European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 2) Act 2019 (Rule of Law)

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)]

According to Pericles:

“Freedom is the sure possession of those alone who have the courage to defend it.”

Our freedoms, our rights and our democracy are today under threat—under attack from a Prime Minister threatening to ignore the rule of law, ignore the wishes of Parliament and railroad against the will of the people. Today is indeed a historic day—a dark day. It will be remembered as the day that the UK Government obstructed the people and plunged the UK into an unprecedented constitutional crisis.

Let me be absolutely clear: the Prime Minister is not, not ever, above the rule of law. He says that he would rather die in a ditch than write to seek an extension to protect our economy from falling off the cliff edge. If that is the course that he chooses, the Prime Minister must resign. Undermining democracy at every turn, the Prime Minister simply cannot be trusted. The rule book has been well and truly ripped up, and with it, democracy and decency have been shredded by a cult of Brexit fan boys in No 10—unfit to govern, unwilling to govern.

What a despicable state of affairs—that an unelected bureaucrat, the Prime Minister’s lead adviser, is sitting in No. 10 devising and directing an assault on democracy, preventing parliamentary scrutiny and transparency. Should we be surprised? These are the men behind the biggest con in modern times. The co-founders of fake news, who lied to the public during the EU referendum and removed the facts from the table, and here they are again, ducking and diving the truth, seeking to operate Government using cloak-and-dagger tactics, pretending to protect the right of the people when in reality they are crushing the rights of our citizens, strangling Parliament and gagging the voice of the people.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree with whoever was responsible for writing a front-page article in The Spectator in 2004 —at which time the present Prime Minister was the editor—that said

“impeachment remains part of parliamentary law, a recourse for desperate times.”?

Are these not desperate times?

[Ian Blackford]

Absolutely they are, and I say to the Prime Minister: be very careful. Do not obstruct the rule of law.

The Vote Leave campaign in No. 10 does not care about the rules. They did not care in 2016 and they do not care now about the law. We must stop them, because the stakes are frankly too high. The Prime Minister and his Vote Leave cronies are not above the law. The law must stop this dictatorship, and Parliament must stop this Prime Minister acting like a dictator. Even the Prime Minister’s own Ministers cannot trust him.

In her resignation letter, the right hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd), said that

“I no longer believe leaving with a deal is the Government’s main objective.”

It has been confirmed in The Times today that the Prime Minister’s negotiating team has been reduced to just four members.

The truth is that the Prime Minister’s priority is not to get a deal; his priority is to rip the United Kingdom out of the EU on 31 October, no matter the consequences. With the House suspending tonight, it is essential that all papers relating to the advice on Parliament being prorogued are published, and the determination tonight must be delivered on by Wednesday evening.

We cannot allow the UK Government to destroy our democracy and operate unchecked. We need to know the truth—the public deserves to know the truth.

Gulf of Oman Oil Tanker Attacks

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am sure it will.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

These attacks are to be condemned, and I commend the Minister for his cool words. There is, of course, the prospect of other drums beginning to beat, which is ominous. Surely our influence should be used to urge the US and Iran to re-engage in talks, rather than risk a crescendo of warmongering. Will he consider whether an international inquiry into these attacks and the wider question of safety of shipping in the Gulf would be more productive, given that it has an international effect?

[Dr Murrison]

There is an investigation under way already in relation to the attacks of 12 May, and I have referred to that. It is principally the responsibility of the UAE, since that happened within UAE territorial waters. This happened in international waters, and the vessels concerned are heading for the UAE. It is for the ship owners to determine how they wish to investigate the damage done to their vessels. However, we stand ready, with others, to be of assistance wherever we can in these matters. As the right hon. Lady will probably appreciate, we have some expertise in matters of this sort, being a maritime nation, and if any of those skillsets can be of assistance, we will obviously be prepared to offer them.

Turkey: Treatment of Kurds

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Wednesday 10th April 2019 Westminster Hall

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I totally agree. I should of course mention that my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) is the local Member for Imam Sis. She has been an advocate for his struggle, but cannot be here today because of the death of her agent last week; she is at his funeral. She is following this debate with great interest.

When I was with Imam, I asked him to write down the key demands that he wanted to be raised in Parliament, so I am here today to put Imam’s voice in Hansard as well as to get a response. He wrote to me, saying:

“The hunger strikers are demanding that Turkey ends the isolation of Abdullah Öcalan. Namely, they are demanding that Öcalan be returned access to his lawyers and family. In not doing this Turkey is breaking international law and its own laws. The hunger strikers are also asking that the Council of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture re-open its investigation into the conditions on İmralı Island where Öcalan is being held.”

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

I, too, congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. I am sure he will agree that we have noticed a pattern with Turkey: when there is international attention, Abdullah Öcalan gets something, such as a brief meeting with, say, his lawyer or his brother; then the attention of the world retreats and nothing further happens. It is essential that we keep the pressure on and that we call on the Government to ensure that the response of the Turkish Government is not just a superficial and tokenistic one.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I totally agree. Since 2015, little if any access has been granted to Abdullah Öcalan, and it is only because some of the hunger strikes and campaigning that brief interventions have been allowed for relatives to make sure that he is still alive. He has been allowed no access to the external world and his lawyer has had no access in that time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Field]

In fact, there are no other English Members here at all. We have the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) from Northern Ireland and the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) for the Scottish National party. All have raised the serious situation of the imprisoned PKK leader, Abdullah Öcalan. Naturally, we condemn the PKK’s acts of violence, just as we condemn all forms of terrorism, but we also naturally expect Turkey to respect properly its international obligations regarding the treatments of all prisoners. We are aware that the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture reported on Mr Öcalan’s prison conditions as recently as March 2018. In January, British embassy officials discussed his case, as well as that of hunger-striking prisoners, with Turkish officials.

Hon. Members have raised the issue of hunger strikes by prisoners, including by members of the HDP. Although it is of course distressing to witness any hunger strike—we see evidence of them closer to home, in Newport and elsewhere—the decision to embark on one is a matter for the individual concerned. As I said, we expect Turkey to respect its international obligations with regard to prison conditions, including by ensuring access to appropriate medical treatment.

A number of HDP MPs have been arrested on the basis of their alleged links to the PKK. If those links are proven to be accurate, we urge the HDP to distance itself entirely from the PKK and any terrorist activity. However, we have registered our concern with the Turkish authorities about the very large number of relatively recent detentions, including that of the HDP leader, Selahattin Demirtaş. Our embassy in Ankara, alongside other diplomatic missions, has attempted to observe Mr Demirtaş’s trial hearings. Unfortunately, we have sometimes been prevented from doing so. We urge the Turkish authorities to allow diplomatic missions to observe such trials so that we can understand the evidence on which the charges are based.

Hon. Members raised concerns about the replacement of large numbers of HDP mayors in the south-east of Turkey with state-appointed trustees. President Erdoğan has suggested that the same measures may be taken following last month’s local elections. That decision was taken on the basis that those mayors and their municipalities were allegedly channelling funding and political support to the PKK. Again, if that is the case, we should condemn it unreservedly, but we also expect the Turkish state to undertake any legal processes against locally elected representatives fairly, transparently and with full respect for international law and the rule of law. That is vital not just for the long-term health of Turkish democracy, but increasingly for Turkey’s international reputation.

As hon. Members will know, in 2016 there was an attempt to overthrow the Turkish Government by force. Obviously, we are thankful that the attempt failed, but many innocent civilians were killed. I am proud that the UK Government stood alongside our Turkish allies on that night. The Minister for Europe and the Americas travelled to Turkey as soon as he could to show solidarity. I also accept that aspects of the trauma have allowed more space for other activity. However, the trauma of the attempted coup is still fresh in the Turkish consciousness.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

Does the Minister feel personally comfortable that the PKK is aligned with terrorist groups such as ISIS and al-Qaeda on the proscribed list?

[Mark Field]

As the right hon. Lady will be aware, obviously we have a proscription in place for good reason, but it is not a hit list of acceptability from one organisation to another. Until such time as the PKK denounces violence, it must recognise that it will be regarded as a proscribed organisation in many parts of the world. I would like to see those people who have been actively engaged denounce violence to ensure that they are no longer proscribed and can play a proper and full part in the democratic process. The list does not run from A to Z according to some level of acceptability; an organisation is either proscribed or it is not. One might objectively sit back and think, “Certain organisations are more dangerous to our interests than others.” None the less, it is right that rules for proscription are in place.

The Turkish Government have a right and a responsibility to act against the perpetrators of any coup attempt and all who have committed or are planning terrorist acts. However, it is also vital that any and all measures taken are proportionate and in line with Turkey’s democratic principles and freely given human rights obligations. We shall continue to express our concern to Turkey where we believe that is not the case. This includes a number of individual cases, including that of a former Amnesty director, Taner Kılıç, who was released on bail last year. We look forward to the judicial reforms that Turkey’s reform action group is considering and hope they will make a genuine difference to other cases of concern, including those of the civil society patron, Osman Kavala.

We remain concerned at the sheer scale of the response, including the number of civil servants who have been summarily dismissed from their jobs, and especially the number of journalists who have been detained. We believe that a free press is an essential component of a healthy democracy, and I know that the UK’s championing of that will have support across the House with our Defend Media Freedom campaign in 2019, which will culminate in a conference in London on 10 and 11 July with our friends from Canada. In raising these issues, we will never forget the trauma of the coup attempt and the extraordinary security threats that Turkey continues to face on a day-to-day basis. We can see that just by looking at a map of the region.

To conclude, we shall continue to engage with Turkey and other countries that have significant and sizable Kurdish populations on all the issues that have been raised in this important debate. We shall continue to press for lasting solutions that are proportionate, democratic and lawful.

Question put and agreed to.

Journalists: International Protection

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Wednesday 9th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mr Whittingdale]

I absolutely join my hon. Friend. I will call upon the Minister to make it a routine matter to raise concerns about the safety of journalists whenever we have contact with countries where, sadly, imprisonments or deaths have taken place.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

I rise as the chair of the cross-party group of the National Union of Journalists. I am very interested in the figures the right hon. Gentleman has presented. According to the International Federation of Journalists, 94 journalists and media staff were killed in work-related incidents last year. In the light of that, does he agree that the UK Government might be called on to do everything possible to support the call for a new United Nations convention on the protection of journalists and media workers?

[Mr Whittingdale]

It is correct that there is a small difference in the figures from RSF and the International Federation. What we all agree is that the figures are extremely worrying and have been going up. That is the reason for the debate. I absolutely join the hon. Lady in calling on the Government to do more. I know the Minister will want to set that out in due course.

Death of Jamal Khashoggi

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I, too, had a long conversation with Foreign Minister Çavuşoğlu, and I echo what my hon. Friend has said; I think he was deeply personally shocked by the story. I do not think that the investigation will take a long time to conclude. All the suggestions are that it might even conclude in a matter of days. That is very important, because we need to start proper accountability through the judicial system for the people who were responsible for this terrible crime.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

UNESCO reports that nine out of 10 killings of journalists go unpunished. The Foreign Secretary’s commitment to hold Saudi to account is undermined by his Government’s choosing expediency over honour and sending UK officials, diplomats, to Riyadh this week. Will he give credibility to his commitment to justice and support the call by the International Federation of Journalists for a UN convention on the safety of journalists and media professionals?

[Mr Hunt]

I completely reject the hon. Lady’s suggestion that we are choosing expediency. As I said in answer to the last question, I do not think any country does more than we do to champion human rights in every corner of the globe. We do that sometimes at commercial cost and often at diplomatic cost, but we do it differently in different countries. With countries such as China, if we were to raise such issues publicly, we would just lose access to the people who can make a difference. There are other countries where we raise such issues more publicly. The question is whether we raise them, and we do. The idea of a UN convention could be very interesting, and I will certainly look at it.

Gaza: UN Human Rights Council Vote

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Monday 21st May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

Again, uncomfortable as some of these statements are, it is entirely clear why Israel would seek to make sure that there was no breach of the border. There have been previous incidents in which Hamas operatives have taken Israeli lives, but it is to get to the bottom of what actually happened—the number of deaths, the extent of live fire—that this has be considered by some degree of independent inquiry.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman not concede that the Government’s dismissal of the UN’s resolution as “partial, and unhelpfully unbalanced” is an attempt to muddy the primary question: given that there has been a death toll of over 100 men, women and children in the last six weeks, who is primarily responsible?

[Alistair Burt]

It is precisely the opposite, if I may say so to the hon. Lady: that issue would not be clarified by an investigation which from the beginning was clearly seen to be biased and in which it would be unlikely that all available parties would co-operate. It is precisely to unmuddy the waters that we are trying to take, difficult as it is, a more independent and unbiased line.

Catalan Independence Referendum

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Tuesday 10th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Hywel Williams]

I agree entirely with what the hon. Gentleman said at the end of his remarks.

Having witnessed what I saw in Catalonia on Sunday, I think it is incumbent on anyone who believes in the fundamental values of democracy to stand up, explain their views and act as honourable and honest witnesses, which is what I am trying to do.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

I hope my hon. Friend will agree that if legislators are not allowed to legislate, democracy is hobbled.

[Hywel Williams]

Indeed. There is a philosophical argument, which we cannot go into today, about the competing legitimacies of the democratic mandate. The Catalan Government have a majority, which was properly established at an election. The Government in Madrid have a different view and, although they are a minority Government, are also elected. We could pursue that at length, but I will not do so now.

The fact that Switzerland has offered to mediate is indicative of the European Union’s failure to act, which is very troubling indeed, given that these events affect a very large EU partner—the eurozone’s fourth largest economy. Catalonia itself hosts large multinational companies and provides a large proportion of Spain’s tax take.

I believe that a line has been crossed in terms of how an EU member state believes it is proper to treat its citizens. That attitude may be dangerously contagious at the other end of the European Union, where there are growing concerns about right-wing authoritarianism. It is also disappointing, given that the UK has direct experience of an independence referendum in Scotland, which was held peacefully and largely within an agenda of respect. I am not going to ask the Minister a large number of questions, but did the Spanish Government solicit any views or advice from the UK Government about the Scottish experience? Was any such advice offered of the UK Government’s own volition? Clearly, we have relevant experience.

It would be impossible for me to close without referring directly to last week’s events and the background to them—I will do my best to stay in order. We were in Catalonia for five days as part of the international delegation. By now, people across the world will have seen pictures on television—or more likely on their computer screens—of the long queues of people standing for hours in the rain; of people trying to vote and being beaten back by the police; of ballot boxes being confiscated; of the police shooting rubber bullets and tear gas at the crowds; and of women and old people staggering, their heads streaming with blood. They will have also seen the counter-demonstrations—this relates to the point that the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) made—made up not just of the old supporters of Franco’s fascist party singing their anthem and giving straight-arm salutes, but of ordinary Spanish people in Madrid and other cities. In Barcelona, they included some of the people who did not turn out to vote, who are split between people who want no change, people who want change but not independence, and people who just want all concerned to sit down and talk, which is a commendable view.

Let me conclude by talking about what the delegation saw on the ground and what our report says. We concluded that on the day, the referendum was carried out as fairly as possible. Officials worked hard to enable people to vote. The police had taken down the Catalan Government’s website, so in many cases officials could not access the electoral roll. Despite all that, the vote was, as far as we could see, as fair and scrupulous as possible.

The police’s behaviour was, in many cases, violent, oppressive and wholly disproportionate. I witnessed the police breaking into a polling station in the face of wholly non-violent opposition by hundreds of ordinary local people—men, women and even youths and children—who streamed to the polling station when they heard that the Guardia Civil were on their way. The ballot boxes containing many cast votes were carried out and away in heavy police vehicles. The crowd shouted, “Votarem!”—“We want to vote!”—and that was it: there was no violence.

Many people slept in polling stations overnight to ensure they could be opened in the morning. People showed astonishing patience, queuing in the rain for hours and meeting the police batons with determined and unshakeable non-violence, but nearly 900 people and 30 police were injured. That so many turned out is significant—2.26 million voters on a turnout of 42.3%—in the face of huge hostility from the central Government, reflected in the media beforehand, disruption of the process and widely reported police violence from the start.

I do not know what will become of all this. Given the Spanish Government’s attitude, many have said that they had already lost the argument before the referendum was held and would still have lost the argument had there been a majority against independence, which there was not, because minds have been changed. It was clear to me that for many Catalans, this had become a vote not just on independence but on a sticking point—on the democratic right to have a say and on the core European values of democracy, openness and self-determination. It was impeded and, in places, thwarted violently by a central Government whom they saw as being of little or no relevance to them, at best. That has profound significance for all parts of Europe, and the response from Governments and the EU itself has been wholly wanting.

Changes in US Immigration Policy

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

“We should seek to engage with our American friends,” the Foreign Secretary repeated over and over in his statement. He justified that, with no sense of irony, on the grounds that engaging with such powers is the most effective way to influence them—this from the man who led, with great gusto, a campaign to persuade us to turn our backs on our closest and largest economic relationship.

Our actions in this place are inherently passive. As we heard earlier, this is an echo chamber. Passivity is easy. Passivity is amoral. Passivity means risking nothing. However, our passivity will weigh heavily on many others. It will weigh heavily on the people who are trapped, the people who cannot see their families, the people who are stranded, and the people who are fleeing with nowhere to go. This is not even just about the immediate physical ramifications of the policy. The atmosphere of hate, fear and anger that it feeds also stokes the flames of radicalism. It is not a policy that builds peace and security. We are told that this is a relationship that is worth holding on to, but a relationship in which one party stands by and watches with automaton-like levels of dispassion as another wreaks calamitous harm is not a healthy—never mind special—relationship by any stretch of the imagination.

The Government’s approach to the Trump Administration’s draconian policy is, perhaps, a product of their own making. “The only way you're going to make a deal you want is if you are coming from a position of strength”. Those are not my words, but the words of the new leader of the so-called free world. Boxed into a corner by the Government’s self-imposed Brexit boundaries, we are forced to creep, cap in hand, to people whose values now run directly counter to those professed by the House. I will therefore not be compelled by duty to kowtow to Mr Trump and his prejudiced Administration if he is invited to address us. I hope that the Minister will listen to the 1,469,828 signatories of the petition that is lengthening with extraordinary speed even as we speak, and will decide that perhaps this visit should be treated in a different way.

It strikes me that at present the Chamber is, for once, dominated by women, which would be an interesting observation with which to end my speech, but let me end with a question: how many of their great British values can the Government sacrifice in their quest for a new special relationship?

[Mr Speaker]

That was a splendid example, to be followed. It is not for me to comment on the content of the hon. Lady’s speech, but the length was admirable.

Yemen

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

In all the discussions that we have had about the Houthis, President Hadi and other stakeholders, we can end up glossing over the fact that al-Qaeda was and has been in the Arab peninsula for some time. Al-Qaeda is responsible for the Charlie Hebdo attack, the printer bombs, the underpants bomb and many others. This is one of al-Qaeda’s most advanced and complex capabilities. That is why it is so important for us to get good governance in Yemen so that al-Qaeda cannot take advantage of the vacuum of governance.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

The Secretary of State has confirmed in a letter to my hon. Friend the Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams), that the US has been feeding arms to the Saudi coalition, fuelling the desperate humanitarian crisis in Yemen. What will Ministers do to persuade their new American counterparts to stop supplying these deadly cluster bombs in future?

[Mr Ellwood]

I have worked quite hard to get not only Saudi Arabia but all the GCC nations to show a willingness to join others around the world in signing the convention on cluster munitions. The Americans are obviously not a signatory to it, but I hope that Saudi Arabia, which is considering this, will recognise its importance. I would say that Rex Tillerson, the new Secretary of State—he lived in Yemen for three years, and knows the area very well—will meet my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary in the very near future.

Oral Answers to Questions

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

My hon. Friend is right. Little by little, we are able to remove from Daesh the territory that it has held. Falluja was one of the first cities to fall to Daesh. Along with Mosul, these will be important changes that show that Daesh is finally being removed from the territory. But as the hon. Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) pointed out, once we have defeated Daesh militarily, there is a huge amount of work to do on stabilisation and humanitarian support for the people who have suffered so much as a result of the atrocities.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

The Yazidi people of Iraq were given two choices by Daesh in 2014—convert or die. Will the UK Government accept that what happened in Sinjar was genocide, and urge the Iraqi Government to work with the International Criminal Court to bring murderers and rapists to justice?

[Mr Ellwood]

The hon. Lady raises an important point. Britain stepped forward, along with other countries, to make sure that we were able to provide airdrops and safe passage on Mount Sinjar, which were critical to support for the Yazidis. Her question has been debated at length in this Chamber and I very much support her views, together with John Kerry and the European Parliament, and this Parliament voted on the matter. However, it is not for us to make those judgments; it is for the International Criminal Court. We are helping to collect the evidence to make sure that when the time is appropriate, we can bring those people to justice.