Military Action Overseas: Parliamentary Approval

Mark Francois Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My recollection is that the Leader of the Opposition has consistently opposed military action and also consistently opposed us ensuring that our security services and our law enforcement agencies have the powers they need to be able to deal with terrorism.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

I thank the Prime Minister for giving way, as I am now on my best behaviour. Is this not surely a matter of degree? For instance, the United States already has a War Powers Act, but I am not aware that anybody in America has sought to invoke it over the strike that took place—[Hon. Members: “They have.”] Well, I do not see that going anywhere at all.

Is it not the case that if we had sought to commit troops into combat to fight a war, as we did in Iraq in 2003, we clearly would have expected a debate and a vote in this House, but that for a targeted military strike designed to uphold international law, the approval of the House would not be necessary as a prerequisite?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his point. Indeed, I said during yesterday’s exchanges in the House that these strikes were of a particular nature. They were targeted, they were about upholding the international norm in relation to the prohibition of the use of chemical weapons, and they were carried out on a legal basis that had been used by Governments previously—I will come on to that later in my speech.

Syria

Mark Francois Excerpts

Monday 16th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) on securing this important debate and introducing it with such evident passion.

The barbaric attack on Douma killed around 75 men, women and children, with about 500 additional casualties. According to doctors and aid workers who treated the victims, their symptoms were characteristic of an attack utilising chlorine gas. Chlorine was first weaponised as a gas by German scientist Fritz Haber and was then employed by the German army against unsuspecting French troops at the second battle of Ypres in April 1915. In contact with the air, chlorine gas vaporises into a low-hanging cloud. That would collect in the trenches, much as it did in the cellars of Douma last week, one century later.

Chlorine gas reacts quickly with water in the airways to form hydrochloric acid, swelling and damaging lung tissue and causing death by suffocation. It is a truly horrific way to die. The war poet Wilfred Owen gave a graphic description of a gas attack in his famous poem “Dulce et Decorum Est”:

“Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime…

Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.”

The victims at Douma who choked and drowned were not soldiers, but innocent civilians, non-combatants, families, kids.

During the 1980s, at the height of the cold war, I served as an infantry officer in the Territorial Army. Our war role was to reinforce the British Army of the Rhine. We assumed that any conflict would go chemical almost from the outset, which is why I happen to know a bit about the subject. When we went to Germany, we trained in special protective suits to defend us against NBC—nuclear, biological and chemical—warfare. We were also equipped with gas masks or respirators, which were designed to give us at least a fighting chance against chemical agents in particular.

The citizens of Douma had no NBC suits. They had no respirators and they had no chance. They were sheltering in cellars as a defence against Syrian and Russian airstrikes, and that was precisely why the Syrians used gas against them, knowing that it would penetrate to the cellars and that the occupants would have no defence against it. This tactic was utterly barbaric, and I cannot believe any Member of this House would do anything but utterly condemn it.

Part of today’s debate has been about whether our airstrikes were illegal. They were not illegal; it was the Syrian chemical attack on Douma that was illegal. Our airstrikes were targeted to defend the principles of the chemical weapons convention and thus uphold international law. That is the stark reality from which the leadership of the Opposition cannot escape. We have already heard reference to Burke’s dictum:

“All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”

We in this country did something, and we should be proud of it.

Syria

Mark Francois Excerpts

Monday 16th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Certainly. There are two areas in which we will undertake this diplomatic and political process. The first is in relation to the use of chemical weapons, following up within a number of international forums on the military action that has taken place. As I said, there have already been comments coming out of the European Foreign Affairs Council and the Gulf Co-operation Council, and we will be discussing with a number of leaders around the world how we can re-establish the international norm prohibiting the use of chemical weapons. That is one strand of activity we will undertake.

The other strand is the full support we will continue to give to the United Nations process in trying to find a solution to what is happening in Syria. We support the work that Staffan de Mistura, the United Nations envoy, is doing in that area. We hope that the Geneva process can be reignited and that we see the parties coming together around the table to find a genuine solution; that means not just all the parties in Syria but actually the backers of the parties in Syria being willing to do that.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

The Leader of the Opposition has argued that the airstrikes were illegal, but is it not true that the only illegal act that has taken place in this situation was the war crime—and it was a war crime—of using chemical weapons to murder families and children? Was the Prime Minister not entirely right to authorise these airstrikes to defend the principles of the chemical weapons convention and, in so doing, to uphold international law?

National Security and Russia

Mark Francois Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

After Georgia, Crimea, Ukraine, Alexander Litvinenko and now Salisbury, I believe that we are entering, if not a period of cold war, at least a period of cool war in our relations with Russia, which is likely to last for some time. In that context, does the Prime Minister agree that the robust decision of 18 of our allies to expel Russian diplomats is likely to give Russia pause for thought and hurt it far more than our unilateral expulsions in 1971?

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. As I said earlier, those expulsions have taken place not just as a sign of support for the United Kingdom, but because it is important for the national security of those countries. The action will have an impact. The expulsion of 23 undeclared intelligence officers, which we have already undertaken here in the United Kingdom, will have a major impact on Russia’s intelligence network here in the UK, which I will make reference to later in my speech.

I said a little earlier that Russia has meddled in elections. It has hacked the Danish Ministry of Defence and the Bundestag, among many others. It is seeking to weaponise information, deploying its state-run media organisations to plant fake stories and photoshopped images in an attempt to sow discord in the west and undermine our institutions.

During his recent State of the Union address, President Putin showed video graphics of missile launches, flight trajectories and explosions, including the modelling of attacks on the United States, with a series of warheads impacting on Florida. Of course, Russia used radiological substances in its despicable assault here in London on Mr Litvinenko. Russia is also failing to honour its responsibilities in the international community as a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Corbyn]

In case Conservative Members did not hear, let me repeat that I hope the Prime Minister will take a lead on the global initiative to get everyone back around the table, to give teeth and powers to the non-proliferation treaty, and to see what can be developed for the rest of the world. It is equally essential, however unpalatable it is in the current climate, that we maintain a robust dialogue with Russia on three other issues of crucial geopolitical importance.

[Mr Francois]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way so that we can have a robust dialogue on that point?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

No.

The first issue is climate change. The Russian Government have clearly taken the view that if the United States no longer needs to abide by its commitments under the Paris agreement, Russia need not do so either.

[Mr Francois]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. You are of course quite right that the Leader of the Opposition can decide to whom he will or will not give way, but how can he become the Prime Minister of this country if he is too frightened to take a single intervention from Conservative Members?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

That is certainly not a matter for me. I intend to make sure that this House and those who are paying attention to the proceedings in this Chamber can hear the important speech by the Leader of the Opposition, and we must now have some decorum to allow him to finish.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I am not going to give way.

The third issue is of course—

[Mr Francois]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

I am grateful to be called to speak in this debate, which is well timed following the appalling and outrageous events in Salisbury barely three weeks ago. The question that must now be asked is whether Russia poses a threat to the national security of the United Kingdom and its allies. I believe that it does and that we are now entering a new period of Anglo-Russian relations. If not quite a cold war like we had in the last century, it is at least what I would call a “cool war” characterised by the aggressive actions of a Putin-led Government in Moscow and our strained relations with that Government as a result.

Assessing a threat classically involves an examination of both capabilities and intentions, so perhaps we should begin by taking a look at the development of Russian military capabilities in recent years. President Putin’s rather bellicose state of the union address, just prior to his re-election, contained references to new, ultra-long-range nuclear cruise missiles. Some of them can be launched by submarine or even underwater drones, he claimed, and are therefore capable of evading America’s limited ballistic missile defences. Analysts currently differ about the existence of such weapons. However, we know that the Russians have already developed a long-range, nuclear-capable cruise missile, the Kh-101, which is already being fitted to the strategic bomber aircraft of Russian long range aviation. In addition, the Russian strategic rocket forces deploy around 1,200 warheads in silo-based and road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles. The Russians have an active modernisation programme under way for their strategic nuclear forces, which aims to replace all the old Soviet-era ICBMs by 2020, with many of the new missiles having multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles or MIRV warheads.

Russia’s strategic triad is completed by its ballistic missile submarines or SSBNs, including three new vessels of the Dolgorukiy class, armed with the new SS-N-32 ballistic missile. All the Russian submarine-launched ballistic missiles can reach their targets from their home ports, and those in the northern fleet are more than capable of reaching the United Kingdom. In recent years, Russia has also made considerable strides in quietening its submarines, especially the new class of Severodvinsk nuclear attack submarines, which are now entering service. In addition, many of Russia’s submarines are now armed with the Kalibr land attack cruise missile, which is believed to have already been used in the conflict in Syria, where Russia has targeted civilian hospitals without mercy. Russian submarines have increased the tempo of their operations in recent years and have been frequent visitors to our home waters, and Russian submersibles have also apparently spent considerable time reconnoitring the transatlantic cables that carry so much of our financial services business between Europe and the United States. Last year, a Russian surface task group, including their Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier and Peter the Great battlecruiser, sailed through the English channel en route to Syria.

Russia is also upgrading its ground forces. According to the previous vice-chief of the defence staff, General Sir Richard Barrons, during the invasion of Ukraine in 2014, two Ukrainian mechanised infantry battalions were located by a Russian surveillance drone and were effectively destroyed in under 15 minutes using rocket artillery. Russian long range aviation maintains over a hundred nuclear-capable strategic bombers including the Bear, Blackjack and Backfire aircraft, and a new fifth-generation fighter, the Su-57, is due to enter service in around 2020. Russian bomber aircraft now regularly encroach into our airspace and are regularly intercepted by our quick reaction alert Typhoons.

All of that adds up to a considerable increase in capability in both nuclear and conventional forces as part of a 10-year strategic armament programme, running from 2011 through to 2020. According to the United States Defence Intelligence Agency, Russia spent around 3% of its GDP on defence for much of that period, increasing to 4.5% of GDP last year. Russia’s ability to inflict violence on us and our allies has therefore increased considerably in recent years.

Discerning Russian intentions is in many ways more difficult, but we can certainly look at the actions of Russia over the past few years to try to get some hints of what might lie in Russian minds in future. It is clear that Russia has been prepared to use military power, allied with information warfare, to achieve its political objectives on the European landmass. There was the invasion of Georgia in 2008—I travelled to Georgia with David Cameron to support the Georgians—the annexation of Crimea in 2014, the effective invasion of eastern Ukraine, and the annexation of some of the eastern provinces. Pressure has also been put on the Baltic states, including a particularly virulent cyber-attack on Estonia in 2007.

In response to all that, we certainly need to maintain and upgrade our nuclear deterrent, as approved by an overwhelming vote in this House several years ago. We also need to upgrade our conventional defences, as we did in the 1980s when faced with the threat of the Soviet Union. Bluntly, that means spending the money to do so. It is not often that I agree with the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), but he and I are right on this one.

The attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia seems primarily to have been intended as a signal to other potential Russian defectors to think again. Nevertheless, it represented a chemical weapons attack on British soil, which seriously injured a police officer, and led to some 30 other UK citizens requiring at least some medical attention. People who do that are not our friends.

As long as Putin remains in government, it seems that we must accept the reality of entering into a “cool war” with Russia for the foreseeable future. However, working with our NATO allies, we successfully deterred the Soviet Union in the 1980s, and the wall came down. We may now have to do it again.

European Council

Mark Francois Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Of course, within the European Union we all stand up for certain values—European values—and human rights are among the values that we stand up for. Where any difference is shown by any individual country in relation to that, that is pointed out.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

Does the Prime Minister share my incredulity at the crocodile tears of SNP Members over fishing, when they would have had us remain in the disastrous CFP in the first place? May I go on to ask her about the suggestion made last week by my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan) of a mitigation scheme to protect our fishermen during the transition period? Has any thought been given to that in the Government, and might we see something about it in the forthcoming fisheries Bill?

[The Prime Minister]

I share my right hon. Friend’s incredulity in relation to the actions of the SNP, which would keep us in the common fisheries policy in perpetuity. We will of course be talking with the fishing industry about the arrangements that will pertain for the industry in the future. I want to see that industry enhanced, and I want to see us doing what we can to ensure—when we are negotiating as an independent coastal state, at the end of the implementation period, in relation to fishing, access to our waters and access for our fishermen to other waters—that the industry can be enhanced, be built on and grow, and that we provide even greater support here in the United Kingdom.

Salisbury Incident

Mark Francois Excerpts

Wednesday 14th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Lady for the commitment that she has shown, as a parliamentarian, to the alliance that we have through NATO, which is very important to us It is the bedrock of European defence. I can certainly say that we will continue to work through those alliances to ensure that we are sending a very clear message that this is not acceptable.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

I commend the Prime Minister for her decisive and vigorous action in response to what was, after all, an attack on the United Kingdom. In some ways it had flashes of the Iron Lady about it. But it was also in stark contrast to the attitude of the Leader of the Opposition, who simply could not bring himself to condemn Russia for this outrageous act.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

That is not true.

[Mr Francois]

He simply could not do it. Is that not because he remains at heart what he has always been—a CND badge-wearing apologist for the Russian state? [Interruption.]

[The Prime Minister]

I think that people will draw their own conclusions from what they have heard today, but let me also say to my hon. Friend that I am sure that he, like me, takes great reassurance from the positive messages of support that have come from the Labour Back Benches.

Salisbury Incident

Mark Francois Excerpts

Monday 12th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. When we take action, we must ensure that it is action that we will continue to follow through. As I said in my statement, many of the actions taken in response to the Litvinenko murder are actually still in place in relation to our relations with the Russian state. Nobody should be in any doubt, however, of the likelihood of an impact from the Russian state in attempting to suggest, as it did in that case, that the information we put out is incorrect. The inquiry, which followed significantly later, very firmly put the responsibility for Litvinenko’s murder at the door of the Russian state and, indeed, of President Putin.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

May I commend the Prime Minister for the robust tone of her statement, which is entirely appropriate? Does she accept that, while we may not be in a period of cold war with Russia, as we were in the 1980s, it could be said that, because of its actions, we are at least now entering a period of cool war? If that be so, would she be prepared, at the appropriate time, to look again at our ability to deter Russia and at the resources we may require to do so?

[The Prime Minister]

As I have said previously, there is no question of business as usual with Russia. We must be very clear about the actions it has taken. This incident proves that the actions we have taken over the past decade have been entirely justified. What we see is a Kremlin that seems to be intent on dismantling the international rules-based order, and we should stand up resolutely in defence of that international order.

European Council

Mark Francois Excerpts

Monday 23rd October 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The European Union raised a similar concept to the implementation period in its April guidelines, and that would be on the basis of the article 50 process.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

On the matter of North Korea, the Select Committee on Defence recently took evidence from a group of academics who argued that North Korea may already have an ability to reach the United Kingdom with a thermonuclear weapon. If that is true, does the Prime Minister agree that it would be the utmost folly to abandon our independent nuclear deterrent?

[The Prime Minister]

I absolutely agree that it would be folly to abandon our independent nuclear deterrent. There are many reasons why it is important for us to maintain and, as Parliament has voted, to upgrade our independent nuclear deterrent. It is also important because it is part of the collective defence of Europe that we provide as a member of NATO.

UK Plans for Leaving the EU

Mark Francois Excerpts

Monday 9th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

It is not, of course, possible to answer that question at this stage. We are negotiating a deal, and we will not have negotiated that deal until, I suspect, close to the end of the period that has been set aside for it. At that point, we will be able to see what the benefits of the deal will be for the future of the British economy.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

I commend the Prime Minister for her detailed statement. It was in stark contrast to what was said by the Leader of the Opposition, who left the House completely in the dark about his own position. Can the Prime Minister solve a dilemma for him? Why, if Labour Members are so concerned about Brexit, or even, indeed, about the security of EU nationals after we leave, could they not bring themselves to debate the matter at all at their own party conference in Brighton?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. At the Labour party conference they actually refused to have a full debate on the issue that they now say is a matter of such consequence to them, but then that is typical: they take one position on a Tuesday and the next position on a Wednesday.

Early Parliamentary General Election

Mark Francois Excerpts

Wednesday 19th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I was elected leader of my party by 300,000 votes. I do not know how many people voted for the Prime Minister to be leader of her party. I suspect it was none whatsoever.

To the 6 million people working in jobs that pay less than the living wage, I simply say this: it does not have to be like this. Labour believes that every job should pay a wage people can live on, and that every worker should have decent rights at work. To the millions of people who cannot afford a home of their own, or who have spent years waiting for a council home, I say that this is their chance to vote for the home their family deserves. Labour Members believe that a housing policy should provide homes for all, and not investment opportunities for a few. To the millions of small businesses fed up with the red tape of quarterly reporting, hikes in business rates and broken promises on national insurance, I say that this is their chance to vote for a Government who invest and who support wealth creators, not just the wealth extractors.

The Prime Minister says that she has called the election so that the Government can negotiate Brexit. We had a referendum that established that mandate. Parliament has voted to accept that result. There is no obstacle to the Government negotiating, but instead of getting on with the job, she is painting herself as the prisoner of the Lib Dems, who have apparently threatened to grind government to a standstill. There are nine of them and they managed to vote three different ways on article 50, so it is obviously a very serious threat. The Tories want to use Brexit to turn us into a low-wage tax haven. Labour will use Brexit to invest in every part of this country to create a high-wage, high-skill economy in which everyone shares the rewards.

The Prime Minister says this campaign will be about leadership, so let us have a head-to-head TV debate about the future of our country. Why has she rejected that request? Labour offers a better future. We want richer lives for all, not a country run for the rich.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Is the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) giving way? [Interruption.] No, he has finished. [Interruption.] Order. I have known the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) for more than 30 years, since we stood against each other in a student election. He is not going to take it personally, but the right hon. Member for Islington North has finished his speech. [Interruption.] If the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford wants to raise a point of order, I will hear it with courtesy.

[Mr Francois]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Is that it?

[Mr Speaker]

It is very generous of the right hon. Gentleman to seek to invest me with additional powers, but the question of whether it is “it”, as he puts it, is a matter not for me but for the right hon. Member for Islington North, and he has completed his contribution.