Oral Answers to Questions

Kenny MacAskill Excerpts

Tuesday 18th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Leo Docherty]

No.

[Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (Alba)]

10. Whether his Department has received recent representations on the adequacy of the United Nations convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Mr Andrew Mitchell)]

The UK is a state party to the United Nations convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, and works closely with partners to eradicate the use of torture.

[Kenny MacAskill]

War manifests itself not just in today’s combat but for future generations. As a signatory to the convention on cluster munitions, the UK is aware of the reprehensible nature of these weapons. Will the Minister assure us that US supplies of those weapons to Ukraine will not be allowed through US airbases in the UK?

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Member makes a point about cluster munitions, and the position of the British Government is very clear: we have signed the treaty against their use. Other countries’ position is a matter for them, but that is the very clear position of the British Government.

Yemen: Humanitarian Situation and Children’s Rights

Kenny MacAskill Excerpts

Tuesday 9th May 2023 Westminster Hall

[Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (Alba)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship Mr Pritchard. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) not only for securing this debate but for making an eloquent and touching speech. I endorse everything that she said. The situation is tragic and ongoing.

I wish to start by putting on record a press report. I have a cutting that says:

“Gross violations of international law. Missiles raining down on houses. Kleptocrats laundering their ill-gotten gains through London and buying political influence. Aggressive, powerful states attacking a poorer neighbour; backing separatist rebels; illegally occupying its land; dropping cluster bombs and conducting crippling cyber-attacks.”

The article asks if that sounds familiar. But that is not Putin; it is not Bakhmut. It was a year ago and written with regard to the war in Yemen. We see support and the flags flying, even here, for Ukraine. We have hosted President Zelensky. We have condemned President Putin unreservedly, and rightly so. Yet everything that is going on in Bakhmut is being replicated in Yemen, and little is being done.

The comment has been made that it takes two to have a fight, and I am not here to support one side or other, but, as other hon. Members have mentioned, the bulk of the danger is being created by the weaponry, especially of the Saudi Arabians and the United Arab Emirates. Abu Dhabi and Dubai are principally supported by the British military, and that is something that we have to address. We are providing aid to Yemen and commenting on the ongoing horror, yet as other hon. Members—especially the hon. Member for Glasgow North West—have said, we are fuelling and funding that situation by providing the weaponry that is wreaking the horror there.

[Mrs Drummond]

I mentioned earlier that the situation in Yemen is completely incomparable to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This was very much under UN resolution 2216. The hon. Gentleman has not mentioned the fact that Iran has also contributed weapons to the Houthis.

[Kenny MacAskill]

I condemn Iran for its role, as I condemn it for its drones that have been causing horror in Ukraine. But we all bleed the same. A Houthi or a Yemeni bleeds the same as a Ukrainian or a Russian, and we have to recognise that. We cannot exculpate ourselves by saying that they are slightly different.

I wish to put on record the importance of recognising the role that the UK and, indeed, Scotland, is playing. The UK is the principal arms supplier for Saudi Arabia, which is why we turned a blind eye when Khashoggi was murdered: “Who cares? Let us look away and invite Mohammed bin Salman or whatever—it does not matter so long as we continue to sell.” The hon. Member for Glasgow North West and others have rightly put that on record. The tragedy is that Scotland has a role in this. As the report I quoted goes on to say, we are aware that missiles provided by Raytheon are causing death and misery in Yemen, indiscriminately killing children from whatever side. The fact of the matter is that the laser guidance systems for Raytheon’s missiles are made at Glenrothes, in Scotland.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

I was born in Aden and lived the first 10 years of my life there. I want to thank hon. Members who, throughout the time that I have been here, have raised the issue of Yemen, which does fall off the agenda. Hon. Members have done a good job—whether the Government or the Opposition or even Back Benchers, we have put it on the map. We are getting to a position now—I am sure that the hon. Gentleman agrees—where people are talking, and it is much better that they talk than they fight.

I have not been allowed to go back to Yemen, but the hon. Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond) and I and the Opposition Front-Bench spokesperson are possibly going on a trip, and that would be an incredible thing for all of us because we have not been back there. I hope that the hon. Member for East Lothian (Kenny MacAskill) accepts that it is becoming a safer place—it will never be completely safe until everyone is around the table and accepts the rule of law—but at the heart of this debate is the fact that there are children suffering and people starving. We see pictures of babies who are skeletons. It is quite horrifying. I just gently remind the hon. Member that all hon. Members are aware of the suffering that is occurring. It is why we are having this debate today. I thank him for allowing me such a long intervention.

[Kenny MacAskill]

I am happy to accept that intervention and, indeed, to put on record that I welcome progress being made. The right hon. Member obviously knows much more about this than I do. Any progress is to be welcomed. I am also aware that the deaths and misery being inflicted on children come more often not from weaponry but from disease and all the disasters as a result of the fragmentation and breakdown of society. But the UK does have a role, both in funding and providing support and in diplomacy. I just wish that in other conflicts we would listen more to Pope Francis, and perhaps seek to take his guidance.

We have to put on record, as has been done, that the UK has a role in arming Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It is also important to put on record that Scotland has a role due to the provision of laser-guided missiles from Glenrothes by Raytheon. I was in the Scottish Government when Raytheon was there, and I have to confess that my hands are implicated in this, but times have moved on. I was a Minister from 2007 to 2014; we are now in 2023. I recall some seven years ago, when I was not in politics at all, writing in defence of the Scottish Government that it is very easy to be condemnatory, but one has to accept that there are quality, skilled jobs that cannot be easily replaced in Glenrothes, where there will be high unemployment. I wrote that there were people working hard there and we had to provide protection.

However, there must come a time when we say that this cannot go on. We have been funding Raytheon; we have been giving it grants to come to Scotland and stay there. There has to come a time when we say, “No, we won’t.” We cannot simply say that it is wrong that the United Kingdom provides armaments to Saudi Arabia, but that it is okay that we in Scotland are prepared to fund Raytheon to provide the laser guidance for the missiles that will be fired. I have to put that on the record. Do I expect Raytheon to up and move out of Glenrothes? No, that would be an economic disaster for the area, but we have to say that we are not going to fund it any more, and that we will try to encourage it to find a better use for the site.

There has to come a time when Scotland recognises that it is not enough simply to say that the role of the United Kingdom is wrong. Scotland must say that it also has a role, albeit smaller and far less serious. The kids who die do not care where the missiles came from. They just want them stopped. That is what I want to put on record. I fully accept the comments that have been made by hon. Members, and I fully endorse the points made by the hon. Member for Glasgow North West.

World Press Freedom Day

Kenny MacAskill Excerpts

Tuesday 21st June 2022 Westminster Hall

[Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (Alba)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone, and I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins). His speech was not just wide-ranging, but remarkably interesting and erudite. I congratulate him on bringing all those aspects to our attention, and I concur with him.

We are in difficult times, and it is important that we hold power to account so that the truth will out. To do so, we need to ensure that those who seek to expose it—often benevolently, and certainly under difficult circumstances—are protected. That is why I pay tribute to those whom the hon. Gentleman mentioned, but I would also put on record the Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was sadly murdered by Israeli Defence Forces not that long ago. I was glad to see on Al Jazeera at breakfast time this morning that the matter is being pursued by the news organisation at the International Criminal Court.

The comments I want to make relate to our own country because we are not immune—either in the UK or, indeed, in Scotland. We are in a better position with regard to what is happening in Israel with the Palestinians and those who seek to report on that, and we are in a better position, obviously, with regard to what is happening in Ukraine, but we are by no means a paragon of virtue and we must ensure that we uphold the standards here, which brings me to the case of Julian Assange. I know that others will be commenting on it. The case is important because Mr Assange has brought power to account. He has exposed war crimes, as well as a lot of other malevolent actions—not simply by the United States of America, but by other Governments, including our own, but also, as I will go on to describe, the Government of Sweden.

I read with interest the book, which I think all MPs were sent, by Nils Melzer, “The Trial of Julian Assange”. I did not know of Mr Melzer before that, but he is the UN special rapporteur on torture. He narrated his journey to his conclusions about Julian Assange, and spoke out vehemently against what had happened. I share his position.

When I first heard of Julian Assange, I was surprised. There was reporting of a sexual misdemeanour in Sweden, a country I know well. One of my best friends in Edinburgh was the Swedish consul general, who I still keep in touch with although he has returned to Sweden. My son studied for two years in Gothenburg—not at the Chalmers University, which is a legacy of Scottish immigrants, but at the University of Gothenburg. I was and remain a big fan of Swedish social democracy, and indeed of Olof Palme. Surely this could not have happened in Sweden. Surely Sweden would not be involved in anything that was duplicitous or wrong. The sad thing is that it was. Clearly, Sweden has now exonerated and the investigation of Mr Assange there has come to an end. I have to draw the conclusion that Mr Assange exposed the fact that the Swedish security services were narrating that they were doing things and co-operating with the USA in a manner that their Government did not know about and probably would not have approved of, which may have had something to do with it.

What occurred with regard to Mr Assange in Sweden was shameful, and the United Kingdom is being both supine and sadly complicit in his return to the United States. He has committed no offence in the US other than to expose its war crimes. The US has given an assurance that it will not execute Mr Assange, but we know from the attitude of the US that he is unlikely to see the light of day from a federal prison if he is sent there, and given his current state of health he is unlikely to survive. It is simply unacceptable that we should have had the ongoing UK Government collusion, through the Ecuadorian embassy, with the US, and indeed even the US contemplating a hit job—to put it in its parlance—upon Mr Assange in this country.

Equally, we have to challenge some of the media reporting in this country. I, too, was shocked when I saw Mr Assange looking like some wild man of Borneo, being brought out of the Ecuadorian embassy. That did challenge people’s assumptions about who this person could be—somebody so dishevelled and who could appear like that. How could anybody possibly have any faith or trust in him?

Only when I read the book did I realise that Mr Assange had been detained, that the Ecuadorian Government had changed, that their attitude had changed, and that they had refused to allow in any cleaning equipment, as well as refusing him access to scissors or shaving items. Mr Assange looked like that, not because he chose to appear in such a way, but because he was deliberately set up so that when he was forced out of the Ecuadorian embassy his looks would leave people aghast and turn them against him. That was deliberate manipulation of the media, which is just as bad as a failure to report the truth.

I am conscious of time. I would have liked to say that my own country was exempt. I served for 20 years as a defence agent in Scotland and was proud of Scotland’s distinctive criminal justice system, and indeed its legal system. I also served for almost eight years as Justice Secretary, but something has gone fundamentally wrong, not with regard to Julian Assange, but with the situation of Craig Murray.

Craig Murray has spent almost six months in a Scottish prison for a reporting offence, while others who did similarly were not punished or even brought before the court. I shall leave that matter aside, as Craig Murray will seek to raise it with courts in Europe as appeal in Scotland is precluded, but the logic of Lady Dorrian, the presiding judge, in the actions taken by the prosecutors in Scotland was fundamentally wrong. They took the view that the mainstream media were all perfect—given what I have mentioned about Mr Assange, I have to wonder about that—but that bloggers were in a different category and should be treated differently. As the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe said, we are in a changing world. There are obviously issues with Twitter and social media platforms, with anonymous sources. The points made about those who post anti-vax content are quite correct; such material cannot be given any basis, support or substance. However, Mr Assange was quite clear in his facts. They were checked; everything was there. Mr Murray was doing something not dissimilar to what others had done, and yet he was singled out and picked on.

Her ladyship seemed to be suggesting that no cut or guarantee could be given, and that somehow the mainstream press were to be protected. Given that most incidents of people seeking recompense through claims for damages have involved the mainstream press, not bloggers such as Mr Murray and Mr Assange, that raises questions.

There has to be acceptance that society moves on. Just over 100 years ago, papers were closed down by the British Government because they were viewed as subversive during world war one. They became mainstream, because the Independent Labour party was elected to power. The paper that was the voice of the Independent Labour party was subscribed to by my parents. The logic of Lady Dorrian would be that that paper could not be a legitimate enterprise because it was not part of the mainstream press. It was legitimate almost immediately after the two weeks that it had been closed down. It had been legitimate because it had been bought by many before then.

Things move on and we live in a world where people do not buy newspapers. I say that with some sadness, as I am a fan of paid papers, and write for them. People go to online sites, and those who write for online sites and are legitimate—not the chancers putting up disinformation —require protection. It is right to challenge this situation. We must ensure we protect the media and truth throughout the world, but we must look to ourselves. The case of Mr Assange is a shame upon the United Kingdom, and the case of Craig Murray is a shame upon the current Government and judiciary in Scotland.

Official Development Assistance and the British Council

Kenny MacAskill Excerpts

Wednesday 30th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (Alba)]

First of all, and rather unusually, I pay tribute to some Members on the Government Benches. They have kept the flame alive, if I can put it that way, of the 0.7% share that should be paid. It is never easy to speak out as a Member of the governing party. I have been in that position. It would be churlish to say that it is down to patronage or threats. Ultimately, it is about loyalty to a cause that you stand by, so I pay tribute to those Members who have spoken out against their own Administration and, in respect of their own principles, have supported what was not just principle but a manifesto commitment. It cannot have been easy, but they have the power to change. We Opposition Members have the power to protest and to hold to account, but the fundamental change required cannot come today. That must come from those on the Government Benches. I encourage them to keep the faith, and I pay tribute to the efforts they have made to date. It is essential for the reasons that others have mentioned: it is a moral necessity; it is an economic imperative; and it is a health and wellbeing requirement, not just for ourselves but for the entire world.

Only a few weeks after the Prime Minister’s trumpeting of this issue at the G7 summit, it appears that we are going into reverse. I accept that there is a logic and a rationale in what the Government argue. The 0.7% commitment is met by only two countries—Denmark and France, if memory serves—but that does not mean that we should seek to follow those other countries. This is a time to take a lead, because it is a necessity not only for others, as has been said by almost every speaker, but for ourselves. I ask the Government to stick to the principles that were stood on and supported by all parties in the last election, and that remain in their manifesto.

Of course, it is in our own economic interest. There are those who trumpet Brexit as part of a new global Britain of free trade around the world. Let us remember that there can only be free trade if we can stimulate demand. If countries are too poor to be able to buy our goods and services, then we cannot generate the work here. We have to use some Keynesian logic and economics to ensure that they have the resource available to acquire things from us; and we must support, as many Members have said, measures to address starvation, flooding and all the dangers that too often blight so many lands. We will benefit economically from giving aid and we will face consequences if we do not, so it is in our own interests.

It is, however, also primarily a moral necessity. It is an unfair world. The opulence in this House, and most especially in the House just along the corridor, confirms the wealth that has been generated over many years. We see it north and south of the border; we see it in every city. We have benefited from it over many years. Of course, in those years, people have worked hard and have shown endeavour and risk, but let us also remember that one reason we have this wealth here—not just in this city, but in Glasgow, Edinburgh and across the whole of this country—is that we have exploited; we have enforced deals on colonies and on other nations. We have taken from them. We made sure that we stripped them of their natural resources and that they had to buy the product that was created from ourselves.

Giving development aid is not simply about charity; it is about taking responsibility for actions that this country participated in, along with others in the developed world. We did it, the French did it, the Dutch did it, the Belgians did it and on it went. The western and developed world accrued their wealth at the expense of what is now the developing world, because we took from them and insisted that we benefited from their natural resources. This is not about giving charity; this is about their right. It is our obligation to give back and to try to provide that fairness.

The Government talk about a levelling-up agenda, and they are right; there has to be a levelling-up agenda not simply in the north of England, but, indeed, across the border between Scotland and England. Fundamentally, though, there has to be a levelling up across this globe between the northern and southern hemispheres. The wrong and the poverty that exist, which manifest themselves in the UK in the north-south divide, exist on planet Earth in a north-south divide and it is our obligation and a necessity that we take action to reverse that.

This is also about health and wellbeing. Some statistics I saw yesterday showed that 85% of shots or vaccinations have been carried out in upper and middle-income tier countries. A total of 0.3%—not even 0.7%—has been carried out in lower-income countries. We have already seen what has happened with the delta variant. If we want to make sure that we do not face a further variant that will not be dealt with by our vaccines—as epidemiologists fear—then we must take steps to ensure that we support the health and welfare within those countries. That is why it is in our own interests to ensure that we provide that 0.7%.

Finally, in the short time that I have left, I want to comment on the position being taken on women and girls. That is fundamental. As a former Justice Secretary, I recall dealing with violence reduction. We made great progress in Scotland in tackling violence reduction. There is still a long way to go, but I say this because it is a microcosm. We were doing youth five-aside football at night to stop young men drinking and participating in gang violence and whatever. The lightbulb moment came for some police officers when they suddenly realised that they were keeping the lads out of trouble, but standing around waiting to speak to the lads were all the young teenage girls. The officers realised that if they did not deal with these teenage girls, they would be dealing with their children in 16 years’ time. Anybody who has seen the Justice Analytical Services’ correlation between youth offending, criminal offending and teenage pregnancies will know that it is stark. That is a microcosm. If we want to make these countries better, we must pour resources into women and children, as we do to make a fairer country in this land. As I have said, it is for these reasons—for our own economic wellbeing, for our moral purpose, and, equally, for our own health and wellbeing—that we have to have 0.7%.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe

Kenny MacAskill Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

My right hon. and learned Friend makes a very good point. We are seeking to be allowed to attend any future hearings. Our embassy in Tehran formally requested that last week, and we have consistently made the point with the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We are committed to securing the immediate and permanent release of all arbitrarily detained British dual nationals. The point he makes about the Iranian regime acting transparently is a good one.

[Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (SNP) [V]]

The Iranian regime’s behaviour is reprehensible, but there are moderate voices within Iranian society, including President Rouhani. Does the Minister accept that unilateral action by the USA, including targeted executions, worsens the situation for all? Will he therefore ensure that the UK’s diplomatic efforts to ensure Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s release are in line with those of European partners, not those of an American President, whoever is elected today?

[James Cleverly]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. The Iranian people are famed through history for their science and culture, and our criticism is not of the broader Iranian people; it is of the behaviour of the Iranian Government. I would be very uncomfortable making comments that might be perceived to give excuses to those in the Iranian regime who seek to arbitrarily detain Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe and others. It is their actions that we should be focused on. It is their choice to detain these people, and it is in their gift to release them. We should be relentlessly focused on their behaviour and the decisions that they have made.