Kashmir

Kevin Foster Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

I thank the hon. Lady for that. She will appreciate, and we have very much noted, the concerns across Kashmir raised in the report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in June 2018. It made firm recommendations for both India and Pakistan to consider. Even eight days ago, I was not quite aware of just how much work goes on. I alluded in my statement to the work on child education. When I was in Pakistan at the end of 2017, I went to Mardan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which at that stage was the stronghold of Imran Khan’s party. I saw the terrific amount of work that was going on in trying to develop trust-based policing, similar to what we have here in the UK, rather than the police being a police “force”. There was also a real commitment to education, particularly girls’ education. These things go on throughout Pakistan. Some of them are quite sensitive and I cannot go into great detail here.

One very much hopes there will be an ongoing de-escalation and calming of passions, but later in the year we will have a leadership week at the Foreign Office, when our high commissioners in India and Pakistan will both be here, so it might be useful to have the all-party group on Kashmir come in. I hope that people will recognise that some of what will be said will be a little sensitive, so I cannot go into deep detail on this on the Floor of the House, but that might be a useful exercise for the all-party group and friends of India from both sides of the House—I am well aware that the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) speaks in that regard. That might be useful, as it would give all Members a little more idea of just how much work goes on in Kashmir, some of which it is difficult at this stage to avow.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

I very much welcome the tone of the Minister’s statement, and that of what was said by the shadow Minister and by the Scottish National party spokesperson. The sight of two nuclear-armed nations firing on each other was clearly frightening, and the de-escalation that has happened since is welcome. Can the Minister reassure me about the work that will be done to maintain the communication, particularly between the two militaries that sit both sides of the line of control? In London, at the Royal College of Defence Studies, we can see members of both those nations’ armed forces working and participating together, and building up friendships and relationships. This should not be impossible and it is certainly something we could help to facilitate.

[Mark Field]

I thank my hon. Friend for what he has said, because he is right: our defence capability here involves a significant number of leading figures in both the Pakistani and Indian military having come out of Sandhurst and having been trained here. That is one aspect of UK soft power, as having these sorts of institutions allows alumni to maintain contact in the future. We will do all we can to keep as many lines of communication open as possible. One does not perhaps recognise until such incidents occur just how important developing the soft power of those connections is, both for the UK’s purpose and for countries caught in the sort of problems faced in Kashmir.