Arms to Syria

Lord Campbell of Pittenweem Excerpts

Thursday 11th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sir Menzies Campbell (North East Fife) (LD)]

I must begin by apologising to the House, and indeed to my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron), for not being present at the outset of the debate. I was attending a meeting of the Intelligence and Security Committee, which was held outside this building.

I agree almost completely with what my hon. Friend said and, not for the first time in the House, I am able to say that I agree in similar terms with the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain). This debate is not strictly about the supply of arms; it is about whether the House should have a role in determining whether that supply should take place.

In considering the question at the centre of the motion, we must pay some regard to the consequences and to the questions that would necessarily arise. The first question is one I have repeated elsewhere: to whom would we supply arms? If we did supply them, in whose hands would they ultimately rest? What would we give? The sort of things that are being discussed are highly sophisticated—it is not like loosing off several hundred rounds from a Kalashnikov. Therefore, how would we ensure that any arms that we gave were properly used? We could only do that by sending either military or civilian technicians. That might not constitute boots on the ground in the traditional sense, but it would certainly constitute intervention.

The third question to which I believe we are entitled to seek an answer is this: what impact would the supply of arms have on the relationship between Russia and Syria? As we have already seen in the supply of shore-to-ship missiles over the last few weeks, anything that the so-called west attempts to do would be bound to be met by a similar incremental approach by Russia.

[Andrew Bridgen]

Does my right hon. and learned Friend also agree that the supply to anyone of technically advanced weaponry would probably require training, which would also be boots on the ground?

[Sir Menzies Campbell]

I thought I made that point a moment ago.

We have in this House in recent years established not a precedent in any formal sense, or, indeed, a convention in any constitutional sense, but on the occasion of military action against Iraq the House was given the opportunity to vote, and more recently on the occasion of possible involvement with France, supported by the United States, in relation to Libya again the House was given the opportunity to vote. It might be argued that the supply of arms does not fall neatly into that category, but my argument would be that it constitutes a major change in the foreign policy of this Government, with unknown political, military and perhaps even constitutional significance. That being the case, I would argue as strongly as possible that the House is entitled to pass judgment on this policy before it is implemented. Indeed, I go further than that: were the Government to implement a policy of this kind without allowing the House an opportunity to pass judgment, it would be an abuse of process, and would most certainly be regarded as such outside this House.

[Mr Newmark]

The devil is always in the detail. I hear what the right hon. and learned Gentleman says about not giving arms directly to the opposition, but does he then believe that if we are selling arms to a third party such as Saudi Arabia and those arms then go on to Syria, we should again seek the approval of the House before selling any further arms to a third-party country such as Saudi?

[Sir Menzies Campbell]

My hon. Friend will be well aware that there is an agreement called the al-Yamamah agreement which regulates the sale of arms from the United Kingdom to Saudi Arabia, and if he is suggesting we should violate that agreement I think he had better consult Ministers in the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence and perhaps also the chief executive officer of BAE.

The point I want to make is that this is a decision of such significance and with such important potential consequences that the House should have the opportunity to pass judgment. There are those who say, “All right, we are doing nothing then.” That is true, in that we may not be doing quite as much as some of us would like, but I do not think it is an issue for regret that we are the highest single donor of humanitarian aid. I think we should be immensely proud of that, and having taken that decision, we should be encouraging others to do the same.

Let me give an illustration of that. Jordan is a country with which we are closely allied, and it is a neighbouring country in the region which has received very large numbers of refugees. The refugee camps are characterised by forced marriage, rape and violence, and the impact on the fragile economy—and, indeed, the fragile Government—of Jordan of an influx of refugees on the scale now being experienced must inevitably have an effect on that country. If we were preparing our humanitarian effort for its own intrinsic merit, we would also be creating a pragmatic outcome in helping to protect from possible instability a country that is of great importance to us and of great importance in the middle east, not least because it, along with Egypt, signed a peace agreement with Israel.

Another point the right hon. Member for Neath made very eloquently is that no solution is possible without Russia. That may be thoroughly distasteful to us, but it is a fact, and therefore establishing some agreement with Moscow and joining together—as John Kerry, the US Secretary of State suggested—could be a very powerful factor in providing the political solution that everyone agrees is necessary.

The Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), has twice said from a sedentary position that no one was barring Iran from any conference in Geneva, and I am delighted to hear that. He would give me even more comfort if he were to say positively that Iran would be invited, however, because this issue is of very considerable regional significance, and Ahmadinejad has been replaced by someone who is alleged to be of a less combative nature, and we now have an opportunity to test that out, and to see whether there is genuinely a change in Iran’s attitude on issues of this kind.

One further thing we can do, which I do not think has been mentioned yet, is to counsel Israel against intervention. The Golan heights, occupied by Israel, remain an issue of great political significance in Syria, particularly for the current President, whose father was the Minister of Defence when the Golan heights were lost. Israel has an interest in that regard, but I do not believe its interests would be properly served by becoming engaged militarily. I hope the British Government are putting that argument in the strongest possible terms to the Government of Israel.

Let me conclude by reiterating that this is a very significant foreign policy proposal. The Government have said that they have not yet decided whether to implement it, but if they want to have the discretion to take a decision of this kind, it can only be because they have considered that decision among a range of options. We need only look at who has signed this motion to see that they come from across the entire political spectrum. The motion is therefore the determination of those from all parts of this House, and that is why I believe the proper course of action is for it to be passed.