Gibraltar

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2015 Commons Chamber

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

Let me begin where the right hon. Member for Croydon South (Sir Richard Ottaway) ended. We in this country have important relations with Spain in the context of a number of issues. As the Committee itself made clear, Spain is an important European Union and NATO partner, and co-operates with the United Kingdom on a number of our strategic priorities. Some of those are listed in the report, including counter-terrorism and the combating of drug smuggling. There is an economic agenda within the European Union, and a reform agenda. Migration policy is a complex issue, and there are wider international and trade matters. Both the United Kingdom and Spain have historic associations with both north and south America that date from the colonial period, and both countries have a strong interest in the current talks on the transatlantic trade and investment partnership. Beyond that, both countries, as democratic, pluralistic societies, are appalled by terrorism, whether it is carried out in Paris or in countries such as Iraq and Syria.

We have a common agenda in many respects, and for that reason it is really shocking that the present right-wing Spanish Government, run by the Partido Popular, have decided to tear up the co-operation developed from 2004 onwards by the previous Labour Government and the previous socialist Government—run by the Partido Socialista Obrero Español—as well as the Cordoba agreement to which the right hon. Member for Croydon South referred.

We began our Gibraltar inquiry following our decision to conduct an inquiry into United Kingdom consular work, and to visit the consular hub that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office had established in Malaga, in southern Spain. From Malaga, we went to Gibraltar. Our visit to Malaga and our conversations with British people living and working in Spain—about 1 million people live there happily—showed us that Spanish people are hospitable, kind, friendly and supportive. Many Spanish people in the local authority that we visited were assisting British citizens who were resident in Spain.

Meanwhile, in the past two or three years an increasing number of Spanish people—predominantly young people—have come to work in London and other parts of the United Kingdom, including cities, because of the economic difficulties in Spain. There is two-way traffic. There are families consisting of children born in one country and parents from the two countries. There is a mixture consisting of many people with connections between the United Kingdom and Spain, including some senior political figures in our Government.

[Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that a huge number of Spanish people work in Gibraltar and get on very well with Gibraltarian people, and that we should respect that?

[Mike Gapes]

The hon. Gentleman pre-empts my next point.

It became apparent to me during the inquiry—the Committee Chairman touched on this—that there are 8,000 or 9,000 people who every day travel from Spain into Gibraltar to work, so a very large number of Spanish citizens depend on the Gibraltarian economy for their employment and prosperity. Why, then, are the Spanish Government behaving in such a stupid way by stopping those workers either travelling to work or coming home because they face queues and delays of two, three or four hours in getting across the border in their vehicles or, sometimes, on foot? This is an ideologically driven agenda designed by people in Madrid who clearly do not care about the livelihoods of the members of the trade unions I met here in the House of Commons who had come from the south of Spain to talk to British MPs about the difficulties they face. They were hosted by Unite, which has associations with workers both in Gibraltar and internationally in Spain.

A clue is provided by the politics of Andalucia and the south of Spain: they generally vote for the left, whereas the Government in Madrid are dominated by the right. Sadly, therefore, since the change in 2011 the Madrid Government have shown contempt for their own citizens and their economic interests by behaving in a vindictive way against Gibraltar and at the same time damaging the interests of Spanish people and workers.

The British Government should be doing more to highlight the situation, as should international organisations such as the International Labour Organisation and those that look at issues to do with human rights and free movement.

Why has this issue come up at this moment in time? In Spain—and, indeed, elsewhere—there has been a rise of populist opposition against the incumbent Government. The governing party might believe it can pander to those opponents by raising the nationalist card over Gibraltar and thereby diverting attention from the country’s internal economic problems. I do not think that is going to work in the long term, but we shall see, because Spain, like the UK, is supposed to have an election this year. I do not think the governing parties in either country will get the results they want, but I do not want to get diverted into domestic politics.

Our Government must be more robust on this matter internationally. We have seen in a number of international forums that when the British Government are determined, they can make a real difference, but we have not been strong enough or vocal enough on the issue of Gibraltar. There is clearly international support for the UK position in many countries, but we are not doing enough to build that support, whereas Spain is working very hard internationally in its own interests.

A resolution tabled in the US Congress last year referred to the rights of self-determination of the people of Gibraltar. It is clear from a letter that has only just become public that, from September, the Spanish ambassador to the United States lobbied extremely hard against it, using all kinds of implied threats about the consequences, to try to stop that bipartisan resolution being carried in the US House of Representatives.

Internationally, it is clear that the present Spanish Government, unlike their predecessors, are not interested in coming to a modus vivendi on these issues. The previous Spanish Government did not accept, and would never accept, that there was any question of British sovereignty of Gibraltar, but they accepted the reality that there was an agreement to differ and that they should therefore deal with the practical issues and leave the other issues to one side. That is how the improvements from 2004 onwards were achieved and sustained. The ideological approach of the current Spanish Government, however, seems to put a nationalist agenda before the interests of their own people, and ahead of co-operation with the UK and the interests of the people of Gibraltar.

Our report has highlighted an important issue. Apparently the situation has improved since we published it, with a reduction in the number and intensity of obstructions to people travelling into and out of Gibraltar, but that can be switched on or off at any time, as we saw when we visited. When we drove into Gibraltar, there was no queue. We went to our hotel and within an hour we had a call saying that suddenly there was a massive backlog at the border because the Spanish police were imposing restrictions and searching all vehicles. There was a big queue and the car park was full in the space of only about 40 minutes to an hour. This is politically motivated and it is being run by special paramilitary police from Madrid, not the local police. It is all part of a special, politically designed operation.

The truth needs to be told. We need to get this agenda out: there are people in Spain who have an agenda based on an ideological approach that damages the working of the EU—it damages the possibility of agreements within the EU being arrived at in a timely manner—as well as the interests of the Spanish people and the democratic, self-determination interests of the people of Gibraltar. I hope the Government will heed what is said in this debate and be more forceful and vocal on these matters in future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr McFadden]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. A serious aspect of this issue is that when we question such principles, we may sometimes do so without thinking about how they are used by our own citizens who, in possession of a British passport, can move freely—and live and work freely—throughout the European Union, as many do.

Given the principle of free movement, the Government are absolutely within their rights to complain to the European Commission about what is happening on the Gibraltar-Spain border. They have done so before; may I ask the Minister whether they will do so again, stressing the issue of the recent delays and the impact that they are having on the economy and citizens of Gibraltar? Will the Government also call for Commission visits to be made with little or no notice? As we have heard during the debate, the inconveniences and delays can be turned on and off. Obviously, if lengthy notice is given of a visit, it will be easy to step down the pressure and ensure that the inspectors do not see things as they sometimes are. It matters how such visits are conducted, and when they are conducted.

Paragraph 84 of the report suggests that the Government should consider using article 259 of the Lisbon treaty to take Spain to the European Court. May I ask the Minister for his response to that suggestion, which was also mentioned today by the right hon. Member for Croydon South?

The report gives detailed information about the sharply increased number of transgressions of British- Gibraltan territorial waters, which sometimes occur as often as 50 or 60 times a month. Let us be clear about the fact that this is not about free passage; it is about state-owned vessels violating sovereignty, and trying to erode the status and integrity of Gibraltar's territorial waters.

The Committee drew attention to the Government’s delays in lodging protests against those transgressions, fearing that such delays lessened the impact of our complaints and gave the impression that we were merely going through the motions. In their response to the report, the Government said that practice had changed, and that there was now a weekly submission to the Spanish Government. That is to be welcomed on one level, but the fact that the submission must be weekly prompts another question: what further means of reducing the number of transgressions, and thus the need for weekly submissions, have the Government considered?

I am sure the whole House agrees that the Royal Navy’s Gibraltar Squadron and the Royal Gibraltar Police do a difficult and dangerous job, showing admirable restraint when faced with repeated and sometimes dangerous provocation on the seas. The report also welcomes the use of Gibraltar as a staging post for larger Royal Navy vessels.

May I ask the Minister to address the points made by the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), whose military experience is always valuable in these debates? Is it still Ministers’ view that the squadron there has the ships, equipment and manpower to carry out the tasks assigned to it, or is there a need to reassess this in the way that the hon. Gentleman suggested?

The international aspects of this issue have also been mentioned in this debate. I am sure that the Minister agrees that it is unacceptable to use issues like EU aviation policy or the single European sky policy to put further pressure on Gibraltar. Why should not the airport in Gibraltar and the people travelling there have the same freedom and rights as people elsewhere in the EU?

My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) mentioned the resolution in Congress recognising Gibraltar’s right to self-determination. I am sure that the attempts by the Spanish Government, in the letter from the ambassador to Congress, to link their support for the coalition against ISIS with the issue of Gibraltarian self-determination would be rejected by all of us. As democratic countries defending pluralism, there should be no linkage between the battle against the ideology and practices of ISIS and self-determination for the people of Gibraltar.

[Mike Gapes]

Is it not also significant that Spain, as in the Madrid bombings of more than a decade ago, has suffered appalling acts of internationally organised terrorism, and it is deplorable that the current Spanish Government have such a short memory of the solidarity that was expressed by the whole world when Spain was attacked?

[Mr McFadden]

My hon. Friend makes a strong point. We have seen a great deal of solidarity with the people of France in the last 24 hours against the appalling acts of yesterday. When these things happen, and when democracies are faced with the ideology of those who would kill and attack pluralism and free speech, we do not seek a chain of other issues to connect to them. We do it because we defend our own values, which are under attack from the ideology that led to the bombings in Madrid, which has led to action in this country and drove those responsible for the terrible events in Paris yesterday. On these international issues, will the Minister say what efforts the UK Government are making to make it clear to the international community that Gibraltar’s status must not be used in this way?