EU Reform

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 18th November 2014 Westminster Hall

[Sir William Cash]

I entirely accept the hon. Gentleman’s second point about the referendum; I have never disputed that. Far from it—it was an extremely good thing, although back then it was about a kind of Europe different from the one we are now experiencing.

I voted for the Single European Act, but I tabled an amendment to preserve the sovereignty of the Westminster Parliament. If that amendment had been allowed for debate, which it was not, it would have changed the whole nature of the matter. I was strongly supported by Enoch Powell, who understood that if we were to have a single market that did not work, the only way to retrieve the situation would be through some form of “notwithstanding” formula of the sort I have returned to over and again in subsequent years.

German economic policy is obsessed with fiscal discipline and large current account surpluses. Without the euro, currency adjustments would control Germany’s ability to export cheaply. German economic efficiency, combined with the single currency, allows for artificially cheap German exports at the expense of Mediterranean countries, which can deflate their currencies to offset cheap German goods, drawing money and jobs north and leaving the southern Governments unable to finance their deficits through economic growth.

German insistence on fiscal discipline is, as Wolfgang Munchau made clear in yesterday’s Financial Times, ideological and a deeply held response to the crisis of the 1930s. The result will be the destruction of the Mediterranean export economies while simultaneously deepening the damage through austerity on a massive scale. An attempt to impose German-style labour laws and fiscal discipline on those countries will fail and will not bring the required efficiency to compete with Germany.

The eurozone, which is dominated by Germany, is a disaster, as is increasingly recognised publicly by some of my Labour colleagues, and it seriously damages our economy. Furthermore, although we are told that consensus is the norm, the political consequences of the present treaties mean that, as of 1 November this year, the majority voting system in the EU Council of Ministers has been profoundly changed, subject only to a compromise transitional arrangement called the Ioannina compromise.

Germany and France with two small states can now effectively determine European decision making. The consensus is insufficiently transparent and is achieved primarily because the member states know the outcome of a given vote, which in any case does not sufficiently correspond to our concerns. In my European Scrutiny Committee, we have been very critical of how Coreper functions and the manner in which we are unable to achieve our objectives. We also have some critical things to say about UKRep.

Indeed, VoteWatch Europe has demonstrated that when the UK has voted between 2009 and 2012, it has done so in favour with the majority of member states in 90% of all votes. That strongly suggests that most European Commission proposals go through in practice. Therefore, the change in the voting system will tend to affect British interests increasingly adversely.

Professor Roland Vaubel of Mannheim university has examined the voting system and argued that the outcome is one of regulatory collusion, favouring Germany in particular. One must recognise that Germany makes a very substantial net contribution—£13 billion in 2013 compared with our £8.6 billion, although our contribution is rising. In return, Germany now acquires disproportionate advantages under the voting system and through its economic influence in Mitteleuropa.

In his speech in Berlin on 13 November, John Major reinvoked the concept of subsidiarity and he did so again on “The Andrew Marr Show” on Sunday. He said that subsidiarity is the answer and that we must

“nail it down as a matter of European law”.

I do not know which planet John Major has been living on since Maastricht, but that is already a matter of EU law. When he promoted subsidiarity in the Maastricht treaty, I described it as a con trick. In my 30 years on the European Scrutiny Committee, I have never come across a single example of the direct application of subsidiarity. Even John Major now reports its failure, and his speech in Berlin was a catalogue of the failures of his European policy at Maastricht.

The European Union is not an abstract concept. It is about the daily lives of our voters, to whom we are directly accountable, across a vast range of matters. The list of chapters in the consolidated treaties sets out the immense impact that the European Union now has on us all.

The European Scrutiny Committee, of which I was elected Chairman in 2010, argued strongly and unanimously in November 2013 that the Government should reintroduce the veto. We were promised that the veto would never be abandoned when the White Paper was issued in 1971; that was the basis of our voluntary acceptance of the treaties by our Parliament in the passing of the European Communities Act 1972, yet so many other additional competences have been added since. That paper described the veto as being in our vital national interest, and stated that to abandon it would even endanger “the very fabric” of the European Community itself. Somebody out there understood where all this could lead, as it has.

The Prime Minister, to his credit, did veto the fiscal compact, although my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) will remember a conversation that we had with him shortly beforehand. My Committee proposed the application of the formula

“notwithstanding the European Communities Act 1972”

to our Westminster legislation when it is in our national interest to do so. We could thereby override European laws and the European Court of Justice when necessary, as we can and should, under our own flexible constitutional arrangements unique to the United Kingdom among the 28 member states, thus regaining our right to govern ourselves in matters of vital national interest.

Those proposals were rejected by the Government, which shows how weak our negotiating stance really is in relation to the need to change fundamentally our relationship with the EU in the interests of our parliamentary democracy and the needs of our voters.

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

Am I right in thinking that my hon. Friend has referred to the fact that Germany—the country on which this debate is focused—has a sort of parliamentary supremacy as a safeguard in its legislation, and that that is what he has tried to introduce for the United Kingdom? Can he tell us how well it works for Germany?

[Sir William Cash]

The short answer is that in the German constitution, in the preamble to the Basic Law of 1949, an assumption is built in for a united states of Europe. Unfortunately, therefore, a change in the German constitution would be required to enable the Karlsruhe court to override the provisions of the Basic Law. Therefore, Germany faces a real constitutional question that we do not, because we do not have a written constitution and we have the inherent right, within our own Parliament, to make the kind of adjustments that we want in this area.

To refuse to accept our Committee’s proposals—I say this with great respect to the Minister—is not merely walking away; it is not even engaging with the real problem, which is the dysfunctional structure created by successive treaties and the disadvantages that that creates for the United Kingdom.

All that demands a direct return to democratic accountability at Westminster—not the Maastricht-based co-decision with the European Parliament, which I opposed at the time, and not the manner in which the majority voting system and the so-called consensus have led to us being put at significant disadvantage from time to time in matters of our national interest. Those are increasingly becoming a matter of concern following the change in the voting system as of 1 November.

--- Later in debate ---

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

In 1997 it was an act of rebellion for a Conservative candidate in the general election to campaign against the UK joining the single currency. Indeed, I had to resign my post at Conservative central office in order to do so. In the lifetime of this Parliament it was also an act of rebellion for a Conservative Member to vote for an in/out referendum. Both those rebellions are now seen as core Conservative commitments, and even the Labour party and many others, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) said in his outstanding speech, would not dream of going to the electorate pledging themselves to trying to join the single European currency. That shows that, over time, progress can be made in opening people’s eyes to what is at stake with Britain’s troubled relationship with the European Union.

On two grounds in particular, no one could be better qualified to introduce such a debate than my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash). First, as we have heard, his father won the military cross but also lost his life fighting to liberate France from German occupation in 1944. Secondly, although of course I knew that he is Chair of the European Scrutiny Committee, I did not learn until today that he has served on that Committee scrutinising Euro-legislation for the last 30 years, which is an exercise in self-flagellation bordering on the heroic.

There seem to be two strands to the idea of Germany in Europe, and the first strand appears to have something in common with what used to be said in the early years of NATO, which, as we all know, was once described as being designed

“to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down”.

In other words the idea was that, because Germany had twice brought world war to the European continent, the best way of preventing it happening again was to tie Germany into multinational alliances and institutions. That is one point of view; the other point of view is that it is not only about trying to prevent war in Europe. The question is whether it is an alternative way for Germany to exercise the sort of power and control in Europe that she failed to get by other means in those two terrible conflicts. I do not know which of those two strands is the primary motivation among German democratic politicians. Some of them may indeed be afraid of their country’s past being repeated; others may actually covet ways of gaining, through peaceful methods involving the slow absorption of other countries that are gradually drawn into the EU net, the sort of influence that they failed to gain in the past.

In the 1970s I studied the theory of international relations under the great Professor Sir Michael Howard, as he now is. One of the topics I studied was integration theory. The idea was that countries could be made to merge with each other not by telling them directly what the end product would be, but by drawing them through imperceptible degrees and through the exercise and creation of new common functions into an ever-closer relationship, so that they did not realise where they were going until they had already arrived at their destination.

I must admit that I was sceptical. I thought that countries might start on that path but that at some point they would wake up, realise the destination, decide that they did not want it and turn back. I admit that I have had to qualify my scepticism over the subsequent decades because, time and again, I have seen our country being drawn down that route. I wish I had £5 for every time somebody involved with the European project has said, “The high point”—or the high-water mark, or something else of that sort—“of European integration has now been reached.” Funnily enough, there is always one high-water mark after another. Frankly, I am getting fed up with it.

[Mr Redwood]

Has my hon. Friend also noticed that each successive federalising treaty has been explained to us as representing no serious transfer of power of any kind? How is it that we have so little power left?

[Dr Lewis]

Indeed. The process has become such a habit that the mask slips very rarely; but there was one notable occasion when the mask did slip. On new year’s eve just over a decade ago, when the European single currency was about to come into force, I saw the then President of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, being interviewed at midnight, and he was asked the following question: “This is a political project, isn’t it?” For once he let the mask slip, and he smiled beatifically and said, “It is an entirely political project.”

[Sir Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for allowing me a brief intervention. In the 1980s the mantra of Conservative Governments and Ministers was “No essential loss of sovereignty.” That was haunted right through and dragged across the nation as if there was a truth in it. Any time anyone suggested that sovereignty is a perfect construction in itself, they immediately wanted to tell us why sovereignty was no longer sovereignty, having said there would be no loss of sovereignty.

[Dr Lewis]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend who, like my hon. Friend the Member for Stone and my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham, has done so much over the years to try to arrest the slide to a destination that nobody in this country actually wants. The reality is that if there is a single currency, it will only work if there is a single economy. And if there is a single economy, it will only work if there is a single Government. And if there is a single Government, it will only work if there is a single country, which is what the architects of this scheme want us to have. Although they admit to each other that it is political, what they say to us is that it is economic and that it all depends on our economic and trading relationship with Europe. I conclude by saying that just because one has a strong trading relationship with other states, it does not mean that one has to merge one’s currency, one’s economy, one’s population, one’s foreign policy or one’s country with those other states. We want a good relationship with Europe, but we are our own country, which is how we intend to stay.

US-UK Mutual Defence Agreement

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 6th November 2014 Westminster Hall

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Indeed; those countries have all been involved in conflicts, and we have come near to the use of nuclear weapons in the case of Korea and in the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. Clearly, their existence poses a threat. When the House debated Trident renewal in 2007, many Members took the view that Britain’s security depended on having nuclear weapons. If that was the case, someone could argue for any country in the world developing nuclear weapons on the basis that that would guarantee its security.

As I have explained, the reality is that the vast majority of nations do not have nuclear weapons and do not want them. Although some are under a nuclear alliance such as NATO, many are not and do not possess nuclear weapons, yet have massive natural resources. Many countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia are part of nuclear weapons-free zones. That is my view.

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

I appreciate that I will have the opportunity to speak after the hon. Gentleman, but I want to take him back to the point made by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). The hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) said that if nuclear weapons were used, there would be dire effects on the environment and on the planet, but does he not recognise that people who believe in deterrents believe that the nuclear deterrent is constantly in use, because the use resides in the possession, which results in the deterrent effect on any other power against using such weapons against this country?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The hon. Gentleman and I have debated that view, and I simply do not agree that they provide security. Yes, they are in existence every day and therefore clearly are potentially a threat to somebody, but it did not do the USA much good on 11 September 2001. Nuclear weapons were not much help on that occasion; nor are they much help in dealing with poverty, environmental disasters and people who are forced to flee and seek refuge elsewhere.

My purpose today is to debate the mutual defence agreement and that, of course, is central to Britain’s nuclear relationship with the United States. I turn to the history of the agreement. The USA had the McMahon Act, which did not allow the sharing of its nuclear or defence information with any other state, notwithstanding the provisions of the NATO treaty of 1948. Britain, which had a very close relationship with the USA throughout the 1940s and ’50s, could not legally share a relationship of nuclear information with the USA. The McMahon Act was then amended, and straight after the amendment was agreed, the mutual defence agreement came into being, by which information and technology is shared between Britain and the USA.

An interesting legal point relates to the use of testing facilities at the Atomic Weapons Establishment Aldermaston and plutonium, which it would be completely illegal to use or test in the USA. I would be grateful if the Minister said whether there is any testing involving plutonium or potential uses of plutonium at AWE Aldermaston, because it is a significant part of the issue.

The mutual defence agreement has been amended a number of times in its history and was most recently renewed, on a regular 10-year cycle, to allow arrangements for the transfer of special nuclear materials and non-nuclear components. The treaty was last extended in 2004 and will be extended a further 10 years from this year. As I have explained, the US Congress debated it earlier; we were not able to debate it.

The next issue relates to what I have just said about the use of AWE Aldermaston, but also to the legality of nuclear weapons and the relationship of the agreement to the non-proliferation treaty, which is the result of an initiative by a previous Labour Government to try to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The treaty has two central themes. One is that all states that do not possess nuclear weapons and that sign the non-proliferation treaty agree not to possess them, take them on board or develop them. The other is that the five declared nuclear weapon states—Britain, France, China, Russia and the USA—agree both to take steps towards disarmament and not to allow the proliferation of nuclear weapons. So it would be interesting to know how Israel managed to get hold of its nuclear weapons and nuclear facilities.

It would also be interesting to know how this Government or any other Government can justify nuclear rearmament within the terms of the articles of the non-proliferation treaty. In a legal opinion released in July 2004 for Peacerights, BASIC—the British American Security Information Council—and the Acronym Institute, Rabinder Singh, QC, and Professor Christine Chinkin of Matrix Chambers concluded that

“it is strongly arguable that the renewal of the Mutual Defence Agreement is in breach of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty”.

I would therefore be grateful if the Minister said in his reply to the debate what the legal process is in the evaluation of the mutual defence agreement and how he believes that it is compatible with our obligations under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, which is coming up for its five-year review in May 2015—unhelpfully, during the general election period in this country. Will he explain exactly what power and what finance have been used, in advance of the Trident replacement programme, to ensure that the British Government have that money available, even though there has been no main-gate decision, which is due to be taken in 2016?

I shall quote from written evidence given to the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs by Nick Ritchie of the Bradford disarmament research centre:

“The UK is entirely dependent upon the United States for supply and refurbishment of its Trident II (D5) submarine-launched ballistic missiles… The missiles themselves are produced and serviced in the United States by Lockheed Martin. The UK does not actually own any individual missiles, but purchased the rights to 58 missiles from a common pool held at the US Strategic Weapons facility at the Kings Bay Submarine Base, Georgia. British Trident submarines also conduct their missile test firings at the US Eastern Test Range, off the coast of Florida.”

The obvious point is that the claim that Britain has an independent nuclear deterrent must be treated with the utmost caution, if not derision, when what is quite clear is where the technology comes from, the relationship with the mutual defence agreement, the expenditure involved and the testing facilities that are available for Britain to use in the USA.

[Dr Lewis]

There is a question of independence in terms not of manufacture, but of control. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that it is entirely a matter for the United Kingdom Government whether the deterrent would be fired—as opposed to used—in response to a nuclear attack on this country and that the United States could do nothing to prevent that from happening?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

That is indeed a very good question. I hope that the Minister can assist the hon. Gentleman with the answer, because it is fundamental. We have been told all my life that we have an independent nuclear deterrent in Britain and that we can operate independently. The mutual defence agreement should not have been necessary in 1958 if that was the case. It clearly was the case before 1958. Whether it was after that, I doubt, and it certainly was not the case at all after Polaris came in during the 1960s. That was a US import, as is the current technology. Could Britain fire off a nuclear weapon independently of the United States? No, I do not believe that it could. I believe that it would require the active participation of the US military and US Administration to undertake that. I simply do not believe that it is an independent nuclear weapon. I hope that this debate begins to raise more of those extremely important questions.

I was referring a few moments ago to the activities at AWE Aldermaston. Stanley Orman, a former deputy director of the AWE, said in 2008 that

“we also devised a technique...of imploding a non-fissile plutonium isotope. Now because it was plutonium the laws in the States would not allow you to implode this even though it was non-fissile, because it was plutonium. So again the American scientists would come across and use our laboratories because they couldn’t use theirs.”

If that is the case, one has to ask this question. Why is this treaty so one-sided that the USA is unable to do some testing in its own jurisdiction and therefore does it in ours, when the mutual defence agreement has received very limited parliamentary scrutiny, apart from today?

--- Later in debate ---

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

It is a pleasure to contribute to the debate under your chairmanship, Sir Roger, and a pleasure, as always, to follow the eloquent case made by the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn). I am always happy to support him when he applies for debates such as this, just as he is always happy to support me when I apply for debates about nuclear deterrence. The reason why we are happy to support each other, despite taking entirely opposite views, is that we both feel that we have a good case to make.

There is no earthly reason why Parliament should be shy of debating such an important matter. The hon. Gentleman may find it a trifle more disappointing than I do that if we took a trip down memory lane to a similar debate in the 1980s, the Chamber would be full of people wishing to contribute. He and I have, to put it mildly, struggled a little to get people to come along and take part in this debate, for the simple reason that the issue is not nearly as contentious now as it was two or three decades ago.

I venture to suggest that that is because the British public have spoken on the matter, over and over again. They spoke decisively on it in the general elections of 1983 and 1987, when the question of Britain one-sidedly abandoning its nuclear deterrent was central to campaigning. They have spoken time and again in public opinion polls. Of course, it is possible to vary the answers that we receive in such polls according to the questions we ask. However, when we ask what I regard as the fundamental question: “Do you think that Britain should continue to possess a nuclear deterrent or nuclear weapons while other countries have them?”, invariably, about two thirds of the respondents say yes, about a quarter say no and a small, single-figure fraction are undecided. The issue is divisive, because fundamentally it is an article of faith. Are we more likely to keep the peace by getting rid of such weapons unconditionally or by showing a potential enemy that it would be too dangerous to attack us with their nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction?

[Mr Leech]

What does the hon. Gentleman think the answer would be if we asked the general public whether they would prefer to dump Trident rather than sack soldiers?

[Dr Lewis]

I think it would depend on the extent of the debate that had taken place before the question was asked. I would be confident that if there were to be a debate on the subject, the public would come to share my view that no amount of conventional forces can be adequate to prevent an attack on us by an enemy armed with weapons of mass destruction if we lack the means to retaliate in similar terms.

While I am dealing with the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, let me return to a point that he made earlier in an intervention on the hon. Member for Islington North. He pointed out that nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence had not abolished war, and that wars continued all over the planet. That is not an argument against nuclear deterrence; it is an argument in favour of it. After the second world war, if we had lived through 50 years of hostility between the then Soviet bloc and the west and there had been no conflicts anywhere in the world in which the nuclear balance of terror did not apply, one could indeed make the case that the nuclear balance of terror had had nothing to do with the prevention of war. The reality was that proxy wars were being fought by client states of the superpowers during the cold war, but the one thing that the superpowers never dared to do was to fight against one another directly, because they knew the potential outcome of all-out war between nuclear-armed powers.

Why is it important to have a debate on the matter, even though public opinion is fairly settled and parliamentary opinion is fairly relaxed? There are two reasons.

[Mr Spellar]

The hon. Gentleman says that parliamentary opinion is fairly relaxed, and that may be a proper assessment of the arithmetic. In that case, why does his Prime Minister not put the issue of Trident renewal to a vote of Parliament?

[Dr Lewis]

I wish I knew the answer. I have asked that question many times, and it takes me neatly on to the two reasons why it is important that we have a debate on this subject, even though Parliament seems relatively relaxed about it. There is no doubt that if we look at the arithmetic of the 2007 vote that took us through the first stages of the successor programme to the Vanguard class submarines, it was exactly as the shadow Minister says—virtually every Conservative MP and a substantial majority of Labour MPs voted for continuing the deterrent into the next generation, and a significant minority of Labour unilateralists voted against the measure. The figure was about 80 or 90, if I remember correctly.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

One hundred.

[Dr Lewis]

One hundred exactly. Any advances on 100? No, so let us take that as the figure.

There is no doubt that, if there were to be a free vote in the House of Commons, this matter would proceed. One of the reasons why I want to continue having these debates until such a vote happens is that there should already have been a vote. The shadow Minister is right about that. The main-gate contracts were due to be signed during this Parliament, and it was entirely a result of coalition politics and a back-door deal with the Liberal Democrats, who are opposed to renewing Trident, that the vote was not held and that the life of the existing submarines was extended by five years. The key vote has now been put off until 2016.

One of the two main reasons why it is valuable to continue having these debates is that it is important that Front Benchers from both main parties put their respective positions on the record as often as possible. Let us face it, much as Labour and Conservative Members might regret it, there is always the possibility that we may end up with another hung Parliament that is once again dependent on the Liberal Democrats, or conceivably on the UK Independence party or, worst of all, the Scottish National party—I say that without reference to the fact that the party’s parliamentary leader, the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson), has just vacated his place—if Labour suffers as badly in Scotland at the general election as some predict. It is therefore terribly important that the Front Benchers of both main parties have their feet held to the fire as often as possible so that there can be less room for wriggling out of it in the event of another hung Parliament.

[Mr Spellar]

The hon. Gentleman refers to wriggling out, but that is exactly what he is doing. It was absolutely clear where the parties stood in the debate on 17 July 2013, when the policies were enunciated perfectly clearly. My party’s policies were endorsed by the national policy forum and the recent Labour party conference. I am not aware of any changes in his party’s view. This debate is therefore not about the position of the parties being enunciated or holding people’s feet to the fire. The fact is that he has not managed to persuade his Prime Minister to do anything, and he ought to come clean about that.

[Dr Lewis]

There is a very good reason why I have not been able to persuade the Prime Minister to do anything, which is that it was evidently part of the negotiations—albeit that they were not made public at the time—on the formation of the coalition Government.

[Mr Spellar]

Secret negotiations.

[Dr Lewis]

Indeed. Evidently as part of the deal an agreement was reached between the Conservative leader and the Liberal Democrat leader that the decisive steps for the renewal of the successor submarines for Trident would be put off until after the next general election.

[Mr Spellar]

rose—

[Dr Lewis]

I will give way one more time, but I want to make some progress.

[Mr Spellar]

I wholly understand the hon. Gentleman’s desire to make progress. Let us be clear that what he has said is that, for a squalid deal to get office, the Prime Minister was prepared to damage the defence of this country. That is according to the hon. Gentleman’s own arguments.

[Dr Lewis]

What I am saying is quite clear. If we end up with a hung Parliament and the balance of power is held by a small unilateralist party, it will be able to blackmail one or other of the main parties into not doing what should be done, which is to sign the contracts to make the renewal of Trident for another generation a certainty. I am clear that that was part of the potpourri of things that were negotiated in private. At the time I described it as a love gift to the Liberal Democrats. I thought it was absolutely wrong. It was a shock and a surprise, and it is not something of which any Conservative should be proud. Having said that, I look to my own party’s Front Benchers for an assurance that nothing like that will ever happen again, and I look to the Opposition spokesman for an assurance that no Labour leader will be tempted to conclude such a deal either.

The second reason why it is important to have a debate on this subject at this time is that the terms of trade, as it were, in international relations have changed. When the hon. Member for Islington North and I addressed these matters in January 2013, when we debated the nuclear deterrent, and in June 2013, when we debated the non-proliferation treaty, much of the argument was focused on the fact that the cold war was over and showed no sign of returning and that the nuclear deterrent was therefore irrelevant to the threats that then confronted us. As some of us stated at the time, it was far from certain that we could ever know significantly in advance whether those circumstances were going to change. We all hoped that Russia, having shed communism and started along a more democratic path, would continue to go in that direction, but there could be no guarantee.

Even now, we cannot tell where our relationship with Russia will be in the next 10, 20 or 30 years. Nobody predicted the crisis that has arisen over Ukraine, and some might argue that if Ukraine were a member of NATO, the Russians would not have done what they have done. Conversely, it could also be argued that if Ukraine were a member of NATO and the Russians had done what they have done, we would possibly now be on the brink of an extremely dangerous east-west confrontation.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that there was an agreement between Russia and the west at the time of Ukrainian independence that Ukraine would not join NATO and would not be a nuclear power? Indeed, at the time Ukraine itself renounced nuclear weapons and their presence in Ukraine.

[Dr Lewis]

Indeed, Ukraine did renounce nuclear weapons. I strongly suspect that public opinion in Ukraine might now be divided, to put it mildly, over the wisdom of that decision. Given that they were Soviet nuclear weapons, Ukraine probably had little choice in the matter.

It would be a mistake to put countries on the path to NATO membership—I have said this consistently—if other NATO members would not be prepared to go to war in defence of their borders. It is all well and good to say that everyone would like to be a member of every alliance, but NATO has been so successful for so long because there is no doubt about its security guarantee. That is the importance of deterrence. In order to deter, we must be able not only to threaten an aggressor with an unacceptable level of punishment but to ensure that he is in no doubt that that unacceptable punishment will inevitably follow if he commits himself to an attack using weapons of mass destruction.

It was said earlier in the debate that the fact that the nuclear deterrent did not prevent the attacks on America in 2001 disproves the efficacy of nuclear deterrence. It does nothing of the kind. The efficacy of nuclear deterrence lies in its ability to deter another country with weapons of mass destruction from firing them in an act of aggression against you—not you personally, Sir Roger, but the person trying to deter the potential aggressor from attacking. The fact that the ability to deter one form of attack does not act as a panacea to prevent all forms of aggression or attack is neither here nor there.

The question we must ask ourselves is what the situation would have been if a country that did not possess nuclear weapons but had overwhelming conventional power faced a country that was weaker conventionally but could nevertheless deploy even a small number of nuclear weapons in an act of aggression. The answer is that no amount of conventional forces could make up for it.

When I saw that the hon. Member for Islington North wanted this debate, I knew that although it would hinge on the mutual defence agreement, that would be only a peg on which to hang the wider argument. The truth of the matter is that the mutual defence agreement is merely a facilitator for the UK’s continuing ability to maintain a nuclear deterrent.

When somebody is against maintaining the nuclear deterrent, there are a number of ways for them to campaign against it. They can try to win votes in Parliament, but as we have seen, when votes are held in Parliament on the issue, the majority of MPs are in favour of continuing the deterrent. They can try to win the battle for public opinion, but as we have seen in general elections during the cold war and in subsequent opinion polls, most members of the public think that the country should continue to possess some nuclear weapons as long as other countries have them. Therefore, the advocates of unilateral British nuclear disarmament must try to find indirect means of pursuing it. They think that if they can cite the non-proliferation treaty or the mutual defence agreement and derail the latter or get a legal opinion about the former, they might achieve by indirect means what they cannot achieve directly.

The truth of the matter is that nuclear weapons indeed have terrible humanitarian consequences, but those consequences arise when such weapons are fired; they do not arise when the weapons are used as they are meant to be used by democratic states. As I said in my first intervention on the hon. Member for Islington North, they are used in order to show any country that might contemplate or toy with the idea of aggression against the United Kingdom—a NATO democratic country—that that cannot be undertaken without the certainty of incurring unacceptable levels of retaliation.

Article VI of the non-proliferation treaty says:

“Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”

The only thing that is time-limited is the

“cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date”.

I am sure that the Minister will spell out how this country least of all the nuclear powers can be accused of being involved in a nuclear arms race—I am glad to see him nodding—because it has done more to reduce its nuclear stockpile than any other nuclear country.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

To take the hon. Gentleman back to what he said a couple of moments ago about the effects of nuclear weapons, surely he must be as aware as I am of the effects of nuclear testing in Australia, the Pacific, the United States and the former Soviet Union. To say that nuclear weapons’ existence has no effects is simply not correct.

[Dr Lewis]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that the testing of nuclear weapons—they were physically fired and exploded—had effects. That is why there have been subsequent agreements to ensure that no testing of that sort is ever done again in the atmosphere. He is absolutely right about that, but I am afraid that we have moved long beyond that point now. We are now at the point where we must decide which is the more humanitarian way to proceed. I would argue that the lesson of 50 years’ stand-off during the cold war, albeit with some intense crises at one time or another, is that the people who first thought about such matters in 1945 were correct. They viewed it slightly differently from Clement Attlee.

The hon. Gentleman—I like to call him my hon. Friend—quoted Clement Attlee at the beginning of this debate as saying that the only way to prevent catastrophe would be to outlaw war. I believe that the only way to prevent catastrophe—he has heard me quote this before, but I am afraid that will not prevent me from quoting it again—was set out in 1945 by Professor Sir Henry Tizard, the leading defence scientist of the day, when he was considering the future nature of warfare in a secret report for the chiefs of staff. He was not allowed to consider the coming of the atomic bomb in any detail, but he could not resist making a general observation about it:

“A knowledge that we were prepared, in the last resort,”

to retaliate with an atomic bomb

“might well deter an aggressive nation.”

He drew a rather revealing parallel:

“Duelling was a recognised method of settling quarrels between men of high social standing so long as the duellists stood 20 paces apart and fired at each other with pistols of a primitive type. If the rule had been that they should stand a yard apart with pistols at each other’s hearts, we doubt whether it would long have remained a recognised method of settling affairs of honour.”

[Jeremy Corbyn]

It is interesting that the hon. Gentleman quotes Tizard. He could also have quoted Sir William Penney, but I suggest that he look at the profound comments of Einstein, who said that if he had known what was coming, he would rather have been a clockmaker. Joseph Rotblat, whose work was crucial to the Manhattan project, was so appalled by the power of nuclear weapons that he spent his whole life campaigning for a nuclear-free world. Surely they are more apposite than Tizard.

[Dr Lewis]

I am afraid that I have not put my argument across sufficiently well. I was not trying to suggest that we should accept the argument based on the eminence of Sir Henry Tizard; I used the argument because of its innate strength. The fact is that many distinguished philosophers have been ardent nuclear unilateralists, including some who worked on the bomb. I gave that quote not so much because of who said it, although I felt it necessary to spell that out, but because of the truth that it contains, which is that when a weapons system is not only able but certain to inflict unacceptable damage, therefore making retaliation unavoidable to those who wish to commit aggression, people will think much more deeply and carefully before they embark on attack, aggression and conflict. The experience of the cold war proves that, and the majority of people in Parliament and among the public recognise that.

There is therefore nothing to fear in debating issues such as whether or not the mutual defence agreement should continue, because what the agreement amounts to is a method of ensuring that this country can never be threatened by an undemocratic state brandishing atomic, nuclear, thermonuclear or chemical weapons. Also, if we look not at the question of who manufactures the components of the weapons system but at who has control over whether the weapons would ever be fired, we can be in no doubt, and neither can any potential aggressor, that any attempt to threaten this country with nuclear blackmail would be suicidal.

It is not a nice thing to live under a balance of terror, but it is a lot better than living under a monopoly of mass destruction weapons that are in the hands of undemocratic countries.

[Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Thank you, Sir Roger, for calling me to speak. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship in this debate, which was secured by the unlikely duo of my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) and the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis).

My hon. Friend and I served together for many years on the London Labour party executive; it was probably around the same time that the hon. Member for New Forest East was a member of the Labour party. I have known my hon. Friend a long time and he has been consistent; it is fair to say that I have consistently disagreed with him during that time. However, he has been extremely patient in constantly ploughing his furrow, as I suppose would be true of any allotment-holder in being patient as they wait for things to come around, but I fear that he will not see fruition on this issue too soon.

Of course, the hon. Member for New Forest East has a very different position from that of my hon. Friend. I almost think that his working with my hon. Friend is a sort of diversion therapy from his frustration with his own leader. He vented that frustration very strongly back in 2010, when he wrote about the formation of the coalition. He said:

“It is not in dispute that, when Conservative MPs met at Westminster to endorse the proposed Coalition, we were categorically assured that the Liberals would have to accept the Trident successor programme. As David Cameron gave this guarantee, George Osborne nodded in confirmation. Unfortunately, all these assurances have since been disregarded.”

I hope that the Minister, in his response to the debate, may be able to shed some light on whether the hon. Member for New Forest East was either wilfully self-deluded or woefully misled by the Prime Minister and the Chancellor in the assurances that they gave.

However, that situation is also based on a misapprehension that the Liberal Democrats are unilateralist disarmers—the hon. Member for New Forest East said that again today—because the policy that they have been pushing to get the Trident review is not a unilateralist one; it accepts the continuation of a nuclear deterrent. However, to try to provide some differentiation between themselves and others, they went for some rather exotic—as well as more expensive, destabilising and uncertain—alternatives, all of which were appropriately demolished by the review.

[Dr Lewis]

I do not intend to emulate the right hon. Gentleman by making as many interventions on him as he made on me, but I will say that I have never regarded him as a naive politician. Nevertheless, if he really thinks that the undercurrent and the real message of the stance taken by the Liberal Democrats on this matter is that they were really in favour of a nuclear deterrent, he should do what I did, although it might disturb his sleep a bit, and watch the rebroadcasting of the Liberal Democrats’ conference debates on this subject, because—believe me—all they were interested in during those debates was getting rid of Trident. One never heard anything mentioned about the positive case for a nuclear deterrent. It was another indirect way of going for unilateralism, because they knew that overt unilateralism would be too unpopular.

[Mr Spellar]

I always say that MPs and Ministers must be responsible for their own words, but if the hon. Gentleman rereads the debate from the time of the Trident review he will see clearly that at one stage the Liberal Democrats argued for the use of nuclear-enabled Cruise missiles. Apart from being a much more expensive option, that is—as I have already said—a far riskier option. I do not mean “risky” in terms of whether or not that option is a credible deterrent, although that is true as well, but in terms of being a destabilising factor, which could lead to much greater tension and—equally importantly—considerable risk of error.

[Dr Lewis]

In the spirit of compromise and convergence, can the two of us at least agree that, since the review of the Trident alternatives, the Liberal Democrat position—sending submarines to sea with no nuclear warheads on them, then waiting for a crisis to arise before sailing them back to port and arming them with nuclear warheads—has to be the most irresponsible fantasy-land thinking in the age of the nuclear deterrent? Furthermore, is it not a shame that no Liberal Democrats are here in Westminster Hall today to defend their decision, or—indeed—to explain it?

[Mr Spellar]

We can draw a veil now over the incoherence and absence of the Liberal Democrats, and get down to the serious and proper debate—it is certainly a proper debate to have—about Britain’s nuclear posture. It is a debate that my party has engaged in for a considerable number of years, in fact ever since the great post-war Attlee and Bevin Government commissioned Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent, a policy that, I am pleased to say, continues today.

Having said that, none of us should underestimate the weighty issues—both the hon. Members who have already spoken stressed this point—that should weigh heavily on all those who have to make these decisions or arguments. I say that because it is very clear that there are huge issues. In reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North, nobody underestimates the impact of nuclear weapons nor the potential devastation that they could cause. Nevertheless, nuclear weapons are a fact in our world.

I partly differ from my hon. Friend in this regard. He made passing reference to the non-proliferation treaty conference that is due to take place next year. Clearly, it will be resolved by—we could say by the nuclear weapon states, but frankly the key discussions that need to take place are between the USA and Russia. If agreement can be reached by them, we should rightly be part of the subsequent discussions. However, as I say, the key initial discussions must be between the USA and Russia.

I do not think that any of the participants in this debate about nuclear weapons, including those who have spoken today or in similar parliamentary debates, in any way underestimate the impact of nuclear weapons on those directly affected, on the environment or indeed on the wider world.

[Mr Spellar]

I take my hon. Friend back to the Attlee memorandum, and indeed to many other documents by those who have written about this subject. That is because the key issue—as Michael Quinlan, the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Defence, who is also a committed Christian and someone who has thought very deeply about these issues, has said—is the removal of the risks of war and instability. That is absolutely crucial in all these circumstances, including in the middle east. That is why it is so important to achieve a two-state solution in Israel-Palestine, although Israel-Palestine is by no means the only source of tension in the middle east. We are seeing so many conflicts taking place in that unhappy region, and that is without any question of nuclear weapons, although, sadly, chemical weapons has been another issue. The resolution of those conflicts and the creation of a stable and peaceful environment is so important.

In the meantime, notwithstanding that, it is also important that the UK plays its part—indeed, it has played its part more than any other country, as I think the hon. Member for New Forest East mentioned—in reducing the proportion of our nuclear armoury. Significantly, that took place under the defence team that I was a member of in 1997 to 2001, but, to be fair I should say that it has been continued by our successors not only in the Labour Government, but in this Conservative Government as well.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

This is positively my last intervention on the right hon. Gentleman, although that is perhaps giving a hostage to fortune. Will he confirm that, when we took those unilateral steps of reducing our nuclear warhead stockpiles, there was no similar response from any of the other existing nuclear powers?

[Mr Spellar]

I think that is right. We had hoped that there would be such a response, but we took that decision in context and reduced to the minimum level necessary to maintain effective deterrence. We have reduced the explosive power of our British deterrent by some 75% since that time. That gives us good credentials and bona fides in those discussions.

I return to the point I made about the NPT. The crucial discussions have to be between the two major nuclear powers, which are still the United States and Russia. That needs to be re-emphasised.

The policy of the Labour party was made clear, as I made clear in previous interventions, by my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) in a debate in the main Chamber on 17 July last year. He was explicit about our commitment to continuous at-sea deterrence—in the most cost-effective way possible, of course. I mentioned earlier that that was also the conclusion of the Government’s own review, which systematically and elegantly dismantled the Lib Dems’ excuses, even though the document contained the bizarre disclaimer, which I hope the Minister will touch on, that it was not a statement of Government policy.

Incidentally, I hope that this afternoon we will hear no more nonsense from Ministers, as we have heard previously in the main Chamber, claiming to speak not on behalf of the Government but on behalf of a political party, because I think that I have fairly well established, with rulings from the Speaker, that whoever speaks from the Dispatch Box—from that position and that microphone—actually speaks from the Treasury Bench and is therefore speaking on behalf of the Government. At a time when various Ministers seem to be dissociating themselves from the Government, it would help, particularly on an issue as significant as this, if the Government spoke with a clear voice.

An argument about cost is sometimes made regarding the more general Trident discussion, and we have mainly had that discussion here, rather than discussing the debate subject of the UK-US mutual defence agreement. Indeed, cost was mentioned in an intervention by the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr Leech). The question there was, would people rather have the nuclear deterrent or the Army? Would they rather have soldiers or air cover? It is not an appropriate comparison. However, one argument is that this programme costs too much. It therefore seems rather strange, if not perverse, to then argue against an agreement that substantially and significantly reduces the cost of the programme in a number of ways. For example, it reduces the cost of delivering the deterrent, even the design and development costs. It is reckoned that the common design has saved the UK in the region of £500 million and precludes the need to design, develop, manufacture and test our own missile system.

The Trident alternatives review estimated that a new warhead alone would cost £8 billion to £10 billion. I have already mentioned the extra cost of moving to cruise missiles. Regarding a cost-effective system, my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham made it clear that our two criteria were maintaining continuous at-sea deterrence and doing so with the minimum possible cost, and the approach I am talking about assists us towards the minimum possible cost.

There was a cross-debate on the independence of the system. The fact that we are buying F-35s, made in the US but with substantial elements made in the UK, does not mean that we do not have an independent Air Force. It is the control of the system, not the sourcing of the weaponry, that is the important test of independence. Therefore we ought to be clear that this is Britain’s independent deterrent, but in a NATO nuclear alliance, as was reaffirmed at the NATO summit. It is slightly odd that our now absent friends from the Scottish National party want to be anti-nuclear but want to join a nuclear alliance. That is a slightly perverse position to take.

I want to be clear, because the hon. Member for New Forest East wanted me to be clear—certainly, clearer than his own Government—about the Opposition’s position. We have made it clear through our policy statement. Labour has said that

“we are committed to a minimum, credible independent nuclear deterrent, delivered through a Continuous At-Sea Deterrent…Labour recognises the importance of Britain leading international efforts for multilateral nuclear disarmament”—

I mentioned the NPT—

“and non-proliferation. Following the action we took when in government, Labour would actively work to enhance momentum on global multilateral disarmament efforts and negotiations”.

The NPT conference in 2015 will be a key moment for a Labour Government to show leadership in achieving progress on global disarmament and anti-proliferation measures.

For all those reasons, we will support the reaffirmation of the agreement and the policy initiated by that great Labour Government of Attlee and Bevin.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 28th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

The House will be aware of the hon. Gentleman’s consistent views on this subject. The goals of the conference are unclear and, consequently, none of the P5 nuclear weapon states has attended the conferences in the past, as he said. We do not believe that a ban on nuclear weapons is negotiable, nor that it would even be observed by many nuclear powers. Even if it could be achieved in theory, in practice the confidence and verification measures that would be necessary to make it effective are not in place.

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

Does my hon. Friend agree that the greatest humanitarian effect of Britain’s possession of a nuclear deterrent is to reduce the chances of nuclear war or nuclear blackmail against this country?

[Mr Ellwood]

The House is, as ever, grateful for my hon. Friend’s interest and expertise in this matter. The Government’s policy is that the Vanguard class submarine will be replaced at the end of its life in the late-2020s by the successor strategic submarine, which will carry the Trident missiles, subject to main-gate investment approval for the programme in 2016. I know that he will approve of that.

Points of Order

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 28th October 2014 Commons Chamber

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

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

We must now make some progress, but not before the jack-in-the-box is satisfied—the hon. Gentleman is bobbing up and down with purpose—and we hear a point of order from Dr Julian Lewis.

[Dr Lewis]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Thank you for that build-up. May I ask whether you have had any notification, either from the Foreign Secretary or from the Defence Secretary, that we will be having a dedicated statement on the ending of the campaign in Afghanistan, because such a statement would give opportunities to pay tribute to the fallen and to the wounded, particularly among hon. Members’ constituents, and to debate issues about the way in which the campaign was fought?

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman is a canny enough fellow to know that he has now, for his own part, substantially achieved his objective, but I know him well enough to know that he will want lots of other colleagues to have comparable opportunities.

Palestine and Israel

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 13th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burden]

Yes, that is absolutely right. The international position is clear: it is delineated by the green line. The final borders will be negotiated in final status negotiations. That is understood, and that is the same for Israel and for Palestine. But let us also remember that it is more than 20 years since the Palestine Liberation Organisation, acting on behalf of the Palestinian people as a whole, recognised the state of Israel. Yet, despite that, when Israel talks about itself, it still says that it wants constant reaffirmation of that recognition. How many times have I heard Israeli Ministers—indeed, some hon. Members—ask, “How can you talk with people who do not recognise your right to exist?” So for them and Israel, recognition is not about negotiation; it is about something fundamental. Well, if that is the case for Israelis, Palestinians have no fewer rights than that. Recognition for Palestinians cannot be a matter of privilege; it, too, must be a matter of right. That is the problem with the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb), because saying that recognition can only happen with the outcome of negotiations very much gives Israel the right of veto not only over a Palestinian state but over the UK Parliament’s ability to make our own decision to recognise that Palestinian state.

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

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Richard Burden]

No. I am afraid that I have given way once. Time prevents me from doing so any more.

In the House, we make our own decisions, and we act on them bilaterally. We do so as members of the European Union and as members of the United Nations. The choice before us is clear: do we want to achieve a two-state solution in practice, with Palestinians and Israelis treated as equals, or are we content to repeat a theoretical mantra about two states where the reality is slipping away before our eyes, either because Binyamin Netanyahu, as he said to The Times of Israel this summer, has said that he will never countenance a Palestinian state that is sovereign in the way that he expects sovereignty for Israel, or because another generation of Palestinians has grown up being told that they must reject the path of violence when the only reality that they see ahead of them is occupation in the west bank and a blockade in Gaza?

I received an e-mail today from a Palestinian living in East Jerusalem. He described some of his life under occupation in East Jerusalem and he asked me to say this tonight: “I want to see light at the end of the tunnel, but I really want to see light at the end of the tunnel; I don’t want to see a train coming at me from the other end.” That is the challenge before us today. Are we prepared to give him that light at the end of the tunnel and to assert that a negotiated solution must be based on equality: two states for two peoples, with equal rights and each with equal stature in the international community? If we are going to do that, it is not just something to talk about; it is something to get on with. People will vote tonight for different reasons, but if we want to achieve a Palestinian state in practice, vote for the motion tonight.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hancock]

I do not believe for one minute that the Israelis’ attitude and the sort of punishment they dished out was in any way the right thing for them to do; it was not in their best interests and it certainly was not in the best interests of the people of Palestine. “The Gatekeepers”, a “Newsnight” special, has been mentioned. In it, five of the past six heads of the top security agency in Israel say that successive Prime Ministers had not wanted to solve the problem with Palestine, and five out of the six say that that was a mistake and that Israel had to change its policy. These were the people who were leading the defence of Israel, but they recognise—obviously far too late, because they did not do this when they were in office—that something has to give in Israel.

Let us return to the initial point of this debate. If we give this motion our blessing, there is not a single thing that will harm Israel, but it will send a powerful message which is crying out to be heard for the people of Palestine, whether they are in the refugee camps—where four generations have now lived—or in Gaza, the west bank, Lebanon, or wherever. The people of Palestine have waited 65 years to get the justice they deserved. We did not listen then: when we could have given a two-state solution in ’48, we chose not to do it. People made that biggest mistake.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

I am sorry to correct the hon. Gentleman on a historical point, but my understanding is that the UN did vote for a two-state solution and five Arab armies then invaded Israeli territory, so it is not quite as he suggests, I think.

[Mr Hancock]

The hon. Gentleman will recollect that those five Arab states were seeking more of a reassurance that their borders would also be safeguarded, so it was a two-edged sword, I am afraid. We therefore have to be very careful when we talk about that situation.

I want to end by saying, please—for goodness’ sake—let us all send out a positive message to the people of Palestine and give them the hope and the light at the end of the tunnel that they deserve to see coming their way.

--- Later in debate ---

[Crispin Blunt]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The right of return will have to be dealt with at some point during the negotiations. In the course of the debate I was delighted to hear the contribution of my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Sir Richard Ottaway) and see the scales begin to drop from his eyes, with the latest land grab by the state of Israel. I was slightly surprised by his characterisation of the six-day war as an effort to destroy Israel. It was a brilliant Israeli feat of arms to dissipate what appeared to be a coming threat to Israel, but it certainly was not a response to an attack on Israel.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

My hon. Friend predicted that he would provoke me to intervene and he has succeeded in that aim. I think the laying of mines across the straits of Tiran could just conceivably be described as an act of war.

[Crispin Blunt]

I will let the lawyers and my hon. Friend come to their own conclusion on that.

My last visit to Israel was with a collection of colleagues from this House to again play cricket for the parliamentary cricket team. I note that the chairman of the Israeli cricket board who entertained us so magnificently—he is a Jew from South Africa who is now an Israeli citizen—said that in his view Israel had begun to lose its moral and legal authority from 1967. Since 1967, we have to understand and consider Israel’s approach to the negotiations and the realities that have been created on the ground. I am afraid that in recent years it has become clearer and clearer that Israeli politicians have avoided the opportunity to deliver a settlement. As the realities on the ground have changed, so it has become more difficult for Israeli leaders to deliver a settlement. The 400,000 settlers in the occupied territories form the most enormous political problem for any Israeli leader to have to address.

Ukraine, Middle East, North Africa and Security

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Wednesday 10th September 2014 Commons Chamber

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

I apologise to colleagues for having missed some of the Back-Bench speeches earlier due to an unbreakable commitment related to the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament.

As was observed earlier, when my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) is thought about in defence terms the one word that will be associated with him will be “strategy”. When my political epitaph comes to be written, I guess most people would think that the one word that would be associated me would be “Trident”—or, if they were feeling kinder, it might be “deterrence”. Actually, a different word ought to be associated with what I am trying to outline in terms of strategy today: “containment”. Containment is the key to what we need to do in the two very different scenarios of Russia’s behaviour and ISIL’s behaviour. Containment sometimes has to be done by means of a balance of terror, as when dealing with a nuclear-armed state such as Russia. On other occasions, it has to be done with the more traditional concept of the balance of power, as when dealing with states such as those of the middle east. Containment by means of the balance of power often means active intervention.

Let me refer briefly to two scenarios. In the case of Russia and Ukraine, what Russia is doing is not new, as the hon. Member for Preston (Mark Hendrick) observed in his interesting speech. In fact, it is based on a model of what it did in the immediate aftermath of the second world war, when countries such as Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Hungary were first subverted and then taken over. I have previously mentioned the important work of Professor Anatol Lieven in analysing the situation in Ukraine. Time prevents me from doing more than pointing out that he has consistently said that the only way in which a disaster will be averted is for some considerable degree of autonomy to be awarded to the Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine. If we try to egg on the other parts of Ukraine to win militarily, Russia will simply step up its military effort and the overall effect will be disastrous.

[Helen Goodman]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very powerful point, and I agree with him. Did he agree with the remarks of the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood), as I was somewhat alarmed to discover that I did?

[Dr Lewis]

Sadly, that is one of the Back-Bench speeches that I missed.

I am grateful, in any case, for the hon. Lady’s intervention, as it gives me a little more time to refer to the important point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth). There is a huge difference between NATO members that are covered by the article 5 guarantee and other countries, no matter how sympathetic we are towards them, that are not. When I was 16, Czechoslovakia was invaded. I thought what a shame it was that while Czechoslovakia was temporarily free we did not scoop up this poor vulnerable country under the protection of NATO. But I was 16 then—I am not 16 now, and I know the realities. I know that what was done in the aftermath of the second world war was nothing more than a recognition of the reality that the west could band together to protect itself by means of NATO, but it could not, at that stage, protect the countries of central and eastern Europe. Russia had to be contained by means of the balance of terror involving nuclear deterrence.

Let me quickly move on to ISIL. We are not in a situation where we have a choice of good outcomes. The right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) and my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi) set out certain conditions in hoping for a good outcome in relation to the choices that face us. I hope they are right, but the likelihood is that there will be no good outcome in these confrontations—that no good guys are going to come out on top, but only somebody of the stripe of an Arab dictator, on the one hand, or revolutionary jihadists on the other.

That is where we move on to containment by means of a balance of power, whereby sometimes there is no ally to be helped and all we can do is try to ensure that no one of a bunch of undesirable actors on the international stage gets to be dominant. That is what we have to do in this case. That is why I gently disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex about the vote that we had last year. I am absolutely delighted to look back on the fact that I was one of the people who made sure that we did not intervene to drag down Assad, atrocious though he is, because the upshot of that would have been similar to that of dragging down Gaddafi. The effect of the latter was not to further western strategic interests but the interests of our deadly enemies on the jihadist front.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the crucial things in some of the recent military adventures in the middle east is, perhaps, a lack of understanding that once a dictator goes there is no Government structure or stability and that, therefore, the rule of law and everything else we love are not possible?

[Dr Lewis]

Absolutely. As always, my hon. Friend, with his Foreign Office background, makes the pertinent point. Thanks to his courtesy of giving me more time, I would like to quote a recent editorial from The Spectator:

“Such is the march of Islamic fundamentalism that if you remove a dictatorship in the Arab world and you don’t end up with a western-style liberal democracy, you end up with a snake pit of competing religious factions, the most malign of which tends to dominate.”

What we are up against is a choice of the lesser of evils. Sometimes we will have to strike down one element of an evil choice, and sometimes we will have to suppress another. We should not, however, climb into bed with the enemy of my enemy on either occasion. The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend; the enemy of my enemy can be my enemy as well. That is why we have to contain and control them and intervene from time to time, but we must not delude ourselves that there will be any perfect outcomes.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

I disagree with the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) about the idea of containing ISIS, because allowing a caliphate, however small or large, to establish itself would pose a great threat to the neighbouring Arab countries.

[Dr Lewis]

I obviously did not make myself clear enough. I said that containment by balance of power often means active intervention, and at this stage it means active intervention against ISIS. I am sorry that I did not make that clear.

[Mike Gapes]

Perhaps we can talk about a different wording later.

When I was in Perth three weeks ago, I visited the Black Watch museum, and after that I visited Edinburgh, where I was struck by a very interesting exhibition on the role of Scottish troops and Scottish diaspora troops in the British imperial forces during the first world war. Is it not sad that an organisation is campaigning on an anti-British platform when, historically, the British imperial army was, and the British Army today is, very much rooted in the contribution of Scots to many of our country’s distinguished regiments? That is another aspect that those of us from England, Wales and Northern Ireland should remind our brothers and sisters in the rest of the United Kingdom about when they vote next week.

The end of the first world war, nearly 100 years ago, led to the treaty that resulted in the creation of a number of states. Turkey, which came out of the Ottoman empire, has already been mentioned, and others included countries on its borders, such as Syria, as well as Lebanon and Jordan, and countries further away, such as Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Later came the establishment of the state of Israel and the consequences that were touched on earlier.

The Kurds, who were scattered among up to three, four or five countries in the region, did not get a state at that time. Events in Iraq have led to the establishment of an embryonic state in the form of the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq, which has its own flag and defence forces—the very brave but poorly equipped peshmerga, who are fighting so hard and who are now, I am pleased to say, going to be armed by the United Kingdom, at last, as well as by other European partners.

There will be ramifications as a consequence of current events, because the PKK in Turkey and the PYD in Syria, which has been fighting against Assad, have been co-operating with the peshmerga to get the Yazidis and others off Mount Sinjar to safety. Yet we know that Turkey, Syria and Iran are very much against an independent Kurdish state, because of what the consequences would be. Therefore, a very complex development is going on.

Some people have said that the Sykes-Picot line, which was drawn on the map by French and British diplomats nearly 100 years ago, is dead. It is not yet dead, and we must be very careful. I believe that we may need a comprehensive international conference in the region at some point to redraw the boundaries.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Baron]

I agree. Technically, the motion was about that, but there was also a push last year by the Government to arm rebels fighting Assad. However, because it would have been impossible to track and trace those arms, some of them would have ended up, inadvertently, in the hands of the very extremists we are now taking on in northern Iraq—a bitter irony if ever there was one.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

It was precisely for that reason that my hon. Friend and I made common cause against the folly of that intervention. On Afghanistan, does our policy not tend to be too reactive to the last thing that happened? It was said that as soon as the Soviets left, the west left Afghanistan to stew in its own juices. It was to prevent that from happening again that the west made the bad mistake, as it turned out, of engaging in nation building.

[Mr Baron]

I pay tribute to the work of my hon. Friend and others on both sides of the House in asking those difficult questions a year ago. We were right to do that. He is absolutely right about Afghanistan as well.

The litany of errors does not stop with Afghanistan. We now have the Libyan Government meeting on a Greek ferry off Tobruk; there is civil war; the number of civilian casualties is shooting up; and we have not got a proper policy. I certainly do not think our intervention helped the situation. We have now discussed Syria, and it is clear that the Government’s intentions to arm the rebels were misplaced, given that it would have been impossible to track and trace the arms. Our bigger issue is now taking on in Iraq some of the rebels who confronted Assad.

It is right to be cautious and to ask questions, and it is right that the bar has been set higher. I am pleased that Ministers realise the difference between air strikes in Iraq, which many of us could support, provided certain preconditions were in place, including a request from the Baghdad Government, and air strikes in Syria, which would be a much higher risk policy, not only because of Russian-built air defences, but because of the legalities and the fact that a common feature of the Syrian civil war has been the extremist groups lurking in the shadows and morphing into each other—al-Nusra, linked to al-Qaeda, for example—and would be difficult to say who might take ISIS’s place in Syria.

I welcome the caution. At the end of the day, the politics in Iraq must succeed. The elephant in the room is the Iraqi army. It has to be ground forces that defeat ISIS—air strikes alone will not succeed—but they must not be western. The symbolism of the west defeating this caliphate would be too great. The Iraqi army is the elephant in the room, but the politics must come through and succeed. What fomented the presence of ISIS was the very sectarian politics pursued by Maliki, the predecessor of the current Government. We must have more inclusive politics in Iraq, but at the same time we have to ensure that the army drives out ISIS.

Afghanistan

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 9th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

The Afghan constitution guarantees the rights of all Afghan citizens and we have to press the future Government of Afghanistan to ensure that the constitutional rights of all citizens are met. We also, of course, have a crucial lever in the Tokyo agreement, which provides that the substantial international aid support to Afghanistan over the years to come is specifically predicated on Afghan delivery on human rights, women’s rights and anti-corruption. By the way, this is not an agenda that we have to force on senior Afghans—all senior Afghan political players embrace it—but it is a deeply conservative country and they have to push this message down the line and make it work in practice across the provinces, towns and cities of Afghanistan. The conference in November will have a significant focus on how we ensure that the Tokyo commitments are delivered and that we work together with the Afghan Government to make that happen.

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

From his time as Defence Secretary, the Foreign Secretary will recall the argument that the hard-won gains in places such as Afghanistan could easily be reversed unless a strategic base or bridgehead area was established for the medium to long term in the region. Given what has happened in Iraq, where equally optimistic predictions about the long-term resilience of Iraqi forces were made, what would we expect to see in terms of a long or medium-term American presence if the status of forces agreement is eventually signed?

[Mr Hammond]

The US intention, subject to the bilateral security agreement being signed, is to have a continuing presence of US forces on the ground in Afghanistan, both for counter-terrorism activity and for the protection of US interests, but clearly I cannot speak for the US Government beyond the plans that they have already announced.

I just want to pick up my hon. Friend’s analogy, which many other people have sought to draw, between the Iraqi security forces and the Afghan national security forces. Afghanistan is a country of multiple ethnicity; yet we have not seen the kind of ethnic tensions in the Afghan national security forces that have clearly been present in the Iraqi security forces, and which are widely believed by western observers to have been instrumental in the failure of those forces to halt the ISIL advance earlier this year.

Middle East and North Africa

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 17th July 2014 Westminster Hall

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

I remind my right hon. Friend that the Foreign Secretary at the time that we were being asked to intervene militarily in the Syrian civil war himself accepted, and indeed volunteered the information, that there were several thousand al-Qaeda-linked militants fighting alongside the opposition.

[Alistair Burt]

Yes, there were. I do not want to be drawn or tempted into a rehearing of that debate we had last August. I think the decision made by Parliament then was profoundly wrong and I wish that action had been taken against the Syrian regime for using chemical weapons on its own people, despite the difficulties. Nevertheless, we do not need to go down that route now.

Of course there were already different factions involved by then, but one of the confusions that the Assad regime was able to spread was that all opposition was the same. It is not and it never was. Accordingly, I ask my hon. Friend to look very hard at circumstances on the ground and to recognise that the moderate forces that have been supported by more than 100 nations and entities through the Friends of Syria process, the Free Syrian Army and others, are taking on both the regime and the extreme militants. They deserve our support. There is regular barrel-bombing and killing of civilians. They deserve the opportunity to protect themselves. I say no more than that. There should be no western boots on the ground and no western forces there, just the ability to change the dynamics so that the negotiations for peace have a better opportunity to succeed. I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to keep an eye on that and give whatever support is possible to the moderates who are still fighting on so many different fronts.

As my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) mentioned a moment ago, the long-standing nature of the crisis has meant that it has spread. There will be another opportunity in due course to discuss issues relating to western intervention or non-intervention. We have had three and a half years of non-intervention to weigh in the balance with Iraq and Afghanistan and to ask, “What are ever the right decisions in these difficult circumstances?”

We know one consequence of this continuing agony: the growth and development of an extreme force now in the region—ISIS/ISIL—which has gone beyond threatening Syria to threatening states nearby. It has, of course, produced an issue for the Kurdish community in the Kurdish region in northern Iraq, protected and saved by the intervention of John Major and the no-fly zone, who now find their circumstances different from those in the rest of Iraq. What is to be done?

First, I think the United Kingdom should look hard at what support it can give to the Kurdish region. For example, an acknowledgement that they need to sell oil to survive, having been starved of funds by the Maliki Administration, would be important. Recognition that now they are looking for support on defence and intelligence, just in case that extremist army comes in their direction, would also be welcome. Counselling and discussion about further steps towards autonomy or independence would also help. Independence for the Kurdish region is a big step that would have serious ramifications, but it is no longer off the cards, because of the break-up of Iraq and, I have to say, the failure of Prime Minister Maliki over a long period, even though he was given every opportunity to bring together Sunni, Kurdish and Shia communities. Whatever may happen in the future, the Kurdish region deserves some degree of security, whether within a federal Iraq with greater autonomy, or something different. The UK needs to be alert to the needs of that region and its people, which we have supported for so long.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Tobias Ellwood)]

It is a pleasure to work under your chairmanship, Mr Sheridan. I thank the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) for his comments.

I am grateful to be able to respond to a wide-ranging, intelligent and informative debate. I join other hon. Members in paying an enormous tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), who was a formidable Foreign Office Minister and did this Government, and indeed Parliament, proud in strengthening relationships in the middle east and North Africa. I am proud and honoured to follow in his footsteps, as well as those of my right hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Hugh Robertson).

[Dr Julian Lewis]

Although I found myself in the opposite camp over arming the rebels in Syria, I say to my right hon. Friend who secured this debate that I was amazed at the courtesy and forbearance that he always showed, even though we were totally at loggerheads over the issue. I know that was not unique to me; that is the way he behaves with everybody.

[Mr Ellwood]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention—and grateful that it was brief.

I have limited time to respond to what was an amazing debate. Hon. Members can imagine my delight, given the expertise of my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire, that on day two of my appointment I am called to reply to a three-hour debate on the middle east. He paid tribute to the expertise of the House, and I echo that. It has been reflected in today’s debate. I will not be able to cover the 21 countries under my brief, or the details. I have already made a commitment to myself—given the short amount of time and to give time for my right hon. Friend to respond—that I will write to Members in response to the details they brought up. There are, however, a couple of issues that I would like to get on the record.

The Government’s long-term commitment remains as supporting a more secure, prosperous region, with political stability based on open, inclusive political systems and economies, but as my right hon. Friend has outlined so articulately, countries in the region continue to face serious challenges. Over recent weeks, we have seen the escalation of violence in Gaza and southern Israel, and the growing threat posed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which I saw first hand on a visit to northern Iraq only a month ago.

The situation in Syria is particularly bleak, with tens of thousands of civilian deaths and more than 10 million people in need of humanitarian assistance. Elsewhere, many countries that witnessed uprisings in 2011 continue to take steps towards reform, but their successes are fragile, as we have heard, and need continued support. Recent elections in Libya may be an important step in the country’s transition to a more democratic future, but serious security challenges remain. In Egypt, as has been mentioned, we continue to urge President al-Sisi to uphold fundamental freedoms and rights and to open up the political space.

We have seen progress in Yemen’s political transition, but instability and economic challenges threaten to undermine those efforts. On a more positive note, as my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire has articulated, Tunisia’s drive for an inclusive transition has produced marked progress on the development of political systems needed to bring long-term stability, although the economic situation remains critical.

In the limited time available, I turn to Gaza, which has been the focus of many Members’ attention. As the Foreign Secretary made clear to the House on 14 July, we remain deeply concerned by the escalation of violence in Gaza and southern Israel. Israel has the right to defend itself against indiscriminate rocket attacks, but it is vital that Gaza’s civilian population is protected. The UK has three objectives: to secure a long-term ceasefire agreed by both sides, to alleviate humanitarian suffering, and to keep alive the prospects for future peace negotiations. The UK remains in close contact with Israeli and Palestinian leaders and continues to work with international partners, including the US, Egypt and Arab partners, to support those objectives.

I spoke to our embassy in Tel Aviv today and our consulate general in Jerusalem, which represents British interests in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Implementation of any ceasefire agreement must only be part of a wider effort to improve conditions in Gaza. Without that, we are likely to see further such cycles of violence. We continue to judge that a negotiated two-state solution is the only way to resolve the conflict once and for all. The UK will continue to do all it can to support and advance US efforts to that end. I am sad to report that there are unofficial reports that, while the temporary ceasefire has closed, rockets have been moving from both sides, which is not good news, if that is the case.

To conclude, the region is facing numerous serious challenges and change will continue to be led by the region, not external actors. The UK has an important role to play with the international community in supporting those working to tackle conflict and to build a more stable, prosperous middle east and north Africa, based on strengthened consent and popular participation.

To meet the challenges of this volatile and ever-changing part of the world, we have continued to develop our approach since the uprisings of 2011. Through our Arab Partnership reform—I pay tribute to the work that my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire has done, and we have seen £65 million put into that project this year—we are supporting those who are tackling conflict and implementing reform. We are striking a balance between addressing short-term insecurity and laying the foundations for long-term stability, based on open, inclusive political systems and economies. We must accept, however, that that is the work of a generation, and we should not be deterred by setbacks along the way because, as the Prime Minister has made clear, the success of the middle east and north Africa is not only in the interests of the region, but of the UK and the world.

Freedom of Thought, Conscience and Religion

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 1st May 2014 Commons Chamber

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

The thoughtful and very disturbing speech by the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) is a piece of a jigsaw that I hope will be assembled in the course of this debate, building up a picture in country after country, affecting religion after religion—and not always just religious groups and communities—and showing a certain common template. The word that I expect to hear over and again is “intolerance”, which was flagged up by the opening speakers, particularly my right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry). I pay particular tribute to the hon. Member for Belfast East (Naomi Long), who has steered this topic to the Floor of the House and introduced it so comprehensively and with such a depth of detail.

Before I come on to questions of religious intolerance, I should like hon. Members to cast their minds back to 1978, when the great director Michael Crichton brought a terrifying film to the cinema screen. The name of the film was “Coma”; I do not know whether that rings a bell with any hon. Members. It was a fictional story about how people would be placed in a hospital for minor operations, reduced to the state of a living vegetable, and then have their organs taken from them and sold for huge profits in an extremely sinister way. I found that film immensely unsettling, but I was able to comfort myself with the thought that, well, it was only fiction and nothing like that could really happen.

Unfortunately, something like that has happened and is happening, apparently, to this day. In this connection, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), who sadly cannot be with us today, for putting into the schedules of Parliament a meeting at which I learned about the persecution of Falun Gong in China. We are talking about not just religious intolerance, but the intolerance of atheistic regimes such as the communist regimes of China and North Korea towards groups such as Falun Gong that are spiritual but not really religions. North Korea has been identified in report after report as the most dangerous place, or at least one of the most dangerous places, in which to be a Christian in the present day.

I find the phrase “organ harvesting” in relation to China and Falun Gong rather inappropriate. I would call it murder and butchery for money, which is what appears to be going on. It is a profitable business for the Chinese: I understand that a kidney can raise $62,000 and a heart more than $130,000. Interestingly, there has been an enormous increase in the number of transplantation centres in China in recent years, yet there is no national scheme for organ donation that could possibly account for the very large numbers of organs being made available for money by the Chinese.

It is not, I believe, denied that the organs of executed prisoners are used by the Chinese Government for that purpose. Many studies, including by special rapporteurs for the United Nations, have drawn attention to that terrible trade. As somebody from a Jewish background who read rather more than was good for my mental health at too early an age about what had happened in the medical block at the Buchenwald concentration camp, I think that the idea that that sort of atrocity could be going on in this day and age is absolutely unbelievable and abhorrent.

[Mr Burrowes]

I thank my hon. Friend referring on the Floor of the House to Falun Gong, which does not always get the attention it deserves. I have some constituents who practise Falun Gong and it is the most peaceful of groups. When it campaigns here and in China, it does so peacefully. It is not a physical threat to the Chinese Government, but it may well be a cultural threat because of its different views. It is standing up for its beliefs and views, and if we are going to stand up for Christians and others, we need to stand up for Falun Gong as well.

[Dr Lewis]

My hon. Friend, who stands up for Christians and other groups remarkably well—as I have had occasion to observe over years in this place—is absolutely right. In fact, my understanding is that, originally, the Chinese authorities were quite well disposed to Falun Gong. It was only when it became hugely popular that they felt that any mass popular movement, even one as harmless as that, posed a threat to their totalitarian control.

I fully expect my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), should she catch your eye, Mr Deputy Speaker, as I hope she will, to give us chapter and horrible verse about what is happening to Christians in North Korea. I want to flag up the fact that the splendid report that the United Nations arranged to be compiled describes what is going on in North Korea as analogous to the crimes committed by the Nazis. It states:

“In many instances, the violations of human rights found by the commission constitute crimes against humanity. These are not mere excesses of the State; they are essential components of a political system that has moved far from the ideals on which it claimed to be founded”.

Pakistan has been mentioned in one context today and I am now going to mention it in another. In June 2009, a Roman Catholic woman, Asia Bibi, got into an argument with some Muslim neighbours over whether she should be allowed to drink from the same water supply as them. As a result, she was accused of blasphemy. I have to say that the blasphemy laws of Pakistan are a very handy weapon for those who have an enemy anywhere in society, because all they have to do is to say that someone has defamed or insulted the Prophet or the religion and that person may, like Asia Bibi, find herself under sentence of death.

[Mark Pritchard]

My hon. Friend is speaking about Pakistan. Earlier, hon. Members agreed that the United Nations should do more. Does he agree that the Commonwealth should also do more, particularly for Christians and other religious minorities that are being persecuted in Pakistan, India and other parts of the Commonwealth, and that the Commonwealth human rights working group needs to be far more proactive?

[Dr Lewis]

That is absolutely central to the whole question. If the Commonwealth is good for anything at all, it is good for asserting the moral authority and best values that have bound our countries together. If we in this free Parliament do not speak out for oppressed minorities, nobody else will do so effectively.

To revert to the case of Asia Bibi, who remains under sentence of death, what is even more tragic is that the Governor of Punjab, Salmaan Taseer, who visited her in prison, was murdered as a result of supporting her and opposing the blasphemy laws, as was the only Christian member of Pakistan’s Cabinet, the Minority Affairs Minister, Shahbaz Bhatti. The prevailing circumstances in Pakistan really are atrocious.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Dr Lewis]

I will, but I have very little time left.

[Rehman Chishti]

I have previously raised the issue of the blasphemy laws in this place. Does my hon. Friend agree that the real concern about the Asia Bibi case is that her appeal has been delayed and delayed for four years, and that such an indefinite delay is wrong for her and her family?

[Dr Lewis]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend knows far more about this subject than I do, and I hope that he will contribute to the debate.

In the less than a minute that I have remaining, I want to end on a slightly more optimistic point. Although the persecution of the Baha’i community in Iran remains severe, a very recent development is that Ayatollah Abdol-Hamid Masoumi-Tehrani has rather bravely reached out to the Baha’i community by making a presentation to them and other faith communities. A lot depends on what happens to this ayatollah, but if change is to come, it will come slowly and it will involve such gestures. Let us keep our eye on what happens to this particular cleric in Iran, and let us hope that the reaction to his welcome gesture is positive and encouraging.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that contribution. That is exactly the message coming from my constituents. They are asking me, “What are the Nigerian Government doing?” The mothers and fathers of the children concerned are asking the same question in Nigeria. Either there is disbelief on the Nigerian Government’s part, or they just do not know what is going on.

The attackers drove the girls into the nearby Sambisa forest. Fortunately, some 40 girls escaped. Open Doors says:

“Almost every house has a child in this school…Cries of parents could be heard all over the town…Christians in Chibok spoke to Open Doors following the abduction. ‘I am not sure of what our daughters are passing through,’ said Elder Emma, a church leader in the town. ‘Please help us to pray and seek the face of the Lord on this situation and that the good Lord will reunite us with our beloved children.’”

Those are the issues for those parents and children in Nigeria. Perhaps the Minister can say whether he has had any discussion with the Nigerian authorities on this subject, because it is important to have such discussions.

I tabled an early-day motion today to highlight the persecution of Christians in Nigeria. I urge Members who have not seen it to sign it today and show their support. We have a duty to stand up for those throughout the world who are dying for their faith. We have a duty in this House to help the widows and orphans, and to do the right thing in whatever way we can.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

Given that we are supplying so much aid to Nigeria, does the hon. Gentleman agree that perhaps we might incentivise its Government a little by suggesting that the aid will not be forthcoming in such great quantity unless that Government take prompt action in this terrible situation?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Swire]

My hon. Friend has pre-empted me. During Nawaz Sharif’s visit earlier this week, he and the Prime Minister discussed the recent blasphemy laws cases in Pakistan and the prospects for reforming those laws.

As was the intention of the hon. Members who secured it, this debate has quite rightly not focused exclusively on one country, region or, indeed, faith. As the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) said, the Pew Research Centre has found that Christians are now the most persecuted faith group in the world. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister noted that during his Easter reception, and hon. Members have highlighted it again today. Christians, like the followers of any other faith or those of no faith, are entitled to protection. We must do more to raise the awareness of their plight.

My right hon. and noble Friend Baroness Warsi gave a speech in Washington last November in which she spoke of a “global crisis” that is fuelled by a militant sectarianism that is forcibly removing minority Christian populations from areas where they have co-existed peacefully with the majority for generations. That is intolerable and we will continue to stand up against such persecution wherever and whenever it occurs. However, Christians seldom stand alone. Often, it is the Judaeo-Christian bloc, with its common heritage, that is threatened.

The fundamental right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion is constantly threatened by sectarianism and by religious and ethnic division. We speak up for those facing persecution not because of their religion but regardless of their religion or belief, to defend the right, which should be undeniable, to practise the region or belief of one’s choice or, as I have said before, to follow no religion at all. To do that, we are working with civil society to build a united front to combat what can be seen as a rising tide of religious persecution and working to build acceptance across all faiths that, just as they are entitled to their beliefs, so others are entitled to theirs. Christians defending Christians, Jews defending Jews and Muslims defending Muslims is not enough.

Time and again, the voices of those who are persecuted for their faith call on us not to take pity on their plight but to strengthen the rule of law and defend human rights for all. More open and inclusive societies are the best route towards regional stability and security, and the protection of freedom of religion or belief, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) said so eloquently. In the middle east and north Africa, for example, the UK is supporting long-term political and economic reform through the work of the Arab Partnership initiative by strengthening crucial institutions such as the judiciary, a free press and civil society across the region.

There are reasons to be optimistic. I do not seek to claim that this is a direct result of our intervention, but I was tremendously heartened by the image during the violent street protests in Egypt three years ago of Christians holding hands to protect Muslims at prayer in the streets, of Muslims guarding Coptic churches while Christians prayed, and of Christians, on a Friday, reciprocating outside mosques.

Nevertheless, it is clear that a stronger political will is needed to ensure that there is universal implementation of United Nations Human Rights Council resolution 16/18, which calls on member states

“to foster religious freedom and pluralism, to ensure religious minorities are properly represented, and to consider adopting measures to criminalize incitement to imminent violence based on religion or belief.”

The United Kingdom has been taking the lead on that. During the United Nations General Assembly ministerial week last September, my right hon. and noble Friend Baroness Warsi, who has a particular interest in this issue given her dual role as Foreign Office Minister and Minister for faith, convened a meeting of international leaders to generate practical steps to promote freedom of religion or belief and to fight religious intolerance within our societies.

We are sharing some of our best practice with other countries and funding practical projects in a range of countries to reduce intra-community tensions, improve dialogue and promote minority rights. In Iraq, for example, we are funding a series of grass-roots meetings led by Canon Andrew White—the so-called vicar of Baghdad—to bring together people from different faiths to combat violence. In Syria, we have given more than £500,000 to promote dialogue and reduce tensions between the Sunni, Alawite, Christian, Druze, Armenian and Kurdish communities. We have been giving Foreign and Commonwealth Office diplomats a better understanding of the role of faith in society and foreign policy. That includes training them to spot violations of the right to freedom of religion or belief and to take action when abuses occur.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

The Minister has covered many of the abuses that have been mentioned, but he has not made reference to China and the harvesting of organs, to which I referred. I note from the reading that I have done for this debate that whereas there have been pronouncements on the subject by the United Nations, the United States and even the European Parliament, I have not come across anything much from the British Government. I wonder what their attitude to the subject is.

[Mr Swire]

If my hon. Friend will bear with me, I hope to get to that in the time left.

We know that we do not have all the answers, and the Government alone cannot be the solution. The Foreign Office’s whole ministerial team, and particularly my right hon. and noble Friend Baroness Warsi, are always keen to hear views from parliamentarians and civil society groups on what more we might do or what we might do differently. In particular, we welcome the increased focus on these fundamental rights by parliamentarians, including members of the all-party group on international freedom of religion or belief. I know, for example, that the all-party group recommended that we establish a new expert advisory group, which we did. We are looking to implement other recommendations, including by extending the funding period for our programme of activity and exploring the steps towards an international convention on freedom of religion or belief, although careful thought will have to be given to how that would be negotiated.

Hon. Members have raised a number of specific issues. The hon. Member for Belfast East, who secured the debate, spoke about Open Doors, to which we pay tribute for its work and its valuable world watch list, which describes the worst countries for Christians. We agree that the UN Human Rights Council could do more on the right to freedom of religion or belief, which is why, with our EU partners, we table a resolution on the topic every six months. We consistently aim to strengthen the text and ensure that individual UN member states implement those resolutions in their own countries.

My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) and others raised the issue of freedom of religion in Pakistan. It is vital that Pakistan guarantee the rights of all its citizens, regardless of their faith or ethnicity. We regularly raise the issue of religious freedom with the authorities in Pakistan at a senior level, including on the Foreign Secretary’s visit to Pakistan in July 2013 and my right hon. and noble Friend Baroness Warsi’s visit in September 2013. I answered the question earlier about the Prime Minister’s meeting in the past few days.

My hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) raised the issue of Falun Gong. We continue to have serious concerns about reports of torture and mistreatment of detainees in China. We are aware that organs removed from executed prisoners are used for human transplantation purposes in China, and that Chinese law requires that prisoners give prior consent that their organs be used in that way. Criminal justice reform and the rule of law, including torture prevention and the treatment of detainees, has been a consistent focus of our human rights engagement with the Chinese authorities both at ministerial level and through project work on the ground. We welcome steps taken by the Chinese Government in recent years to improve the regulation of organ transplantation, and we will continue to encourage China to make further progress in that respect, including by engaging to share best practice.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) spoke with some feeling about the Baha’i community. The Baha’i faith in Iran is subject to mounting persecution, as he is aware, and we are concerned by state efforts to identify, monitor and arbitrarily detain Baha’is. According to the Baha’i International Community, more than 100 Baha’is remain in detention in Iran. We have consistently and repeatedly expressed concern at the ongoing incarceration, and at the shocking sentencing of seven Baha’i leaders in Iran to 20 years’ imprisonment each on charges of espionage, propaganda against the regime, collusion and collaboration for the purposes of endangering national security, and spreading corruption on earth. We have made it clear in public statements that it is appalling that Iran reinstated that original sentence after acquitting the leaders of several of their charges.

The hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) and other Members raised the issue of the Ahmadis. We fully share her concern about the persecution of the Ahmadis and engage with the Pakistani Government about it at a senior level. My right hon. and noble Friend Baroness Warsi praised the Ahmadis’ strong contribution to British society at their conference of world religions in February.

A number of Members mentioned Egypt, which continues to dominate the news. Sectarian violence increased under President Morsi and has continued since. Amnesty reports that 200 Christian-owned properties have been attacked and 43 churches burned down or damaged since July 2013. In September, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary made a statement in Parliament condemning the violence against Christian churches. Article 64 of the 2014 constitution states that freedom of belief is absolute, but the key test will be how the constitution is implemented, as many articles require additional legislation.

We are also concerned by the ongoing crackdown in Iran on religious minorities, which a number of Members mentioned, including the house church movement among Iranian Christians. The call by the supreme leader in October 2011 to prevent the spread of Christianity in Iran reveals a disturbing trend to stop freedom of religion. I call on Iran to cease harassment of religious minorities, and to fulfil its international and domestic obligations to allow freedom of religion to all Iranians. We are concerned for the welfare of the imprisoned pastors, Saeed Abedini, Farshid Fathi and Behnam Irani, whom we believe have no case to answer. We call on Iran to release them.

The hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) asked about the horrific story of the abduction of 180 schoolgirls in northern Nigeria. The whole House will want to join in the utter condemnation of those responsible for the abduction and what is a hideous and despicable crime. In his statement on 16 April, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary offered our assistance and help to the Nigerians to ensure that the children can be returned to their families safely. He also spoke to Nigerian Foreign Minister Wali on 18 April. We are talking to the Nigerian authorities about how best to assist in their efforts to secure the girls’ release and bring those responsible to justice. The hon. Member for Wrexham asked for a meeting with the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Mark Simmonds), who has responsibility for Africa, and I am sure he would be happy to brief him if we had anything significant to add.

Ukraine

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 28th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

The relationship of the UN to this matter is of course very important. A debate took place several weeks ago in the UN General Assembly, when a resolution making clear the support for the territorial integrity of Ukraine was carried by 100 votes to 11. That illustrated the extent of Russia’s diplomatic isolation, but such a vote has not of course affected Russia’s behaviour.

We, of course, talk closely to neighbouring countries. I mentioned that the Minister for Europe is in Estonia today. The Baltic states are particularly concerned about what Russia has done, and we are increasing our military support for them. We will continue to work with neighbouring countries very closely, and I will visit Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine next week to reinforce that.

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

Given the danger that these tactics, if successful, will embolden Russia to do something similar against a NATO member state, as the Foreign Secretary suggested, is any thought being given to increasing the prominence of defence expenditure among Britain’s national priorities?

[Mr Hague]

Defence remains a very important priority for the United Kingdom, as my hon. Friend knows very well. These events mean that at the NATO summit in September, which we will be very proud to host in Wales, there will be increased consciousness of the need for NATO in Europe and of the need for confidence in the collective defence of NATO nations. I have already made the case at the NATO Foreign Ministers meeting that that will mean, over the coming years, some NATO nations that spend much less than 2% of GDP on defence having to think again and to increase their defence expenditure.