Government Strategy Against IS

Laura Sandys Excerpts

Friday 12th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

All these questions to do with the efficacy, the logistical and military challenges and the legal position with regard to any particular military intervention in any part of the world will be considered very carefully. If the Government decide to undertake such military action—I repeat that we are not at that point at the moment and nor have we been asked to make a particular military contribution—they would at that point come and explain their case in full to the House.

[Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)]

Having done work related to the Iraq war in 2003, I know how light the planning was for after the intervention. I urge that we have a clear strategy for the first 100 days and would like to understand much more that that is the case. We will be creating power vacuums and great alienation among the Sunni community. Can we please know that we have such a strategy?

[Mr Lidington]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. The key role has to be played by the newly formed Government in Iraq, who have the prime responsibility to bring together the leaders of the diverse communities within Iraq to work for the common purpose of defeating ISIL conclusively. We are playing an active role in encouraging Iraqi leaders from all communities to play a constructive role in that effort. When my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development was in Iraq in August this year, she talked to Mr al-Abadi and the president of the Kurdish Regional Government about precisely that issue.

Ukraine

Laura Sandys Excerpts

Tuesday 18th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

The Foreign Secretary said that this is the most serious crisis of this century. I think it is probably the most serious crisis since the fall of the Berlin wall.

We should not be surprised by what has happened in Crimea. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) said, we have seen it all before. We have seen it in Georgia, where Putin adopted exactly the same techniques as he has now used in Crimea—namely, issuing Russian passports, fomenting revolt among local anti-Russian sentiment so that pro-Russian sentiment can be expressed, and then going in on the pretext of saving his compatriots. This should not have come as a surprise to us, and he is clearly on a roll. The question is what we do now to prevent him from pursuing aggressive Russian expansionism, as the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) rightly described it. I agree with every single word she said, and I hope that such sentiments will get wider currency outside the House.

I agree with all those who believe that the response from the west has been feeble if not worse. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary said himself that the credibility of the international order is at stake. The whole security of Europe, wider Europe and potentially elsewhere is at stake if this matter is not resolved. There is a feeling that the European leaders, in particular, are subject to some form of paralysis. They have been responding to events, which are overtaking them. They are behind the drag curve, and we need to take more vigorous action.

[Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend speculate on what Putin thinks about our response so far, and on whether he is frightened by what might happen to him?

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. I should think that Putin is laughing all the way to the bank. The bank may not be in London, but he will be laughing all the way to a bank. This is the whole point. He might be weak, and we have seen other weak leaders around the world, not least in Argentina, lashing out. I have some sympathy with the view that he is, as it were, lashing out, but the question is whether we continue to let him lash out or have to draw the line.

My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary referred to the Budapest agreement. We need to understand the significance of ignoring Russia’s flagrant breach of this agreement, to which it, the United Kingdom and the United States of America were signatories. The other European countries were not signatories, but we have a special position and the United States has a special position. This is not a guarantee of Ukraine’s borders, but it is a statement that the Russians

“respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine”.

Those borders have been infringed. The question arises of how we can possibly trust Russia if it is prepared so flagrantly to breach an agreement to which it signed up only 20 years ago.

Then the question is: where next? I have a British friend in eastern Ukraine who has been briefing me on what has been going there, and it is perfectly clear that Putin has won the propaganda war. He is telling all his people in Russia that Ukraine is run by a bunch of fascists and it is his duty to go and protect the Russian-speaking people there. The truth is, as my friend found out when he went on to the streets of Donetsk and listened to people’s accents, that these were not pro-Russian Ukrainians but pro-Russian Russians who had been bussed in. He said, “The accents I heard were from St Petersburg, not Donetsk.” Putin has been quite flagrantly provoking the Ukrainians. As my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary said, it is a great tribute to the Ukrainians that they have not risen to that provocation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)]

It is a great privilege to speak after my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), who made a passionate case for a robust response.

We must realise that for Putin, the cold war has not ended. We have not come to a new resolution or settlement about borders; instead, he is passionately trying to readjust the borders and then fight again to ensure that Russia becomes what he sees as dominant right across eastern Europe and into the Caucasus and central Asia.

I have worked in Georgia and felt the deep, dark shadow of Russia over everything that is done in politics and economics. Sometimes it makes the citizens of Georgia feel that they have a short leasehold rather than a freehold over their own borders. On that basis, Putin has already succeeded in what is probably his first objective, which is about not just Crimea but the total shake-up of identity in the region. He has polarised Russian nationals across the former Soviet Union, destabilising the Caucasus, the Baltics and now the Balkans, and he has won an important battle—removing the confidence of citizens there in their current borders.

It is important, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) and my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) said, that we are robust on political and economic sanctions. However, we must also consider offering carrots. Where is our Marshall plan for Ukraine, to kick-start and modernise its economy and say that a modern, non-Russian-dominated Ukraine is a positive and important place to be? Where is our support for Russian speakers and Russian nationals who do not live in Russia? They are free Russians, and we should celebrate them. We should ensure that being a free Russian is seen as something of great value, and that they can counter the problems of Russians whose internet is being taken over, whose communications are being closed down and whose newspapers are being dominated by central Politburo-type mechanisms. We have to value the things that Russians outside the border have.

There is another economic element of the matter that we should examine, which is Cyprus. It is the centre of second-tier Russian investment, beyond those who have penthouses in London. The banking structure and real estate in Cyprus are greatly dominated by Russian investment. If we and the Cypriots can bear down on Russia with effective sanctions, ensuring that investments and current deposits are frozen, we will be in a position to shake Putin where it matters, through the people around him. They are the people with the money, who feel threatened by the destabilisation that the current President of Russia is creating not just for Russia but for the rest of us in Europe.

Oral Answers to Questions

Laura Sandys Excerpts

Tuesday 18th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr Hugo Swire)]

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that relations between the two countries are extremely important. Obviously, we have also seen those reports. I am going to Malaysia next week and I can confirm that I shall be looking into this at first hand.

[Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)]

T7. Will the Foreign Secretary update us on the Government’s policy towards Tibet?

[Mr Hague]

The Prime Minister made clear our position in the House a few weeks ago: we recognise Tibet as part of China and we do not support Tibetan independence. We have well-established positions and dialogue on human rights, as the House well knows, but of course we also understand Chinese sensitivities and concerns about Tibet.

Iraq War (10th Anniversary)

Laura Sandys Excerpts

Thursday 13th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart (Penrith and The Border) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) for securing this debate, and it is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas), who made an extremely moving speech.

I was not in the House for the 2003 vote, and I certainly do not want to focus on it today; I am far from sure that I would have made the right decision. In fact, I think I would have been on the wrong side in 2003. It was not until I was stuck in Iraq in 2003 that I saw what a mess it was. I want to reflect briefly, therefore, on the lessons we might be able to draw, not so much from the decision to intervene, but from the questions about how we got stuck there and why we find it so difficult to acknowledge our failure.

The starting point for any discussion of Iraq has to be an acknowledgment that it was a failure and a scandal. However we look at the costs and benefits of what happened there, it was probably the worst British foreign policy decision since the Boer war or the first Anglo-Afghan war of 1839. Never have the British Government made a worse decision. By that, I do not mean that had I been in the House I would have voted differently. In fact, I suspect that I would have voted in favour of the war, wrongly. I hope, however, that this is an opportunity to reflect on what Parliament is, what the Foreign Office is, what the military is and how Britain as a whole—or at least the British policy establishment—could get something so wrong.

This matters because there are many similarities between what we did in Iraq and what we are doing in Afghanistan, and many similarities between those things and what we occasionally think of doing in Mali or Syria. At the base of the problem is our refusal to acknowledge failure, to acknowledge just what a catastrophe it was, and the House’s refusal to acknowledge how bewildering it was, how little we know and how complicated countries such as Iraq are. Sitting in Iraq for 18 months from the middle of 2003 to 2005, I found myself facing, in a small provincial town called al-Amara, 52 new political parties, many of them swarming across the border from Iran and many of them armed.

Nobody in the Foreign Office or the military, and certainly nobody in the House, would have been able to distinguish between Hizb-e-Dawa, Harakat-Dawa, Majlis Ahla, Hezbollah—which turned out in the Iraqi context to consist of two men with a briefcase—or any of the other Shi’a Islamist groups that emerged. None of us in the British policy machine predicted in January 2005 that 90% of the votes in the south of Iraq would go to only three Shi’a Islamist parties. Everybody in the foreign policy machine then predicted that it would be different at the end of 2005, and we were all wrong again. Why were we wrong? We were wrong because we did not have the right relationship between politicians, diplomats, soldiers and the local reality of these countries. We have not got it right yet.

We have not got it right because it is not realistic today—as it was not realistic at the time of the Boer war or the first Anglo-Afghan war—to expect people in Parliament to be experts on the internal politics of Iraq. What really began to go wrong after the invasion, beyond the decision about WMD, was all to do with micro-relationships in Nasiriyah and al-Amara and in the relationships between the different grand ayatollahs in Najaf. These are not things that anyone in the Chamber, however well briefed, can pretend to understand or judge. Instead, we have to rely on the military, the Foreign Office and the intelligence agencies, and there the problem starts. The problem starts because the entire structure of our organisations—their incentives, their promotions, their recruitment, how they interact with policy makers, politicians and Ministers—does not help us ever to acknowledge failure. In fact, these institutions are designed to trap us in these countries.

Careers are made by people going out for short tours. I remind the House and those in the Foreign Office that the initial tours in Iraq were for six weeks, extended to three months, then to six months. The idea—that people living in heavily defended compounds, moving around in armoured vehicles, generally unable to speak a word of any local language, unable to interact with an Iraqi for more than half an hour or an hour at a time, except if surrounded by heavily armed men and operating through translators, could really get a sense of whether Iraq was stabilising or what, to use the Minister’s words, Iraq would be like in 10 years—was of course misleading. The advice and challenge that they could provide to the Government, therefore, was not good enough.

It is not good enough that not a single senior British diplomat formally recorded on paper their opposition to what was happening in Iraq. Many of those who were inside the system now say that they made private comments, that they were worried, but nobody, from the political director downwards, formally objected on paper to the Prime Minister.

[Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)]

Was that not compounded even further by the American Administration, where if someone questioned what was going on, either strategically or tactically, they were sent back to the states, their future career very much in question?

[Rory Stewart]

That is a very good point, and perhaps it is a way for me to wrap up my analysis of the Foreign Office. Of course, this is not a uniquely American problem. Within any British civil service Department, there is no great incentive to admit failure. When I look back at the reports I wrote stuck in al-Amara and Nasiriyah, I find it extraordinary how every week, I claimed great success. Every week, I would write, “We’ve hired another 300 people into the police. We’ve held a new sub-district election. I’ve just created 3,000 jobs. We’ve just refurbished another set of clinics and schools.” To read report after report, week after week, it looks as if the whole thing is getting better and better. In retrospect, I know differently, of course. When I began, I could go into the bazaar to get an ice cream, but by the end, I was stuck in my compound with 140 rocket and mortar-propelled grenades flying at the compound, and we had to abandon it and retreat back to a military base, essentially surrendering Nasiriyah, a city of 600,000 people, to the insurgents.

The situation is not helped by the way we talk about it in Britain today. We do not really think very much about Iraq. We do not think very much about what exactly Iraq is doing with Iran or Syria at the moment, why exactly Iraq got involved in dubious banking transactions to bust sanctions on behalf of the Iranian Government or why exactly our great ally, al-Maliki, appears to have been allowing trans-shipment of weapons from Iran into Syria. Why do we not think about these things? It is because we are not very serious. At some level, this country is no longer being as serious as it should be about foreign policy. Our newspapers are not writing enough about Iraq. The Foreign Office is not thinking enough about the failure. The military is not thinking enough about these things. Unless we acknowledge that something went wrong in Iraq and that something went deeply wrong in Afghanistan, we will get ourselves stuck again.

What do we do about it? We need to reform. It cannot be business as usual. We cannot just go around pretending it was all fine. We cannot simply blame Blair and Bush.

--- Later in debate ---

[Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)]

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) and my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron), who secured the debate. I am very pleased to be participating in it. I also pay tribute to those on both Front Benches, who gave us an evocative, and also reflective, perspective on the war. I agree that this is not an anniversary but an analysis—an analysis that is crucial for the future of foreign policy, for people’s trust in Government, and for the institutions surrounding the Ministry of Defence and the Department for International Development.

I pay tribute to our soldiers, and also to the civilians in Iraq who have lost their lives. I was pretty horrified by the fact that, for the first couple of years, the Americans in particular seemed to have no interest in counting the civilian casualties. It struck me as extraordinary that we, who had entered the country on behalf of the civilians of Iraq as, in many respects, their advocate against their authoritarian leader, did not pay enough attention to what was happening even to count the number of those civilians who had lost their lives.

I became involved in Iraq in 1993, just after the ejection of Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. My responsibility was to travel around the capitals of Europe highlighting Saddam’s human rights abuses. Halabja has been mentioned; I was there, showing videos of people’s suffering. I was in and out of Kurdish police stations where the police showed videos of torture to their prisoners before embarking on torture themselves. This was a brutal, disgusting regime. Saddam Hussein’s authoritarianism ran through the veins, and created fear in every single household in Iraq.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The hon. Lady is right to highlight Iraq’s appalling human rights record during that period, but will she reflect on the fact that Britain was selling arms to Iraq throughout it? Even after Halabja, Britain took part in the Baghdad arms fair of 1989, and continued to supply weapons right up to the start of the Gulf war.

[Laura Sandys]

That is evidently true. I am in no doubt about our relationship with Saddam Hussein, or about our relationships with many leaders around the world. Those relationships involve big ethical issues. What I am highlighting is human rights abuse, the brutalisation of a country by a man and his family, and the fact that such a small group of people were able to hold Iraq in so much fear.

It was against that backdrop that I was explicitly, and very vocally, opposed to our invasion of Iraq. I do not claim to be a great expert on Iraq like my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), but I had a little more insight into Iraq—its dynamics, and the interrelationship between the different communities there—than most people, and I felt at that time that the debate was extremely superficial. It was group-think. It was very binary. It was us and them. It was evil people and good people. As can be seen throughout the international foreign affairs perspective, the “cowboys and Indians” analogy works very poorly except for those who are sitting on the very outside.

I was a member of the Conservative party at the time, although not a member of the House of Commons, and I recall the cacophony. Does anyone remember how many times Richard Perle came over and appeared on television shrieking with fear and anticipation of our untimely demise? There were the neo-cons, and there were some colleagues who adopted quite a shrill tone. I was very concerned about the war and I wanted us to get rid of Saddam Hussein, but to do so by means of other mechanisms. I wanted Iraqi solutions to the Saddam Hussein problem. However, I found myself being accused of being anti-war, accused of being a pacifist, and accused of walking away from trouble. Well, those who know me are aware that it is unusual for me to be seen to be walking away from trouble.

The question of weapons of mass destruction was a fascinating aspect of the situation. Many Members have explained the whole issue of Hans Blix and the inspectors; however, those who, at the time, kept saying “But Saddam Hussein is not standing up and saying he has no weapons of mass destruction” did not understand enough about the regime itself. None of them understood the position that Saddam was in. At that moment, just before the war, he was extremely weakened—weakened internally. The republican guard had started to create a fair amount of tension in his regime, although the special republican guard was still on his side.

Saddam Hussein—the man of terror, the man of weapons of mass destruction—could not stand up and say “I do not have these weapons.” We were asking him to do something that would have constituted, in a sense, the disarming of every element of authority that he had. We were asking him to do something that he was not going to do, although many of us knew—and I worked with military intelligence during the war—that the weapons did not exist, or at least had an extremely limited capacity.

[Ian Lucas]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, first for giving way, secondly for her kind comments, and, thirdly, for making a powerful case for the importance of an Opposition holding a Government to account in relation to events in the middle east. Is that not a very important lesson for this Government?

[Laura Sandys]

Opposition on an issue such as this can come from all sorts of different directions.

It was frightening to see how the group-think had emerged and how, for example, the issue of 45 minutes to London arose. Do we remember that claim? The Evening Standard front page was in many ways a motivation, a call to action, and I was told by friends, colleagues and people who I would say are less than colleagues, “Laura, your position in being against the war is putting families in London at risk.” The debate became really quite vicious. It was not friendly, and it was not constructive in respect of understanding Iraq per se and—I say this having worked in the defence sector myself, and having worked in academia in the defence sector—understanding the potential and the possibilities of ballistic missiles.

What was fascinating about that whole 45-minutes-to-London claim is that No. 10 said afterwards, “Oh, we didn’t endorse that leak, wherever it came from,” but did they question it or contest it, saying to the Evening Standard and the other newspapers, “This actually is wrong”? That was an omission that allowed untruths to permeate the debate and created a very toxic environment, in which, as the hon. Gentleman rightly said, an opposition needed to thrive.

[Pete Wishart]

The hon. Lady is absolutely correct about the untruths and all the other issues she has raised, but how come they were so easily accepted by the Opposition? The right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), who was then Leader of the Opposition, was probably more enthusiastic about this war than Tony Blair was.

[Laura Sandys]

The hon. Gentleman will have to ask them. I was not a Member of this House at the time. However, lots of people from very different political perspectives—people on the right, the left and across the board—were against the war, and there were also people from all the parties who felt it was the right thing to do. I would also say this to the hon. Gentleman: I have seen some of the videos, and I have spoken to people who were tortured by Saddam Hussein, and I can see why people right across the board might have found the humanitarian motive extremely compelling.

One of the gravest failings was mainly constructed in America: the lack of planning post-Saddam and for the future. From my perspective, that was extraordinary. I was part of the “red team” working with military intelligence, and we met three times a week in the run-up to the Iraq war and then during the Iraq war. The minute the so-called conflict stopped, we were all disbanded because we were not needed—because there was no need for anybody with any expertise in Iraq, because the roses were going to be thrown on to the tanks and the Americans and the Brits were going to be embraced in every street, and there were going to be parties and we were going to have liberation right across the board. That naivete was, as has been said, in many ways a result of the lack of opposition and the lack of questioning of every element of the implications of this intervention.

I have subsequently heard that there were two opportunities for our armed forces to support the Iraqis to topple Saddam: as we arrived in Kuwait as part of our preparations for war, and as we were arriving close to Baghdad. At both times, leaders in the republican guard—not the special republican guard—approached the allies and said, “Can we instigate a revolt against Saddam? Then we will invite you in to support us.” That has received very little coverage and created little interest, but, from what I understand, there is truth in it, and I would be interested to see some of the papers to get to the bottom of it. We were there, and if our objective was to get rid of Saddam Hussein, we should have understood that it was important to do that in conjunction with the many forces and interests within Iraq that wanted to get rid of that brutal dictator.

My final point is that we must learn the lessons of history. I suspect my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border, and many other Members, would agree with me on that. We went into Iraq in 1917 and had a very difficult and torrid time, and many of the issues we faced in 2003 were identical, both in intention and implication. We must make sure that we do not end up across the region with three countries: a Sunni country, a Shi’a country and a Kurdish country. My group at King’s college at that time was explicit about that, and we see the same issue arising again now in relation to Syria. If we end up with those sorts of conflicts arising over the next few years, we will have to see our invasion of Iraq as being the first step in causing some deep fragmentation, some great destabilisation and some great global challenges, faced as a result of this decision on Iraq, which was not well thought through.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Meacher]

That is why I say that we need the Chilcot report, in the light of which my hon. Friend’s point will be a serious consideration. The truth is that, in realpolitik, to the victors the spoils, with only those who are defeated paying the penalty. I take my hon. Friend’s point, which is an honest and fair one, and we should return to this when the report is finally published.

The second dimension is what the war has achieved. On this 10th anniversary, it has been said that the US won the war, Iran won the peace and Turkey won the contracts. But did the US win the war? At a cost that has been estimated at $1.5 trillion, something over £1 trillion—Joseph Stiglitz, a former member of the presidential economic council, thinks it is actually twice that level—and at a cost to the US of a death toll of 4,500 troops, 32,000 wounded and with thousands of survivors still struck down with post-traumatic stress disorder, the US completely failed to anticipate the insurgency that eventually forced it out. Moreover, the war actually produced the one thing that the US was desperately anxious to prevent; namely a Shi’a autocracy in Iraq, closely aligned with a resurgent Shi’a Iran. Even the US goal of securing control of the enormous Iraqi oil reserves, second only to those of Saudi Arabia, it was forced to forgo. If one had to pinpoint the moment when the US lost unipolar power as the world’s hegemon, it must surely be this comprehensive disaster of the Iraq war.

As for Iraq itself, it remains a bitterly divided and violent country, as others have said. It is not only the hundreds of thousands of dead and, at the height of the war, the 4 million refugees, but after nine years of occupation by US and British troops, thousands are still tortured and imprisoned without trial, health and education have dramatically deteriorated, the position of women has horrifically gone backwards, trade unions are effectively banned, Baghdad is still divided by the checkpoints and the blast walls, the electricity and water supplies have all but broken down, and people pay with their lives if they are honest enough to speak out.

In the longer term, the war has undermined the moral standing of the US and the UK across the world, not only in the middle east. It generated the al-Qaeda presence, which certainly was not there before, and it sent a clear message, which has emboldened Iran and North Korea, that the only way to deter US blackmail and attack was indeed to acquire weapons of mass destruction. It could even be said about the war without exaggeration that the greatest weapons of mass destruction were those wielded by the Americans. We saw the comprehensive and systematic demolition of Falluja, the US-led massacres at Haditha, Mahmudiya and Balad, and the biggest refugee crisis in the middle east since the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948.

My third and final consideration lies in the lessons, briefly, that can be drawn from this disaster. The chief one, as I said, concerns the governance structure that allowed it to happen in the first place. As we know, there was the mendacious, illegal and devious manner in which the US and the UK claimed authority in launching the war at all. Saddam had no involvement whatever in 9/11. There were no Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, as was widely suspected by western intelligence at the time, but suppressed by the politicians. The ways used by Bush and Blair to take their countries to war were, as we know all too well, brazenly deceitful.

Much is made of the fact that there was a vote in the House of Commons, and there was, but that vote was on the very eve of war, hours before the bombing started when, with 45,000 British troops already deployed in the field, it was virtually impossible to draw back. So the first lesson is obviously that in any such future scenario—God forbid that there ever should be such a future scenario—the House of Commons vote must be at a much earlier stage in the process when war is first seriously being contemplated and at that stage the documentation must be provided to justify, or purport to justify, the war, and that must be fully disclosed to the House before the vote is taken.

[Laura Sandys]

As somebody who has so much more experience than I do in Parliament, will the right hon. Gentleman speculate what would have happened if we had voted against the war? Would we have been able to roll ourselves back? I think it was almost too late and it would have been a very big dilemma for the Prime Minister of the time to be in that position—an interesting dilemma and one that we need to resolve if we are to have votes before intervention in the future.

[Mr Meacher]

That is indeed an interesting point. It would not just have been difficult for the Prime Minister—it would have been a massive humiliation and embarrassment if that had happened. One has to ask why the vote was taken so late. Maybe—I can only speculate—it was precisely to put pressure on Members of this House for what was virtually a fait accompli, which would compel a majority of them to support it. I pay enormous tribute to the 139 MPs who voted against the war. Most were Labour Members, but some were Tories or Members from the smaller parties. They need to be given the credit and honour that they are due.

Oral Answers to Questions

Laura Sandys Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Yes. This is of course an important development. I have discussed the aftermath of that terrible bombing several times with the Bulgarian Foreign Minister. It is certainly our view that we need to act against the military wing of Hezbollah, and we will be pursuing that over the coming days.

[Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)]

T4. While progress is slow in Somalia but things are improving considerably, what does the Foreign Secretary feel about the impact of the London conference almost a year ago?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mark Simmonds)]

My hon. Friend is right to raise the progress that has been made in Somalia. She will be aware, I hope, that we are planning a second conference in May this year that will be hosted jointly by the UK Government and the Somalian Government. It will prioritise the security sector, the justice sector, and building governance in the Somali Government so that they can provide services for their people.

Oral Answers to Questions

Laura Sandys Excerpts

Tuesday 30th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for what he said about the progress that has been made. There are two things in response. The first is the Tokyo international agreement in July; the United Kingdom has been asked by Afghanistan to co-chair the first review of it in 2014. It is a series of commitments made by the Afghanistan Government in relation to a variety of matters, such as social and economic development, including the rights of women. In addition, the enhanced strategic partnership that the Prime Minister signed with President Karzai in January this year also includes commitments on women’s rights, and we will be looking to ensure that those rights are confirmed in the future as our development support continues.

[Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)]

12. What progress his Department has made in its efforts to support UK exports.

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr Hugo Swire)]

My Department is supporting UK growth and helping to realise our ambition to double UK exports to £1 trillion by 2020. We have a good story to tell. We are transforming the level of commercial awareness in the Department through secondments and training. We are supporting small and medium-sized enterprises exporting to emerging markets, including helping them to manage the risks involved, through our overseas business risk service.

[Laura Sandys]

My thanks to the Minister. I am very pleased that the Foreign Office is taking such a leading role in our trade efforts and that UK Trade and Investment held a successful event in my constituency. What other steps are we taking to expand missions in our embassies and the appreciation of trade on the ground?

[Mr Swire]

My hon. Friend raises a very important point, which is getting hon. Members to understand that the facility is available. The more people who do, the better we can export. We have UKTI, and small and medium-sized enterprises will take part in its export week from 12 to 16 November, when more than 100 events will be organised across the UK. We have the overseas business risk service, and members of my Department spoke to members of the Kent international trade office on 18 October about the help that the Foreign Office can offer. I am glad that it is working with her, but I urge right hon. and hon. Members across the House to make use of the facilities for their local small and medium-sized enterprises. We can help—we are here to help—and if Members have any problems and encounter difficulties, my office door is always open.

Treaty on Stability, Co-ordination and Governance

Laura Sandys Excerpts

Wednesday 29th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)]

I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) is going to be crying over the treaty. His constituents will be worried about this, as we all are, but it is not only about the treaty, because that is merely the result of a major crisis. In debates in this House, we often express concern, in many respects, about many countries, whether they be Somalia, India, or the economies of the far east. Those economies impact on this country. It is crucial that whatever emerges from the way in which the EU implements the treaty serves our national interest by ensuring our greater economic security.

I share Members’ fears about whether the treaty will deliver the right result. Over the past 18 months, we have watched the economic meltdown across Europe being met with inactivity and summit after summit, as Ministers from all over Europe have come together but there has been no endgame, no result, and no agreement. This comes extremely late in the game. That means that whatever is done will cost Europe—the eurozone—a lot more money than if the situation had been addressed 18 months ago. This is not a day when Europe is shining in its glory. This has come too late, in a crisis, and as a result Europe has cost itself more money.

It is not in our interests to be part of the treaty, but it must be in our interests to support Europe in sorting out its own economic situation. I worry whether it will be successful, but very much hope that it will be. I know, however, that we are in a better position than we were before the Prime Minister went off to Brussels to veto the treaty. The veto is in place protecting the UK from the treaty, and we are giving our support in ensuring that the European economies get their act together.

Oral Answers to Questions

Laura Sandys Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

As the hon. Lady says, those elections are due in 2014. Over previous elections the Afghan state, supported by the international security assistance force, has shown an increasing capability to administer elections safely. I am sure that that capability will increase much further over the next two years, given that the build-up of the Afghan national security forces is continuing. As she knows, it is our intention that by the end of 2014 the Afghan national security forces will be able to conduct security all over Afghanistan for themselves, and that includes supervising elections.

[Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)]

T8. Given the growing tensions between Azerbaijan and Iran, which are extremely worrying, what are we doing to upgrade our diplomatic support to Azerbaijan, which is both politically and economically extremely important to this country?

[Mr Hague]

We have good links with Azerbaijan, particularly given its current membership of the UN Security Council—it joined a few months ago. So our diplomatic contact and co-ordination with Azerbaijan has increased. As to the level of representation, we regularly review that but I do not have any new announcement to make about that at the moment.

Somalia

Laura Sandys Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

There would be such a danger if we constructed the conference in the wrong way. I am talking about security concerns, but the UK makes a huge contribution to addressing humanitarian concerns —we were the second-largest bilateral donor in the recent humanitarian crisis. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development will host, alongside the conference, an event to discuss humanitarian needs. As I will describe, one of the conclusions that we hope for from the conference is to highlight those humanitarian needs.

This is about much more than security, as I will describe.

[Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)]

I very much welcome the conference in London, but how will it differ from the one that is being held in Turkey? What are the differences between the objectives of the Turkish conference and the UK-based one?

[Mr Hague]

They will be integrated. I have discussed that a couple of times with my Turkish counterpart. In recognition of our conference in February, the Turks have moved their conference back a little to later in the year. Both Turkey and the UK hope that that will follow on from the progress we make in London. The conference in London is largely at Head of State level—it will be hosted by the Prime Minister, and many Heads of State and Heads of Government will be coming—and will address the whole range of issues affecting Somalia. It is therefore one of the most ambitious conferences that has been held internationally on Somalia. I believe it will help to establish momentum for all the conferences that will follow, including the one in Istanbul.

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[Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s speech and his enthusiastic engagement with these issues. He is being very ambitious, and I applaud him for that. I also applaud the Secretary of State for International Development. He has visited Somaliland, and so, too, has the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for North West Norfolk (Mr Bellingham), the Minister with responsibility for Africa. I wish them well in their endeavours. I roundly applaud the energy that is being put into the British engagement in Somaliland and Somalia.

I also congratulate the shadow Foreign Secretary on his contribution to the debate. When he was International Development Secretary, he took a great interest in this subject, and that came across in his speech. He met the Somali community in Cardiff, as did the then Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (David Miliband). There has been a Somali community in Cardiff, in the docks area of my constituency, since about the 1830s. It is now a community that is passionately committed both to Wales and being British, and to Somaliland. I shall talk about that shortly.

The Foreign Secretary highlighted the issue of security. That sometimes comes very close to home. In just the past few days, three men from Cardiff have appeared in court on terrorism-related offences, and I believe that they will be sentenced today. Only a few weeks ago, two young men from Cardiff went to Kenya with the intention of travelling across the Somalia border to join al-Shabaab. Fortunately, they were detained and returned. That is a positive outcome for them, as well as for the community in Cardiff, which, with strong Somali leadership, realises that it has to engage more with the young people growing up in the city and ensure that the temptation of being drawn into terrorism is guarded against. A recent Home Affairs Committee report on radicalisation in the UK is of relevance in this regard. I mention these events as they underline a point that the Foreign Secretary made: security in Somalia is not just about what happens in the horn of Africa and to ships sailing in that region. It can also come very close to home.

The Foreign Secretary stressed security and common humanity as the twin motivations for this fresh engagement. That is absolutely right, but we must also add development to the list.

Unless the vacuum is filled by jobs and opportunity, education and improved health standards in these fragile regions, any gains that are made will be temporary. Military intervention alone is not enough to change the situation in the south. There is also a need to develop democratic institutions. As I shall make clear in a moment, that is one of the big differences between the situation in Somaliland, which wishes to be separate, the situation in Puntland, which wants to be part of a single Somalia, and the situation in the south, where those democratic institutions are lacking.

[Laura Sandys]

As the right hon. Gentleman will know from his experience of the Somali community, in all the chaos and difficulty that Somalia faces we should not lose sight of the fact that Somalis are extremely entrepreneurial, and have a fantastic sense of business and international trade. While there are few positive things to say about Somalia at the moment, we must bear in mind their potential to use such assets to enforce and underpin long-term security for the country.

[Alun Michael]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right, and I am glad to say that those characteristics are reflected in the Somali community in Cardiff. One of the problems of that community, however, is that it is invisible. In recent years, we have organised an event to celebrate Somalis who have achieved some success, such as gaining a PhD in chemistry or developing a proficiency in art or sport, in order to encourage and motivate young people. I am certain that such skills exist even in the most disastrous parts of Somalia, and will be evident if they can only be nurtured and developed through proper institutions and a degree of stability that is absent at the moment, particularly in the south-central part of the country.

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[Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)]

It is a great honour to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart). One thing that Somalia has—it would be a great asset if it had peace—is, apparently, the best beaches in east Africa. I declare an interest, because my husband was the head of the United Nations in Somalia eight years ago, during some of the more difficult periods of its history. I have lived through many of the ups and downs and many of the political and diplomatic initiatives that have taken place over the years.

I would say that this is a special period. There is much greater optimism for this conference. We are starting from a low base, but we have progressed and some of the conditions and elements are ready to create a little more stability, greater co-operation and movement forward. I very much welcome the conference and hope that it will represent a proper step change in the security and stability of the area.

I commend the Government for their dedicated and focused attention on Somalia. The previous Government did a lot of work in Somalia, but I think that we have seen a change in our relationship and engagement. The Minister, who represents North Norfolk— [Interruption.] I apologise—that is a Liberal Democrat constituency—but King’s Lynn is at the heart of the Minister’s constituency. He has done a lot of work on this issue and on the appointment of our ambassador.

The conference is important, but I am concerned about certain elements. A group of political leaders are coming to London and this is the 14th transitional Government with whom we have had to deal. Thirteen have failed and we have three or four months before the 14th come to the end of their mandate. Politics, Somalia and politicians have not been a very successful combination. Of course we have to deal with the politicians and we have to deal productively with the parts of Somalia that have developed much greater stability. However, we should also look at the strengths of Somalia and Somalis. One of their greatest strengths is their entrepreneurial business acumen. One could say that even with piracy they were early adopters of a new economic model. There is nothing that stops a Somali trading from Mogadishu right the way to Cape Town or across to Nigeria.

Despite the fact that Somalis place more trust in their business community and business leaders than in their politicians, we are not engaging with the business community there. Certain business men, who are well known, are invested in conflict. That is not unique to Somalia: the same is true of every other country where there is an economy based on conflict and insecurity. However, there are also leading Somali business men who are trying hard and who would and will be invested in peace. Economic stability will be crucial to any settlement, and the business community has the ability to make a difference. There is a large diaspora, and competent business men who are seen as being party to the conference and to the overall settlement will be able to link that diaspora in and procure a lot of the investment that is currently coming in as remittances for humanitarian response. In a more stable environment, that money could be invested in greater economic development.

I have nothing to add to the great strategies and the approach the Government are taking except to say one thing to them: do not forget that there is an important part of civil society out there—the Somali diaspora and the Somali business sector. They are agents for change and, in many ways, they are counterparts that can help to secure change once we establish it through political mechanisms. Sadly, I have less confidence in the transitional Government. I hope we are successful in the next couple of weeks but I think we need to broaden our horizons and our networks.

North Africa and the Near and Middle East

Laura Sandys Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Martin Horwood]

The hon. Gentleman is right, but certain fundamental principles ought to inform transitions to democratic government if they are to succeed, and two of those must be that the military step back from the exercise of political power and that they should not expect immunity from investigation of past involvement in human rights abuses. Successful transitions to democracy have always had those characteristics, and the Egyptians must learn from that. I welcome the Foreign Secretary and the Government’s strong line in that respect.

Libya presents different challenges. We must be grateful for the role that British and international armed forces played in that conflict but equally we must welcome the move to a post-military phase and congratulate the Government on reopening the British embassy on 17 October. As hon. Members have pointed out, the treatment of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi will be a test case: his capture provides the opportunity for the new Libyan regime to illustrate its respect for the rule of law and the rights even of despised opponents in a way that was not apparent in the treatment of Gaddafi senior.

I would like the Minister to comment on a security matter that the Foreign Secretary did not really mention: the reports that large amounts of military matériel are going missing in Libya. It is rumoured that some of it is finding its way into the hands of violent Islamic extremists, whether those with Salafist tendencies or even al-Qaeda members. I would be interested to hear whether the Government consider these accounts credible and, if so, whether they are taking action to counteract the problem.

In Syria, we have a different situation again. As the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington rightly said, we have to give the greatest credit to the Syrian people themselves for maintaining the uprising for eight months against the most brutal repression. It is an example of extraordinary courage and determination that should inspire people all over the world to rise up against tyranny. However, credit is also due to the Arab League, the regional grouping, first for expressing strong diplomatic disapproval and exerting pressure, then for suspending Syria from membership and, finally, for now imposing sanctions. Such a determined response by the Arab League and neighbouring Governments such as Turkey is a positive development in the history of the Arab League, which has not always been the most robust of organisations on such issues. However, it is now taking a proactive and positive role in the region, and towards Syria in particular.

I think that those in the Arab League see—I hope we see it too—that those developments may avoid the necessity for foreign intervention, which is not something that I have heard anyone in the Syrian opposition call for. Although we might see continued violent conflict in Syria—I think we will, in fact, see it—if a robust approach is taken, we might also see a resolution that does not involve even worse complications, arising from foreign intervention, because there are unfortunate precedents. In terms of geography and political, ethnic and tribal tensions, Syria is rather more like Iraq than Libya, which, in a way, was a rather simple country to intervene in. Libya is reasonably homogenous, its population basically live on one coastal strip and it is close to lots of NATO countries. Intervention in Syria would be a much more complicated and messy affair. We should try to avoid that possibility at all costs.

However, it is rather disappointing that some other international voices have not really joined us in trying to support the Syrian people. It is interesting to note the movement by China, but Russia’s position is completely indefensible. The opportunity for Russia to use its influence with the Assad regime for good is being completely lost. The recent comment by a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman—that what was needed was

“not sanctions, not pressure, but internal Syrian dialogue”—

was, frankly, completely incredibly. That approach risks Russia’s credibility, not just in Europe and the international arena, but specifically in the middle east. I hope that Russia will see that its position is neither credible nor in Russia’s long-term interests, and will instead join the growing international movement for effective international pressure.

The situation in Iran, not far from Syria, is rather more worrying—like other hon. Members, I deeply regret the expulsion of the UK ambassador. Again, this is an area where international co-operation could have proved effective. After all, the International Atomic Energy Agency includes China and Russia, so in a sense they are taking part in the pressure being exerted on the Iranian regime. The IAEA has clearly and unambiguously exposed credible evidence of the Iranian regime’s military ambitions when it comes to nuclear weapons. It is possible to understand Israel’s anxiety in that respect. To Israel, this development poses a real and present threat to its national security. However, I hope that we will join other members of the international community in expressing to Israel the clear belief that military intervention would inflame the entire region and critically undermine the chances of liberal opposition or a popular uprising in Iran, solidifying support for the regime. The role of the international community must be to provide robust and effective pressure—I welcome the increased sanctions regime at the end of this month. However, we must try to pursue that as a means of avoiding the possibility that any country in the region feels it is necessary to intervene militarily.

We have to accept that the Israeli people’s anxieties are quite real. It is not just the Iranian situation that seems to pose a threat to many people in Israel, but in some respects the Arab spring too. However, I nevertheless welcome the Government’s position, which is that Palestine now largely fulfils the criteria for UN membership, including statehood. I rather regret that this has not translated into a promise of a positive vote in favour of Palestinian statehood and membership of the United Nations; nevertheless, the tone of the Foreign Secretary’s remarks and those of Ministers has been absolutely right in that respect. It is right to call on Israel to realise that the only way to avoid unilateral initiatives is multilateral negotiation without preconditions. Israel needs to do that, not least to strengthen the hand of moderate, peaceful Palestinian political opinion, because the path of conflict and confrontation will only reinforce the position of the more extreme factions, if that diplomatic and peaceful process seems completely hopeless to ordinary Palestinians.

Moving around the world, let me turn to Somalia, where there are some quite positive things to highlight. I look forward to the London conference in February. The Foreign Secretary was right to highlight the need for more effective international strategies and pressure. Nevertheless, there is already some positive development to report. The courage of African Union troops and the positive role that the African Union is playing in the country are quite important. The fact that the Secretary of State for International Development was able to visit Mogadishu this summer is quite an extraordinary development. It was a very positive statement for him to make. It might not quite compare with the courage of African Union and Somali troops in trying to promote democracy or national security in that country, but it was a courageous act by a western politician, and we ought to pay him credit for that. There is a fear among Somali civil society that rather more money comes in from foreign countries in the form of ransoms than in the form of development aid. It is therefore positive that the British Government have made a visible commitment to work in Somali society and in Somali civil society, in particular, to promote development.

When we are dealing with piracy, it is quite important that such development should take place, because it is important—if I may misquote Tony Blair—not just to tackle piracy, but to tackle the causes of piracy. We do not just need police actions against ships and aggressive actions in the sea; we need to tackle, for instance, illegal fishing and the dumping of toxic waste, which are ruining traditional livelihoods and are also among the factors that sometimes drive people to seek such extreme forms of raising money. Wherever possible, we need to invest in infrastructure, such as fishing facilities and so on, to try and start the long, hard process of normalisation in that country. We need to involve Somali civil society in that, and not just in what is technically Somalia, but in those regions that are, in effect, proving autonomous, such as Somaliland and Puntland.

I commend to Ministers the experience of Saferworld and the role that it has played in DFID-funded projects both in Somalia proper and in Somaliland and Puntland. Its experience of trying to put together a positive framework for development in those parts of the world is extremely welcome. Indeed, it is also in line with the Government’s stated policy in BSOS—“Building Stability Overseas Strategy”—which talks about upstream prevention of conflict. In the case of Somalia, it is not so much upstream prevention as an upstream solution while the river is in full flood. We should not take the analogy too far—[Interruption.] Yes, we do not want anybody drowned in the process, but clearly we need to tackle the root causes of conflict, as well as the symptoms.

We see a regrettable deterioration of the situation in Sudan. Briefly, let me say that the Foreign Secretary’s instincts are exactly right in that respect too. We need to watch the situation extremely carefully and urge all parties, in both Governments—the Sudanese Government and the new South Sudan Government—to recognise the importance of trying to resolve their differences peacefully, if at all possible, and to allow the maximum amount of international support in so doing.

In Yemen we see more positive developments. We have the President’s signature on 23 November and the appointment of an opposition politician, Mohammed Basindawa, to the role of Prime Minister, which are encouraging developments. Clearly we are not out of the woods yet in Yemen, but what has happened is a positive step.

Last but not least, I would like to deal briefly with the situation in Bahrain, and I strongly welcome the Foreign Secretary’s remarks on the country. I listened with interest to the remarks of the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd), who has long been an independent and forthright commentator on international affairs regardless of who happens to be in government at the time. In a way, however, I think she got the tone slightly wrong on the independent committee of inquiry whose report has just been published in Bahrain. She rightly said that it demonstrates comprehensive evidence of widespread and serious abuse of human rights, certainly implicating the security forces, and that this is part of a deep-seated process in the state of Bahrain. The fact that the report has been published at all, however, is a very positive development that we must try to hold on to. The fact that it was robust and that it did not pull any punches is quite a testament to the potential for openness and accountability in Bahrain.

We know from our own experience in this country that it took us decades to accept the role of our military in even very limited and isolated examples of the abuse of military power in Northern Ireland and later in Iraq, for example. These were not systematic, but very isolated cases of discreditable actions—not typical of the British armed forces as a whole—yet these were painful incidents for us to talk about and admit. Bahrain, however, has moved very quickly to a position in which it is openly discussing comprehensive and systematic human rights abuse by its own security forces, which is something to be praised.

[Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)]

I believe that the timely publication and the ability for people to see the transparency will be important steps in the reconciliation between the Sunni and the Shi’a in Bahrain. Does the hon. Gentleman agree?

[Martin Horwood]

Yes, I certainly agree with that. What the report has highlighted about the Shi’a is particularly important. It showed that the idea that Iran was stirring up trouble and was behind the Shi’a elements in the protests was not backed up by any real evidence. That was another honest and important conclusion from the report.

The test is, of course, what happens next. As Amnesty International has said, it is the “speed, extent and seriousness” of the Government’s response that is the real test in this case. The right hon. Member for Cynon Valley rightly highlighted the case of medical workers who are still in custody of one kind or another, which is simply not acceptable. The Bahraini Government should tackle that issue as a matter of absolute priority.

I am sure that Her Majesty’s Government will enthusiastically support that kind of robust response to the report by the Bahraini Government, and I think they should also seek to reassure any nervous neighbours of Bahrain that as the “Building Stability Overseas Strategy” rightly points out, we are now looking at a new philosophy of security for countries such as Bahrain and others around the world, whereby security does not come from repression and control, but ultimately and in the long term from societies that are capable of peaceful change, in which human rights and the rule of law are respected. From Somalia to Syria, from Mauritania to Iran, that commitment to peaceful change, human rights and the rule of law ought to be—and, I hope, will be—the hallmarks of British foreign policy.

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[Rory Stewart]

I would agree absolutely if I did not fear that Europe itself is hollowing out its foreign services in exactly the same way as we have hollowed out ours. German diplomats, French diplomats and Italian diplomats recognise that they are pinned in their offices with 400 e-mails in their in-tray, unable to study languages, unable to get out into the rural areas or to collect the political intelligence on which their Governments depend. They are looking in dismay at an External Action Service that is clearly not delivering and they are looking to countries such as Britain for the inspiration and leadership that they might find it increasingly difficult to receive.

Look at what we face. So far, we have dealt with just the second division but we are now entering the premier league. We are looking at countries such as Syria, countries of astonishing complexity with Orthodox Christians, Catholic Christians, Druze, Sunni groups, Alawite groups, orthodox Shi’a groups, Yazidis on the border and Kurds in the north. We are looking at a country such as Egypt that is set fair to become a modern Pakistan on the edge of Europe: a country where the economy is faltering, the military is grabbing on to power and terrorism is appearing on the fringes. We look, too, at Iran, split between its rural and urban populations, with nuclear weapons being developed.

What do we have to put against that? What will happen when we move with our team from the second division into the premier league? Are we up to the job? The answer is that, in many ways we are not. We are in a bad situation. Due to duty of care regulations, our diplomats have become increasingly isolated and imprisoned in embassy compounds. It is increasingly difficult for a British diplomat in a country such as Afghanistan to spend a night in an Afghan village house and even to travel outside the embassy walls without booking a security team in advance. When we attempt to compensate for that, as we did in Iraq by relying on Iraqi local translators or employing Iraqi staff to perform the jobs that our diplomats were not permitted to do, we find ourselves the subject of a class action suit from a British law firm, arguing that we owe exactly the same duty of care to our Iraqi locally engaged staff that we owe to our British staff, thereby tying us up absolutely.

[Laura Sandys]

Let us think about what we used to do under the colonial service, although that has lots of negative connotations: people lived in those countries for years—perhaps 10 years—and spent time travelling the country, getting to know all the different levers, whether they were economic, political or otherwise. Does my hon. Friend think that the structure in our FCO, which involves postings of two to three years, is fit for purpose when we consider the more complex and dynamic environments in which we and those diplomats must operate?

[Rory Stewart]

That is a very good point. The analogy with the colonial period is a very dangerous one and we do not want to recreate some form of colonial service. The structures of imperial control are no longer relevant, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right about the complexity and unpredictability of the modern global world. My hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng) misleads himself, perhaps, in that he imagines the modern global world as some uniform space in which the fundamental language is English and the fundamental symbol is the mathematics of the banker. In fact, the modern globalised world is defined by complexity and by specificity. The very failed states that we consider tend to be among the most isolated and most alien societies with which we have to engage. That brings us to the problem of the Michael Jay reforms.

Those reforms are the second problem that our Foreign Office has inherited. Since 2001, a consecutive series of permanent under-secretaries have shifted the balance at the Foreign Office from languages and area expertise towards management jargon and an increasing insistence on the “best practices” of the corporate world. All that has meant that because of the very precise details of the “core competences” required for promotion to the senior grades and the appointment procedures, the Foreign Office, instead of giving linguistic and political experts that sense of status and pride, is rewarding people for their ability to deal not with people outside the embassy walls but those within the embassy itself.

That all takes place within a broad context. As the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) suggested, we operate in a multilateral world in which we are very dependent on other partners. Those partners, too, are being hollowed out. We hope that we can depend, as our political service collapses, on journalists, but the newspapers are collapsing and their foreign correspondents are being drawn back to their capitals. There is less and less capacity on the ground.

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[Rory Stewart]

I could not agree more—it certainly allows us to have a great deal of information. However, at the fundamental core of the Foreign Office’s work, which concerns politics and power, there appears to be a problem. The same problem was apparent when nobody challenged the Government’s policy on Iraq, which is the single most humiliating mess into which the British Government have got themselves since Suez. Not a single senior British diplomat publicly or even privately challenged the Prime Minister on that issue. Why? Because at the same time as we imagine that everything is manipulable through technocratic processes and technology, the knowledge and the confidence that came from country immersion and language is lacking, as is the confidence that would allow one to challenge power.

[Laura Sandys]

I thank my hon. Friend for being so generous with his time. Let us look at what the Pentagon did about four or five years ago. It put a huge amount of investment into technology and the technological retrieval of data, and then it decided that many of its decisions, whether in Afghanistan, Iraq or internationally, had failed because the system did not have enough human intelligence. Technology can deliver a certain level of intelligence, but ultimately we need people who really understand the area to interpret that information and to add that human dimension.

[Rory Stewart]

I could not agree more. This is not an either/or situation. I am deliberately being somewhat, or even intensely, polemical, so let me try to be more reasonable. Technology is not irrelevant and nor is it the case that the world has not changed since the 19th century, but it is important to recognise that the countries that pose the most trouble for us are often those we find the most difficult to understand. It is in precisely those contexts that deep knowledge of those countries and their power structures and relationships is required, and I think the same would almost certainly be true if one was trying to run a business selling into those markets. That applies not only to our diplomats’ relationships with politicians and a Cabinet but to their relationships with rural populations and opposition groups. All of that would put Britain into the state of grace and provide the insurance policy on which this country depends.

Moving towards a solution and a conclusion, the solution must lie in pushing ahead with the very reforms that the Minister and the Foreign Secretary have undertaken, but to push them harder and faster. The diplomatic excellence initiative that the Foreign Secretary has launched is a very good beginning. Even today, however, one still meets political officers in embassies who say that they cannot see how that will help them with promotion. They say, “Focusing on policy work is not going to get me promoted because you haven’t changed the core competences. It’s management of two people and the DTI staff that will get me my next job.” Those are the things we need to address.

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[Laura Sandys]

I started working with the Iraqi opposition in 1993, and it was 10 years before Saddam Hussein was overthrown. As the hon. Gentleman rightly says, in many ways there is a more complicated patchwork of different communities in Syria, and I very much welcome the Government’s support for the Syrian opposition. Does he agree that that will require sensitive handling as we move forward so that we do not end up in a worse situation?

[Mike Gapes]

I agree. I think that we should be guided by some of Syria’s neighbours. The Arab League has made an unprecedented move towards imposing sanctions on the country. We should also listen to what the Turkish Government are saying. I had a meeting last week with the Turkish Foreign Minister while he was here and also heard the remarks of President Gul when he spoke to Members of both Houses in the Royal Robing Room. The situation in Syria is causing extreme alarm within Turkey and the Turkish Government have basically had enough of the way the Assad regime has lied to and misled them—my words, not Turkey’s—about the promises of reform that were not kept. Instead of reform, there has been brutality and repression. Turkey has now come to the same view that Britain, France, the United States and many other countries have come to: the Assad regime is no longer capable of being the agent of reform and it must go.

How the regime goes, in what circumstances and when are very difficult questions. We need to be sensitive to the fact that Iran is playing a destructive role in the region. As I mentioned in my earlier intervention on the Foreign Secretary, the Iranians have a significant relationship, through Hezbollah, with the Lebanese Government. They also have significant influence in the Iraqi political system through some of the Shi’a political parties in Iraq. It is significant that the two Arab League countries that have said that they will not impose sanctions on the Syrian regime are Lebanon and Iraq.

Iran will potentially play another destructive role. We have seen our country denounced in the Iranian Majlis and its vote calling for the expulsion of Dominic Chilcott, our excellent ambassador. We have been there before: a former nominated British ambassador to Iran, David Reddaway, was prevented from taking up his post many years ago; and a few years ago the royal garden party in Tehran was attacked from outside by people throwing rocks over the wall at the time when Geoffrey Adams was ambassador. A few years ago the Iranian revolutionary guards detained British naval personnel in the waters just off the coast of Iraq.

It is quite possible that the Iranian regime will now engage in a series of provocations and incidents in order to up the ante and gain for itself a diversion from its main problem, which is that it has been found out: Iran has been developing for many years a nuclear weapons programme, and the International Atomic Energy Agency, in its latest report, has confirmed that some nuclear enrichment and other nuclear activities have continued over recent years. But we should not therefore move easily into the dangerous area of saying, “Because the sanctions we have imposed so far have not worked, and because, despite those sanctions, the Iranian regime has continued to build up its nuclear programme potential, Iran is about to gain nuclear weapons and there are grounds for a pre-emptive military strike.”

I was encouraged by the remarks of the United States Defence Secretary, Leon Panetta, whom The Guardian reported on 11 November as saying that military action against Iran could have “unintended consequences”, and agreeing that such an attack would only delay its nuclear programme, rather than prevent it from obtaining a nuclear bomb. In these circumstances, talk of pre-emptive military action can do no more than strengthen the Iranian regime internally and weaken the democratic voice of the country’s young, dynamic population who do not like the theocratic cap that the regime has put on them.

Similar comments were made on 4 November in an interesting article in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, which noted that the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defence Minister Barak favour military action against Iran in circumstances where Iran is about to obtain a nuclear bomb, but that three former chiefs of the defence staff in Israel do not, and that the former head of Mossad who retired earlier this year, Meir Dagan, has said that Israel would be “stupid” to launch an air attack on Iran.

That does not mean we should accept as “a good thing” Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon—absolutely not. Given the arms race that would be unleashed in the middle east, and given how countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other Gulf states would secure the potential, through Pakistan, to obtain a nuclear weapon, it would be a very worrying development: a Sunni nuclear bomb to offset a Shi’a nuclear bomb. There are other ways of dealing with the situation.

I refer to an interesting article by Trita Parsi, the president of the National Iranian American Council, published a few days ago, stating how strengthening the IAEA inspection regime, and not imposing more and more sanctions that do not work but adopting a policy of more transparency, may be a more effective way of dealing with the immediate problem. The key to that is the IAEA’s additional protocol, which Iran has not yet signed, but which the international community, through UN Security Council resolutions, has called for.

We face a difficult period in Europe, but we are sometimes obsessed with our own problems. Compared with the difficulties of many hundreds of millions of people in the Arab world, our difficulties are insignificant. The people in north Africa and the middle east face a difficult transition on an uncharted course from authoritarian regimes to new democracies. They will need our help and solidarity. The European Union should do more through its neighbourhood programme and by other means, but our country does not have an insignificant role in the world. It has an important role, working with its partners and neighbours to ensure that the international community makes the right decisions and supports the right side in this democratic transition.

[Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)]

It is a great honour to follow not only the poetry of my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), but the practical and pragmatic approach of the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes). The hon. Gentleman’s last point was about how our problems in Europe are a great challenge but events in the Arab world are of a different scale, but I would refine it and say that the problems in north Africa and in the Arab world are our problems, too. I commend the Government for what they have done over the past year and a half, and for how they have been able to change the relationship between north Africa and this country.

Many people were worried about our involvement in Libya, and although I was supportive I was concerned. I would have voted against the Iraq invasion if I had been a Member back then, but the decision on Libya was clear for me, and it was clear on a humanitarian basis. We not only assisted the Libyans in ridding themselves of their dictator; we started to develop a different relationship with parts of north Africa, one I hope very much we will continue. We did so with sophisticated diplomacy, and we should be extremely proud of the outcomes in Libya.

[Mr Holloway]

Just after the fall of Tripoli, I, with the director of the Conservative Middle East Council, went out there and, in the chaos of the week after, met an Islamist who, having fought against us in Iraq and Afghanistan, made the most extraordinary comment, saying: “This is the first time that the west has stood with ordinary people in the region. We shall not forget it.”

[Laura Sandys]

I very much welcome that intervention. That is the absolute core of the issue.

We need not only to build on the momentum that we have started, but to change and recalibrate how we engage with north Africa, an area that was in many ways caught in aspic by the cold war. Every dictator who has been deposed over the past year was a product of that rather binary environment, “Are you against us or for us?”, and we have rid ourselves of that through the people.

We have to be careful about engaging directly and passionately with the new Governments who arise. As the hon. Member for Ilford South said, there will be lots of iterations of democracy, and they are not going to emerge as some sort of Westminster parliamentary structure for perhaps 10, 20 or 30 years, so we have to maintain that relationship with the people. Obviously we need to work with Governments, but the credibility and legitimacy of the people are what matters. Toppling regimes is not easy, but the transition process is even more difficult, and that is where we need to ensure that the Foreign Office is absolutely at the top of its game, as I am sure it is.

We have heard a lot today about the politics, about building institutions, and about threats, but not many Members have talked about the economics. Can emerging democracies survive when they have insecure economic environments and are finding it difficult to keep a hold on inflation? My hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Mr Holloway) talked about the people of the region. Those people were not necessarily just looking for the vote, although some of the countries had elections, if perhaps false elections; they were looking for democracy as a representation of opportunity for all, with no corruption, and the ability to get on in life without being part of the in-crowd or the out-crowd and to ensure that they could deliver a secure future for their families. Too often, in the Foreign Office and in our debates, we talk about institution-building and the governmental dimension, but we need to talk about north Africa’s economies.

In starting to develop a lot further how we could build greater economic stability in north Africa, we should act on the basis not only of those countries’ national interests and democracy-building but of our own national interest. The French are rather good at economic diplomacy. Is that such a dreadful term to use? They have completely understood where their national interest lies. Their ambassadors are an integral part of the French business community and spend a lot of time ensuring that the French economy and French businesses are integrated into the countries in which they operate. We have been rather weak at this in the past.

What north Africa really needs is expertise and commercial acumen, with partnerships to develop and exploit industries and technologies, management skills, and operational capabilities. I do not know whether those things are on the Foreign Office checklist and are being considered for north Africa, but it is absolutely essential that we start to make a move on this as quickly as possible, before economic instability undermines the democracy that has been created. In addition to sending three-day trade delegations out to these countries, we should be thinking in a much more considered way about what support each country needs and where, to be self-interested, the UK can benefit.

Just outside Tripoli, Libya has a large oil and gas institute, but it has not been updated for years. Why are we not taking on the responsibility for giving the Libyans a state-of-the-art institute that looks at operations, exploration and building skills, and links with the people, not necessarily with transient Governments? Tunisia needs tourism to get its economy off the floor. Its tourism industry employs 400,000 people, yet the number of visitors has dropped by 45%. We should be revitalising the country’s visitor economy, establishing courses and training for young people entering the sector and supporting the small businesses that make up the majority of it. We should set up a small business institute to ensure that we are bringing expertise and allowing the people to exercise their democratic right through economic security.

Egypt is facing a great challenge in food and cotton production. Why are we not asking Hadlow college to set up an operation in the Nile delta, bringing students from all over Egypt to think about how to increase yields and improve standards and water management? That would get to the heart of what these Governments need to deliver to their publics to maintain some stability while democracy is gaining a foothold. If we are not in these countries delivering value-added assistance and practical input, then others will be, and yet again we will look back nostalgically in 10 years and say, “Why did China, Turkey, Russia and France steal a march on us when we were so involved in those early years?”

I propose that we look at the Economic Community of West African States as a model for promoting greater economic prosperity within the north African region. While ECOWAS has its limitations, it is developing stronger links with its neighbours. Joint economic activity is building greater political interdependency. In north Africa, greater economic interdependency will be one of the biggest deterrents to any political friction between states that could emerge over the next decade.

My final suggestion is that we start to take forward a stronger interrelated economic model as between the countries of the north and south Mediterranean. The hon. Member for Ilford South mentioned that. Some important organisations already exist, but they have mainly regarded north Africa as the liability and southern Europe as the superior model. This needs to be recalibrated, and we need to turn a talking shop into an active economic forum.

We are facing a new world. The previous century was one of global politics; this century is one of global economics. Every country will need to deliver economic security for its domestic audience and will play out its international politics on that basis. If we can work closely with these countries on what really matters to them—their economic survival, jobs for their young, and a greater relationship with the international community —we will be doing them, and this country, a great service.