Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Hendrick Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Last, but not least, I call Mr Hendrick.

[Mr Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Foreign Secretary give us his assessment of the current strength, effectiveness and numbers of the Free Syrian Army, a subject on which he has been very quiet recently? We want to get rid of ISIL and Assad, but there has been no mention of the FSA.

[Mr Hammond]

There are many groups, running into the thousands, operating in Syria, and they form together in various alliances and umbrella organisations. The non-ISIL, non-al-Nusra part of the opposition probably has a fighting strength of about 80,000 soldiers deployed across the country. That is my latest estimate.

Iran: Nuclear Deal

Mark Hendrick Excerpts

Wednesday 15th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

As I think I have made clear before, we have no specific commitments. Iran will have access, over time, to about £90 billion-worth of frozen assets. That will not happen overnight; it will happen over a period of many years. No doubt, the IRGC will have ideas about recommending how some of the money could be spent, but so will people in many other parts of the Iranian system. Iran has a huge infrastructure deficit. If it is to increase its oil-exporting capacity, which it will want to do, it will need to invest very heavily in the oil industry, and we would expect a fair amount of the unfrozen funds to go into that sector.

[Mr Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)]

How confident is the Foreign Secretary that Iran will comply with the terms of the deal, that it will in future become a constructive international partner and that it might even become a partner in the battle against ISIL?

[Mr Hammond]

The hon. Gentleman has asked three separate questions. How confident am I that Iran will comply? I believe that I am highly confident that it will comply with its specific obligations under the deal. How likely is it that Iran will become a partner in the battle against ISIL? I believe that it is likely, because Iran shares our view that ISIL is an existential threat. How we collaborate will have to be managed very carefully, because of the legacy of mistrust and the challenges of co-operation, but we are strategically aligned in relation to ISIL.

How confident am I that Iran’s behaviour in the region will change? That is a bigger question. I think that it is a potential prize, but we have not yet gained it. We have to build trust, and we have to show Iran, by our actions and not just by our words, that collaborating and acting reasonably works for both sides and provides benefits for both sides.

European Union Referendum Bill

Mark Hendrick Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2015 Commons Chamber

I believe in the sovereignty of the British people and I would like to help them restore it. Before we joined the European Economic Community, the sovereignty of the British people was clear and it worked well. The British people could elect a Parliament. The Parliament was sovereign until it had to face re-election. That meant that the Parliament was responsive to the British people between elections because those elected recognised that if they did not please, did not serve well—if the chosen Government did not govern wisely—they would be thrown out by the British people at the end of the five years. So the sovereignty of the British people required a sovereign Parliament that they could dismiss and they could influence, and much of the architecture of this building and the political architecture of our country was based on maximising the access to MPs and maximising the influence of MPs over the wider Government.

[Mr Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that in what is now the European Union, it is quite usual for member states to pool sovereignty? Like the democratic process that he talks about, Members of the European Parliament are democratically accountable to their electors and can make decisions on behalf of their constituents in exactly the same way.

[John Redwood]

States cannot pool sovereignty. They are either sovereign or they have given their power away. The British people do not think the European Parliament exercises control or power over the Brussels machine in the way that this Parliament at its best exercises power over the British government machine. That can be seen from the way that the British electors do not turn out on anything like the same scale in a European election, because they do not believe in that Parliament and they understand that that Parliament has very limited influence over the unelected bureaucratic government in Brussels.

Now that we are in the EEC and it has evolved into the European Union, the fundamental condition that one Parliament cannot bind its successors has been removed. That has completely undermined one of the basic pillars of our democracy. We had the rule that any new Parliament can amend or repeal any law of a previous Parliament. It can reverse or change any decision relating to the future about the expenditure of moneys or the development of policy. The British people now do not have that full sovereignty. If they elect a new Parliament, the new Parliament discovers, as this one is doing, that there are a large number of areas where we cannot change things to reflect the will of the British people because it would be illegal under European law to do so. We find that, because so many vetoes have been removed, we can no longer prevent things happening from the European government that we do not want. Worse still, because there is a whole body of agreed European law and treaty that we inherit as a new Parliament and a new Government, there are very large areas where we cannot fulfil the will of the British people and we therefore cannot please them.

Fortunately, Britain still has a fairly powerful Parliament because we stayed out of the euro. Those countries that went into the euro are discovering that they now have puppet Parliaments. We see the terrible tragedy in Greece, where the Greek people have understandably said that they want a complete change of economic policy. They want to get away from unemployment and recession and austerity from the European Union and have a pro-growth policy at home, and they are told that they cannot do that because it is against European rules.

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[Mr Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)]

May I start by congratulating you, Madam Deputy Speaker, on taking the Chair? It is well deserved. May I also congratulate those new Members who have made their maiden speeches today? They have caused many of us to cast our minds back to our own maiden speeches.

I rise as a Member of the Labour party, which did not want a referendum. I did not think that a referendum was necessary, and it is my view that we are better off in the European Union, with its current faults, if there are any. Indeed, whatever future circumstances arise, I think it is inconceivable that the UK could leave the European Union. I am happy with the status quo.

The reality, however, is that we lost the general election, there is now a Conservative majority and a referendum will go ahead, whether we like it or not. This is not, therefore, a policy change that has been brought about because we have suddenly had a change of mind, but a recognition of reality: there is going to be a referendum, whether we like it or not, so the best thing we can do is take part in it and do our best to ensure that Great Britain, or the UK, stays in the European Union.

The reason for the referendum has nothing to do with the high-minded argument that, “It’s about time we had a decision.” Some of the speeches made by Government Members have been beyond credibility. They seem to be suffering from collective amnesia and to have forgotten that the Prime Minister was dragged kicking and screaming into having a referendum because many of his own Back Benchers were talking about making a pact with the UK Independence party so that UKIP candidates did not stand against Conservative candidates. Some of those Back Benchers—one of them is here today—chose to jump ship and join UKIP, and the Prime Minister was scared to death of seeing his own party falling apart before his very eyes. No Government Member has mentioned that simple fact.

The reason we are here today has more to do with holding together the Conservative party in the run-up to the last general election, and the next two years will also be spent trying to hold it together, to the detriment of all the other issues of state that this Government should be dealing with. That puts today’s debate about the referendum in context.

[Mr Carswell]

Does the hon. Gentleman imagine that his party may have done better had it actually allowed voters the choice that other parties gave them?

[Mr Hendrick]

I think we may have done slightly better, but I do not think it would have greatly affected the measure of our defeat—let me put it that way.

Conservatives for Britain, which now has up to 60 members, neglects Britain’s interests in remaining in the European Union. Our place in Europe is about Britain being an outward-looking nation that sees the way in which the world is developing and that recognises globalisation and the opportunity offered by the 21st century and the modern economy. It is not an inward-looking Britain, which is what is suggested when some Members hark back to the days when we had an empire and then a commonwealth. Some Government Members give the impression that they still wish we had that empire, and some do not seem to have realised that the second world war is over and that the Germans are no longer the enemy. In my constituency, for example, we are working with the Germans to build military aircraft to fight other possible future foes. I come from a constituency that spent 100 years building aircraft to fight Germany, but now we build aircraft with the Germans to fight potential enemies elsewhere.

What is happening in the world is that nations are coming together and deciding that it is better to work as closely together as possible. Britain is not the little but extremely powerful nation it once was; it is a less powerful nation working with a much more powerful bloc of European countries—now 28 countries, with more than 500 million people—that can now take on, economically and politically, the likes of the United States and can start to compete with massive developing nations, such as China, India, Russia and Brazil. This is a new world for the 21st century. For Conservative Members still looking back at the loss of empire and our past relationship with European countries, we are a world away from that. They should sit down and think about that.

I have no problem whatever with ever-closer union. The more we can do to enhance our effectiveness through working with European partners on legislation that affects all of us, the better. People say that we could manage on our own, but we would not manage as well. People say that the European Union is not as strong as it was in the past and has a lesser share of trade. Perhaps it has, but it still has far more trade, business and clout than we ever had in the past or ever will have on our own. We must look at superpowers such as the United States and China, as well as the emerging powers I have mentioned.

I genuinely believe that the referendum will be won by the yes camp. By our staying within the European Union, we will see a Europe emerging that is not a united states of Europe, but a unique Europe that will ensure Britain has stability, a voice and a bright economic future and that Britain counts on the world stage in the way it will not if we leave. This debate is a very historic occasion: we will soon have a referendum on our future. I look forward to the debates during the referendum, even though I did not think that it would be necessary and I think it is a shame to spend two years fighting on an issue that I see as a no-brainer.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Hendrick Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point. Although the maritime component has much the highest profile, it is the transit and trafficking operations that need to be stopped. Parties and stakeholders in Libya are coming together in Morocco—in fact, the conversation started yesterday under United Nations envoy Bernardino León—and we hope they will finally be successful.

[Mr Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)]

The problem in Libya obviously stems from much further away than Libya itself, so the stabilisation of Libya is not the solution. What will the Government do to make sure that people do not need to flee to southern Europe, because that is the root of the problem?

[Mr Ellwood]

The hon. Gentleman is right in part, but as I have just pointed out, it is not simply the transit issues that are important. There is a maritime component, on which we are working with Operation Triton, and there is also the source countries, so there are three parts to the solution. However, if Libya is able to provide the stability that is needed and to provide its own security, the trafficking operations can be curtailed.

Palestine and Israel

Mark Hendrick Excerpts

Monday 13th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is very easy to call anyone who opposes the views of the Israeli Government an anti-Semite. Does my hon. Friend believe that building a wall and separation barrier on Palestinian land and building settlements that now house some 400,000 settlers is any way forward and gives the international community any confidence that Israel is willing to go through any sort of peace process? Does she also agree that this vote today is going to send a message to the Israeli Government that this Parliament and this country feel very strongly about their attitude towards Palestine?

[Ms Abbott]

I entirely agree about both the walls and the continuing proliferation of settlements.

In this debate we have heard what has almost been a mantra from Members opposed to the motion: “Make Palestine a state, but not just yet.” It is absurd for opponents of this motion to argue that it undermines negotiation. There is so much to negotiate, so much to do, so much for both sides to talk about. It is almost disingenuous to say that recognising Palestinian statehood cuts across any negotiation, and the idea that recognition of Palestinian statehood should be conditional or a bargaining chip must be wrong.

I believe that the time for justice for the Palestinians has come and the time to recognise Palestinian statehood is tonight in this House of Commons, and I believe that our own constituents, and above all Palestinians overseas, are looking to this House tonight to do the right thing.

Ukraine, Middle East, North Africa and Security

Mark Hendrick Excerpts

Wednesday 10th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I will come in a moment to the measures we are taking to support eastern partners, but my hon. Friend will know that Lithuania, along with all the other 27 NATO members, signed up to the defence spending commitment at last week’s NATO summit. That was a huge triumph for British diplomacy.

[Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Foreign Secretary believe that a man who spent 16 years rising to the top of the KGB and who is currently the President of Russia will be deterred by economic sanctions when it is clear that Russia has territorial ambitions, as we have seen elsewhere in Europe?

[Mr Hammond]

These sanctions are having an effect: they are exacerbating an already negative trend in Russia’s economy. Russia’s economy shrank by 0.5% in the first quarter of this year. Its largest bank has downgraded forecasts of growth from 2.3% to 0.2%. Russian sovereign bonds have been downgraded to one notch above junk bond status, and capital flight is continuing, with an estimate that it could reach £80 billion. Although I understand absolutely the hon. Gentleman’s question and his attempt, quite rightly, to analyse the emotional side of Mr Putin’s approach, he will not be able to be blind to the impact these sanctions are having on Russia’s economy.

We have also supported NATO measures to reassure our eastern allies who feel most exposed to Russian pressure, including through the provision of RAF jets to undertake an air policing role in the Baltic area. We are clear about the collective security guarantee that NATO offers to our eastern NATO partners, and Mr Putin should be clear about that, too.

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[Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth). I will carry on in that vein. As he rightly said, Putin has reneged on the Budapest accord. To develop my argument, I will talk about Russia’s past and what will happen in future.

The UN estimates that, since the Russian annexation of Crimea in April, nearly 2,600 people have been killed in fighting between pro-Russian separatist rebels and the Ukrainian army in eastern Ukraine. The UN figure does not include the 298 passengers and crew of Malaysian Airlines MH17, which was shot down in the area by separatist rebels on 18 July.

Ukraine is not the first conflict to be frozen and it will not be the last. For some years, Russia has become increasingly uneasy about the expansion of both NATO and the European Union. As the EU has become bigger, Russia has seen the buffer of states between her borders and those of EU states dramatically reduced. In the north-east of the EU, they are non-existent. Many in Russia believe that the west reneged on an informal agreement in 1990 not to expand NATO eastwards. That misunderstanding or breach of trust is the basis for the current instability in eastern Europe.

It is not the first time Russia has used proxy forces to destabilise countries and create frozen conflicts. In 1992, during the break-up of the Soviet Union, the newly created country of Moldova was destabilised when its large ethnic Russian population of 200,000 people chose to break away and join Russia. As in Ukraine, pro-Russian separatists fought Government forces to a standstill. Russia committed 150,000 so-called peacekeepers to Transnistria. They are still there today. Transnistria held a referendum in 2006 similar to that we saw in Crimea, voting heavily in favour of joining Russia. The region’s status has still to be decided.

For Georgia, the current crisis in Ukraine and Crimea has clear parallels with its own conflict with Russia in 2008. After its application for NATO membership, ethnic Russian separatists rose up in South Ossetia and Abkhazia and there were reports of “unidentified troops” posing as local insurgents in Georgia’s separatist regions. Russia intervened under similar auspices, claiming the citizens’ right to self-determination, separation and Russian protection under international law. As in Moldova, the statuses of the two breakaway regions are still to be formally decided. Although they are so-called independent regions, they are effectively now as much a part of Russia as Crimea.

The current rebel advance has raised fears that the Kremlin may seek to create a land corridor between Russia and Crimea. As with Moldova and Georgia, analysts have speculated that Putin does not want a Crimea-style annexation, which would be expensive and militarily difficult, but instead wants to create a “frozen conflict” that would give Moscow permanent leverage in Ukraine. Only time will tell whether eastern Ukraine will be annexed, too.

I feel that the west has seriously misjudged Putin and does not seem to understand where he is coming from and what he hopes to achieve. In many Russian minds, Ukraine is a part of Russia. Putin has certainly reflected that view in public with recent press conferences referring to Ukraine as either little Russia or, in some cases, new Russia. He says that part of Ukraine’s territories are eastern Europe, but that the greater part are a gift from Russia.

Putin witnessed first hand the mismanagement of the Russian economy, open corruption and the economic hardships that the collapse of the USSR and market forces brought to Russia. It is with the period that saw the decline of the Soviet Union and of Russia in mind that Putin has said quite openly that he regrets

“the passing of the Soviet Union”

and that the blame for much of the past lies squarely at the feet of the west.

Article 5 of the NATO treaty considers an attack in terms of “armed force”, yet Russia is currently inciting an insurgency.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

The hon. Gentleman is talking about the Baltic states. He will know that Kaliningrad is a part of Russia on the Baltic sea, surrounded by Poland and Lithuania. Does he fear that Russia might try to produce a land link between itself and Kaliningrad?

[Mark Hendrick]

I think that is perfectly possible and I concur with the hon. Gentleman. I think that, even though Ukraine is not an article 5 member of NATO, it poses many questions about NATO members, particularly the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Kaliningrad, like Crimea, is strategically very important to the Russians and if the west does not take strong action at some point, possibly going beyond sanctions, the west, particularly countries such as the UK, will suffer and might enter a third world war. The situation is far more serious than it has been painted. It is at least as serious as what is happening in Iraq and Syria for the stability and future of Europe. I hope that the west sees Putin for what he is and treats him not as a former economic Minister but as a former head of the KGB.

North and West Africa (UK Response)

Mark Hendrick Excerpts

Thursday 3rd July 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

I want to highlight a wider aspect of this issue: the ongoing conflict within Islam, which is taking place not only in north and west Africa; it is a global struggle. It is not helpful to refer to moderates and extremists, because there are complex historical religious disputes and power struggles in which individuals are using religion to try to gain political or economic power.

There was a justified intervention in Libya in 2011, to save the people of Benghazi from being killed, as Gaddafi intended, house by house, like rats. One unfortunate consequence of that intervention was that the country, which was in many senses an artificial creation—as are many countries in the middle east, too, lines having been drawn on maps in the colonial period—has ceased to function in any way as what we would regard to be a state. Because of the weaponry stockpiled by Gaddafi’s regime, and the way he used mercenaries and citizens of other states as part of his elite forces, an unintended consequence of that intervention has been that masses of weaponry have come out of Libya, much of it going to other parts of north and west Africa, but some is going to Syria, Iraq and elsewhere in the Muslim Arab world.

We have already heard mention of the instability in Mali as the Tuaregs swept across the desert and reinforced the incipient disaffected insurgency in the north of the country. I went with the Select Committee to visit both Mali and Nigeria, and we also visited Algeria. It is very revealing to visit a country and get the sense that the lines on the map have created an absolute nightmare. In terms of its borders, Mali must be the strangest country of almost any. There is a round part at the bottom and a triangle going out at the top. There is a completely ungovernable desert area, called Azawad, and the River Niger bending round. All the population lives alongside the river, and there are huge areas of desert and ungovernable space. In any state where the mass of the population is in the capital in the south, I do not know how any Government would be able to govern areas hundreds or thousands of miles away, with virtually no people—except small communities living in areas with access to water, and nomadic populations—and lots of poverty. How any Government, even the most advanced, with massive economic resources, would be able to govern that space effectively is beyond me.

The Chairman of the Select Committee, the right hon. Member for Croydon South (Sir Richard Ottaway), quite rightly referred to the attack on the BP facility in In Amenas in Algeria. People swept across from desert areas and launched a terrorist attack; workers were taken hostage and killed, and there was the terrible long-term consequence of instability in the region.

We now have a nexus of robbers, bandits and criminal bands who would normally be smuggling tobacco or other products across the desert, or smuggling people to the coast to try to board the very same vessels heading across the Mediterranean that were referred to earlier, and that nexus is linked to Islamist ideology and the weaponry that has come out of the Libyan conflict. The Governments in the region face enormous, insurmountable problems.

[Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend said “linked”; what is the link between criminal gangs that are smuggling, arms dealing and dealing in drugs from south America, and those who claim that their movement is about faith, ideology and the Islamic religion? What is the connection between the two? I cannot see one, so how does my hon. Friend make that link, and, for that matter, how do they make links with each other?

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[Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Croydon South (Sir Richard Ottaway), rightly highlighted the three case studies in the report: Mali, Algeria and Nigeria. We wanted to establish the principal causes of the extremism that we saw in those countries and what we, in Britain, could do about it. We found a heady mix. As I am sure is of no surprise to many people in the Chamber, the combination of poverty, inequality, corruption and misgovernance contributed to the situation we found in Africa. Those things are not unique to Africa, and they occur in the middle east, Asia and many other parts of the world where terrorism is beginning to flourish. They are a recipe for instability.

If we look back to 19th and 20th century Europe, we see that, from the beginning of the industrial revolution through to the nuclear age, there was affluence and wealth but a huge difference between rich and poor. That mix spawned the revolutions and instability of those centuries. We are seeing the same in the 21st century, but it is much worse and on a global scale. We particularly see that in Africa, where there is newfound wealth from oil, gas, valuable materials, diamonds and gold. Africa has become a battleground extraordinaire between rich and poor because it is a continent where, in many ways, economic development seems to be going backwards while there is huge wealth and potential prosperity from which very few people benefit.

Different things happened in our three case studies. There was French intervention in Mali. In Algeria we particularly looked at the In Amenas incident, and I still get inquiries to this day from people who work for oil companies attached not only to Algeria but to other parts of north Africa. I can draw on what members of the Committee learned from travelling to Algeria. The third country that we looked at, Nigeria, has hit the headlines at the moment. Visiting Nigeria had a big impact on me, as it did on my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Sandra Osborne). To see the rampant and explicit nature of the terrorism in northern Nigeria was indeed a shock, and of course since our return it has become much worse; I will refer to that development later.

One of the conclusions of the report is that north and west Africa has become a new front line. We all knew about the existing front line. In the east, it started around Chechnya, in what was a southern part of the Soviet Union; it reached through to the middle east and north Africa; and it covered Somalia in eastern Africa. Now it has extended across to north and west Africa, the region that we are considering today. It is an arc reaching from north-eastern Europe through the middle east and across the whole of Africa, and it is encircling Europe. The UK is obviously a bit further afield because of our geographical location, and I will discuss the UK later. Nevertheless, the effect is being felt not only in mainland Europe but in the UK, as we are already beginning to see; my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) mentioned that earlier.

The report outlines many of our findings, but let me go through some of the events that have taken place in Africa this year alone. I believe that there is no end in sight to the current instability in the region of north and west Africa, particularly in the three countries we looked at but further afield as well. In Libya, we have seen continued instability, with political assassinations and attempted coups, and there is now fighting in the capital between the rebels and the army. On 11 January, the deputy Industry Minister, Hassan al-Droui, was shot dead during a visit to his home town of Sirte, which is east of Tripoli. The identity of the shooters is still unknown. On 20 February, Libyans went to the polls to elect a panel to draft a new constitution. Just 1.1 million of the 3.4 million eligible voters went to register, compared with the more than 2.7 million people who participated in Libya’s first free election in July 2012.

When Labour was in Government and Mr Blair went to embrace Colonel Gaddafi, Libya quite openly and willingly discarded its nuclear weapons. We thought that would possibly be a new beginning in Libya. Since then, however, we and the French have intervened in what was the beginning of a civil war. Afterwards, when we thought we had what we would call a result in Libya, the situation became even worse, and currently there is great instability.

Two coup d’état attempts have been made in 2014 by forces loyal to Major General Haftar, the commander of the Libyan ground forces. First Haftar took control of Libya’s main institutions, before announcing on TV that he had suspended the General National Congress and the Government and made a constitutional declaration. On 18 May, it was reported that the Parliament building had been stormed by troops loyal to him.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South said, there are consequences of intervention, even if it is very difficult to say what they are. Then again, we know the consequences of non-intervention, because the people of Benghazi would have been slaughtered by Colonel Gaddafi’s forces if the west had not intervened in the way that it did and he had remained in power.

We have seen the ousting of the sitting Prime Minister, and on 11 March the rebels sold oil to North Korea; the Morning Glory tanker reportedly took at least 234,000 barrels of crude oil there. It was the first vessel to have loaded oil from a rebel-held port since the revolt against the Tripoli authorities erupted last July. Such unchecked activities are going on in the background, and a rogue state such as North Korea can receive support from a country such as Libya. There has been further fighting by rebels in Libya, too. We could not have predicted what is going on today, and that is the problem with intervention.

The French intervened in Mali. In May, the ceasefire was broken with clashes between the two sides in the northern city of Kidal, which killed at least 36 people. Mali’s army launched an operation to seize Kidal but was defeated by the rebels, who then seized two more towns. Also in May, the fragile truce with the Tuareg National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad separatists broke down in the north of the country, and the separatists seized control of Kidal and the towns of Menaka, Aguellok, Anefis and Tessalit.

In Nigeria, things are also getting worse. On Tuesday, the military said that it had broken up a Boko Haram cell that had masterminded the kidnapping of more than 200 schoolgirls in April, but hours before that a bomb blast struck a busy market in Maiduguri, the capital of the Islamist insurgents’ home state of Borno. At least 2,000 people have been killed this year, compared with an estimated 3,600 in the four years since the insurgency began. This year alone, there have been 20 attacks by Boko Haram that have been officially reported, in which at least 1,158 people have been killed, and an estimated 12,000 people have died so far in the five-year insurgency.

As I said at the beginning of my contribution, the link between economic inequality and extremism is well known and well developed. Nigeria has the resources to beat Boko Haram if it was determined to do so, but most of its staggering oil wealth—up to $70 billion annually—is held by a small, politically connected elite, who remain insulated from Boko Haram’s terror tactics and seem almost indifferent to the war. As far as many people in Lagos are concerned, Boko Haram is Muslims killing Muslims. Those people in Lagos are Christians, so do they care? No, they do not. That attitude permeates the political realm in Nigeria.

When we were in Nigeria and spoke to people there, we learned that Nigerian MPs are paid a salary 10 times that of a Member of this House, and if they are not corrupt people think that there is something wrong with them as a politician. It is the sort of society where corruption is endemic and self-serving politicians are rife, so what is going on in the north of the country is of little or no consequence to people in Lagos.

Nigeria has nearly 16,000 millionaires, a number that has jumped by 44% in the past six years. As I have said, much of the wealth is concentrated in Lagos, Nigeria’s biggest city, where the northern rebellion by Boko Haram feels like a distant rumour. The divide between the Christian south and the Muslim north is huge, and the extent of relative poverty and inequality in the north has led several analysts and organisations to argue that socio-economic deprivation is the main factor behind Boko Haram’s campaign of violence there.

The communities of northern Nigeria are being wrecked by poverty, deteriorating social services and infrastructure, educational backwardness, rising numbers of unemployed graduates, massive numbers of unemployed youths, dwindling fortunes in agriculture and the weak and dwindling production base of the northern economy.

As for Mali, after Gaddafi’s fall in Libya the Tuareg people who had fought for him went home to Mali. Poor and with no livelihoods, within months they had tipped northern Mali into full-scale armed rebellion and there was a takeover of the region by Islamist fighters. The Tuareg have traditionally been a nomadic people with little personal wealth.

As I have said, Libya is reliant on oil and much of the current fighting is about the oil revenues going to the capital and not to other parts of the country. There is a strong argument in many places for greater autonomy. What the Tuareg separatists in Mali, Boko Haram in Nigeria and the Islamist rebels in Libya all have in common is a desire for their own state, as we have seen in Syria and Iraq with ISIS. Extremist as they may be, they feel that they are not getting a fair deal from the existing establishment. A lot of that stems from the growth inequalities that I have spoken about. Ultimately, they desire to govern their own affairs.

In Mali, the separatist movements demand greater autonomy for the north, which they term Azawad, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South mentioned. Yet Governments in the region continue to be mistrustful of Islamists in politics, as they would put it. The Prime Minister of Mali, Moussa Mara, said:

“Say we give the Kidal region more resources and a lot more decentralized power, and they elect a jihadist to lead Kidal. That means we would have given our territory to jihadists, and democratically. This is what we want to avoid”.

A similar sentiment is offered by many Governments throughout the region and the throughout the west.

We know that boundaries in many of these countries do not reflect historical tribal land occupations, religious differences that exist between groups and locations of resources. In the aftermath of colonialisation, the development of cities and the exploitation of resources do not take account of population needs. That is the reason for the current conflict.

What can we do? Diplomatic effort by the UK in Africa may have a little effect, but many African countries remember the colonisation of Africa by the United Kingdom. As much as Britain has good intentions, given that history, it is not always trusted in Africa.

We have tried intervention in Libya and Iraq. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South said, we have also tried inaction sometimes, and non-intervention, for example in Syria, although that is not a response. It seems contradictory and inconsistent to have invaded Iraq, as we in the west did with the Americans, where there were no weapons of mass destruction and no chemical weapons, but not to have invaded Syria when we had the option to do so, albeit from the air or by helping separatists, when there were chemical weapons.

Maliki is blaming Saudi Arabia and Saudi Arabia is blaming Maliki. In America, the Republicans are blaming Obama and the liberals are blaming Bush. Everybody is blaming each other when looking at the separatists, whether ISIS or terrorist operations in Africa. Everybody in every country has to take some responsibility.

Aid is helpful if it is targeted, but there are governance problems and corruption. In Africa and elsewhere around the world, post-colonialism, there was a move towards nationalism, whether in Africa or in the Arab middle east—Assad in Syria, Gaddafi in Libya, Mugabe in Zimbabwe. However, many nationalist leaders have, as a result of impoverishment and inequalities, now been swept away by religious movements. People are now saying, “Perhaps we should have supported Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein or Assad, because what we are seeing now is much worse.” We will never know the answer. However, we are now sure that pure military intervention is no solution.

A long-term solution may be to shape events, win hearts and minds and try to secure economic development where it is needed, but that cannot be done by Britain alone. Many of us think that because of our colonial past—hon. Members can see that I am a product of our colonial past—Britain has all the answers. However, we do not and neither does the United States. Although we have good intentions, the future of this country’s wider international influence is in helping people shape events for the greater good, rather than just attacking or intervening because we do not like people or standing back because we are too scared about public opinion. We have to be brave about this. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

[Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Amess, and it has been a pleasure to listen to the debate.

I thank the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Croydon South (Sir Richard Ottaway), and Committee members for undertaking this inquiry and producing an incredibly valuable report, which I found helpful, dealing with profound issues affecting this region. As we have heard, it is difficult to limit discussion of the region to this geographical area alone. As hon. Members have indicated, many themes and big issues confront us within this region and beyond it; these are common and reach across into north-east Africa and the middle east. These are some of the major issues of our time, which we must confront. The Committee Chair’s introduction was valuable.

I should like to make a point that I do not think has been emphasised enough in this debate. This area of the world has a great deal of potential. When visiting Algeria, I was struck, on meeting a huge number of young people at the university of Algiers, by the fact that they were intensely ambitious and knowledgeable about the world, including the United Kingdom. They were keen to develop close links with the UK in particular, especially through the medium of the English language. This has been recognised by our ambassador to Algeria, for example, who is working hard to try to develop better connections. There is also a good, developing relationship between Morocco and the UK in terms of trade and education, which is a force for good, and a way that we can try to begin to address some long-term issues.

The Committee Chair made an important point, which I, too, would emphasise, about Algeria and Morocco being natural partners. These two countries in the region are stable, albeit that they have different histories, and we know that they are rivals. During my visit to Algeria and Morocco, I had constructive discussions with politicians in both countries, until I mentioned either Morocco or Algeria. My hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Mark Hendrick) mentioned the European historical context; their relationship reminds me of the French-German relationship. For example, the Western Sahara situation has parallels with Alsace-Lorraine.

It would be a major step forward if those of us developing good relations with both Algeria and Morocco could emphasise the importance of trying to find a way forward on the Western Sahara issue. The border between Algeria and Morocco is still closed. We cannot conceive of a good trading relationship and real economic development in that region while that situation pertains.

[Mark Hendrick]

Some 30 years ago, when I was a student in Liverpool, many students on my electrical engineering course were from Algeria. I think that Algeria is relatively stable now because many of those students who came to the UK and elsewhere in Europe to study engineering went back with degrees, although they had little opportunity to exploit and use them. The experience of the tremendous upheavals in Algeria 20 years ago has made it much more stable and more resistant to terrorism than many other countries in the north of Africa.

[Ian Lucas]

There was indeed a dreadful civil war in Algeria that predated the Arab uprisings, and stability there is a product of recent history. There is an opportunity in Algeria, which is on the cusp of change, in my view, having had various discussions about it. There have to be better relationships within the region—that is important—and we must try to find, within the region, improved mechanisms for dealing with issues, because the people who are most profoundly and immediately affected by all the instability that the report outlines are those who live in the region.

Another country that has not been mentioned is Tunisia. It is an important country that has struggled hard since the beginning of the Arab uprisings, which started there. It has managed to accommodate different viewpoints and, through hard work in difficult times, it has created a constitution that will hopefully lead to elections in the near future. I would like to see Tunisia work together with other countries, along with those of us who wish for this part of the world to stabilise, to make progress. I know—there have been references to this—that there is profound unease in Tunisia and Algeria about the instability in Libya, and that unease extends to Egypt, as the Chair of the Select Committee knows. The instability in Libya is a real worry, and it is affecting many countries in the region.

The debate has highlighted the different pressures and the seriousness of the situation, but there is an opportunity, through the more stable countries in the region, to build an approach that confronts many of the issues that my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) raised. They are profound issues for us all, and he is right to emphasise that they are not distant from us. Anyone who has been to the strait of Gibraltar knows how close Europe is to Africa. In the days of the Roman empire, the quickest routes to Africa were across the sea from Italy to places such as Libya. Such places as Leptis Magna show the common culture that existed in that part of the world. Instability in north Africa will inevitably affect all of Europe—not just southern Europe. The important issues highlighted by my hon. Friend are part of why we need to engage so strongly with young people in places such as Algiers, Morocco and Egypt, in order to encourage them and understand why some people—not just in north Africa; it has happened in the United Kingdom—are radicalised and commit heinous crimes.

It is important that we deal with the economic disparities in the region. On Nigeria, which my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Sandra Osborne) focused on because she joined the Committee when the inquiry was looking at that country, it is intensely frustrating that a country that has so many millionaires, and so much wealth and potential, seems incapable of administering the area that it governs. That must play a part in why some people feel that they have no stake in that country and see extreme ideologies as offering something that is not being offered by the Government.

The issues are long term, but the questions of economic stability and economic opportunities for young people are urgent. In these days of the internet and global connectivity, a common theme among young people is ambition, and a common theme across north Africa is the number of highly educated young people who have great capabilities and talents that are not supported sufficiently by the number of jobs created in the local economy. They and their families are not being offered the real opportunities to progress that they need. Those big questions—I am sorry that they are such big questions, because big questions have complex and protracted solutions—mean that we have to be in this for the long term. There are not a million miles between the Minister and me on these issues. It is important that the United Kingdom stays in this for the long term and devises the best approach, so that we can play a positive role. I have met with members of the ambassadorial teams, who have an ambitious role, but the report is right to highlight that the reality does not match the rhetoric.

Another point that the report picks up on is the ministerial organisation within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. I am shadow Minister with responsibility for Africa and the middle east. The Minister’s remit is the middle east and north Africa, and there is a separate Minister with the remit of Africa. The FCO splits the remit of Africa between two different teams because of the Sahara. The report states:

“A common thread in UK policy appears to be a weakness of analysis in relation to crises straddling North Africa and West Africa: the Sahara may form a departmental barrier within the Foreign Office, but it is not one for terrorists.”

That is a sharp observation. I find it helpful that I have to cover the whole of Africa, because so many of the issues relating to Africa extend from north Africa down to Nigeria and the band right across the continent from Somalia in the east to Mauritania and Morocco in the west. In the Foreign Office, thought should at least be given to that, and whether the current organisation of areas reflects the massive challenges. I have thought about that point, and it was picked up on by the Committee.

We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock about the work that my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) has been doing. I attended the meetings and the Adjournment debate last night on the young women abducted in Nigeria. That horrific series of incidents has troubled us all in the House, and my right hon. Friend should be commended on his superb work. He put it interestingly when he referred to this being a civil rights issue for girls. I was struck by that terminology. This is not only an issue in Nigeria; there are threats to girls’ future right across the region. Many of the people I have met in Algiers and during my visits across north Africa have been women—highly educated women with massive potential, who can offer much to their countries. The idea that they should be prevented from contributing to their future, and the future of their family and country, simply because they are women is so abhorrent that we should see it as a civil rights issue. It should motivate us, right across the political spectrum and the world, to confront this.

We need to look for long-term solutions, and to learn from the report, which I commend again, how to develop a better analysis. Our connection with the region is perhaps lesser, historically, than our connections with many other parts of Africa. There is more of a French connection, historically. I have been struck by Morocco and Algeria wishing to have closer relations with the United Kingdom, and we need to build on that. Our education system provides the key to the door. We need to be passionate in our advocacy of women as part of the future of the region. Tunisia is a potential beacon of open democracy in the region, so can we please ensure that is has support? It was able to create a constitution and can work with partners across north Africa to secure a more stable situation in the years ahead.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Hendrick Excerpts

Tuesday 17th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

We obviously regret Gazprom’s decision to do that. Such decisions damage the credibility of Russia in supplying energy elsewhere across Europe. It is another argument for the diversification of European energy supplies over the coming years to give greater energy security, not only to Ukraine but to many nations of the European Union. We support fully the role of the European Commission in trying to facilitate an agreement, and it will continue to work on this.

[Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)]

Given the fact that the Russians have recently switched off the gas to Ukraine, what does the Foreign Secretary make of the discussions that took place during the D-day commemorations between newly elected President Poroshenko and President Putin? Were they a waste of time?

[Mr Hague]

It is never a waste of time for the Presidents of Russia and Ukraine to talk together. It was important that they did so, and I believe that they have since had a further conversation on the telephone. We encourage Russia to continue to talk bilaterally to Ukraine, but of course those talks have been damaged by the bringing down of a Ukrainian aircraft and the death of 49 people only a few days ago. That underlines the need for Russia to cease its support for illegally armed groups that are very seriously damaging the prospect of Russia and Ukraine working together.

Ukraine

Mark Hendrick Excerpts

Monday 28th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

We have not declared a trade war or a boycott of Russia. There are British companies with huge investments in Russia that made those investments in good faith. If it comes to the adoption of more far-reaching economic, trade and financial measures, that will have an impact on some of those companies. However, any such message is for that point. We are not declaring an economic boycott of Russia today.

[Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)]

In just over three weeks, there will be presidential elections in Ukraine. The Foreign Secretary said in his statement: “NATO agreed a set of measures to provide reassurance and confidence to NATO allies.” Are any NATO measures under consideration to give material military help and support to Ukrainian forces if Ukraine’s eastern border is invaded by Russia in order to disrupt those elections?

[Mr Hague]

No, not as things stand. As the hon. Gentleman knows very well, Ukraine is not a member of NATO. Our response to the situation has not been military outside NATO’s borders. Our additional assurance is to NATO members and relates to our collective defence. That does not extend to a military guarantee to Ukraine.

Ukraine

Mark Hendrick Excerpts

Tuesday 18th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)]

Russia’s military deployment into Ukrainian territory is extremely disturbing and without justification. That invasion is reminiscent of the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia. I was just a boy at the time but I can still remember those events in 1968. It took nearly 30 years to get the Soviets out of Czechoslovakia. The only difference in the case of the recent invasion by Russia is that it was done by troops who did not dare to speak their name. We saw troops in what were obviously Russian uniforms, but with no insignia identifying them as Russian. We saw people in masks or covering their faces who did not respond to questions from interviewers.

Russia is a member of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe. That was hardly about security or co-operation in Europe. It was a unilateral invasion for its own purposes. I am a member of the OSCE parliamentary assembly and regularly meet Russian, Ukrainian and other members from Parliaments across the OSCE area. To me, recent events are a disgrace. What happened beggars belief. There has been mention of South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Georgia. If the conflict is not resolved fairly quickly by economic pressure, engagement and negotiation, it could turn into another of those frozen conflicts that we have seen elsewhere.

Strong and concerted action needs to be taken. I go some way with the former Foreign Secretary, the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind), who said the response needs to go much further. The Foreign Secretary indicated today that there may be movement towards a G7 and away from a G8 if the G8 decides on such action.

I have acted as an observer at elections in Russia. I went to observe the last Duma elections in St Petersburg and saw the sorts of things that can happen. We know that the referendum was illegal. It was not sanctioned in Kiev or anywhere other than in Moscow. As an observer at those elections in St Petersburg, I remember watching a parliamentary count, seeing the figures being given out, seeing two Russian police officers escort those ballot boxes into a van, and the van driving off to nowhere. At the count afterwards, the figures that we were given were totally different from those assigned to that polling station when we were there. So we know how Putin and his people can organise elections. We know that there have been elections in Russia when the turnout has been more than 100%. The difference between the figures that were given for the number of people in Crimea who wanted to be part of Russia and the figures that we saw last weekend tells its own story.

Economic sanctions are important, as is energy policy. In the UK and particularly in my county, Lancashire, we are looking at fracking and shale gas as a future option. We also produce all the nuclear rods for the nuclear power stations throughout the country, so Britain can look forward to self-sustainable energy. Other parts of Europe and the European Union are not so fortunate. They will have to wean themselves off Russian gas and oil, because if Russia chooses to defend Russian-speaking people, as it would say, in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Transnistria, Moldova or any other part of Europe, the omens are very bad indeed. I take the point that was made earlier that unless the present situation is handled properly, it could be a re-run of the 1930s. Firm action now by our Government and Governments in Europe and the United States is essential if this is not to descend into the spectacle that we saw in the 1930s.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

That was one of the other things I was leaving aside for a moment.

We know how Putin reacts in a crisis. That is what really worries me. He always reacts with extreme force. In Beslan the state used such force to resolve a hostage crisis that 334 of the hostages, including 186 children, were killed. When terrorists from the Chechen republic took over a theatre in Moscow, the state’s intervention ended up killing not only all the terrorists, but 130 of the hostages.

We also know about his territorial ambition. I can do no better than quote the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois). During a debate on Georgia in the previous Parliament, he said:

“Whatever one may think of Georgia’s actions on 7 August, Russia used grossly disproportionate force in response, and by subsequently recognising its supported regimes in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Russia is attempting to redraw the map of Europe by force”.—[Official Report, 20 January 2009; Vol. 486, c. 686.]

That is exactly what we are hearing again today. What more do we need to know?

In Syria, Putin actively prevented an early resolution to the conflict and assisted Assad’s barbarous regime in repressing its people, and all for the strategic advantage that accrues to Russia, as has already been said, from its naval base in Tartus, which is vital for access to the Mediterranean. Now, after trying to bribe, bully and coerce the whole of Ukraine into aligning itself with Russia and against the European Union, he has effectively annexed part of an independent country.

I am afraid that the international response, as the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) said, has thus far been pitiful and spineless. People have even trotted out in this Chamber the argument that most of the people in Crimea are Russian speaking and wanted to join Russia in the first place. Can Members not hear history running through the decades? In 1938 the British apologists for Hitler, combined with those who felt that Germany had been treated badly after the first world war, combined with the British mercantilists who wanted to do more business with Germany, and combined with the British cowards who wanted to avoid war at all costs, argued, using the same argument that has been advanced today, that the vast majority of the people in the Sudetenland were really German and wanted to be part of Germany.

I have no desire for us to be at war, or for there to be a war of any kind. I opposed the proposed military intervention in Syria for the simple reason that I could not see how bombing that country would help. However, we should be ready for any eventuality. I was saddened that when I formally asked the Foreign Secretary on 30 November 2011 whether he would rule out the use of force in tackling Iran’s illegal nuclear ambitions, he refused to do so. Others agreed with him. I was told, including by Members on my side of the House, “Don’t be silly. You simply can’t rule things like that out.” Well, perhaps they were right, but I want to ask now why on earth we ruled out any military intervention, in whatever set of circumstances and at whatever stage, from the very beginning of Putin’s advances into Ukraine. I am not arguing for war; I am simply asking why we do one thing for Iran but say exactly the opposite when dealing with Russia.

I think that the EU has shown little honour in this. The Ukrainian Government have behaved with extraordinary and admirable restraint.

[Mark Hendrick]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. In the last but one Foreign Office questions, I asked the Foreign Secretary what the fact that NATO has a co-operation agreement with Ukraine means, and he gave the impression that I was asking for war. I was not asking for war; I just wanted to put the military options on the table.

[Chris Bryant]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. I think he also agrees with the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, who spoke earlier.

There has been little honour in the way that Britain, France and the United States, having signed up to the Budapest memorandum, which guaranteed the territorial integrity of Ukraine, now make lots of great speeches but introduce the measliest level of sanctions and targeted interventions against Russian individuals.

The real problem is that we all know where this might all too easily be leading: to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova and Belarus. What will we say then? What will we do then? We have done far too little to safeguard European energy supply over the years. We have surrendered our military capacity to intervene. We have let commercial interests alone determine our foreign policy. We have failed to tackle deep Russian corruption within the EU, especially in Cyprus. It is not so much that we have let Russia pick us off country by country but that we in the European Union, country by country, have gone begging to Russia to try to do more business with it and left aside too many other issues.

There are things that we could and should be doing. We should target a much longer list of Russian officials. The Foreign Secretary referred, I think, to Leonid Slutsky. He should not be a member of the Socialist Group in the Council of Europe, and nor, for that matter, should his party. I am delighted that the Conservative party has now taken the action that it has, for which I had been arguing for some time. I cannot see for the life of me why the Government still use their slightly weaselly language about the potential of a Magnitsky list. It has been implemented by the United States of America, the European Union has called for it, and the Council of Europe is calling for it, and we should go down that route.

A Russian friend of mine says that Putin is not yet mad. That may be true, but what will our surrendering and our appeasement do for his sanity?