Sudan and South Sudan

Martin Horwood Excerpts

Tuesday 18th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

I join others in paying tribute to the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) for securing this debate, and to the extraordinary resilience of the people of Sudan and South Sudan, who have undergone what, for most of us, are unimaginable levels of suffering over the years. I also want to pay tribute to the international members of the non-governmental organisations, including the many British aid workers involved, and to their local partners. My former parliamentary researcher, Anna Harvey, was working in Sudan before she came to work for me in this place. She spoke of a beautiful country and of lovely, welcoming people, but the area in which she worked was engulfed in violence some years later.

What has happened to those beautiful countries is a great tragedy. We are talking about 500,000 people having died in Darfur province alone, and 2.5 million people still being dependent on food aid there. The hon. Member for Foyle was right to point out that the aid agencies pleaded with us for years not to ignore the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in Darfur, but the international community was collectively very late in acting in a concerted way. He was also right to say that we must not let Darfur, Sudan and South Sudan slip off the political agenda again.

The hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Bain) pointed out the contrast between the two Sudanese countries and the rest of Africa, parts of which are now seeing phenomenal economic, political and democratic progress. Sudan and South Sudan are noticeably divergent in their failure to achieve development objectives or to make progress on human rights and democracy. People often say that war is development in reverse, and that is true. It is the continuing conflicts besetting those two countries that are responsible for this state of affairs.

I do not suppose many people thought that independence in 2011 would provide a magical cure to those conflicts, but many were more hopeful that some of the issues might be resolved after the Addis Ababa deal in 2012. However, we still have the unresolved issue of the border around Abyei, where the continuing lack of a referendum is inciting violence and encouraging attempts to displace people. There are also continued interruptions to oil supplies and a lack of oil flow, both of which are damaging the prosperity in the north and the south—and both sides are clearly supporting military rebels, in breach of the Addis Ababa agreement.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

Another problem is that of regional terrorism, whereby support is sometimes given by, for example, groups in Yemen to groups in Sudan that want to undermine what is happening there. A lot of evidence suggests that there are dealings between the two groups of terrorists, who seek to undermine both countries.

[Martin Horwood]

The right hon. Gentleman speaks with great knowledge and I am sure he is right. One of the risks that we have seen time and again in the middle east and north Africa region is that instability and violence invite in even less desirable elements—if that is possible to imagine—who want to destabilise further the situation in their own interests.

I am happy to pay tribute to the British Government for being fully aware of the issues. In January, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for International Development visited projects funded by the Department for International Development in Sudan, some of which address basic human rights. I gather that the water programme supported by DFID—this was probably the case under the previous Government, too—has now helped to provide access to clean drinking water for 800,000 people. I say to those who question whether it is right to spend 0.7% of our national income on international development that it is difficult to imagine money being spent more cost-effectively to provide such a huge number of people with such a basic thing as clean drinking water.

Another of the DFID projects that my hon. Friend visited promotes access to justice. This debate needs to address human rights and the rule of law, and many hon. Members have done so.

The Government’s most recent “Human Rights and Democracy” report discusses, as it has done for many years, Sudan, where human rights and democracy are, if anything, deteriorating. Political parties do exist, but there are frequent instances of harassment and imprisonment. Elections have taken place, but they are deeply flawed. Human rights defenders are detained and torture takes place. Other hon. Members have discussed instances of war crimes and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) talked about the persecution of Christians. Above all, there is continuing violence in Darfur, where hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced. It is sometimes difficult to escape the conclusion that the Bashir Government are almost using violence and interference in the oil supply for their own political ends in destabilising things and preventing democratic progress.

As the hon. Member for City of Chester (Stephen Mosley) has said, the most recent report states that an Ethiopian peacekeeper who was part of the United Nations peacekeeping force was killed and others injured in a shelling incident. It is an even more worrying development if UN troops are not safe from artillery fire. The situation is deteriorating and I would be interested to hear the Minister say what has happened as a result of that incident.

The hon. Member for Foyle slightly criticised the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur and the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei. Although they may not be doing a perfect job, we have to acknowledge the courage of the UN peacekeepers and the difficult situation in which they have been placed.

It is difficult for us to influence the Government of Sudan directly, but there are countries with whom they are friendly. China plays a significant role and has traditionally been identified as a friend and economic partner of Sudan. What pressure could we put on China? It would be difficult to ask the Chinese to address human rights issues in Sudan when they are no angels themselves in that respect, but they could at the very least stress the economic importance of maintaining the oil flows and the need to achieve stability in order to allow prosperity to develop. I would have thought that the Chinese would see the benefit in doing that. Will the Minister address the possibility of discussions with China about the situation in north Sudan?

I think that many of us shared in the good will towards South Sudan on its independence. It is very sad to see its security forces also implicated in rape, torture and extrajudicial killing. The Government of South Sudan face a difficult situation, particularly given the crisis in oil revenues. If we think that we have difficulties with cuts, we should consider the idea of losing half our GDP. That would cause a complete financial crisis that any Government would struggle to cope with, let alone one in such a fragile and developing situation. The Government of South Sudan also face multiple instances of violent instability across the country. The hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) spoke well about the additional problem of forced displacements from the north.

We must try to understand the almost unimaginable problems faced by the Government of South Sudan. At the same time, they must receive the message loud and clear from the British Government that the good will that they had on independence will evaporate quite quickly if they do not try to address the human rights issues. If the abuses continue and if a culture of impunity is allowed to develop in South Sudan, as it clearly did in the north, that will be a worrying development.

It is to the credit of the South Sudanese Government that the terrible abuses in Jonglei state were followed by the arrest and charging of members of the state security forces who were involved. I would be interested to hear the latest news on that, but I have not heard of any prosecutions. It involved only a small number of people, so it would be good to hear whether progress is being made. However, there are also cases such as that of Deng Athuai Mawiir—excuse my pronunciation—the anti-corruption activist who was arrested. There is also the continuation of the death penalty. Even if we count only the official executions, there have been eight since independence.

Other Members have talked about the position of women. The south does have quite a good record. Some 26% of National Legislative Assembly seats are held by women and 12% of heads of Ministries, Departments and agencies are women. However, the overall position of women is not good and violence against women is widespread. It is part of the Government’s strategy to counter that.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s stated priorities are to support UN peacekeeping, to support the African Union high-level implementation panel, to give financial and technical support to UN agencies and others, and to support capacity building in institutions in the south. Those seem to be exactly the right priorities. That is the right strategy in an intensely difficult situation. The only thing that we can ask in this Chamber and in this debate is that, if it is humanly possible, we raise our game even further and encourage our international partners to do likewise. If we can do that, we might thereby offer a positive message and hope to the people of this pretty unhappy region.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

May I, too, preface my remarks by congratulating the hon. Members for Foyle (Mark Durkan) and for City of Chester (Stephen Mosley) on the way in which they introduced the debate? Their contributions were powerful and set out clearly the gravity of the situation and the seriousness of the problems.

It is right to celebrate the fact that South Sudan is the youngest country in the world, but it has had a troubled birth. There is an imperative on us, as a nation that cares, to demonstrate that we care through how we address the situation. This House is slowly but surely being sucked into a debate about and probably an action in another part of the world—Syria. I believe that this Government and this Parliament ought to have, if not more, then certainly equal concern about South Sudan and Sudan.

Since 2010-11, there has been utter silence about the situation in Sudan. That is a worrying trend, because the level of fighting has continued to rise and the humanitarian situation is again deteriorating. That conflict is being waged, but it is being met by total silence. That silence is a condemnation not of this House, but of the international community, who should be speaking out powerfully about the situation. It is a tribute to this House and to the Backbench Business Committee that this matter is the subject of debate today. This year alone, 300,000 people have been displaced in Sudan—another indictment of what is actually happening. If it were happening anywhere else, including parts of the middle east, it would be a matter for urgent questions and all sorts of other activities. I have some questions for the Minister, who I know will do his best to answer them, and I will reiterate some points that have been briefly touched on by other Members, as it is important to address them.

The Government of Sudan continue indiscriminately to target civilians with aerial bombardments. Such attacks are a clear violation of the UN Security Council’s resolution 1591, dated March 2005, which demands an end to such violence. What is the UN is going to do about resolution 1591? Will it insist that action is taken to protect citizens? Hon. Members have mentioned the atrocious attacks on civilians in the village of Jebel Marra, where there are already 500 orphans. The murder of a woman there on 16 June this year meant that two more children have been left without a mother. The Government of Sudan continue to obstruct aid agencies from operating freely within the region, and many of those agencies are struggling to cope with the 1.4 million people living in displaced persons camps with very little amenity—indeed, in many instances, with nothing. New arrivals are arriving practically every day to be faced with the opportunity to live under a tarpaulin shelter and scratch a living from the land.

That has been going on not for months or years but for more than a decade, which again is an indictment. The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) was right to say that the UN is doing quite a lot—indeed, I think he said it is doing a good job—but if it has been paid $765 million by this Government and country since 2007, we would expect it to do a good job. The United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur budget has cost an estimated $9.3 billion since 2007; one would have expected the problem to have been solved a long time ago. We are looking at a waste of resources, and I ask the Government to conduct an immediate inquiry into that expenditure to try to paint a picture of where the money is going, so that we can understand how it is being spent. For the life of me, I cannot understand how $9 billion has left a country in such an intolerable mess.

[Martin Horwood]

The hon. Gentleman is making an important point and it is right to question the cost of UN operations. Does he accept, however, that in some of these examples it is more important to try to build capacity and to offer training and support to improve the effectiveness of UN forces, rather than berate them about the amount of money we have agreed to spend on them?

[Ian Paisley]

I absolutely agree, and believe me, I am not berating. If the hon. Gentleman saw me berating, he would understand what berating actually means. I am simply asking questions, because the amount of money being spent is obscene for the amount of result. That is a fair point that is not that critical of the UN, and I think we have the right to make it.

The Government have a role to support peace, as the motion rightly states. In any country that has emerged from conflict—I speak with some personal experience—when conflict ends, stability starts to take over, and with that flows commercial activity. Capitalism is often accused of being cowardly, but if there is stability, capital and activity will start to flow. The Government must explain how they intend to encourage UK business activity to flow into that country when, as I hope it will, stability slowly but surely starts to make a foundation. What support will they give to British businesses that seek to invest and help develop the structure of that country?

It is also important to ask the Government what security support our nation can give to South Sudan, so that it can protect its people, borders and integrity, and so that we can continue to celebrate the birth of that new nation. What other assistance can our Government give? Can we encourage the UN to give money for the protection of the border, so that oil resources can be properly utilised and so that oil can properly flow, to allow the development of infrastructure and expenditure on South Sudan’s people?

I reiterate that the awful activities that in many instances are generated in Sudan against its neighbour are done not in the name of the ordinary people of Sudan, but in the name of a wrong regime. The regime must be challenged, but we must not penalise the ordinary people of Sudan because of it. As the Minister well knows, that is an incredibly difficult balance to achieve, but it is important that we spell out that principle loud and clear.

Oral Answers to Questions

Martin Horwood Excerpts

Tuesday 18th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I have, subject to the agreement of the Prime Minister and the Queen, appointed a higher proportion of women to those posts. I feel strongly about the subject and often discuss with the senior management of the FCO the need over the next few years to ensure that a higher proportion of senior positions, including senior ambassadorial positions, are held by women. I will continue the internal pressure over the coming months.

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

Will Ministers tell us how the balance of EU competences review is going and confirm that it has received strong representations urging the importance of Europol and the European arrest warrant in tackling cross-border crime, terrorism and human trafficking?

[The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington)]

The balance of competences review is going well and I believe that we are on course to publish the first six reports arising from it before the summer recess. As my hon. Friend knows, the new calls for evidence include calls for evidence on various aspects of justice and home affairs and I am sure that his submissions, along with many others, will be warmly welcomed.

European Elections 2014

Martin Horwood Excerpts

Tuesday 18th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg, I am speaking to the Minister, not you. I was not ruling what you said out of order.

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The motion specifically refers to the proposals from the Commission, which include matters relevant to the nomination of candidates for the post of President. The article quoted by the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) is therefore directly relevant. Are we free to discuss it in that respect at least?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

With respect, Mr Horwood, if you had listened to what I said, you would have heard me say article 17(7) is relevant. I was just suggesting to the Minister that, given that the whole document is not legally binding, while it is important that he explains the current arrangements, I hope he will not continue to stretch the debate rather wider than the document in question provides for. So you can of course discuss article 17(7).

--- Later in debate ---

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

Being asked to support a motion that takes note of a non-binding set of documents means that this is possibly the least controversial European debate that we have ever had in the House, and I am entirely happy to support the motion. I agree with quite a lot of what has been said by Members on both sides of the House. If the Commission’s proposals are trying to encourage engagement and involvement in European politics, they are missing the mark. That will never be transformed by prescribing the minutiae of voting days or even by talking about precisely how and when who suggests what candidate for posts in the Commission. We have a responsibility as politicians to address these issues, and perhaps to stop discussing endlessly the minutiae of treaties and referendums and such matters—banging on about Europe, as the Prime Minister once memorably put it—and to focus on jobs, crime, the environment and all the important things that Europe has an impact on in our constituents’ lives, but that are rarely talked about in that context.

The media also have some responsibility to report European politics and debate on such issues instead of constantly reporting Europe as if the only debates were about referendums and treaties. It is frustrating that in other European countries news programmes report debates on issues of substance in the European Parliament, which never seems to happen in this country.

With regard to the specifics of the suggestions in the documents, on the voting day I agree with the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) and others that there are huge practical problems with having a single voting day, and even more with having single voting times. We should be looking for more flexibility in voting as a possible contribution to higher turnouts, not lower, which these proposals seem to suggest. People lead busy lives, voting often is not their No. 1 priority on a particular day; that might be getting to and from work, getting the children to school or doing a million other things. I am sure we have all been in the situation of trying to persuade that one last voter to go out and vote, but finding that it is not quite as important to them as it is to us. Of course it is very important, and we are right to try to persuade people to turn out, but we need to make it easier, not more difficult.

That might mean, as the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field), who is no longer in his place, suggested, looking at weekend voting, and, as used to happen, at elections taking place over several days. That was the tradition for hundreds of years in elections to the Westminster Parliament. It might mean encouraging more postal voting, making it generally more flexible and open, and not being quite so hung up about having an election on a particular day at a particular time. We might end up testing out having elections on a Saturday or Sunday, or both.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I very much agree with the hon. Gentleman. If we had elections over two days at weekends, Jews could vote on Sunday and Christians could vote on Saturday, and solve the problem.

[Martin Horwood]

Absolutely. And Muslims could vote on both, and the election could start on Friday. We could be very flexible. Cultural traditions might also be relevant. The Commission’s proposal fails the basic subsidiarity test. This does not need to be mandated, therefore it should not be, and there seems to be wide agreement across the House on that.

The proposals for the candidates for the presidency of the Commission are rather curious. I am proud to be a member of Cheltenham Liberal Democrats, of the Liberal Democrat party in the United Kingdom and of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, and intensely proud to be a member of Liberal International, where Liberals are fighting for things that we take for granted at risk to their own lives in many parts of the world. I know that other parties have slightly more hang-ups about being members of European political parties and have had some difficulties in that regard, but the proposals as far as they go seem to be fairly unexceptional.

The Commission’s proposals effectively talk about encouraging European political parties to nominate candidates, but actually they can already do that. A report by my colleague Andrew Duff, which the European Parliament will vote on at the start of July, goes rather further. It states that

“the candidate for Commission President who was put forward by the European political party that wins the most seats in the Parliament will be the first to be considered”

with a view to

“ascertaining his/her ability to secure the support of the necessary absolute majority in Parliament”.

That might be a legitimate and interesting way of interpreting article 17.7 of the treaty, but so long as they must only have regard to the candidate, the Councils of the European Union will not actually be obliged to choose that candidate or even to consider them in preference over others.

We need to create a situation that encourages more involvement, openness and accountability, and in that respect I think that it would be good to have greater democratic involvement in the process of promoting and choosing candidates, so long as it does not mandate it, because I think that a slight constitutional issue would start to emerge if we drifted into the mandation of candidates by political parties. That would start to blur the line between who are the Governments and politicians and who are the civil servants, which is a line that we draw very carefully in this country. In a sense, the Commission is the equivalent of the civil service and the permanent secretaries. In many respects, it should be the impartial servant of the political will of the Parliament and of the people and Governments of Europe in the Councils. We can decide at some future stage—this is certainly not something I support now—whether to have a European Government, but we do not have one at the moment and that is not something we should start doing in an accidental, piecemeal way.

I accept that there is a particular problem for the Conservatives on this issue. They belong to the fifth largest group in the Parliament—it feels rather good to say that—and the Liberal and Socialist groups are rather larger. I think it is a problem for the Conservatives that they are not represented in the mainstream conservative grouping, or Christian Democrat grouping, in the Parliament. I think that it was a regrettable decision by the British Conservatives not to take part in that, because I think it has reduced British political influence within the European political forum.

[Mr Nuttall]

I can assure my hon. Friend that not a single constituent of mine has ever expressed to me any dissatisfaction whatever with the position of the Conservatives in the European Parliament.

[Martin Horwood]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. We are not actually discussing the position of the Conservative party anywhere in Europe; we are discussing the documents before us today. You can talk about article 17(7), Mr Horwood, but let us not venture any further.

[Martin Horwood]

Of course, Madam Deputy Speaker.

The second point is that there is an expression of what I used to call the Thatcher doctrine, which is to complain about the lack of democracy in the European Union but oppose all practical steps to increase democratic accountability because that would be seen as giving more legitimacy to the European tier of government. I think that is a regrettable approach.

[Emma Reynolds]

With regard to the motion, which mentions European political parties and their freedom to support candidates for Commission President, does the hon. Gentleman stand by the Deputy Prime Minister’s statement that the group the Conservatives joined in the European Parliament was made up of “nutters, anti-Semites and homophobes”?

[Martin Horwood]

I think that we are trying to raise the tone of the debate and not to refer to things that were said in the heat of the moment. I think that the Thatcherite idea that we should not give more democratic legitimacy is quite a destructive way to approach the European level of government. I am in favour of more democracy, more openness and more accountability.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

It is always too tempting to fail to intervene on my hon. Friend’s speeches, but the point that Margaret Thatcher was making was that there was no demos and that therefore there could be no democratic legitimacy. The first principle of democratic legitimacy is to have a people who care about each other.

[Martin Horwood]

Yes, and I think the European people do actually care about each other. When I take part in the councils of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe—I am looking forward to this over the next few months as we move towards our London congress, which I am proud to have taking place in this very city—I care about the welfare of people outside the United Kingdom, and I think that other Europeans care about the welfare of this country as well.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Martin Horwood]

No, I will not; I really must draw my remarks to a conclusion.

I believe that there is a European demos. It is expressed in the European elections, perhaps in a quite fragmented way, but it is none the less an expression of European political views by the people of Europe in perfectly democratic elections. It is right that a European Parliament elected in that way should play an increasing role in determining how the European Union functions. In increasing democracy, openness and accountability, these are reasonably uncontroversial proposals.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

I shall just make the point that I was going to put to the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) in an intervention. This idea about all Europeans caring about one another is fine—I love all my continental colleagues very much—but my identity is as a part of the British demos, not of a European demos, which I do not think exists. I think that was the point that the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) was making.

I am pleased to support my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds), who spoke extremely well. I agree with everything she said, even though there might be a smidgen of difference between our views on the European Union generally. Even more happily, we both seem to be in agreement with the Minister and the Government. That makes this a rare event, but a happy occasion.

We must absolutely not have parties at European Union level. Even at national level, party elites are sometimes too far removed from their activists and their voters. Having party groupings at international level acting as parties would make the gap between the voters at the grass roots and those who govern us even greater. That would be completely unacceptable.

Another problem involves finding political parties to bond with. The Conservatives have understandably had problems finding a home. If I were in their position, I would be happy to stand separately, but I know that that would create a problem of securing positions on committees and so on. So far as Labour is concerned, we could be linked with Pasok in Greece, yet Pasok is now cemented together with New Democracy and inflicting appalling austerity on the working people of that country. I do not want to be seen to be supporting Pasok in what it is now doing. It should be standing up for working people and against austerity. Indeed, that is what we should all be doing. We can have links and, occasionally, loose friendships with other parties when seeking convenient political groupings, but forming single political parties across Europe would be another step on the way to creating a state of Europe—which some people clearly want—with the Commission and perhaps the European Parliament forming the European Government. That would be a giant step in the wrong direction.

Another giant step in that direction was the introduction of a system of proportional representation for elections to the European Parliament. My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East also mentioned this point. I have opposed such proposals before, and called in this Chamber for a return to first past the post and single Member constituencies. I hold to that position today. People would take the view that Europe was much more democratic if Members of the European Parliament represented a genuine constituency rather than an enormous region or even, in the case of Scotland and Wales, a country.

I oppose PR. I have opposed PR proposals for our own elections in Britain and for those in the European Parliament. Sadly, it has been used as a means of getting rid of the Eurosceptic left from the European parliamentary Labour party. Some 50% of the party’s 60 members were wiped out simply by being placed lower down the list, when the list system came out. They disappeared en masse. That certainly damaged our party, and it was very disappointing for the wing of the party that I belong to.

Another problem with the idea of having political parties at European level is that in many European countries there are two or three parties occupying the area that one party occupies in Britain. I recently visited Holland with the European Scrutiny Committee. It has a Socialist party and a Labour party whose Members sit next to each other, but in Britain they would easily be accommodated in our Labour party. If I were in Holland, it is conceivable that I would be in the Socialist party, but I would have to talk to them carefully about that.

There is a democratic deficit and, much as I deplore much of what Mrs Thatcher did, I think she was right to say that if we give too much democratic legitimacy to the European Union, democracy will start to leach away from our own national Parliaments, which would not be good. I want to see the democratic deficit addressed by restoring powers to national Parliaments, particularly the British Parliament. I want to see the restoration of effective power to the grass roots, including within parties. I am sure that all parties want that, but I want to see it in my party in particular.

[Martin Horwood]

If the hon. Gentleman thinks that holding elections at different levels leaches democracy away from other levels, does he think that democracy leaches away from the national level as a result of local elections or elections in London, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland?

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I think that power ranges over different levels. Over recent years we have seen power leached away from local government towards central Government. Local government is far less powerful than it was when I was a councillor 40 years ago. We had an enormous degree of independence that is no longer given to local government. If we allow too much of what we govern to go to the EU, democracy will leach away from our national Parliament. This is about powers. I want to see effective powers restored to national Parliaments, including—I discussed these in the Chamber earlier—those of the common fisheries policy and the common agricultural policy.

I also want first past the post, single Member constituencies and inner-party democracy in order to make sure that party activists, electors and ordinary people have real democratic power and feel that they have a stake in politics. If they do not feel that they have a stake, they might go elsewhere, which could be very dangerous and worrying for us all. When people feel that they can actually make a difference by being involved in politics and voting, that makes democracy meaningful. I would like to think that what we are suggesting today will help keep politics and democracy meaningful in Britain.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

I am usually very nervous when there is an outbreak of complete consensus across the House. It is usually a sign that we are all getting things wrong together, but I think that this occasion is the exception that proves the rule. We have heard from my right hon. Friend the Minister, the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) and, amazingly enough, the Lord High Almoner of pro-Europeanism, my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood).

[Martin Horwood]

The hon. Gentleman may like to know that when I was a candidate in the Cities of London and Westminster I was once described as the Eurosceptic wing of the Liberal Democrats. I think the implication was that it was not very big.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am sorry to say that my hon. Friend has been led down the path of temptation towards pro-Europeanism since he stood in the two cities.

We have heard a remarkable outbreak of consensus, which is important and is why the European Scrutiny Committee wanted the document debated. One of the things we learn from the processes of the European Union, particularly those of the Commission, is that things start at an early stage with a little document that has no legal force and is there for a general, genteel discussion. Nobody says very much about it, so the Commission assumes that there cannot be very much opposition to what is being proposed and that it is perfectly reasonable and achieving consensus. Then the document gets hardened up into a proposal and then into a directive or a regulation, and before we know where we are we are opposing a fully fledged, fully formed idea, which is, of course, much harder to do than when things are at an early stage, when the Commission can back down without significant loss of face and there has been no momentum in favour of the proposals.

I would caution us, none the less, against being too complacent about what the Commission may do next, because it has a treaty base—it is set out in the ESC report—for some of its proposals. The Minister has covered this, but article 10(4) of the treaty on European union says:

“Political parties at European level contribute to forming European political awareness and to expressing the will of citizens”.

The importance of a treaty base is that it gives the Commission the ability to bring forward proposals. Once it has the treaty base, although it may appear not to apply on a simple first reading, it can be used, it is justiciable before the European Court of Justice and it fits into the general European approach of centralising powers.

As you know, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am particularly concerned about article 17(7) of the treaty on European Union, which speaks of

“Taking into account the elections to the European Parliament”.

What the European Commission is trying to do—its own paper sets this out more clearly—is to establish the European Parliament as that which gives democratic legitimacy to the European Union. I contest that fundamentally. What gives democratic legitimacy to British involvement in the European Union is the European Communities Act 1972 and the sovereign will of this Parliament—a sovereign will that can be changed. I am therefore strongly opposed to the developing European theory that it is the European Parliament that is the basis of democratic legitimacy.

I would suggest that democratic legitimacy within Europe as it is currently constructed, based on the 1972 Act, lies with the Council of Ministers, because those Ministers are responsible to their sovereign Parliaments and have to report to them on what they have done. The paper from the Commission does not take that into account. Indeed, it tries to establish a new basis for the democratic legitimacy of the European Union.

If that view won widespread acceptance across member states, the question would arise as to whether our initial acceptance of powers for the European Union through the 1972 Act was still the basis of our membership or whether it had devolved to the new democratic structure set up by the European Commission and to the European Parliament. The Commission’s paper points strongly in that direction. Page 11 of the documents that we are discussing states:

“The role of the European Parliament as the representative democratic assembly of the Union has been underscored by the Lisbon Treaty.”

The same page speaks of

“the new definition of members of the European Parliament as ‘representatives of the Union’s citizens’ and not simply as ‘representatives of the peoples of the States brought together in the Community’.”

Even a straight reading of that shows the ambition of the Commission to build political validity through the European Parliament, which of course requires single European parties.

I am strongly opposed to single European parties, partly because if I put myself up in North East Somerset as representing the Conservative and Unionist party, plus a random collection of European parties, it would not help me, but also because it discriminates against parties that are very focused on their national interest. I was thinking about UKIP and what acronyms we might get if it coalesced with other parties across the continent. There would be FIP in France, DIP in Germany, HIP in Holland and GIP in Greece—GIP might be particularly appropriate in Greece. There would be a discrimination against parties that are particularly focused on the interests of their nation if we went down the route of what the European Commission proposes.

I am arguing that there is a fundamental flaw in the European Commission’s paper. That flaw is the idea that the European Parliament can be or is the body of democratic legitimacy for the European Union. By pushing that view, the Commission delegitimises national Parliaments and tries to accrete powers to itself, for example through the proposal on political parties, to promote its own view. It is therefore a matter for rejoicing, once again, on Waterloo day that there is such unanimity across the parties in this House. I hope that in two years’ time, when we have a full celebration of the 200th anniversary of Waterloo, funded by the Treasury, we will be safe and clear from aggressive Commission documents that try to steal powers from the British subject.

Iran

Martin Horwood Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

It is a great shame that the closure of embassies makes it more difficult for people to travel. That was not something we desired, and the reopening of embassies is not something to which we are on any principle opposed, but I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will agree that, given what happened, which was against every provision of the Vienna convention and every principle of civilised behaviour regarding the treatment of diplomats anywhere in the world, we would have to be very confident of a change in the approach to our embassy before being able to reopen it.

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

Dr Rouhani himself has described his victory as a victory for moderation over extremism. Would it not be an early reward and encouragement to such moderation, in action as well as words, to include Iran in the planned talks on the future of Syria?

[Mr Hague]

Dr Rouhani has said good words about moderation. During his campaign he said:

“What I truly wish is for moderation to return to the country. This is my only wish. Extremism pains me greatly. We have suffered many blows as a result of extremism.”

Those are the sorts of positive remarks to which I referred during the election campaign. On the question of Iran’s participation in future talks on Syria, which of course we are trying to arrange and which the Prime Minister is discussing further today at the G8 summit, we will proceed on the basis that a second Geneva conference must proceed from what we agreed in Geneva last year: the creation of a transitional Government in Syria, formed from the regime and the opposition, with full executive authority, and by mutual consent. We have seen no evidence to date that the Iranians accept that basic premise of the Geneva conference and of holding another Geneva conference, which of course greatly complicates the question of their attendance.

Iraq War (10th Anniversary)

Martin Horwood Excerpts

Thursday 13th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

I am sure that much of that is true. I am not here to defend that decision—it was a terrible, catastrophic decision—but I think it is dangerous to put the whole blame simply on Blair and Bush, because the implication is that if we do not have Blair and Bush around, we will never get in these messes again. We will get in these messes again because we have not created the proper Government policy structures required to think these things through—not just to avoid the decision to invade, but above all to get out more rapidly once we have made a bad decision.

Military reforms—you have very kindly given me some time, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I do not have enough to talk about this today—involve accepting that the military have too much power in the policy debate. That is not the military’s fault: they are filling a vacuum. The military feel that the Foreign Office is not taking the lead and that somebody needs to do something. I saw that all the time on the ground in Iraq. I remember a major-general saying to me, “The diplomats and aid workers aren’t doing anything, so we”—the military—“need to take those things over,” but that is not the military’s job. It is extremely dangerous, because its puts generals in positions where they make optimistic predictions about their capacity to sort things out, albeit without a detailed understanding of the politics or the reality of those aspects of governance or diplomacy.

We in Parliament need to look at ourselves—it is on this that we need to conclude. The hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) was exactly right to ask us to look hard at how the Select Committee on Defence, the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Intelligence and Security Committee got this wrong. What reforms have we introduced to those Committees to ensure that we do not get it wrong again? How do we as Members of Parliament operate in a very complicated world? It is not realistic for any of us in this Chamber to understand exactly what the difference is between Harakat-Dawa, Hizb-e-Dawa and Hizb-e-Dawa Islamiya. Everybody is learning desperately from briefs, trying to sound plausible, but there are 200 nations in the world. Ministers are busy. Politicians are busy; they are worrying about their constituents. They are not deep experts on these issues. We therefore need to create a system that we can rely on in the Foreign Office, the military and the intelligence services. We in Parliament need to know how to question those people, how to listen to them and how to promote people who disagree with us. We need in Parliament to learn how to look at which civil servants got it wrong and hold them accountable, rather than promoting, as we did, almost everybody who was implicated in the Iraq decisions.

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

rose—

[Rory Stewart]

I am coming to the end.

Finally, we need above all to learn—I feel, as a new Member of Parliament, and with all deference to this House—a lesson of humility.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Llwyd]

That is absolutely right, obviously. That is a feature of the system that we are all embroiled in at the moment, imperfect—greatly imperfect—as it is.

I want to start by quoting something that was said recently:

“I let Parliament have the final say on me decision to go to war. I made statements, answered questions, took part in debates. But in the end there was a decision that had to be made: on the basis of the information available, to decide whether to join the US coalition and remove Saddam; or to stay out. I decided we should be in. The job of the Prime Minister is to make such decisions based on what he believes is in the interests of the country.”

Those words are taken from the end of former Prime Minister Blair’s statement to the Chilcot inquiry—an inquiry that, as we have heard, has so far failed to report, despite almost exactly four years having passed since it was first announced in this place by the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown). As I shall briefly outline today, I have reservations about the Chilcot inquiry, which I suspect was as flawed and compromised from the outset as the then Government’s decision to go to war.

Let me nail one other myth. The Liberal Democrats are very pleased to go around saying that they were the only party to vote against. We voted against, the Scottish National party voted against and many Members of other parties voted against. We were described as jellyheads and all kinds of things.

[Martin Horwood]

I do not recall us often saying that we were the only party to vote in that way. I am happy to acknowledge publicly the support of Plaid Cymru and the other parties that stood alongside the Liberal Democrats in the Chamber in opposing the war. Is not the truth that the most chilling words were those of Tony Blair in the recent BBC documentary, when he said that he had reflected that it was time to remake the middle east? Did not the combination of that kind of messianic leadership and the enormous momentum towards war mean that no amount of political or even expert diplomatic advice would have changed their minds?

[Mr Llwyd]

I am very pleased to agree with the hon. Gentleman. He has made a good input into the record.

Between 2002 and 2003, my then Plaid Cymru colleagues Adam Price and Simon Thomas and my hon. Friend the Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams), along with our colleagues in the SNP, were unanimous in our opposition to the incursion into Iraq and, on 18 March 2003, we voted against the invasion. We did not believe then, and nor have we ever believed, that the dossiers produced by the then Government displayed any credible threat from Saddam Hussein’s regime. In the words of Mr Blair that I quoted a moment ago, the former Prime Minister said that he had let Parliament have the final say on whether we should go to war, but the motion on which Parliament voted asserted:

“That this House…recognises that Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and”—

crucially—

“long range missiles, and its continuing non-compliance with Security Council Resolutions, pose a threat to international peace and security”.—[Official Report, 18 March 2003; Vol. 401, c. 760.]

The motion was flawed in several regards, so we were meant to vote on a flawed motion in any event, quite apart from the fact that the evidence did not stack up to create a credible or immediate threat from Saddam’s regime. Thus the basis on which Mr Blair led Parliament to decide was a false premise. The jury is still out on the extent to which Mr Blair and the Cabinet knew that the claims were counterfeit.

On the day after the House voted for the invasion, the Prime Minister said:

“We want to ensure that any post-conflict authority in Iraq is endorsed and authorised by a new United Nations resolution”.—[Official Report, 19 March 2003; Vol. 401, c. 932.]

There were of course those of us who argued even then that the Government were not acting under the endorsement of an existing UN Security Council resolution, because as Sir Jeremy Greenstock admitted, there was no automaticity in resolution 1441 and our incursion into Iraq was therefore illegal under international law.

On 24 November 2004, an impeachment motion was tabled in the name of myself, the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier), Douglas Hogg QC and the First Minister of Scotland. The motion had been supported, in writing or otherwise, by 24 Members of this House, but it was never called for debate. However, the Impeach Blair campaign had the support of the Stop the War Coalition, the Green party, Frederick Forsyth, Terry Jones, Brian Eno, the late Harold Pinter, the late Corin Redgrave, the late Jimmy Reid and, last but by no means least, the late—alas—Iain Banks.

With hindsight, and following debates on this topic, that one sentence of Mr Blair’s seems almost to override all else: he had decided that “we should be in”. He had made that decision without a second UN resolution, when most of the world was against the incursion. He had decided that the UK would lend its support to President Bush’s war on terror, whatever the cost. Let us be realistic; Bush had the might to do this in short order in any event. He wanted a cloak of legitimacy, and that is how he lured Tony Blair in to support him—and at what a cost it has proven to be.

Today, Iraq is the state fifth most at risk of terrorism in the world, and the eighth most corrupt. It is a country marred by car bombs and corruption. Under the Shi’a Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, power is divided along ethnic lines. Economically and physically, the country has been all but destroyed. In a poll published in September 2011, 42% of Iraqis said that they were worse off as a result of the invasion, compared with only 30% who thought themselves in some way better off.

The war has arguably resulted in the other members of the so-called axis of evil, Iran and North Korea, obtaining nuclear weapons, and the risk of terrorism at home has definitely increased. We have heard quotes from Eliza Manningham-Buller and others on that subject. There is no basis for claiming that al-Qaeda had a real presence in Iraq before 2003, but the war itself has established one. The human cost has also been devastating. Between March 2003 and the end of UK operations in May 2011, 179 UK armed forces personnel died as a consequence of operations in Iraq. Of those, 136 were killed in combat. I join other Members across the House in paying tribute to them. Whatever foreign policy decisions are arrived at in this place, they always do their best and carry out their duties bravely. I respect them for that. The question of whether the war was lawful or otherwise is our problem.

--- Later in debate ---

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

It is an honour to follow such a passionate and well-informed speech from the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark). I think that we are all indebted to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) for securing the debate, and I apologise to her for not arriving in time to hear her speech—I was opening a job show in my constituency first thing this morning—which by all accounts was a powerful introduction to the debate.

Although I was not a Member of Parliament at the time, I am very proud that the Liberal Democrats played such a strong role in opposing the war. I am particularly proud of the role played by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Mr Kennedy), who was leader of the Liberal Democrats at the time, and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell). The hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) talked about the breadth of the coalition that opposed the war and said that it was not just made up of predictable left wingers. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North East Fife is far from being a raging pacifist leftie. He is a thoughtful and distinguished advocate and is now, as he was then, a distinguished spokesman on international affairs. That voices such as his were ignored at the time is a measure of just how dogmatic certain people in the Labour Government were.

I have found this debate very humbling, not only because of the first-hand accounts of intelligence, diplomacy and military experience that we have heard from people who were connected to the war in different respects, but because of the emotion shown by those who were, in effect, forced to vote against their own colleagues in their own party. The hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) made a very powerful speech about that. We have heard about the bitter regret felt by those who feel that they were misled into voting for the wrong thing. We should also remember the members of the Government who honourably resigned over this issue—Robin Cook, John Denham and others who gave up their ministerial careers. The emotions are clearly almost as strong now as they were then.

We have heard powerful descriptions of what felt like the inevitable momentum towards war. That was certainly felt outside Parliament as well. Those of us who were watching from the outside might not have picked up on all the details of the parliamentary debates, but every day we saw the pictures of the troops gathering in Saudi Arabia and had the sense that it was something that simply could not be stopped, no matter how many people marched, no matter what arguments were deployed and no matter what intelligence was presented to counter what was in the dodgy dossier.

If the right hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Mr Meacher) is right, that momentum had started long before. He mentioned the Crawford summit in April 2002, when Tony Blair stood shoulder to shoulder with George Bush. That was reinforced at subsequent summits between the two of them. Although I have a lot of respect for the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), it is not really credible to say that the leaders did not know the detail or had not had time to read it. I am sure that the detail of the intelligence on the military situation and the situation inside Iraq was all gone into in enormous detail, as was the legal advice. As everybody has said, the Chilcot report is long overdue, and we need to start to hear about the detail of the decision-making process. Some of the documents that are still not public need to be made public. It looks from the outside as though there was a deliberate collaboration in creating that momentum towards war in order to make it inevitable.

We have to allow that some aspects of that political mission had, in a sense, some honour to them. Saddam’s was a despicable regime. Thousands died in the chemical attacks in Halabja in 1988. There was also the massacre and destruction of the entire lifestyle of the Marsh Arabs in 1991 following the first Gulf war. There might have been a psychological element for George Bush in the sense that, according to the conservative psychology, his father had left the job half done in allowing the massacre of the Marsh Arabs to take place, because they had risen up in the expectation that they would be supported by the allied forces, but they were not.

We should remember that since 1991 there had been a safe haven in Iraq for the Kurds, reinforced from 1992 by the no-fly zone described on the basis of first-hand experience by the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney). Perhaps George Bush felt that he did not want to repeat his father’s error of betraying people in Iraq who were opposed to the regime. Perhaps the psychology of 9/11 also made people feel the need to do something to give some substance to the supposed war on terror, which, to me, has always had a slightly Orwellian ring to it.

[Hywel Williams]

The hon. Gentleman will perhaps recall the light-hearted quip at the time that for the US and UK to invade Iraq would be as though after Pearl Harbour the United States had invaded Mexico—it would have been as peculiar and as odd as that.

[Martin Horwood]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point.

There was the emotional declaration of the war on terror but then a feeling that it did not have much substance. I think that those in the conservative right in the United States were searching for something to give it more edge and substance, and perhaps that was part of the psychology that led them to towards war. The psychology of the British Prime Minister involved is something that I will not go near.

I am not one of those who now hope that the decision will be proved wrong by the failure of Iraqi democracy. I hope that Iraqi democracy will succeed and that a stable, federal state will emerge from the continuing conflict. I do not want to paint everything that is happening in Iraq as being as bad as or worse than it was under Saddam. Nevertheless, I think that those hon. Members who voted against the war made the right decision and I am very proud that Liberal Democrats did so. There are three central reasons why I think they were right to oppose the war.

First, there really was no case: there were no weapons of mass destruction. A few years later, after I had become an MP, I remember Hans Blix telling a meeting in Parliament that he had wanted and had pleaded for more time and that, had they been given it, the weapons inspectors could have established the facts of the case, but of course they were evacuated to make way for the invasion. It was not Iraq that stopped the weapons inspections; it was the United States and the UK. As the right hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton has said, the intelligence on which that action was based was old and out of date.

There was no immediate humanitarian crisis. In Syria and Libya, and even in Bosnia, people were dying or being threatened with blood baths, but that was not the case in Iraq. There was no immediate humanitarian justification for intervention. If there was a secondary reason—this was sometimes mentioned—it was the idea that Saddam might be in cahoots with al-Qaeda, but that also turned out to be completely imaginary. In fact, the precise opposite, if anything, was true. Subsequently, of course, we have seen the emergence of al-Qaeda in Iraq as a substantial force of Sunni jihadists, and it is now spilling over into Syria, where a direct offshoot of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Jabhat al-Nusra, is making that conflict worse. The repercussions of the intervention are extraordinary, but there was no fundamental case for it, as we were told there was.

Secondly, our party’s view is that the war was illegal. We have still not seen the then Attorney-General’s advice to the Government. UN resolution 1441 is cited, but as other Members have said, it did not provide a legal justification for invasion. Actually, its central concern was with the weapons inspection regime, which, as I have said, was brought to an end by the invasion. The weapons inspectors were evacuated because of the invasion. They were not prevented from continuing their work by Iraq.

Hon. Members’ speeches and the recent excellent BBC documentary have highlighted how the real political objective was clearly regime change and that other arguments and cases were deployed tactically to try to support it. Perhaps regime change was a laudable objective—Saddam was a terrible dictator—but the only complication is that regime change is illegal under international law; we therefore participated in an illegal invasion.

The third crucial reason why it was wrong to go to war was the political and diplomatic effort behind it. It was not a united international effort. In the end, the troops were from, I think, the United States, Britain, Australia and Poland. Others might want to correct me. Perhaps Spain was involved as well. NATO was disunited, the French were in opposition and the region was disunited. The United Nations was certainly disunited and the Secretary-General warned that the invasion would be in contravention of the UN charter if it went ahead. This was cowboy diplomacy. It was almost the kind of unilateral interventionism of which the world needs to be very fearful. The decision to invade posed a danger not just to the people of Iraq—although it certainly did—but to the whole world, because it could be used as justification for anybody’s decision to intervene without international sanction, regional support or a proper legal case.

I think that the coalition Government have learned those lessons. The recent intervention in Libya stands in stark contrast to the invasion of Iraq. There were no allied boots on the ground. It was a limited intervention, even though militarily it was a simpler prospect than Iraq. There was clear sanction from a UN resolution and an immediate humanitarian case. There was also united regional support in the Arab world. We can say collectively—those who are in the Government in particular—that we have learned the lessons of what went on in Iraq.

We now have the strange situation in which we are still waiting for the final chapter: the Chilcot report. We have been waiting for four years. That is almost as long as Britain’s military intervention in Iraq. If it carries on for much longer, it will outlast the war itself. That report will raise deep and serious questions that we still want answers to. For the former Prime Minister, it will raise some threatening legal issues and some deep questions about his role in taking us to war. The irony of ironies is that in the meantime, he has been made a peace envoy to the middle east, which I find extraordinary. All credit to him for the role that he has played subsequently in trying to bring peace to the region. However, we still need to ask how and why he took us to war. We need the Chilcot report and we need it soon.

Court of Justice of the European Union

Martin Horwood Excerpts

Tuesday 11th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), as indeed it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg)—two of the most eloquent Members in this place. I agree almost entirely with everything the right hon. Member for Leicester East said, and I disagree to the same extent with everything the hon. Member for North East Somerset said. In my view he says the wrong thing, but he says it very well.

I agree with the hon. Member for North East Somerset on one point, however: he is quite right to emphasise the importance of the fact that the debate is taking place at all, which is a realisation of the intentions we had when we passed the European Union Act 2011. Whatever differences might have emerged since between the two coalition parties over our attitude to European scrutiny, take-note debates and debates on approvals of Government actions in relation to Europe, such as this one, are important procedures that we agreed in the 2011 Act. It set out the terms and conditions under which referendums would be held and under which votes of this Parliament would have an impact on European decision making, which is an entirely good thing.

We have occasionally complained about the lack of thoroughness of European scrutiny in this place—for example, over the recent review of the EU arms embargo and its timeliness—but on this occasion I think that the belt-and-braces approach is working rather well. The fact that there is a rather thin turnout suggests that we might even be overdoing the level of scrutiny on this occasion. We do not seem to have a very high turnout, even on the ultramontane Conservative Benches.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I think that my hon. Friend would be more charitable to the Conservative Benches if he knew that there was the alternative attraction of a meeting with the Prime Minister and Mr Lynton Crosby.

[Martin Horwood]

They are obviously discussing Australian affairs, rather than European ones, but I am sure they are having a productive time.

It seems to me that Conservative Members, having argued so strongly for such an inordinate amount of parliamentary time to be devoted to Europe, should turn up and exercise their right to pass comment.

A strong European Court of Justice has to be a good thing for the UK. It is the ultimate court in which matters of EU law are determined within the European Union. That is a good thing for Britain because it ensures not only, on occasion, that we are compliant with EU law but, most importantly, that all the other 27 member states are too. As the Minister rightly pointed out, that frequently benefits British companies. Given the value of our relationship with Europe, it is crucial that the single market operates properly and is seen to be properly enforceable. If we argue for weakening that process, we are not only arguing for Britain to have a greater say over our interpretation of European law but for the French to have a greater say over its interpretation in France and for the Germans to have a greater say in Germany, and so on. Ultimately, the system becomes unworkable and unfair.

The hon. Member for North East Somerset was wrong to object to a smooth-running and efficient Court almost on principle, as I understood his remarks. It is wrong to use a court of justice as a negotiating tool and a lever for a political agenda. This is about the fair application of European law to British businesses and to the institutions of the European Union. In that respect, he should strongly support this, because the European Court of Justice has the right to tell EU institutions that they have overstepped the mark and exceeded their powers.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I apologise for not making myself clear. The reason I do not want it to be efficient is that I do not believe it is just.

[Martin Horwood]

We have sent some of our best quality advocates and lawyers to take part in the European Court of Justice, and other states have done likewise. It is rather insulting to the advocates-general and, indeed, judges who are in place to say to that it is not capable of passing a just judgment.

I am very pleased that the position of the British Government is that the additional cost of the extra advocates-general should be met from within the existing Court budget. I gather that that will be an additional €4 million or so, of which Britain’s share is probably €500,000, or some £400,000, a year. I would entirely support any measures that we can take to impose further austerity on these judges. That would be a useful thing to consider if they really are getting free cars. There is a need for the European Union collectively to realise that European finances are in a parlous state. That applies as much to the EU level of government as it does to the British level or to local or regional governments. In a time of austerity, it is absolutely right to look at the costs involved in such positions. It is a good discipline for us to be saying that the additional three advocates-general should be paid for from within the existing European Court budget.

That money could be well spent on behalf of British businesses, because the benefits of a freely and efficiently operating single market could be enormously greater. After all, we have £300 billion-worth of trade with other members of the European Union, we get £365 billion a year in foreign direct investment from other member states, some 3.5 million jobs are associated with trade with the EU, and some 200,000 British businesses trade with other member states. The single market is enormously important for jobs. We need it to operate fairly and efficiently in order to benefit British jobs, and that means that the European Court of Justice must operate smoothly and efficiently. That justifies the appointment of additional advocates-general to try to clear the enormous backlog of cases that now exists. I care very much about jobs in Cheltenham, and Liberal Democrats care about British jobs, so on this occasion we are four-square behind the Government in supporting the expansion of the European Court to allow for the extra advocates-general.

GCHQ

Martin Horwood Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right; as a former Foreign Secretary he is very experienced in these matters. I argued in my statement that, as he knows very well, the system of checks and balances and scrutiny that we have is among the strongest in the world; it could be the strongest in the world. Yes, he is right that the agencies easily come in for criticism when anything goes wrong and yet have to ensure at all times that they are gathering all the information they ought to be obtaining. They undertake a task for which they are not thanked and recognised often enough. They have achieved a great deal in frustrating attacks on this country, including, in recent years, planned terrorist attacks on this country, some of which we cannot talk about as they are not known to the public. It is therefore difficult to give them the recognition that they deserve. That is the scale and the importance of this crucial work.

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

I declare a strong constituency interest.

Veterans of Bletchley Park, such as my own parents, were and are widely described as heroes for the secret victories that we can now talk about, they having kept their secrets for many decades. Does the Foreign Secretary agree that GCHQ, as Bletchley’s successor, does equally vital but equally secret work, and that hon. Members might have to exercise just a fraction of that kind of self-restraint in allowing some of the perfectly legitimate questions about Prism to be answered in private to elected members of the Intelligence and Security Committee, which we have set up for precisely this purpose?

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend has spoken well about GCHQ and the work of his constituents, which he and I both greatly admire. Of course, the Intelligence and Security Committee is able to look at any aspects, including secret and top secret ones, of this discussion. The ISC, for those outside the House who may not be aware of it, is a cross-party Committee of Members who are already very familiar with so many of the issues surrounding secret intelligence. That is the proper place for these issues to be gone into in detail. I am sure this House will show the necessary restraint in its questions and comments, and that they will be fitting for today’s discussion about secret intelligence.

Syria (EU Restrictive Measures)

Martin Horwood Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

Is not the weakness in the argument that the arms may fall into the hands of the wrong people the fact not just that we can never give such guarantees, but, above all, that the wrong people already have plenty of sophisticated arms, which are being supplied perfectly legally from Russia, Qatar, Iran and everywhere else because there is no UN arms embargo?

[Emma Reynolds]

History teaches us to be extremely cautious. In the past, the west—ourselves, the US and others—has supplied arms to forces that then turned against us, so we need to learn the lessons of history and be extremely cautious.

--- Later in debate ---

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

Let me start with a note of criticism that relates not to our policy on Syria but to the scrutiny of European documents in this place. The Council decision was taken on 28 February and referred to this Chamber by the European Scrutiny Committee back in March. It is now nearly June; in fact, the three-month arms embargo to which the decision referred has nearly finished. This is not a criticism of the Minister, and certainly not of the Chair. I am afraid that Government business managers must address the issue, and we must all try collectively to carry out European scrutiny in a much more timely and effective fashion.

I strongly welcome much of what the Minister said, particularly his strong emphasis on the main focus of British policy being the achievement of a peaceful political solution. That has to be right, and it has to be our main objective in every decision we take. The Geneva peace process that we hope will develop over the coming months is central to this, and the role of Russia and other countries in the region is a crucial part of that process.

Some slightly ill-judged questions have been asked during the debate. The hon. Member for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway), who made a very wise speech, asked at one stage whether it would be legal for us to intervene in the dispute in Syria, yet I have not heard anyone on the Government Benches saying that we should intervene. We are, in the end, talking only about the possible partial lifting or changing of an arms embargo in a country in which there is no universal arms embargo. In fact, arms are flowing into the country, funded, in the case of the regime, by Russia, supported by Iran and by Hezbollah. The arms that are flowing to the jihadi elements such as Jabhat al-Nusra and possibly al-Qaeda are, by all accounts, funded from within the Gulf. Those arms are flowing in completely legally because of the lack of a UN arms embargo.

The hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) asked whether we were fuelling the fire. It is quite difficult to see how it could be fuelled any more—there is already an inferno. In effect, the EU arms embargo is a little like a sticking plaster floating in a flood. The country is already awash with arms. The most sophisticated arms are going to the regime and, I am afraid, to the jihadis, who are gaining ground against other elements.

As I said, I am worried about the tone of some Members’ speeches. I admire in many respects the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), but he fell foul of this trap. To talk as though no democratic or moderate force is present in the country—to simply ignore its existence—is to make a fatal error. We have fallen into that trap in many parts of the world over the decades. We have assumed that democracy, moderation and the rule of law could never exist in Latin America, eastern Europe or Africa, but one after another, the peoples of those continents and regions have shown that they are capable of fighting for freedom and democracy without falling into the hands of extremism. If the Arab spring taught us anything, it was that Arabs too can be moderate, Arabs too can fight for democracy and Arabs too can resist the temptations of extremism.

The Syrian conflict did not begin with western intervention. [Interruption.] I think that the hon. Member for Islington North did strongly imply that, but we will both have to check the record. The Syrian conflict began with Syrian people rising up against a dictatorship, in exactly the same way as the conflicts in Libya, Tunisia and Egypt, and the conflicts that are still tentatively going on in other countries. If we talk as if this is an endless and inevitable bloodbath carried out by wild-eyed foreigners, we do a grave injustice to those who are trying to promote values that we would recognise. The Syrian National Coalition has endorsed the values of democracy, pluralism and the rule of law. [Interruption.] There is laughter behind me. I am surprised that Members think that this is funny.

The Syrian National Coalition and the Free Syrian army are implicated in crimes. Those should be investigated and we should put intense pressure on the coalition to clean up its act and ensure that its fighters respect civilian populations. We must do our best to make these people, who are clearly no angels, behave in a way that would make us proud to support them. To simply ignore them and assume that the conflict will end up as a Sunni-Shi’a battle between the Assad regime and jihadis could be an historic mistake.

As I have said, the most important thing is that we do everything we can to support the Geneva process and a regional, political solution. That has to involve Russia because it is critical to the process. It will inevitably draw in countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia, although I am not sure whether it is practical to have those two countries at the Geneva peace conference because it might end up as more of a Sunni-Shi’a fight than it was before. We have not only a political and diplomatic duty, but a moral obligation to ensure that the peace process works. Provided that they have not been annihilated in the meantime, present as partners in that peace process must be those who are fighting for freedom, democracy and the rule of law.

Syria

Martin Horwood Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Of course I always take very seriously what is said by Oxfam and other NGOs. We will all have to weigh heavily all the different sides of the argument, but we must bear it in mind that, as things stand, people who have done nothing wrong—except to want dignity for their country and freedom for themselves—are being butchered. We must bear in mind what that does to their political opinions and whether that is acceptable, to us in the western world or to any part of the world. We will have to make our choice about that.

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s remarks, including those relating to the EU arms embargo. Does he agree that the negotiated political solution that we all want would become less likely if either the murderous Assad regime or the extremist jihadi militants believe that they can defeat those fighting for democracy and win by force and terror alone?

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend is absolutely spot on. That is absolutely right, which is why, in everything we are doing to send help into Syria and to deliver humanitarian assistance, we are trying to bolster the more moderate opposition forces with the practical help that we have given so far. Otherwise, it will become a contest between a murdering criminal regime on the one hand and the extremists on the other. That would be the worst situation of all for the world to be left in.

Oral Answers to Questions

Martin Horwood Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

May I also thank the Foreign Office for the support that it has given to my former constituent, Lindsay Sandiford? However, given the concerns about the adequacy of translation in the initial trial and the adequacy of legal representation going forward to the Supreme Court stage, will the Foreign Office reconsider its position and follow Indonesia’s own example, which provides support for translation costs and legal costs for its nationals facing the death penalty abroad, and support Lindsay Sandiford through that process, even though it is not legally obliged to do so?

[Mr Swire]

My hon. Friend is right to voice that concern, but it is true that the Government do not pay for legal representation for British nationals overseas. We have been working extremely closely with Lindsay Sandiford’s lawyers and Reprieve in identifying a lawyer for her, and we are prepared to assist her with anything beyond actually having to meet some of these bills, which we just simply do not do.