Syria and the Use of Chemical Weapons

Mark Lazarowicz Excerpts

Thursday 29th August 2013 Commons Chamber

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

The fundamental judgment that we all must make this evening and over the next week or two, as individuals and as a House, is whether military intervention in Syria by foreign countries, including our own, is more likely to end the civil war or to add fuel to the fire, perhaps in the ways my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) has suggested. I do not believe the Prime Minister made the case today that intervention will do more good than harm.

The Prime Minister argues in his motion that

“a strong humanitarian response is required”

and I agree with that. A humanitarian response is needed to protect civilians, but how can it be a humanitarian response to propose to use UK military might to protect Syrian civilians from one class of weapons—chemical weapons—but not to use it to protect civilians from conventional weapons, which have of course killed far more of the 100,000 dead so far in this civil war? In effect, such a proposal gives the Assad regime impunity to continue to use guns, bombs and missiles as long as they are conventionally armed and not armed with chemical weapons.

Clausewitz said that war is the continuation of politics by other means. He was absolutely wrong, because war is qualitatively different from diplomatic action, from humanitarian relief, and from the kind of action we have taken hitherto on the crisis in Syria. It is qualitatively different because, by taking military action, we become involved in the conflict morally and in international law, and because we require young British servicemen and women to fight and risk their lives. I do not believe that we should shoulder the first burden, and nor should we ask our military personnel to shoulder the second one—to risk their lives—without having a credible plan to bring the Syrian conflict to an end. The Prime Minister did not set out such a plan today.

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

Would it not have been so much better if the frenetic activity of the past few days to try to build international support for military action had been devoted to trying to build international support for a peace conference?

G8

Mark Lazarowicz Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I have made it clear that we have made no decision to arm the rebels. As has been said, these things should be discussed, debated and indeed voted on in this House—with the proviso of the answer that I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard).

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

The agreements on tax transparency are welcome, and I give credit to the Prime Minister for that achievement. He will know, however, that tax transparency is only part of the issue because, although it will stop excesses, there will still be tax havens to which people can have recourse. Does he agree that the next step is to ensure that companies and individuals pay tax in the countries in which they earn their income? Will he make that a priority for the next year, before the next G8?

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question; I know that he has spoken a lot about this in the past. That is the point of the high-level international tax tool. I have been searching for a better description for it than that, but it is none the less what we want the OECD to provide to countries so that we can see at a glance what a company earns, what its profits are and how much tax it has paid. In that way, we shall be able to see whether there is a problem, and whether further investigation is required. The register of beneficial ownership will also help, because it will enable us to hunt down the true owners of companies that are being registered under different nominee ownerships. These things all go together, and I think they can work.

EU Council and Woolwich

Mark Lazarowicz Excerpts

Monday 3rd June 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I have not seen that specific report, but I will seek it out. Different conditions apply in America, but one sees there the growth of an enormous industry employing thousands of people, lowering energy costs, making the country more competitive, and ending much of its reliance on gas from overseas. We would be really foolish if we did not learn from that.

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

How many other EU member states supported the UK Government in their wish to end the arms embargo on Syria? Is there not a danger that our Government’s policy, and that of France it would appear, is likely to result in a Europe more divided on the issue, thereby weakening our ability to influence a successful outcome to the proposed peace conference?

[The Prime Minister]

At the European Council for Heads of State and Government, which I attended, there was not a long discussion about the Syrian arms embargo. The work was done by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary. There was strong support, though, from the French Government and there was some support from the Italian Government. Some of those countries that have newly joined the EU from the Balkans recognise the arguments that I was making about the mistakes that the west made with respect to Bosnia, so it is important to listen to them as well. The point about the EU arms embargo—this may be a point that colleagues on the Government Benches will particularly recognise—is that we decide our foreign policy as a nation state. In Europe, if we can agree something unanimously, we can have a combined position, but in the end this is something that we decide as an independent nation state.

Algeria

Mark Lazarowicz Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. We do have one of the largest budgets in the world and I think we use it well, but we are focusing much more on conflict and broken states; a lot more of the money is going in that direction. The G8 traditionally discusses development assistance, but the G20 is starting to do that as well, and of course the G20 includes some of the most populous and richest Islamic states on Earth. We should certainly encourage their work.

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Prime Minister referred to the role that could be played by the ECOWAS states—indeed, some are already taking action—but he will know that ECOWAS was not originally set up as a military or political alignment, that its resources are limited, and that some of its members are stretched elsewhere in terms of military activity. Is there a danger in expecting too much from ECOWAS, at least in the short term? What role can be played by other international bodies such as the African Union and, indeed, the United Nations, which has not been mentioned today?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. The key thing is that it is much better if the military and security forces are provided by local states, rather than by others. The French intervened because it was an emergency, but their aim, as I understand it, is to make sure that we train up and encourage west African states to put their military into Mali as a way of providing security. It is in our interest to build the capacity of these countries and, frankly, it is in their interest to make sure that that capacity is there, because if we do not sort out problems such as Mali, the knock-on effect on other west African states will be felt very rapidly. However, the hon. Gentleman is right that we should not overestimate what is available.

EU Council

Mark Lazarowicz Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

He can.

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is clear that the type of referendum that the Prime Minister has in mind is one in which the choice is to vote in favour of whatever settlement we manage to extract or in favour of the status quo. Does he think such a referendum would satisfy the in/out zealots on his Back Benches?

[The Prime Minister]

For people who want to leave the European Union—that is a perfectly honourable, respectable political tradition and Members on both sides of the House, probably even Liberal Democrats, have held that position—campaigning for an in/out referendum is a perfectly sensible thing to do. It is just not my view or the Government’s policy, and I do not think it is the hon. Gentleman’s, either.

Rio+20 Summit

Mark Lazarowicz Excerpts

Tuesday 26th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The SDGs, which are the core commitment at Rio, do have fairly clear procedural timetables; a group of 30 representatives will be established in September, and the UN Secretary-General has been clear that that must feed into the wider post-2015 millennium development goals process. There is a pretty clear process. However, we just have to recognise that a summit in a world where power is shifting to different hemispheres and different continents is different from one that took place 20 years ago. Brazil now has authority and clout on the international stage that it did not have then; the G77 is organised as a caucus of developing countries, which was not quite the case 20 years ago, and they are rightly more demanding that their voice and voices should be heard. That is reflected in the more diverse push and pull that we witnessed at the Rio summit.

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

One of the areas of disappointment was the failure to move forward on measures to improve access to water and sanitation for the many millions in the world who do not have that. Given that, and given that I know the Government are committed to that objective, what steps will they take in other international bodies to try to promote the objective of improving access to water and sanitation throughout the world?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that that is one of the most important issues, as we see from the shocking and scandalous figures on the number of children and women, in particular, who have died because of poor sanitation and restricted access to clean water. It was one of three themes—food, water and energy—that we had hoped would be defined in greater detail under the rubric of the sustainable development goals at Rio. We will continue to push to do that as they are defined in greater detail in the months ahead.

G20 Summit

Mark Lazarowicz Excerpts

Monday 25th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

To be fair to the Leader of the Opposition, he has said that whether or not they will join the euro depends on how long he is Prime Minister, whereas the shadow Chancellor has said that they will not join the euro “in his political lifetime”, which gives us an interesting conflict—[Interruption.] For once, the shadow Chancellor has said something from a sedentary position with which I agree. He said that his political lifetime could be quite short—here’s hoping.

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a more serious note—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. This outbreak of amity is very welcome, but I am sure that Members are united in wanting to hear Mr Mark Lazarowicz.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

On a more serious note about the euro, Greece now has a new Government, which indicates that it will accept the bail-out but wants some flexibility in how it is implemented. What will the G20 and other institutions do to meet that request? Of course Greece must accept its responsibilities, restructure its economy and all the rest of it, but at the same time is it not important that we show flexibility, so that we do not run the risk of the new Greek Government collapsing along with the deal and, as a result, bringing down not only Greece, but many others in the world community?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman asks an important question. It will be a decision for the Greeks to make in collaboration with the members of the European Union that have extended that money to Greece, of which we are not one, and of course the International Monetary Fund. The problem is that any delay in the terms of the memorandum effectively means more money going from those predominantly eurozone members to Greece, so those discussions have to be had; but other countries that are on track with the programmes that have been put in place will, I think, feel very uneasy about one country getting special terms. In the end, it will be a matter for the eurozone members and Greece to hammer this out between them.

G8 and NATO Summits

Mark Lazarowicz Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

May I echo the comments of those colleagues who expressed concern at the scale of the cuts and the retrenchment being forced on Greece—the ordinary people of Greece, not the Greek Government? While I agree with the Prime Minister that there need to be structural reforms and the changes he has suggested, would it not be better to have a bit more flexibility—a bit more European solidarity—rather than end up forcing Greece into a situation that leads not only to the collapse of that country, but immense consequences for the eurozone and the entire world economy?

[The Prime Minister]

Obviously, we are not a participant in the eurozone bail-out of Greece. We are supporting Greece through the IMF, however. The hon. Gentleman must consider this point: other European and eurozone countries, some of which are not particularly rich themselves, have had a series of agreements with Greece about what needs to be done and what money will be put in, and effectively he is asking them to go back repeatedly to their own Parliaments and say, “Well, I promised I wouldn’t ask for any more for Greece, but here I am again asking for more.” That is very challenging for them. As I have said, in the end it will be for the Greek people to decide, in their election, whether they want to stay in the euro and keep to the undertakings they have given, or whether they want to choose a different path. We in this country must be clear that we should support all and any contingency plans to make sure that either scenario can be safely delivered.

European Council

Mark Lazarowicz Excerpts

Monday 5th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

There is a sense of urgency, which is why the June Council will be dedicated to this issue. There are obviously some different views within the European Council and there are the familiar cries about not going ahead unless there is full reciprocity. I believe that Britain, as an open trading nation, should be in the vanguard of arguing for these deals, because we have a lot to gain from them.

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

It was obviously right for the Council to concentrate as a priority on the bloodshed and murderous actions of the Assad regime in Syria, but does not the example of what happened in Libya at the weekend emphasise why we should not lose focus on what is happening elsewhere in the middle east and north Africa? In view of some of the reverses that have taken place, will the Prime Minister give us an update on what the European Union is doing to support moves towards democracy and human rights in those countries?

[The Prime Minister]

What the European Union has been doing—I think it is right—is to rewrite its neighbourhood agreements and neighbourhood partnerships to make them more conditional on political reform and economic progress. I am still optimistic about what is happening across the middle east. For all the difficulties there are in Libya, at least that country has the prospect and the chance to make peaceful progress. We see that happening in Morocco, but what is happening in Egypt is clearly far more challenging. Europe has a real influence to bring to bear here, but we should be clear that our money and our help has some strings attached in terms of political and economic reform.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Lazarowicz Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

T10. We understand that the Deputy Prime Minister has been given responsibility by the Prime Minister for rebuilding bridges with our European partners. Will he tell the House how he intends to go about fulfilling that responsibility?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I can tell the hon. Gentleman one way in which I think it is incredibly important that we as a country should show leadership. On 27 January, there will be a European Union summit of all European Union countries aimed precisely at, in my view, the most important issue of all, which is how we boost competitiveness and growth within the eurozone and across the European continent. We, as a coalition Government, will come to that summit with some bold ideas about how we can increase growth, increase competitiveness and increase employment across the European Union and—yes—we will stay until the end.