Israel and Gaza

Mark Logan Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

As the hon. Lady will know, Israel has the rule of law and the ability to investigate those matters, but she is entirely correct to say that the Foreign Secretary made it clear that we expect a detailed independent investigation. Israel has taken a number of steps. She will have seen the acts that were taken against those who were responsible for the decisions made in those attacks, and she will be pleased to know that we are considering, with our allies, the best way to inject further independence into that investigation.

[Mark Logan (Bolton North East) (Con)]

My constituents in Bolton are livid today, because they have seen through the International Criminal Court that there is evidence that

“acts were committed…to use starvation as a method of war”,

along with violence; evidence of the collective punishment of the civilian population of Gaza; and evidence that

“Israel has intentionally and systematically deprived the civilian population in all parts of Gaza of objects indispensable to human survival.”

Never mind being on the right side of history; will we ensure that we are on the right side of the present?

[Mr Mitchell]

The fact that the prosecutor has applied for arrest warrants to be issued does not directly impact UK licensing decisions, for example, but we will continue to monitor developments as part of our assessment process. Once again, I am grateful to my hon. Friend for acting as such a brilliant conduit between his constituents and the Government, and for his work on the issue.

China

Mark Logan Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2024 Westminster Hall

[Mark Logan (Bolton North East) (Con)]

Unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely), I have not prepared a very thorough speech, but I am glad that he has brought this important topic to Westminster Hall.

(The Member continued in Mandarin.)

The hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle)—I am not sure how to say that in Chinese—speaks fantastic Mandarin Chinese and is a living manifestation of what our aspirations should be for the country. More people should study Mandarin Chinese. That was in the integrated review, and we have talked about it for years on end, but we need more diplomats in the Foreign Office and people across the whole of Whitehall who can not only speak Mandarin Chinese, but engage with China. Many experts have in the past talked about the plus one: no matter what field someone is working in these days—they may be a biological scientist of some sort, an accountant or a Government official—that should be the substantive part that they own, and then the Chinese understanding is the icing on the cake.

I do not want to step on the toes of the Deputy Foreign Secretary, but I will give some of my own thoughts in response to the points that colleagues made. I was based in the People’s Republic of China for about 13 years —I worked in the Foreign Office and was based in Shanghai. I have studied China for about 20 years, and I know less about it today than I did 20 years ago, but I will try my best.

I worry sometimes about the overall tone or mood of a lot of these debates about China over the past four and half years—my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight will be very perceptive of this—because whether we are sat in the United Kingdom, the United States or elsewhere in the west, it feels completely driven by fear and by that sense of threat. That makes me a little worried, in that that strikes as us being reticent and not having confidence in what we have to offer ideologically or in our system. Implicitly, in the 1980s, we did not really care about China, because it was not competition for us, but today we care about it and talk about it every day, in every single debate, which unfortunately might give a signal to others in the world and, indeed, to China that it perhaps does have the upper hand in many different forms of engagement, whether that is business, commercial, political or diplomatic, among other things.

That soul searching part is incredibly important for us, because this should not just be about asking what our China policy or strategy is. Rather, this is about the UK: what is our identity? What is our place in the world? What are our priorities? And then, it is about having everything else flow from that, because at the end of the day, China is just one country out of 200. It is a very important country: it is a United Nations Security Council member and the second biggest economy in the world, it has a population of 1.4 billion and it had great GDP growth rates, in the double figures for many numbers of years. When the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark and I were there, it was experiencing 13% or 14% GDP growth rates every year, but that has ended. China is in a very different economic climate now, especially over the past couple of years.

The question I often ask myself is not what our China policy is, but what do the Chinese think of us? What is China’s UK strategy? What is China’s UK policy? I am never really sure of the answer. Again, I am conscious of different friends in our audience who have been long-time China watchers, but I have always felt, in the years of being based there—even working in diplomacy and coming into contact with party secretaries, mayors and those from the politburo from time to time—and to this day, that it has felt like an invisible hand. So I am always perplexed when people speak with great authority about the Communist party of China, because it is just so invisible. I often wonder where that intel and knowledge about the CPC come from.

There is another thing about some of the points that were raised, and this can be really difficult. Obviously, we do not want to play into China’s political rhetoric, but we often talk about the disaggregation between the people of China and the Communist party of China, and although I know that this stat has been overused over the past number of years, there is a certain amount of truth in it: in 2020, when the Ash Centre in Harvard researched levels of approval for the Communist party of China or the central Government in China, their approval ratings were sitting at about 95%. I know that everyone will come back to say, “That cannot be true,” but my feeling—my sense from being there for more than a decade—was that very rarely did people complain about the national leadership. Usually, complaints were about local government at the village level, or the municipal or provincial level, but rarely were there complaints against the national Government. It would be interesting to see an updated poll, because that research was from 2020, just before covid struck, and China has had a lot more difficulties politically and economically since, especially in the past couple of years. I would be very interested to see polling on that.

On Monday, when we were at Policy Exchange, the Prime Minister made an incredibly interesting speech. I was struck by these ideas of securitisation and of entering into a world over the next five to 10 years that is potentially more dangerous than the one that we have lived in in recent decades. Another slight concern from my end—not necessarily vis-à-vis the Prime Minister—was something I wrote about in the South China Morning Post about three years ago, and that is this idea of liberalisation, or ideas of liberalism, in the international system. We have often talked about how, with economic engagement, China would become more like the west, but it seems that we have given up on that for the most part in recent years. My contention, however—this is very provocative, but I ask it every single time in this kind of debate—is this: is it China becoming more like the west, or is the west starting to copy things from China’s handbook when it comes to banning things?

Those linked to the Policy Exchange think-tank are very clear and intent on banning TikTok in the United Kingdom, but my worry is that that is driven by fear, by this idea of threat. What is more important than politics and regulation, however, is being innovative. It is about saying to ourselves in the UK, “Can we come up with a company that can outstrip the American tech companies and do better than TikTok has done? Or will we become like the European Union and just think we can regulate our way into a successful future?” I do not think that is possible. The Chancellor recently stated that he is keen for us to have “a British Microsoft”, and I absolutely agree with that sentiment and that positivity.

[Bob Seely]

I am sorry, but I take issue with the point about fear. I think it is about understanding and not about fear. On the TikTok issue alone, my hon. Friend is talking about a fear of TikTok. Does he think that, actually, it is about TikTok having one set of values for Chinese kids and another for everything else? In other words, it has nothing to do with fear but it has something to do with protecting children.

[Mark Logan]

I am not here to defend TikTok. I do use TikTok, as do many of our colleagues, including some high-profile Ministers in the Cabinet. That is not what this is about. Some of this has to do with education as well, and I look to my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight. Again, I was based in China. I have a daughter in the education system and, going into primary school level in China, there is a lot in the education system that is focused on the harder aspects of education: learning the sciences, mathematics and physics. I think that that can be reflected in the social media that is used there, by the case of Douyin.

[Neil Coyle]

I intervene not to discuss mutual family that we have still living in the People’s Republic of China, but on the hon. Gentleman’s point about polling, can he focus a little on what the punishment might be for someone suggesting that they are dissatisfied with where the Chinese Government are at? I also mention the corruption and local-level issues. But fundamentally, a much more important issue for us here, where we still have responsibility, is polling within Hong Kong specifically and the Government’s responsibility to Hong Kong nationals and those seeking British national overseas status. Might we see further measures to support those people in the face of article 23 extensions of the diminution of rights in Hong Kong?

[Mark Logan]

The hon. Member raises a fantastic point explicitly on Hong Kong. What has happened in Hong Kong in recent years is unfortunate. I think it is a strategic mistake in terms of the governance of Hong Kong, so I hope the Deputy Foreign Secretary comes to that.

I will finish by saying that for us, it is about the whole idea of soul searching and asking what the UK’s role in the world is and how we can slightly push back against the tone. We do not want to push China into the arms of the axis of authoritarian regimes, as we talked about, because there are many things the Chinese people care about that show their values are very similar to ours. It is not just the paranoia of 200,000 Chinese students in the UK who are all doing these bad things; actually, it shows a society that is striving to do better, and those are values that we share and hold dearly in this country as well.

[Christina Rees (in the Chair)]

I really enjoyed the Mandarin, but we are supposed to use English in debates. If I lapse into Welsh, please forgive me now.

War in Gaza

Mark Logan Excerpts

Tuesday 7th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

On the hon. Gentleman’s first point, he will have seen that both sides have sent teams to Cairo, and we await developments on that with a degree of hope and optimism. On his second point, I have made it clear to the House where the Government stand on arms exports. We follow the legal advice—we do not publish it, in accordance with precedent—and we will continue to do so.

[Mark Logan (Bolton North East) (Con)]

Members have said that the situation in Rafah needs to come to an end, but what needs to come to an end is the fighting. UNICEF has said today that Rafah is a city of children, and we should not be dancing around the issue or playing with words as though it were a game of Scrabble. We should call this what it is and call for an immediate ceasefire. Families of hostages want the fighting to end now, and my constituents in Bolton demand that it does. The international community is demanding an immediate stop. We are one of the most influential countries on the conflict, so will the United Kingdom call for an immediate end to the fighting?

[Mr Mitchell]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for keeping in touch with me on issues that are brought to his attention by his constituents. As he knows, it is exactly the Government’s policy to try to achieve that pause, which can then lead to a sustainable ceasefire. We will continue to do everything we can to achieve that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Logan Excerpts

Tuesday 30th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Gentleman and I first entered this House on the same day, nearly 40 years ago, and it is no surprise to see him back in his place. It has to be said that throughout that time his views have been remarkably consistent. Given the number of civilians sheltering in Rafah, it is not easy to see how such an offensive could be compliant with international humanitarian law in the current circumstances, and on his overall point, I hope he will recognise that the British Government are doing everything we can to prevent the circumstances he has described.

[Mark Logan (Bolton North East) (Con)]

“Sustainable calm” is the latest buzzword, but the fighting simply has to stop. In the past two days, Palestinian President Abbas has said that in order for there to be sustainable calm or a ceasefire, the United States must give a warning to Israel. What warnings have the UK Government given to Israel when it comes to a possible ground invasion in Rafah?

[Mr Mitchell]

I refer my hon. Friend to the comments I made earlier. He will know that the British and American Governments have been working in lockstep to prevent the situation he has described.

Afghan Refugees: Deportation from Pakistan

Mark Logan Excerpts

Wednesday 17th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

It is lovely to hear of that personal commitment to a refugee from the hon. Member’s family. Such stories are so important, and it is lovely to hear them brought here and championed, because that shows that the commitment is about much more than just words. I congratulate her on becoming a granny, as it were. It is a lovely story to share.

Importantly, the hon. Lady raises the question of those who worked and served alongside our armed forces or in other areas. The two incredibly generous schemes—ARAP and the ACRS—are there precisely to provide the opportunity for those who wish to apply, and who are eligible, to come and have safe harbour in the UK. The schemes, particularly ARAP, will continue for as long as needed, and we encourage those who have not applied—though the numbers suggest that very large numbers have already applied—to do so. As I say, they are long-standing and very generous schemes, which will continue. Week in, week out, we are able to bring the incredibly brave people who served and supported our armed forces to the UK.

[Mark Logan (Bolton North East) (Con)]

My Afghan diaspora in Bolton takes this matter very seriously under the leadership of Dr Aziz, who I should also note is opening a new medical centre next week in Bolton. What discussions have the Government had with the Pakistani high commissioner to the UK to make sure that those who are eligible will not be adversely affected by the 15 April deadline to deport Afghans from the country, which the Pakistani Government are now working to?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

My hon. Friend raises an important point, and it is good to hear that a new medical centre is opening, which I am sure will provide important services for the whole community. As I say, our conversations with the British high commissioner in Islamabad, senior officials here and the Pakistani high commissioner based in London continue day in, day out. We have a very close relationship. Our commitment to provide letters of support for those who are in Pakistan and waiting to come to the UK because they have been found to be eligible for one of the two schemes is respected by the new Government of Pakistan, as it was by the previous one.

Ceasefire in Gaza

Mark Logan Excerpts

Wednesday 21st February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mark Logan (Bolton North East) (Con)]

What I have said in private scores of times before today I will now say in public. I want, my constituents want and Gaza needs an immediate ceasefire. Teisen. Tinghuo. Waqf’iitlaq alnaar. Hafsakat-esh. Jang bandi. No matter what language we say it in, a ceasefire is what we need. In keeping with the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse), it is not about a sustainable ceasefire or a long-lasting ceasefire—which is basically just sustainable in other words—or a kind of ceasefire, in hope of a ceasefire. With 28,000 people now dead in Gaza—11,500 of them children—playing around with words is just playing around with people’s lives.

Israel has gone too far. It has not just gone too far today; it has already gone too far for months. I am concerned about Rafah, because we have heard time and again about innocent people’s lives in Gaza and how they would not be hurt, but we have reached that figure of 30,000. How can we have any trust and belief that the 1.5 million people now in Rafah will be left untouched?

[Ian Blackford]

The hon. Member is making a powerful speech. Too often in this House we reflect on what happened in Rwanda and Srebrenica, and on how we did not take action. He is correct that if we do not take action now to demand a ceasefire, when will we do it? The House has an opportunity today. For goodness’ sake, let us come together and show that we will stand up to stop the conflict, deliver peace and get to the two-state solution.

[Mark Logan]

I agree 100% with the right hon. Member. Members on my side of the House have talked about the motion being merely symbolic or virtue signalling, but at the end of the day we are MPs not to fix potholes or to follow up on whether a hedge is growing into next-door’s garden; we are here to protect lives. We have the opportunity today to call for an immediate ceasefire. Yes, that may just be signalling to an extent, but that signal must be given today to Israel, one of our close allies in the region. Twenty years back, with the United States in Iraq, we thought we were being the good friend by going along with them. No. The better friend says, “No, this must stop now; this must stop today.” A ceasefire must happen now.

No longer in good conscience can I continue to back in public the line that Government Members have taken, regrettably. Even from a geostrategic perspective, I do not see what favours that does for Israel in the long term. Israel has had a difficult time in the region that it is sat in, but this will not create any more friends for Israel. I come from Northern Ireland—I see the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley), a villager from the same neck of the woods as me—where, in the last 30 to 40 years, 3,500 people died in the troubles, and I know the trauma that has caused. But in five months, 30,000 people have died—how will people ever get over that? In our experience, Hamas are bad people, and they have to be called out. The people behind them have to be obliterated. We do not want to work with Hamas.

The SNP motion could have gone further to call out Hamas. We in Northern Ireland have dealt with those troubles, when very bad people hid behind political leadership. The ceasefire must happen. That is also in the interests of Israel in the long term. Now is the time for the United Kingdom to step up and take a leadership position with other middle powers, not wait for the next United States election.

In my own good conscience, I cannot acquiesce to the Government’s position on Gaza anymore, and neither can the people of Bolton. Although you sit diagonal to me today, you are not diametrically opposed to me—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. I call Alan Brown.

International Human Rights Abuses: UK Response

Mark Logan Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the UK response to international human rights abuses.

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Dame Maria. I would like to start by thanking the many remarkable charities and non-governmental organisations that are working fiercely to protect the lives of oppressed people around the world. From Amnesty International to the British Red Cross, from Human Rights Watch to Islamic Relief: thank you. This is brave work in the face of terrifying opposition from terrorists, from oppositional Governments and, sadly, sometimes from Members on the Conservative Benches.

Last week in the Chamber, one hon. Member slandered judges in the European Court of Human Rights by calling them

“non-lawyers…guided by non-governmental organisations”—[Official Report, 17 January 2024; Vol. 743, c. 900],

as though the work of NGOs were a scandal to be associated with. Far from it: on behalf of those on my side of the House, I wanted to begin this debate by paying tribute to them. It is our duty in this place to work towards a world in which their services are no longer needed. Sadly, that is far from being a reality.

This week, we will mark Holocaust Memorial Day in Parliament and in our constituencies. It is a sacred and solemn moment in the year, when we consider the depths of evil that can be reached by people in power. The regime of oppression against the Jewish people, as well as other minority communities, did not begin with the holocaust and it did not end there either. It is apt that, alongside our commemorations, we consider ways in which we can intervene in present-day attacks on human rights, particularly through a proactive, fair and—importantly—consistent foreign policy.

Human rights abuses are far and away the topic on which I receive the most correspondence from my constituents. My constituents rightly care about the most vulnerable people in our town, but also across the world. I have received thousands of emails regarding the Gaza situation alone, so that is where I would like to begin.

We cannot allow the tragedies happening each day and night in the middle east to fade from our mind. While rightfully condemning the brutal attacks launched by Hamas on 7 October that killed and injured thousands of civilians in Israel, our Government were shamefully slow to oppose the counter-attack that followed, in which violations of international law were plain to see. Does the Minister regret his Department’s hesitation to intervene when the Israeli Defence Forces were known to be withholding food, water and other essential supplies from desperate Palestinians?

[Mark Logan (Bolton North East) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member on securing this important debate. I recently put in a question to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to make sure that it is constantly checking on Israel’s engagement in the middle east when it comes to Gaza, to ensure that it is complying with international humanitarian law. Does the hon. Member agree that the Foreign Office has to be looking at this matter day in, day out, because many of our constituents across the country care about it deeply?

[Sarah Owen]

I wholeheartedly agree. I just wish that we had a Foreign Secretary who could actually be questioned by Members of Parliament face to face, rather than what we have currently, particularly in the volatile situation that the world is in.

To follow on from my questions to the Minister, aid routes were being blocked, hospitals were running out of fuel to treat victims, including babies, and requests to open the Rafah crossing were denied—all actions that were in direct contravention of international law. I would be interested to hear what corrections the Government would make to their approach, because it is not too late to learn from their mistakes. I strongly urge the Department to do so. As we have heard from Members on both sides of the House, we deserve answers to these serious questions.

What does the Minister have to say about the horrific ITV News footage that shows a man who was waving a white flag in a supposed safe zone being shot and killed? Will Ministers be taking this up with their Israeli counterparts? When?

The human rights of Palestinians have been systematically violated for decades, from the creeping annexations on the west bank, and settler violence, to the 15-year-long blockade, which shows no signs of weakening, but 2023 saw a deadly escalation in violence and a deterioration in the standard of human rights in the region. The latest figures from Amnesty International tell us that some 24,000 Palestinians have now been killed in Gaza. Given that half of Gaza’s population are children, we can therefore estimate that well over 10,000 children have been victims of this conflict. This is a gravely conservative estimate.

Much debate has taken place about whether the Israeli Defence Forces’ actions have amounted to war crimes. I have made my views clear. We have seen collective punishment and arbitrary arrests. Amnesty reports evidence of illegal airstrikes against churches and refugee camps. UN human rights experts warned in November of signs of genocide. As we speak, South Africa is mounting a case against Israel in the International Court of Justice, which must be heard without prejudice and taken extremely seriously.

Afghanistan: UK Government Policy

Mark Logan Excerpts

Wednesday 10th January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Government policy on Afghanistan.

It is a real pleasure to be opening this debate on the important subject of Afghanistan. I am grateful to see the Minister, whom I know is familiar with the country, having visited there many times, as well as the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West). I have much to cover, so to ensure that others have time to contribute, I make it clear that I will not take any interventions, because doing so would delay my speech.

After dominating our headlines for decades, Afghanistan is now the forgotten country and rarely features in our news or, indeed, parliamentary debates, and a population of 40 million people, not least women and girls, understandably feel abandoned. As I found out on my visit last summer, Afghanistan remains a very raw subject.

I spent some time at the British cemetery in Kabul, which was established in the 19th century to honour some of the dead from the previous British incursions into Afghanistan—the battle between the Oxus and Indus rivers, and the “great game” between Russia and Britain. In that cemetery, there are a dozen or so plaques marking the names, in date order, of the 455 UK personnel—including 54 from my regiment, the Rifles—who lost their lives in the latest war. Our thoughts and prayers are with their families and the hundreds who returned with life-changing injuries. Whatever the operational outcome, we must never neglect our duty of care to our brave veterans.

The war in Afghanistan was bruising for NATO—the most formidable military alliance the world has ever seen—as an entity. At its peak, it had 150,000 troops in the country. They departed demoralised, with many asking the question: what is the purpose of NATO? In August 2021, when Parliament was recalled so that the Government could announce our withdrawal, I said that this signalled the high-tide mark of post-world war two western liberalism. Two decades of state building in Afghanistan cost the United Kingdom £20 billion. It cost the US, which lost over 2,400 lives, $2.3 trillion. As our adversaries, who do not share our values, have observed, we have collectively lost the appetite to stay the course and defend the international rules-based order. The war brought an abrupt end to the post-cold war thinking that the west can impose its values anywhere in the world.

There has been no official UK inquiry about the lessons that might be learned, such as how we squandered the incredible umbrella of security created by our brave service personnel through the absence of a co-ordinated strategy to rebuild, and through total mission creep and strategic contagion. A western boilerplate governance structure completely ignored the complex tribal power bases and, indeed, the lessons of Afghanistan’s history, not least Britain’s previous efforts to run the country in the past. Corruption became endemic in Kabul. Lord Peter Ricketts, the former national security adviser, summed it up in his book, “Hard Choices”, where he says:

“We became the problem, not the solution.”

In July 2019, President Trump gave a nine-month deadline to remove all US forces, simply to boost his presidential election prospects. He then struck a unilateral deal with the Taliban that excluded the Kabul Government, with no built-in human rights guarantees for women and children. However, it did see the release of 5,000 prisoners, including many terrorists. Afghanistan’s fate was sealed, resulting in the nation being handed back to the very insurgents we went into the country to defeat.

Just months after NATO’s article 5-approved invasion of Afghanistan, which followed the 9/11 al-Qaeda attacks, an international conference took place in Bonn, in Germany, in December 2001, to consider the future security and governance of Afghanistan. The Taliban requested attendance, but Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary at the time, told them to go away, saying that the losers do not get to sit at the table. Of course the Taliban did go away, across the border with Pakistan to rearm, regroup and return to fight another day.

I have visited Afghanistan about a dozen times since 2005. I sat in the same swivel chair in the large conference briefing room in Camp Bastion, I have been shown PowerPoint slides on how the Taliban were being defeated, and General Petraeus famously said of Iraq that it is not enough to defeat the enemy; we must enable the local. However, I am afraid that I saw very little evidence of that on any of my visits. I saw very little of enabling programmes or indeed of a strategy to develop workable local governance, and win over hearts and minds.

When President Karzai had to approve a new school headteacher in Lashkargah, and when an enormous turbine delivered by 16 Air Assault Brigade in 2008 to the Kajaki dam to generate game-changing electricity for communities remains in its bubble-wrap for a decade beside the dam, we know that something has seriously gone wrong in our post-conflict reconstruction planning and indeed in the efforts to win over hearts and minds.

The irony is that Helmand is the breadbasket of Afghanistan and beyond thanks to two decades of US investment just after world war two, when the same company that built the Hoover dam created the massive irrigation systems around the mighty Helmand river, which to this day continue to help to grow the crops that feed the nation. That is how to win hearts and minds. However, for 20 years there was no Paddy Ashdown character to co-ordinate efforts.

If we step into the shoes of the Afghan people today, we find that they are war-weary. They have endured four decades of conflict and instability. We have to go back to President Daoud’s time in the 1970s to find a time when it could be said that the country was relatively stable. Today, there is an eery calm, as another phase in Afghanistan’s history plays out.

As I found out, security is different now, but that is thanks to the Taliban’s daily attacks having ceased. Satellite images confirm that Afghanistan’s opium trade is significantly down, but that is because the Taliban’s black market to fund their insurgency has gone, and farmers are able to grow other crops, rather than opium, and take them to market without fear of running into the Taliban’s improvised explosive devices.

Whether from the people of Afghanistan or indeed from the Afghan diaspora here in the UK—the Pashtuns, the Hazaras, the Uzbeks and the Tajiks, many of whom I have engaged with—there is no clarion call for regime change. That prompts a very difficult question: if the Afghan people are not calling for regime change, should we continue to punish them because the Taliban are in charge?

There are no easy options here, but the challenges that this fragile country now faces remain immense, and the Taliban know it. First, there is the economy. It was mostly US funding that propped up three quarters of Ashraf Ghani’s budget, in order to keep the country going. That funding has now gone. Varying estimates suggest that Afghanistan now has about two years before its economy collapses. In 2019, the UN estimated that around 6 million Afghans were considered to be in need of humanitarian aid. Today, that figure is estimated to have risen to 28 million. Meanwhile, China is eyeing up Afghanistan’s rich mineral resources and could easily turn the country into a vassal state.

Secondly, there is the demise of human rights. The brave demonstrations on the streets of Kabul by women who sought to retain their basic freedoms to work and study are dispersed by gunshots. Only a few days ago, that happened again in Kabul. It is just one example of how the Taliban are rowing back on the initial assurances given to women and girls when they gained power. The latest example is denying schooling to 11-year-olds, preventing 11-year-old girls from going to school, and preventing women from working in certain trades. Such diktats offer understandable, absolutist grounds to rule out having any truck with the Taliban until these conditions are removed.

Finally, there is the renewed threat of terrorism. As Afghanistan becomes ever more unstable, terrorism is once again allowed to incubate—most worryingly in the form of ISIS-K, which is increasingly active in the country. Senator Lindsey Graham warned in 2019:

“If we abandon Afghanistan out of frustration and weariness, we pave the way for another 9/11.”

Alex Younger, the former head of MI6, recently warned of the uptick in radicalisation that we are now seeing and that could impact the UK, saying that it is “unparalleled”.

This all leads to the difficult question: if our current strategy of condemning from afar is having no effect and if Afghanistan is on a worrying trajectory where international aid could be so pivotal, is it time to better understand what is happening in the country and within the regime that is leading to the increase in restrictions? I say that because the Taliban, as I discovered, are far from one cohesive identity. There are clearly tensions within the regime that was once united with the principal goal of violence against the Kabul Government and NATO. No doubt it remains an ultra-conservative movement with the most ruthless interpretation of sharia law in the world, but there are differences of view between Kandahar, where the reclusive leader Akhundzada is based, and Kabul, where the practical realities of holding the country together are grappled with.

The hard-line political messaging is abrupt and, rightly, internationally condemned. An example involves women denied university and school education. “How does any woman have access to a female doctor?” I asked, and how can women continue to work in Ministries, at the airport and with non-governmental organisations, including the United Nations, as I witnessed? The response was that licences are quietly issued, allowing those women to continue to work in such necessary professions.

Saad Mohseni, an Afghan media entrepreneur, set up TV and radio companies across Afghanistan a few years ago, when NATO was there. They all continue to operate today and now broadcast a range of educational programmes for children. Many urban areas now have access to the internet, and Zoom lessons are commonplace for all manner of subjects and all ages.

Let us be clear: this is so sub-optimal. It is, though, tolerated by the Taliban who are running the Ministries in Kabul, quietly maintaining some of the gains that have been secured over the last 20 years. But ironically the Taliban leaders in Kabul, understanding the rules on schooling, send their girls to school in Dubai. Clearly, the duality between Kandahar and Kabul is unsustainable in the longer term. One side or the other will eventually need to give. Are we really going to watch from afar this latest phase in Afghanistan’s history play out, or is there a more cognitive, proactive approach of engagement and influence?

In his excellent book “The Return of the Taliban”, Hassan Abbas, a professor at the National Defence University in Washington, suggests that about 40% of the Taliban are signed up to the full religious ideology. But for the majority of people in Afghanistan, it is either the military and fighting lure that encourages them to support it, or simply a social one—a bond extended through family and tribal loyalty. Many of the rank and file receive little religious training. They do not understand the sharia law obligations; they simply join the Taliban because that is what happens in Afghanistan. When a force looks like it is going to win, everybody then sees the changing winds and joins sides with it.

The older generation, many of whom held leadership roles back in the late 1990s and were content to be globally isolated, now lean upon the younger, Kabul-based, more tech-savvy generation to run the state Ministries. Those Ministries have changed little in function since 2021, but they know that their stability comes only with greater international engagement. That is why Kabul is growing ties with Doha, the Emirates, Turkey, Russia, China and so forth. Afghanistan certainly has changed from what it was in the ’90s. It is a more populous, more complex country, with complex needs and a desperate request for international support.

I dared to suggest this summer, and I repeat it today, that given the dangers that are looming, we re-evaluate our strategy. We should answer the plea of Roza Otunbayeva, the UN head in Afghanistan, and engage. She stressed in her formal report to the United Nations General Assembly in September last year that engagement does not mean endorsement, nor any form of recognition. The Taliban in Kabul recognise that there is $9 billion of frozen assets. That could easily be used to provide conditionalities in improving rights for women and girls if we used it more cognitively.

Other respected voices are also coming to the same position. Thomas West, the US special envoy in Afghanistan, says that we should engage. By the way, the United States has given $2 billion since 2021 compared with our £100 million a year. Richard Bennett, the UN special rapporteur for Afghanistan; Ms Fawzia Koofi, the former Deputy Speaker of the Afghan Parliament; the UK’s former ambassador, Laurie Bristow; General David Petraeus; Rory Stewart; General Sir David Richards; General Sir Nick Carter; and distinguished journalists Christina Lamb and Kathy Gannon all have extensive experience and understanding of Afghanistan. They are all saying, “Let’s engage.”

[Mark Logan (Bolton North East) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Ellwood]

I will not, if my hon. Friend does not mind, because I want to finish, but I look forward to his contribution.

As I mentioned, most tellingly, it is the Afghan people who desperately need our help and want us to engage. Let me end by speaking about the value of education. My brother was a teacher and educationalist. It was his death—he was killed in the 2002 Bali bombing by an al-Qaeda affiliate—that prompted me to visit Afghanistan so many times, to understand what we were doing to counter terrorism. My brother spoke passionately about the importance of teaching people how to think, and the dangers of simply being told what to think.

The UN head Roza Otunbayeva has raised just $0.5 billion of the $4.5 billion that she needs to honour the humanitarian programmes on the ground. Education restrictions on 11-year-old girls are a concern of course, but her bigger worry is that half of all children under the age of 11—boys and girls—are getting no education whatsoever. The schools and buildings did not exist, and do not exist, to teach them. That means that unless the international community helps soon, half of the next generation of Afghans will be open prey for radicalisation —the next generation of extremists—as they are lured into a false belief that their violence will be rewarded with a fast track to paradise.

It is Charlie Wilson all over again, abandoning a country that turns into an incubator for terrorism. We should not make that same mistake again. As the saying goes, we may have lost interest in Afghanistan, but Afghanistan has not lost interest in us. We now have a duty to develop a strategy of engagement that moves from our current position of punishing the Afghan population for the Taliban’s takeover. Our approach to Afghanistan at the moment is not just incoherent but ineffectual. Our financial support is down to just £100 million, as I said. An economic, humanitarian or terrorism crisis is looming. Afghanistan’s threat is not just to the country itself but to the region and beyond. Let’s make sure Afghanistan and its people are not forgotten. It is time to engage. It is time to reopen our embassy.

My experience this summer was bruising. It made me reflect on this place, on Parliament, and more specifically on the conduct of Parliament. On a good day, we match that accolade of being the mother of all Parliaments. We have pioneered that important democratic journey across the centuries that is now emulated across the globe. Yet on a bad day, we are an exemplar of how shallow, discourteous and intolerant we can be of each other. Politics has always been a contact sport—I understand that—but by and large it remains civil, respectful and professional. Parliamentarians should be encouraged to show political curiosity and passion for an issue, cause or interest, and yes, advance or even challenge current thinking and dare to look four or five chess moves ahead and ask, “What if?” However, if we lose the art of disagreeing or offer latitude when a colleague miscommunicates a serious message, as I did this summer, and it is replaced by a “Gotcha!” culture deliberately encouraging a media storm, that is indeed a sad day for Parliament.

Political curiosity is what this place should be about. It should be encouraged and respected, otherwise MPs simply will not stick their heads above the parapet. That cannot be good for democracy and will certainly not inspire the best in our nation—the next generation—to consider following in our footsteps. We need to keep the bar high. Thank you, Dr Huq. Once again, I am grateful to have the opportunity to debate this important issue today. I will listen with interest to colleagues and to the Government’s response.

Israel and Palestine

Mark Logan Excerpts

Monday 8th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

The answer to my hon. Friend’s final point is yes, and he sets out with great eloquence the issues and problems faced by the hostages in this appalling situation. He will have heard what I said to other hon. Members in that respect.

[Mark Logan (Bolton North East) (Con)]

Before we reach a ceasefire—something needed sooner rather than later, according to many of my constituents—two doctors in Bolton, Dr Samir Naseet and Dr Ibrahim Hamami, have asked what preparations we are making to prepare the ground for the post-ceasefire period by leading on volunteer medical practitioners going to Gaza at that time?

[Mr Mitchell]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s work in this respect: I know how much work he has been doing with communities in his constituency who are engaged with Gaza. I will take careful note of the point that he has made.

Israel and Gaza

Mark Logan Excerpts

Tuesday 19th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

The House will note what the hon. Gentleman has said. I assure him that we are doing everything we can to get humanitarian support into Gaza, including focusing specifically on any maritime opportunities. The Royal Fleet Auxiliary Lyme Bay is loaded with supplies in Cyprus, and is ready to sail once we can be assured that the support can be received and delivered.

[Mark Logan (Bolton North East) (Con)]

With almost 20,000 deaths in Gaza, my constituents in Bolton are asking, “When is ‘enough’ enough?” With 153 countries voting for a ceasefire, when is a “sustainable ceasefire” a ceasefire that happens now? Members of Noorul Islam mosque in Bolton recently visited Egypt to try to get aid across the border into Gaza. Will the Minister meet me to discuss ways that we can work with the Egyptian Government and other partners to ensure that aid can get from Bolton into Gaza?

[Mr Mitchell]

I thank my hon. Friend for what he has said today, and for the information and work from his community in Bolton that he is making available to the Foreign Office. Of course I shall be pleased to see him at a mutually convenient time.