FCO: Human Rights Work

Martin Horwood Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2013 Westminster Hall

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway) and the Committee on securing this debate; it is important that we have it. Perhaps it would be better done at a more popular time of the week and on the Floor of the House, as it raises important issues regarding human rights and other Government policies and Departments that affect human rights around the world. That is one of the themes I will pick up on today.

I first want to congratulate the coalition Government, of whom the Liberal Democrats form a part, on how they have been prepared to take up human rights issues. There are easy targets in the human rights report—such as North Korea, Sudan and Iran—but, significantly, it also covers countries that are potentially embarrassing for the UK to talk about, because of their economic importance. Such countries raise the kind of conflicts talked about by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley), between our diplomatic and perceived economic interests, and the importance of speaking out about human rights.

It is therefore important that Saudi Arabia is mentioned in the report, that China is covered in detail and that such very sensitive areas as Israel and the Palestinian territories are also included. It is notable that the Foreign Secretary has been increasingly robust and assertive in his comments on Israel. He has talked about Israel not just generally, but specifically in relation to the settlements. He has also spoken about the potential for the European Union to take further steps in its relationship with Israel—that is very beneficial economically—and the consequences that might flow from Israel simply not abiding by the international community’s expectations about respecting Palestinian human rights. My right hon. Friend remarked on the complete unacceptability of targeting Israeli civilians by organisations such as Hamas, and those remarks were obviously very well made.

I want to get across to the Minister my theme about human rights in respect of other Departments in addition to the FCO. The FCO has a very proud record of speaking out on human rights and of raising human rights even when it is difficult to do so. However, many interrelated areas—such as trade, security and energy—involve other Departments.

The arms trade has been mentioned. The coalition was quite right to revoke a whole series of 170 or more arms licences across north Africa and the middle east. The licences were inherited from the Labour Government, as we have sometimes pointed out, but even the coalition did not act on them quickly. It was only the Arab awakening that highlighted the importance of revoking those licences, because arms were being supplied to almost every regime, of whatever record on human rights, right across north Africa and the middle east, including Syria, Libya and other dictatorial regimes then in place.

In that respect, it is important to highlight the arms trade treaty negotiations that will soon resume in New York. The Minister who represents us at those talks, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), has a very strong record of arguing for a robust treaty. However, we must not allow the qualms expressed by the United States last year at those negotiations to scupper that important global process and the progress that is being made towards a robust arms trade treaty. Last year, when the American election was imminent, its position was understandable, but we must not allow domestic American politics to jeopardise a massively significant international initiative that I hope will help to protect human rights all over the world and save millions of lives.

On security policy, the well-established building security overseas strategy, which has been mentioned, is an area of co-operation between the Ministry of Defence, the Department for International Development and FCO. It would be interesting to hear from the Minister how the strategy is developing. We have heard less about it in recent months than we did earlier in the coalition Government, but if anything, it has become more important.

For example, it would have been much better if the UK, and perhaps the French, had put pressure on the Malian Government many years ago more clearly to recognise the human rights of the Tuareg and of other peoples in the north of Mali, and had not provided the breeding ground first for the civil war and then for the incursion by foreign al-Qaeda fighters and others. That has made the situation in Mali so much more difficult to resolve now, so that it has had to involve military intervention. The building security overseas strategy ought to look at the whole of the middle east and north Africa region and other countries round the world to see where we can use human rights to prevent instability arising in the first place and prevent even a discussion of military intervention.

Energy policy also has an impact. We think of it as completely unrelated to human rights, but if, for example, we decide to accept European biofuel targets, that will impact on the likelihood of illegal incursions into rain forest areas in countries such as Brazil. In turn, that will impact on the human rights—particularly, the collective rights to the land—of tribal peoples around the world who have very few people to speak out for them. On that front, I lobbied the Government very hard to sign or ratify International Labour Organisation convention 169, which helps to defend tribal peoples’ rights around the world. I very much regret that the Government decided not to sign or ratify it, and I very much hope that the decision will be reconsidered.

In the closing minutes of my speech, I want to second and welcome some of the comments made by other Members. Those made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling about China are very important. The issue is significant not only in relation to human rights within China’s borders—where those borders lie is arguable; it is now accepted that Tibet is part of China, but the ongoing human rights situation there is very serious—but in relation to the influence, support and friendship that China has given to some quite odious regimes over the years, from Burma to North Korea, Sudan and Zimbabwe. If China is to become a responsible member of the family of nations, I am afraid that it really needs a responsible record on human rights around the world. Unfortunately, the current example in Syria shows that it is another country to add to the list, alongside Russia. Both Russia and China need to step up to the plate and to support the international community in taking on the murderous Assad regime.

I welcome the comments made by the Select Committee in its report, particularly on the need for a more open and objective approach to the definition of countries of concern, and the points about Bahrain were well made.

The Committee was right to raise the issue of the removal and deportation processes. High-profile cases, such as the case of Abu Qatada, have coloured the whole public debate. We must not return people to countries where they are at risk of torture and there is a risk that human rights are abused. In a way, it was important that it was not the dreaded European Court of Human Rights, but the British Special Immigration Appeals Commission, that eventually kept Abu Qatada in the country. That case is still to be resolved, and we should probably not discuss its details in this Chamber. It is important, however, that our approach to such issues is not dictated by the Daily Mail and the Daily Express, but by a real concern for human rights.

Finally, it is important to have a robust arms trade treaty, and Britain should play a strong part in that. We should not only preach and produce reports about human rights, but act in international forums in a way that reinforces human rights. That is sometimes a difficult balance to strike. It was difficult for Robin Cook, with his ethical foreign policy. It was probably quite difficult for the former right hon. Member for Midlothian, the proud Liberal Prime Minister William Gladstone, all the way back in 1876, with his Midlothian campaign, when he was the first politician to make human rights absolutely central to British politics. I am very proud to stand in that tradition. I am also proud to support the coalition Government when they have raised human rights, but they must act as well as speak.