FCO: Human Rights Work

Debate between Mike Gapes and John Stanley

Thursday 14th March 2013 Westminster Hall

[Sir John Stanley (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

I am pleased to follow the present Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway), and his predecessor, the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes). I very much endorse the comments of my hon. Friend, when he said that the Government would do well to acknowledge that there is an inherent conflict between the Government pursuing their legitimate commercial interests, on one hand, and also standing up fearlessly for human rights on the other. The same point and representations have been made by the Committees on Arms Export Controls, which I chair, and the Government would do well to acknowledge that inherent conflict, rather than expressing a position of trying to pretend that no such conflict exists.

I say to the Minister that I shall raise a number of points, and I entirely understand that he may not have the time or information to reply to them immediately at the end of the debate. I will be very glad to receive replies subsequently in writing, if he so wishes.

I want to start with China, which remains a one-party, totalitarian, police state. Rightly and necessarily, it continues to feature in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s list of countries of concern with regards to human rights. As the FCO’s human rights report reminds us, when there were calls in China for a “Jasmine Revolution” to follow the Arab spring:

“Public order and security bodies detained and harassed lawyers, bloggers, human rights campaigners and other activists, without allowing them recourse to their legal rights.”

Very considerable numbers of human rights activists are in jail, including, of course, the immensely courageous Nobel peace prize winner, Liu Xiaobo, who is still in prison serving an intolerable sentence for the so-called, catch-all offence of “subversion”.

I want to raise a particular aspect of human rights in the context of China, and it concerns the Government’s policy on arms exports. China is rightly subject to an arms embargo. However, in the latest figures published by the Government on the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills website, for the third quarter of 2012, the Government have stated that they approved arms export licences for components for military electronic equipment; equipment for the use of military communications equipment; military communications equipment; military electronic equipment; and technology for military communications equipment. Will the Minister explain how it is that when the British Government have signed up to the EU arms embargo on China, they are still none the less approving military arms export licences to China for the type of equipment that, on the face of it, could be used for internal repression and the violation of human rights?

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South and the hon. Member for Ilford South, I want to discuss Russia, which is rightly listed as a country of concern by the FCO. From my perspective and that of most, if not all, in the House, under President Putin, human rights in Russia are going backwards, not forwards—particularly in the area of the freedom to express, the freedom to criticise and the right of peaceful protest. The laws that are now being put through the Duma, which is controlled effectively by those who support President Putin, are particularly concerning. The laws include, for example, fines for unsanctioned demonstrations and measures to oblige NGOs to register as “foreign agents”.

I noted with interest and concern what the mould-breaking former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said about the new Putin laws in a recent BBC interview:

“The common thread running through all of them is an attack on the rights of citizens.”

In the face of those new laws being passed and an increasingly hostile environment to basic human rights in Russia, will the Minister, in his reply, give us any assurance that the British Government will do all they can to protect British nationals in Russia, and, in particular, locally employed staff of organisations such as the British embassy, the British Council and those who are working for international human rights NGOs in Russia?

The country that probably has the worst human rights record in the world—indeed, this is stated in the Foreign Office’s human rights report—is North Korea. The previous Labour Government took what I considered to be an entirely justified step—we were one of the first European countries to do so—to re-establish a diplomatic presence in Pyongyang in order to give us the possibility to exercise some degree of leverage on human rights issues, among other things, in the capital, and also to provide a point of contact for human rights and humanitarian NGOs working in North Korea. With the arrival of Kim Jong-un as the “supreme leader” of North Korea—that is how he styles himself—we have in recent weeks and days seen an alarming escalation of hostile actions and statements. We have seen a ballistic missile test. We have seen a nuclear explosion. We have seen the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea claiming nullification of the armistice that ended the Korean war in 1953. We have seen the cutting of the hotline to Seoul. Very recently, a public statement was made that North Korea was ready for “all-out war”.

In light of the dismal and concerning developments that I have set out, are the British diplomatic staff reporting a reduction in their ability to further the human rights agenda and objectives of the British Government in North Korea? Can the Minister assure us that the Government will do all that they can to support our embassy and NGOs in North Korea in the extraordinarily important and difficult human rights and humanitarian work that they do?

I now come, with considerable regret but absolutely no apology, to an area that I think that I have raised in every one of these debates since they were first initiated—Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. As with my previous contributions, I emphatically do not do so in any one-sided or partial manner. The Hamas rocket attacks into Israel—I have been to the communities in Israel where those rockets have landed—are wholly unacceptable and totally intolerable. Indeed, I regard Hamas as a disgrace to the Palestinian cause and a very serious impediment to the Palestinian wish to achieve proper democratic progress towards an independent and viable Palestinian state.

That said, the Israeli Government cannot escape the criticism that they encounter, both within Israel to some extent and more widely internationally, for the relentless and continuing violation of basic Palestinian rights. I consider the FCO to be entirely correct in including Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories as a country of concern in its human rights report.

[Mike Gapes]

Does my friend agree with me that the formation of a Government in Israel today is a chance for a renewed emphasis on and impetus for the restarting of negotiations that will lead to the two-state solution that is the only viable way to deal with this conflict?

[Sir John Stanley]

I agree with my friend that that is an opportunity, but to be wholly frank and honest, I have grave doubts about whether it will be seized, because I fear that since the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin, there simply has not been a majority in the Knesset that is really willing to embrace the concept of creating a separate, independent, viable Palestinian state.

In recent years, we have seen the Israeli Government ending the movement of Palestinians between Gaza and Israel, turning Gaza into one of the biggest prisons, de facto, in the world. We have seen the relentless and continuing removal of Palestinian families from East Jerusalem, with the clear political objective of preventing East Jerusalem from ever becoming the capital of a Palestinian state. We see the continuation of the intolerable violation of Palestinian human rights on the west bank. To expose that, we need go no further than the Israeli NGO—I stress that it is an Israeli NGO—B’Tselem in its last annual report. It said:

“In the West Bank, two and a half million Palestinians live under Israeli military occupation while settlers live in enclaves of Israeli law within the same territory. Individual acts of violence by extremist settlers periodically capture the headlines, and discriminatory and inadequate law enforcement is indeed a concern. However, the major human rights violations result from the settlements themselves: their extensive exploitation of land and water, the massive military presence to protect them, the road network paved to serve them and the invasive route of the Separation Barrier, which was largely dictated by the settlements.”

Having made many visits to the British consulate-general in Jerusalem, I am well aware of the sterling and excellent work that is done by the Foreign Office from the consulate- general in trying to support and uphold Palestinian human rights in the occupied territories. However, in my view, a step change will be needed in the Israeli Government’s policy towards the Palestinians and towards the occupied territories if we are to see a genuine improvement in human rights. Does the Minister see any such prospect? From where I sit, and having seen the human rights deterioration taking place over so many years, I fear that we are moving to a position in which Gaza continues for the foreseeable future as one gigantic prison, East Jerusalem becomes an area where house after house belonging to a Palestinian family is taken over by the Israelis and, sadly, the west bank loses the possibility of becoming the core of an independent Palestinian state and becomes what I can only describe as a middle-eastern version of a Bantustan. Perhaps I am being too gloomy. I hope that I am, but I fear that I am not, given the progress of events.

I now come to a different part of the world and a different human right. I want to raise the case of Colonel Kumar Lama, a Nepalese citizen who came temporarily to the UK and who has now been arrested in the UK on the grounds of allegations of torture, committed not in Britain but in Nepal and committed not against British nationals but against Nepalese nationals. I wish to inform the House that although I have no registered interest to declare, I am the chairman of the all-party Britain-Nepal group.

I am raising this issue not because I want to take any position or make any comment on Colonel Lama’s specific case, but because it calls into question some very important human rights policy issues for the Government. In his letter to me this week, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has said that the arrest of Colonel Lama has been carried out to fulfil the UK’s obligations under the UN convention against torture. I cannot believe that Colonel Lama’s case is an isolated one. I cannot believe that Colonel Lama is the only foreign national in the UK against whom allegations have been made of torture committed against non-British nationals in foreign countries. Surely there must be scores and possibly even hundreds of others in the same category, so the key policy issue that I have to put to the Minister is this. Will he now confirm that, in the light of the Colonel Lama case, the British prosecuting authorities and the police will now arrest, in fulfilment of the UK Government’s obligations under the UN convention against torture, all other foreign nationals in Britain against whom there are allegations of torture committed against non-British nationals in foreign countries? That is the central policy question the Colonel Lama case raises. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

The key human right of freedom of expression embraces, in my view, freedom of speech, a free media and freedom to demonstrate peacefully. Freedom of expression is becoming ever more important in this electronic age, which gives Governments who are so minded greater and greater ability to suppress human rights and human rights activists. It enables Governments to combine unprecedented access to information acquired electronically with an unprecedented ability to carry out surveillance electronically.

I shall turn from freedom of expression generally to developments in that key human right in the Commonwealth. I am glad to say that we seem to have achieved a breakthrough on freedom of expression as far as Commonwealth countries are concerned. The first declaration of Commonwealth principles, made in Singapore in 1971 and followed by a repeated declaration of the principles 20 years later in the 1991 Harare declaration, was a major step forward in human rights for the Commonwealth, but in neither the Singapore declaration nor the Harare declaration were Commonwealth countries able to agree on including freedom of expression as a key Commonwealth principle and human right.

Arms Exports

Debate between Mike Gapes and John Stanley

Thursday 13th December 2012 Westminster Hall

[Sir John Stanley (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

I warmly congratulate my constituency neighbour and right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon) on his deserved return to the ministerial firmament, and I extend to him my best wishes for his time in his important post.

I would be the first to acknowledge that quantity and size are no indication of quality, whether that applies to speeches in the House or Select Committee reports, but the report that we are considering is of unprecedented length. It is a total of 537 pages spread over two volumes. I suggest to the House that it is compelling reading, not least at bedtime, and I hope that Members have enjoyed devouring it.

The report breaks important ground in five particular ways. First, one of the most important legacies left to our Parliament by the late Robin Cook was that he was the first Foreign Secretary to take the commendable initiative of producing a report to Parliament and the wider public on the Government’s policy on arms exports. Those annual reports have certainly been of material help to the Committees on Arms Export Controls by providing us with background information.

For the first time, the Committees’ report subjects the Government’s latest report to detailed and extensive written scrutiny, and, for the first time, it publishes our questions about the Government’s annual report and the answers that we received, which are set out in annex 11 to the report. I hope that Members will agree that that is an important new source of information for the House and the wider public.

Secondly, one of the most important sources of additional information available to the Committees is the Government’s quarterly publication on the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills website of the approvals and refusals they have made on the arms export licence applications that they have received. In addition, the Committees receive a considerable amount of information on a classified basis. After significant discussion with the Government, we reached agreement on a format in which we can make public the non-classified information that we obtained, with our questions alongside the Government’s answers. Our latest report reproduces those questions and answers for the first time, from the first quarter of this Government’s responsibility, starting 1 July 2010, until the latest quarter for which we have information. That is set out in annex 1 to the report.

Thirdly, a key focus of our inquiry has been the extent to which the Government have approved exports of arms, ammunition and components that might be used for internal repression in countries where such a risk may exist. In our report, we have illustrated such exports. In annex 6, we published illustrations of such exports to Arab spring countries in north Africa and the middle east, and in annex 7 we published similar illustrations for exports approved to authoritarian regimes worldwide that are of human rights concern. I believe that that too will be a valuable source of information to the House and the wider public.

Fourthly, over the past year, I, as the Chair of the Committees, have had extensive correspondence on the Committees’ behalf with the relevant Secretaries of State, ranging from correspondence with BIS on its priority markets lists for arms exports to correspondence on brass plate companies and arms exports to a variety of countries, including Argentina. We agreed as a Committee that the entirety of that correspondence, including our questions and the Government’s replies, would be published in our report. The correspondence covers 120 pages in the second volume of our report, and it too is an important additional resource of information for the House and the wider public.

Finally, in the report, we scrutinise to an unprecedented extent the field of Government policy on international arms control issues relating to weapons of mass destruction and conventional weapons. We have scrutinised the Government’s policy on, for example, the arms trade treaty, sub-strategic nuclear weapons, the fissile material cut-off treaty and other issues. It is another important area of scrutiny that we will be taking further throughout the rest of this Parliament.

A few months ago, I was invited to the Bundestag in Berlin to give a presentation on the British Parliament’s scrutiny of arms export and arms control policies. After the presentation, a number of Members of the Bundestag came up to me and said that they were amazed at the extent of our questioning of our Government, and even more amazed that the Government gave us the answers to our questions. Next week, I have been invited to the National Assembly in Paris to make a similar presentation, and I shall not be surprised if the response from the French Deputies who attend is similar. The fact that this House’s degree of scrutiny is now attracting international attention from parliamentarians in other countries is a welcome and important development.

Turning to the Government’s policies, the Government have accepted our recommendations in a significant number of areas, and we are on the same track. In other areas, the Government—to put it as constructively as I can—have still to accept our recommendations, and we are in a degree of disagreement. I will cover both those areas if I may.

First, we are very glad that the Government have accepted that the issue of arms exports and arms control is of sufficiently great importance to warrant the direct involvement of the four Secretaries of State. The Government accepted our recommendation that the annual report that they make—the one initiated by the late Robin Cook—should be signed off not by junior Ministers, but by the Secretaries of State. In addition, last year and, I am glad to say, this year, the two principal Secretaries of State involved—my right hon. Friends the Foreign Secretary and the Business Secretary— have decided to give oral evidence themselves to our Committees. They will do so next week in the context of our current inquiry.

On bribery and corruption, I am glad to say that the Government, in their response, have given us an “unqualified” assurance that if they become aware of corruption in arms deals, they

“will take appropriate action under the provisions of the Bribery Act 2010.”

That is a very welcome assurance from the Government.

On cluster munitions, the Committees strongly endorsed the position taken by the Government in resisting attempts to water down the cluster munitions convention. As the House knows, such an attempt was made by a number of the major holders and manufacturers of cluster munitions, including the United States, China and Russia, which put forward what was called draft protocol 6. The Committees strongly endorsed the British Government’s decision to reject draft protocol 6 and to avoid any watering down of the cluster munitions convention.

When the Government are making military and security equipment available by export as part of a British overseas security and justice assistance programme, the Committees recommended that their official human rights guidance should be much stronger to draw the attention of officials and, indeed, Ministers to the need to adhere very closely to the procedures and policies on arms exports. I am glad to say that the Government have responded in favourable—positive—terms to that recommendation.

The most important single issue on which we finally managed to reach agreement with the Government was Government policy on arms exports in relation to areas and countries where arms might be used for internal repression. It took considerable correspondence and questioning, but we got there in the end, when the Foreign Secretary gave evidence to the Committees on 7 February this year. That oral evidence exchange is so important—so fundamental—that I want to read out a brief extract from it. It is the key extract. The Chair said to the Foreign Secretary:

“As far as arms exports that involve weapons that could be used for internal repression are concerned, your junior Minister, Alistair Burt, in his press release statement on 18 February last year, entirely accurately and correctly summarised the previous Government’s position carried forward by the present Government on policy in this area. He summarised that accurately in these words: ‘The longstanding British position is clear. We will not issue licences where we judge there is a clear risk the proposed export might provoke or prolong regional or internal conflicts, or which might be used to facilitate internal repression.’ Foreign Secretary, has that policy changed, or is it as correctly stated by Mr Alistair Burt?”

The Foreign Secretary replied:

“That is still the policy. The ‘or’, as you have pointed out on other occasions, is important.”

The Chair then said:

“It is profoundly important, Foreign Secretary, and I am glad that you have acknowledged that.”

Therefore, the British Government’s policy is that they will not issue export licences for arms that might be used to facilitate internal repression. That is a very strict but very necessary policy in this area.

I have set out the areas where we are in agreement with the Government. I now turn to the areas where we are not yet in agreement. The first is extraterritoriality. The Committees see no good reason why a British person—an arms broker, say—should be able to carry out an arms export deal from overseas to, say, an embargoed destination that would be a criminal offence if carried out in the UK, and enjoy complete immunity from prosecution in this country. The Labour Government conceded that extraterritoriality was appropriate in this area, but conceded only part of the way, so the situation today is that some arms deals overseas in relation to certain types of arms are within the scope of extraterritoriality, but others are not. That is, in my view, a wholly anomalous position.

For example, small arms and light weapons are within the scope of extraterritoriality; heavy weapons are not. Unmanned aerial vehicles—UAVs—are within the scope of extraterritoriality, but manned combat aircraft, whether fixed wing or rotary wing, are not. Long-range missiles are within the scope of extraterritoriality, but short-range missiles are not. The anomaly is glaring and should not be continued. Extraterritoriality should be extended to the remaining items on the military list as the Committees have recommended.

On torture end-use control and end-use control of goods used for capital punishment, the Committees recognise that the Government appear to have taken effective steps by way of temporary action to stop the export from the UK of drugs that are to be used for capital punishment executions in the US, but given the seemingly endless delay in the EU carrying out its promised review of the EU’s so-called torture regulation, we do not understand why the Government are still so reluctant to introduce national legislation in the UK in this important area. Perhaps the Minister can shed some light on that.

On trade fairs, the Committees were highly critical of the fact that illegal goods, such as torture equipment and cluster munitions, were found being marketed at the last defence and security equipment exhibition, held in London in September 2011. It was not the first time that had happened. In addition, that marketing material was found not by the organisers and supervisors of the event, but by visitors walking round the exhibition.

The Government’s response to our criticism was frankly extraordinary:

“The Government does not agree with the Committees’ conclusion that the two instances of promotion of undesirable materials via exhibition stands at DSEI 2011 are evidence of a lax approach to enforcement.”

If that evidence is not clearly evidential of a lax approach, I do not know what is.

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

The Chairman of the Committees will be aware that was not the first time it happened, but it is important to place it on the record. There were similar incidents at previous defence exhibitions four or five years earlier. Promises were made that the situation would be improved. There are clearly outstanding issues that raise further questions about scrutiny and enforcement.

[Sir John Stanley]

The hon. Gentleman makes a wholly correct point. I said in my remarks that that exhibition was not the first time, and he is entirely right to reinforce the point.

We continue to be in disagreement with the Government on whether there is an inherent conflict between strongly promoting arms exports to an authoritarian regime while criticising their human rights performance and abuses. To the Committees, it is blindingly obvious that if the UK is trying to land a major arms export contract in an oppressive regime country, the chances of its doing so will be materially diminished if Britain, at Government level, gives a high profile to criticisms of human rights abuses in that country. The temptation will be to make those criticisms sotto voce in private. The conflict is inherent, although that is not to say that we should necessarily give up on pursuing particular export contracts, but the Government would do better to stand up and acknowledge the inherent conflict in their position, rather than trying to pretend that no such conflict exists.

I turn to the Committees’ response to the arms export review, which the Government carried out in the wake of the Arab spring, of exports to the middle east and north African countries. The review resulted in a wholly unprecedented number of revocations of arms export licences: a total of 158, way beyond anything that has occurred in response to a single international event hitherto, as far as I know. I do not in any way criticise the Government for making those revocations; indeed, I applaud them for doing so. It was the correct decision in the wake of the Arab spring in the countries concerned.

Where we differ from the Government is in our judgment over whether the original decisions to grant those export licences were correct. The licences included sniper rifles to Bahrain, equipment for armoured fighting vehicles to Mubarak’s Egypt and military communications equipment to Gaddafi’s Libya. The Government’s position is that none of those exports—items that have now been the subject of revocations—represented policy misjudgments. Our Committees’ position is that when the judgments were originally made, at least some were seriously flawed. Our report therefore recommends that the Government apply a more cautious judgment to weapons and equipment that can be used for internal repression when they are to be exported to oppressive and authoritarian regimes. The Committees’ position is the right one for the Government to adopt.

Our final point of disagreement with the Government is over our recommendation that the review of arms exports to the middle east and north African countries should be extended worldwide, to review extant export licences to authoritarian countries and those of human rights concern, as listed by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in its latest human rights report. The Government initially responded:

“Although this review was originally commissioned in response to events in the Middle East and North Africa, any conclusions will apply to our procedures for arms exports to all countries.”

To say that the lessons learnt from the middle east/north Africa review will be applied to all other countries is not the same as the Committees’ recommendation that the review itself be applied to authoritarian countries and countries worldwide where there are significant human rights abuses. When the Foreign Secretary came to the Committees on 7 February this year, we pressed him at considerable length on that point. Although he said:

“I did not agree with the recommendation of the Committee.”,

I am glad to tell the House that the Committees, by pressure of questions, achieved the review that was the original subject of our recommendation.

In our most recent questions, we put to the Government:

“Is the Government satisfied that none of the extant UK arms export licences worldwide, in addition to those to the countries specifically referred to above”—

the middle east and north African countries—

“contravenes:

(a) The Government’s stated policy on UK arms exports and internal repression as set out in Paragraph 191 of the Committees’ 2012 Report, or

(b) either the UK’s Consolidated Criteria for arms exports or the Criteria in the EU Council Common Position on arms exports?”

The Government replied:

“The Government is satisfied that none of its extant licences contravenes its stated policy on arms exports and internal repression, the Consolidated Criteria or the Common Position.”

The Committees got there in the end, but the Government would have done better to accept our recommendation initially, rather than having to carry out a review in response to our questioning.

Lastly, I have three specific questions to put to the Minister. If he or one of his ministerial colleagues wishes to reply in writing subsequently, I will entirely understand. The first question concerns the arms trade treaty. The next attempt to reach agreement will be in March next year. Thus far, the negotiations have all been subject to the consensus principle—the principle of unanimity. I fully understand that it is often necessary to adopt the consensus principle to begin a drafting process. However, I must flag it up that continuing adherence to that principle will almost certainly be the kiss of death to the conclusion of an arms trade treaty. I have been wracking my brains to think of a single significant multilateral arms trade agreement to which everybody signed up, and I cannot think of one. If we had had the consensus principle, we would never have had the non-proliferation treaty, the land mines convention or the cluster munitions convention. Will the Government tell the Committees in what circumstances the British Government would be willing to abandon the consensus principle to get the arms trade treaty agreed by the great majority of countries in the United Nations?

My second question is about the fissile material cut-off treaty, and the issue is similar. The drafting of this much-needed treaty has, as we know, been deadlocked for years in the conference on disarmament in Geneva, again because of the consensus principle, coupled with the India and Pakistan nuclear situation. In answers to the Committees, the Government said that their policy is to keep responsibility for drafting that crucially needed treaty in Geneva, notwithstanding that there has been deadlock for years. Will the Government at least set a deadline for the start of the drafting of that treaty in Geneva? It is a matter of judgment what the deadline should be. I would offer one of, say, the end of calendar year 2013. Will they at least consider setting a deadline? If no drafting takes place, the obvious next step must be to take the responsibility for the drafting back to the United Nations. Alongside that question, will the Government tell the Committees what action they are taking within the P5, all of which basically support a fissile material cut-off treaty, to maximise pressure to secure progress on that treaty?

My final question is about unmanned aerial vehicles or drones, and it is in two parts. First, are the Government entirely satisfied that existing arms export control legislation applies fully to drones, and their technology and components? Secondly, can we be assured that the British Government will resist the attempts being made by members of the missile technology control regime to reduce the control it exercises on the proliferation of drones and drone technology? Are the British Government standing up firmly and clearly against any loosening of controls on proliferation in that area within the missile technology control regime?

In conclusion, I do not wish the House to take away any other impression from my speech but that the Committees are determined to continue to improve and strengthen their scrutiny. However, I believe that the scrutiny that the Committees have achieved and—I stress this—the transparency that the Government have shown in response to the Committees’ scrutiny are now as high, if not higher, than those of any other Parliament and Government in the major arms-exporting countries. That is a situation with which I believe we, in the British Parliament, can be satisfied, although as I said, we will try to improve our performance still further.