing, whether it was better to wash our hands of supplying military hardware to Saudi Arabia if the consequence would be to anchor that country in the orbit of Russia or China, as the Iranian regime already is.

I conclude by commending the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland for securing the debate, and by endorsing his notion that pressure on the Saudi regime on the human rights front is one area in which we can safely express our differences without risking a rupture that we cannot afford on overall strategic grounds. I wish him well in his campaign and congratulate all those who stand up for human rights in Saudi Arabia. I hope that they, in turn, will recognise that vast geopolitical forces are and will continue to be at work in the area, and that there are no morally perfect solutions to dealing with an environment like this, in which frankly all the actors are tainted.

I have mentioned Sir Winston Churchill, but perhaps we should go back to the 19th-century concept of the balance of power, which expressed the interests of Britain by ensuring that no one power could become overwhelmingly dominant on the continent and that we did not get drawn in too closely with any power. My fear, which I have expressed before, is that in the conflicts in the middle east we are sometimes in danger of getting too closely involved with one side rather than the other. That side, I am afraid, is Saudi Arabia.