Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nadhim Zahawi and Boris Johnson

Tuesday 9th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

Most sensible commentators would say it is vital that this Government perform and act overseas as one HMG, and that is what we are doing.

[Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)]

The Iranian people quite rightly pride themselves on their educational attainment. How does banning the teaching of the English language in Iranian schools help future generations?

[Boris Johnson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Of course banning the teaching of English does nothing to help future generations of Iranians. On the contrary, it is likely to impoverish them, and it is something we deeply discourage.

Counter-Daesh Update

Debate between Nadhim Zahawi and Boris Johnson

Tuesday 7th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

With great respect to the right hon. Gentleman, I have answered the second point in some detail already. However, on his first point, about countering Daesh online, that is, as he knows, a subject in which the Prime Minister herself takes a keen interest. Working with the internet providers, we have taken 295,000 separate pieces of Daesh propaganda down from the web, but much more needs to be done, particularly by the social media giants.

[Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)]

Our words do matter in here, and the members of the Iranian revolutionary guard court, who will be watching our proceedings today, are the ones to blame for the incarceration of this wife and mother of a three-year-old—of a British citizen who has been spuriously charged with falsehoods. If our words really do matter, it is only right that we do not play party politics, and I am looking at the shadow Front-Bench team, who were giggling a minute ago about the discomfort the Foreign Secretary may be feeling. I ask him to redouble his efforts to get Nazanin released as soon as possible.

[Boris Johnson]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend, who speaks with huge authority about the region. I can certainly say that we are redoubling our efforts to secure the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. He is entirely right that the focus of the House should not be on any failings or the responsibilities of the UK Government for the incarceration of this mother—[Interruption.] If the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) is going to continue to blame the British Government for the incarceration of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, she is living in cloud cuckoo land—the world is absolutely upside down in the Labour party. It is the Iranian authorities against whom she should be directing her attention and her anger.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nadhim Zahawi and Boris Johnson

Tuesday 11th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)]

As well as the physical rebuilding of Mosul, one of the ways to reassure the people of Mosul is to devolve power to them, for which the Iraqi constitution allows. Will the Foreign Secretary urge the Iraqi Administration to look seriously at devolving power to the people of Mosul?

[Boris Johnson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He is of course right. Iraq is an ethnically divided and religiously divided country. We must make sure that everybody feels properly represented in the new constitution, and devolution to Mosul is certainly an option that we will be exploring.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nadhim Zahawi and Boris Johnson

Tuesday 21st February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)]

The Israeli Prime Minister has recently spoken about coming together with the Gulf Co-operation Council on security issues. Countries such as Jordan and Egypt have played a significant role in previous peace processes. Does the Foreign Secretary think that the GCC has a significant role to play in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process?

[Boris Johnson]

My hon. Friend brings a wealth of knowledge to this subject. I do think that the GCC and the Arab countries more generally hold the key, and that a variant of what used to be called the Arab peace plan is indeed where we will end up. What it will take now is for both sides to see that, and to make progress.

US Immigration Policy

Debate between Nadhim Zahawi and Boris Johnson

Monday 30th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

The hon. Lady says that the policy is counterproductive, immoral and wrong; I have said that it is divisive, discriminatory and wrong. If anyone thinks that there is a substantial difference in our positions, I invite them to write to me and explain.

[Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)]

I commend the Foreign Secretary on the work that he did on Sunday into the night to ensure that Britons had safe travel to the United States of America. Has he had clarification from the Administration on whether they have updated the advice to their embassies, because there is confusion? Some embassies are still turning dual nationals away and not allowing them to enter the United States of America.

[Boris Johnson]

I am thrilled that neither my hon. Friend, with whom I have travelled many times, nor Sir Mo Farah will be affected by this presidential Executive order. I can confirm that the embassy advice has been updated as we have been speaking.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nadhim Zahawi and Boris Johnson

Tuesday 22nd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

As the liberating forces progress through the suburbs, we are ensuring that there are avenues out of the city and camps available for those who need to take refuge, but clearly this is a very delicate matter, and we are investing considerable sums in ensuring adequate protection.

[Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)]

The Foreign Secretary rightly talks about the challenges of post-Daesh Mosul. I would like to mention on the record the excellent work that our ambassador, Frank Baker, is doing on politics beyond Daesh. Will my right hon. Friend make available to Frank and his team all the resources necessary to ensure we get the peace beyond Daesh right in Mosul?

[Boris Johnson]

My hon. Friend and I of course travelled to see Frank Baker a while ago, so we know what excellent work he does, and he has a very large team in Baghdad. It is a superb team and a real tribute to the work of the Foreign Office. As I say, they are working very hard to minimise the fallout from the liberation of Mosul and to ensure a peaceful and stable future for that city.

Britain in the World

Debate between Nadhim Zahawi and Boris Johnson

Monday 1st June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn) on one of a series of fantastic maiden speeches that we have heard this evening. I stress that mine is not a maiden speech—I have been specifically instructed by Mr Speaker that whatever maiden status I may once have possessed has long since passed away—but it gives me an opportunity to pay tribute to my great predecessor in the office of Member of Parliament for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, Sir John Randall.

John Randall was one of the kindest and wisest people in this place, and one of the very few Conservatives to forecast with complete accuracy what would go wrong with the Iraq war. Members may recall that he stepped down from the Front Bench before the invasion, with absolutely no self-advertisement, and never drew any attention to the fact that he had got it so thumpingly right. It is, incidentally, a measure of his popularity in Uxbridge that, at a recent electoral hustings there, virtually every candidate stood up to claim that he or she was the true heir of John Randall. “I am John Randall,” they kept saying, meaning them rather than me. I have to accept that I am not John Randall, but I will do my best to emulate him in his service to the constituency, and to London more broadly.

We are seeing fantastic success in this city. I am delighted to say that, as Hansard will confirm, during my final appearance in the House seven years ago I pointed out to the then Prime Minister that I had just banned alcohol on public transport. I was interrupted by the Speaker, and ordered to sit down. I do not know what objection he had to our policy. I now want to point out that, as a result of that policy, crime on London transport has fallen by 50%. Crime on buses has fallen by 50%, and we now have the safest tube network anywhere in Europe. As a result of the continual improvements we are seeing in our city we have the most dynamic urban economy anywhere in Europe—and I am grateful for the many excellent measures in the Queen’s Speech, which I will rapidly summarise as this 12-minute oration has been compressed to four.

I am delighted that we will see the stopping of the madness of a transport strike being triggered by a tiny minority—something City Hall has long advocated—and devolution to the great economic powerhouses of the cities of England. Fiscal devolution will enable us to build Crossrail 2 and many other wonderful projects—many hundreds of thousands. I also approve, by the way, of the decision to allow people to buy their own housing association homes, provided it leads to the rapid construction of more homes—low-cost homes—and it keeps the revenue raised for investment in housing in London.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Can my hon. Friend tell us how many houses he has built in London during his mayoralty?

[Boris Johnson]

I am delighted that my hon. Friend reminds me that under this mayoralty, and indeed under this Government, we built far more homes than Labour did in 13 years. We have built a record number of affordable homes, and we will go on until May 2016 to build a record 100,000 affordable homes over eight years.

Thanks to the hard and successful work of the Conservative-led Government over the last four years, we have a strong, dynamic, successful economy, but the most exciting thing for me, as someone who came into politics more than 20 years ago, is that we now have a Tory-majority Government with a clear mandate to seek change, and therefore a Government in the most powerful position in our lifetimes to deliver reform and improvement in Europe. We can win that argument by being relentlessly positive and by making it clear that what we are advocating is in the interests not simply of Britain but of the entire European Union.

I congratulate the Prime Minister on the élan and success with which he has begun his pan-European schmoozathon in the chancelleries of Europe. I believe his efforts will be crowned with success, but I would remind him of something that I think all of us would want to remind him, our negotiators, the Foreign Secretary and everybody else: if you are going to go into a difficult international negotiation, you have to be prepared to walk away if you do not get the result you want.