Foreign Affairs Committee

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Joan Ryan]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will endeavour not to mention the particular person we refer to.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Ind)]

Voldemort.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

I will speak to the motion, which starts by saying that

“Ian Austin and Mike Gapes be discharged from the Foreign Affairs Committee”.

I will explain why I think that is wrong.

There is no doubt that, on almost every domestic issue, the hon. Members for Dudley North (Ian Austin) and for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) and I completely disagree. I would be shocked if there were many domestic issues we saw eye to eye on.

[Mike Gapes]

As a fellow West Ham supporter, I can assure the hon. Gentleman that that is not the case.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I am most grateful for that; it just goes to show that we can all be wrong at some point in the day.

This issue is far more important than whether we agree on domestic issues. I want to speak about how Select Committees operate and the sort of people who should be on them. When we look at why this motion has been brought forward, it is worth noting that, in terms of the mathematics of Parliament, we will still have the same number of Opposition MPs on the Select Committee compared with Government MPs.

In April 2013, the hon. Member for Dudley North and I went to Kiev, shortly after the purple revolution. We saw at first hand how people tore up the streets to use the stones as missiles. We actually saw a lynching in the square. Why did we go on that trip? We were trying to understand the threats people faced to their freedom, how they were trying to overthrow a repressive Government and how the country could move forward—let us be honest, all is not rosy in Ukraine to this day, even apart from the Russian aggression and intervention. However, we went there to understand those things. That shows why the hon. Member for Dudley North has given so much experience to the Foreign Affairs Committee: he has gone around the world with cross-party groups—I will come to the hon. Member for Ilford South in a moment, because I would not want to rule him out of this.

That trip was not a Foreign Affairs Committee trip; it was a Back-Bench trip put together to understand what was going on. It was done to understand what was going on because that is what parliamentarians should do in this country—in this free democracy we live in. We have to understand repression around the world and bring to bear the values we hold dear—freedom, the rule of law, democracy and the right to choose what we want to do—when we discuss various issues.

It sends an appalling message to our fellow countrymen that this motion is effectively about the hon. Member for Dudley North standing up to racism and to antisemitism and calling out an affront to democracy. It breaks my heart that in the 21st century we are discussing issues that should have been put to bed 70 or 80 years ago. I do not know what this country is coming to when politicians elected to this House are on the list of the biggest threats to Jews in the world. How did we get here?

Standing up for those principles and going around the world to witness events in other countries to bring that experience back to a wider audience should be appreciated and valued. We should not immediately get rid of somebody from an influential Select Committee just because they stood by their principles. The hon. Member for Dudley North brings his many years of experience, and his skill is based on his time in government —he is an experienced Member of this House.

I say again that the hon. Gentleman and I disagree on many issues. In fact, we have had our ding-dongs in this Chamber—we can see them in Hansard—especially back when I was newly elected and full of vim and energy and wanted to make my point. However, that is no reason to get rid of someone with such high-held principles, which this country exports around the world. Those of us who travel around the world encouraging democracy know that this country’s principles about freedom of democracy should be celebrated, and we should not kick people off Select Committees when they stand up for them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Ind)]

There have been times today when I thought I was listening to my own obituary, and it has been quite moving to hear some kind things said about me. But it is not about me, and it is not about my good friend the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) either; it is about the way in which this Parliament works.

I have had the privilege and the honour to be a Member of Parliament for 27 years. For the vast majority of that time—19 years—I have been a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee. I have also served on the Defence Committee, the Joint Committee on National Security Strategy briefly, the Liaison Committee and, for more than 10 years, the Committees on Arms Export Controls, formerly known as the Quad. I know that the only way that this Parliament’s Select Committees work and work effectively is if we produce unanimous reports. We get listened to and noticed only when we work on a cross-party basis and leave our party labels behind us. If we get a 9:2 split in a Committee, it is better that the two are from different parties and that the nine are from different parties, than if it goes the other way. That is how Parliament works, and it works effectively.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

Is this not the heart of the matter? Is it not absurd to be talking about changing the balance between Opposition and Government membership on these Committees? These Committees, with very few exceptions, never divide along party lines. When the Defence Committee meets, I never ever have to consider the fact that it might be me—one Conservative—and five Opposition Members who happen to be in that meeting at the time.

I crave your indulgence for a second, Madam Deputy Speaker, to say that I am very sorry I cannot make a full speech in this debate because I was chairing a Defence Committee meeting that overlapped with a large part of it. However, I have known of the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) since the 1970s, when we were both fighting Trotskyists inside the Labour party. In the 1990s, I remember going with Conservative delegations to eastern Europe, only to find that the hon. Gentleman, as international secretary of the Labour party, had got there before us. The idea that the hon. Gentleman has had to leave the Labour party, when every drop of his blood is infused with the ethos of the Labour party, is absolutely tragic—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Gapes]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman.

When a Select Committee produces a report that contains lots of recommendations and says some telling and critical things and it wants the Government to produce a serious response, that Committee has effect if it works collectively and comes to a consensual report. If the Government then gives an inadequate response, the Committee goes back. Under the chairmanship of my very good friend the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat), we have been persistent. We have told the Foreign and Commonwealth Office: “This is an inadequate response. We’re not accepting it.” We have made it difficult for them—we are persistent—and we do that on behalf of the House as a whole. We do it not as delegates from the central committee of a political party, but as parliamentarians who have used our knowledge, experience, integrity and persistence to beaver down, get the facts, expose the scandals and the problems, highlight them and then challenge the Executive.

There has been a trend in this Parliament for the Executive to treat Parliament with contempt. We have even passed motions saying that. I will not deviate from the terms of the motion, but we have seen lots of examples of Parliament having to struggle to assert our authority. It would be very strange if today we start to undermine Parliament’s authority in a different way.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mike Gapes]

I give way to my hon. Friend.

[Steve McCabe]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend; I should probably say in passing: you are not dead yet. Can there be anyone who has witnessed this debate who could think that voting for this motion would be to represent the will of the House? If the purpose is to represent the will of the House tonight, do we not know what we should do?

[Mike Gapes]

I am very grateful. Obviously every Member has to look to their own conscience and presumably their own relationship with their party to decide what they will do, but I must say that I am astonished that there is a Whip on this House business. It is not usual.

I was in the House in 2001, and I recall the attempted removal of the Chairs of the Select Committee on Transport, Gwyneth Dunwoody, and the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, Donald Anderson, now Lord Anderson. That was not exactly the same as tonight’s proposal, because there was a vote in a parliamentary Labour party meeting, but it was ultimately a decision for the House as a whole. The House at that time rejected the proposal from the Labour party and those names were reinstated. We are in a different situation today, but the essence of my point is that, regardless of what happens to my personal position, this is about how Parliament and the Select Committees work.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the fundamental point is that the number of Opposition and Government MPs remains the same? He has not crossed the Floor; therefore, the fundamental mathematics remain the same.

[Mike Gapes]

Yes, that is factually correct. More importantly, this is not just a question of positioning on the Benches. My views on the awful Maduro regime in Venezuela, the Putin kleptocracy and the barbaric, murderous Assad regime have not changed from when I said those things over recent months. It may be that factors around those have played some role in this—I do not know.

[Mr Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is aware that as a fellow Committee member, he has my full support, and I look forward to him, and indeed, the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin), being on the Committee for the rest of the Parliament.

[Mike Gapes]

I am very grateful. I say to all the members of the Foreign Affairs Committee that I am very pleased and grateful that the Committee decided unanimously that it did not want to have two of its members removed. The Chairman of our Committee wrote a letter to the Chief Whips of the respective parties pointing that out, so there is no doubt about the position of the other nine Committee members with regard to me and my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North.

In conclusion, whatever happens today or with the NATO delegation, I will continue to do the right thing and fight on foreign affairs to represent the best interests of our country abroad and to highlight issues of concern, because those internationalist values that I had when I joined the Labour party 50 years ago are still my internationalist values.