UK Steel Production: Greensill Capital

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and Bob Stewart

Thursday 25th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The hon. Gentleman will know, but I say in the interests of transparency, that one of my first meetings when I was appointed Secretary of State was with the head of Tata Steel. He will also know that having visited Hinkley Point as Energy Minister I am fully aware of the impact and the contribution that the Tata plant makes to infrastructure. I am sure he will be pleased to hear that this is a top priority of mine. I have made the point many times this morning that our infrastructure plans are absolutely intertwined with a strong domestic steel industry.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I am very sorry I was late for the start, Mr Speaker, but I was having a rather shouted conversation with the Chief of the General Staff about the massive cut of 12% in our Army, and particularly the loss of my battalion—

Refugee Family Reunion

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and Bob Stewart

Thursday 21st June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a crucial point: this phenomenon of migration and the political uncertainty and instability are not just going to go away. In fact, if we look forward, we are probably going to have greater pressures and greater numbers of people coming from sub-Saharan Africa and the middle east.

[Bob Stewart]

I thank my very good friend for allowing me to intervene on him. He cites migrants in Libya. I have not been to Libya, so I bow to my hon. Friend’s greater authority on the matter, but are those migrants refugees from other parts of Africa or displaced persons from within Libya, or are they economic migrants? It seems to me that they might be a mix of everything.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

My hon. Friend—my very good friend—is absolutely right, and that shows how complicated and variegated the problem is. In Libya, there are all three: economic migrants, people from sub-Saharan Africa fleeing real persecution outside Libya, and people who are being mercilessly trafficked for gain. It is a complicated picture and it is not easy to say which is which. In some instances, an individual or family might have two or three different reasons why they should leave their home or why they were forced out of their home. It is not particularly helpful to come to this question with a simple, preconceived notion of what a refugee is, what an economic migrant is or what someone who is being trafficked is, because the real world is a lot more complicated than that. We cannot simply put people, families and children in such neatly defined silos. We have to be much more flexible in our approach.

The hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar stressed how Britain is very welcoming, but he also mentioned the fact that the climate has been hostile in many instances, particularly in respect of tabloid newspapers. I am not someone openly to praise tabloid newspapers in this country—they have many strengths and many weaknesses—but it is easy in this House to pour scorn on what used to be called the popular press. The tabloids respond to the very real concerns of people throughout the country. If I speak to my constituents in Spelthorne, they express extremely generous sentiments towards genuine refugees, but there is also genuine concern that Britain’s hospitality and generosity can be abused, and it can be abused by some of the unscrupulous traffickers we talked about.

I wish to talk a little more about trafficking, because it is a problem that perhaps absorbs too little attention in this House. I was in Libya a year ago, when I was told that an individual needs to pay $1,000 to be transported from Libya to, in the first instance, Italy, which is the most common country of destination for these migrants. It does not take a mathematician to work out that if each person pays $1,000 to be trafficked, or transported, and there are—I was told—up to something like 1,000 migrants a day in the high season, when trafficking is at its peak the business of trafficking is potentially worth around $1 million a day. Such a huge amount of money that is potentially being distributed, or is part of the revenues of this business, attracts all kinds of people. When I was there, people talked about the Sicilian mafia, various eastern European mafiosi and the Russian mafia. Lots and lots of unscrupulous people are involved in this terrible trafficking.

We must look not only at the political instability and the relative disturbances in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere, but at the sources of the trafficking. We must clamp down on the criminal activities of these gangs, because they are the people who are driving this trade. As the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) suggested, this is a problem that will not go away. I assure the House that, if it does not go away, there will be unscrupulous gangs and criminal elements all over this trafficking and this way of making money. If that is the case, any European Government will have to focus much more closely on stopping the criminality.

When we talk about refugees, we understand the humanitarian concerns of our constituents, but there is another side to this issue. I see the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) shaking his head, but we cannot simply stick our heads in the sand and ignore this terrible trade.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The right hon. Gentleman is right that, clearly, criminals are not, in the first instance, driving this issue. There are many social, political and economic reasons for this phenomenon but, certainly in the parts of Libya that I saw and in the migrant camps in Sicily where I talked to a few people who were unlucky enough to be trafficked, a big criminal enterprise underpins it. It is very easy in the Chamber of the House of Commons to focus on the humanitarian aspects and to remind Members of our obligations not only as MPs but as citizens and human beings to very vulnerable people. I completely accept that. It is too easy for people in this Chamber to turn a blind eye to what is actually going on from the economic and criminal point of view, which is, frankly, a scandal. Too little of our political debate focuses on these wicked criminal elements. We must take a much bigger view.

[Bob Stewart]

I ask my very good friend to forgive me for intervening a second time. I have had to deal with the mafia in the Balkans. It may be foreign-owned or run, but it uses local people. I am quite sure that, in Libya, the mafia to whom he is referring will often be Libyans who are actually working for foreigners. That makes it even more complicated.

Libya

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and Bob Stewart

Wednesday 26th October 2016 Westminster Hall

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

One of the biggest problems is that when the United Nations or outside organisations such as the European Union try to help one side or the other, they are regarded with the deepest suspicion by a large number of people in Libya. That is one of the reasons why the latest plan seems to have failed.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

My hon. Friend makes a fair point, but I am told that one of the reasons why the Libyans view western involvement with such scepticism is that 2011 was not this country’s finest hour. I agree substantially with many of the findings in the Foreign Affairs Committee report. We went in there, but we did not have a plan or a follow-through. Given that context, it is not surprising that Libyans are sceptical.

Our ideals—what we want to happen—and what we can actually do are often completely different. I completely understand the support for the Government of National Accord, but it is difficult to see how we can empower them to take control of the country. None of the militias that one reads about—Haftar and Operation Dignity, Libya Dawn, ISIS and various al-Qaeda militias—are GNA forces. They are not under the control of the Government of National Accord, yet we carry on in a fantasy world in which they are the official, legal Government and we are going to support them. I totally understand those pious words, but nothing is happening on the ground.

We can go on like this. I am sure that in five years’ time I, or some new MPs, will take up the issue. We can go on forever and a day talking about what is going on, but in this debate I want to say, “Look, this is a big problem. What are we going to do about it?” I do not propose any definitive answers, but it is highly important that MPs have the opportunity to speak and think about these issues. We do very little thinking in this place; we do a lot of talking, posturing and virtue-signalling, but as parliamentarians we need to engage our minds critically with these problems.

Flooding

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and Bob Stewart

Wednesday 26th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng (Spelthorne) (Con)]

I am very grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak in this important debate. I am also very pleased to follow my neighbour, the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), even though we have different views on airport expansion. We are not speaking about that issue today, so we can come together with a degree of comradeship and co-operation.

I am also pleased to speak on behalf of people who live by the River Thames. Pictures have been shown and seen around the world of massive flooding and a considerable amount of devastation in the Thames valley. I know that it is fashionable in this House to suggest that action was taken only when the Thames itself was flooding, but as a Member of Parliament representing a Thames-side seat I have to say that a considerable number of families and a large number of properties were materially affected by the flooding. It is absolutely right that attention should be given to the issue.

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, who came to Guildford street, and saw for himself the problems caused by flooding. In Shepperton, in the south of my constituency, there was a considerable amount of flooding. It is a testament to the people of Spelthorne, who have created a thriving community, that there was so much resilience. Time and again, I spoke to people who were not expecting massive amounts of aid or of intervention. They appreciated that the borough’s resources were stretched, and that the EA and other organisations were under a great deal of pressure. I was impressed by their sheer resilience in managing to deal with a lot of the problems that they faced.

As for Staines and other areas in my constituency, the problem was not so much—other Members have alluded to this—the rising river level but the problems associated with groundwater, drainage and sewerage. That had a material effect on the—

[Bob Stewart]

The water table.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

Indeed. That really affected people’s lives, and down Guildford street, Garrick close and other places in Staines and beyond, people have had to put up with roads that are waterlogged and flooded with contaminated water. That is the situation that I want to bring to the attention of the Government and of the House. It is quite wrong that in 21st-century Britain people should have to put up with that for weeks. Even now, the chances are that it will be another couple of weeks before the groundwater is cleared. That is something that the Government should consider seriously in formulating policy in future.

People have tried in this debate to make political points about reduced Government expenditure. We all know that, according to the Darling plan of 2010, the DEFRA capital budget would be reduced by up to 50%. We all know that there are responsible people in the Labour party who realise that there was a deficit and, regardless of who won the general election, accept that there would have to be reductions in expenditure. I do not think that it is responsible of Opposition Members to blame the Government for the cuts because, according to the previous Chancellor’s own plan, there would be severe reductions in the budget.

North Africa and the Near and Middle East

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and Bob Stewart

Monday 28th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I am particularly grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way—

[Bob Stewart]

Were you there snorkelling, too?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

This is not a point about snorkelling. My hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) is making an impassioned and eloquent speech, but surely he must recognise that the reason why we are more committed to intervention in such areas—more so than in imperial times—is that we are part of a wider comity of nations. We are part of the UN and of NATO and as part of that joint venture we are committing and projecting ourselves in the region. In imperial times, such circumstances did not prevail. We acted unilaterally and, as he is right to say, in many instances we chose not to intervene and interfere in the internal politics of other countries.