Syria and North Korea

Lord Soames of Fletching Excerpts

Tuesday 18th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I say to the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) that all sorts of things might be judged by some people to be intolerable, but I am afraid that what is above all intolerable is to depart from the normal process. She is a person of very considerable intellect and ingenuity. Doubtless, through her colleagues—and possibly subsequent to the statement—she can find ways of giving expression to her concern, but at this point if she could assume a Zen-like calm, the House would be the beneficiary of that.

[Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

It is obviously right that a diplomatic joint approach in Syria is more important than unilateral action. Will the Foreign Secretary therefore commit to continuing to work closely with our American allies and other partners and friends to bring an end to this barbaric slaughter in Syria?

[Boris Johnson]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his question. That is exactly what we are engaged in doing. I do not pretend to the House that it will be easy. We have been here before; we have seen the whole Kerry-Lavrov rigmarole that went on for months and months. However, this is an opportunity for Russia to recognise that it is supporting a regime that deserves the odium of the entire world. That is costing Russia friends and support around the world, but it now has a chance to go for a different approach, and that is what we are collectively urging it to do.

US Immigration Policy

Lord Soames of Fletching Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

The hon. Lady’s constituents are, of course, perfectly at liberty to sign the petition and express their views. I have expressed my views about the measure, but I also think it would be a good thing for the visit to go ahead, because the relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States is the single most important geopolitical fact of the past 100 years, and we are going to keep that relationship going.

[Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

I strongly agree with the Foreign Secretary on the importance of this country’s alliance with the United States, but does he agree that, whatever others may do, refugees arriving in this country will be dealt with with patience, courtesy and respect?

[Boris Johnson]

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for his point. I am glad to see that the bust of his grandfather has been rightfully restored to its place in the Oval Office. I remind him that of course Winston Churchill took a very strong view on a country being able to control its own borders and immigration policies.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Soames of Fletching Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

We are not supporting them doing that, as the hon. Lady can no doubt imagine. We are working closely with the Saudi Arabians and the coalition to ensure that the protocols and standards that they are using in sustained warfare meet the international standards that we would expect, were we to be involved ourselves. Much of the information that comes from the battlefield is very unclear indeed, but we are enforcing transparency in a way that the Saudi Arabians and many other members of the coalition have never seen before.

[Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, as the Saudi-led coalition intends to restore the legitimate Government in Yemen, it is clearly right and proper that we should support it?

[Mr Ellwood]

My right hon. Friend knows the region well and he is absolutely right. I want to make it clear, however, that the coalition has made errors. It has made mistakes. It has not endured sustained warfare in this manner before, and it is having to meet international standards as never before. It is having to provide reports when it makes mistakes, and it has never done that before. It has no experience of even writing reports. It wants to meet those standards and to work with the international community. We need to ensure that when errors are made, the coalition puts its hand up in the same way that we do and that the Americans did in Afghanistan only a few months ago.

Aleppo and Syria

Lord Soames of Fletching Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

I apologise to the House for my lateness in attending the debate; I was chairing the Environmental Audit Committee.

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) on securing the debate and my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) on her passionate and heartfelt speech. I echo her sentiments about how much we miss the good sense and the good will of our lost friend, the late Member for Batley and Spen.

I visited Lebanon last September as Labour’s shadow International Development Secretary and saw at first-hand the scale of the appalling humanitarian crisis spilling out from Syria and across the middle east. I stood in a sandstorm on the Beka’a valley on the road to Damascus, just 12 miles from Assad’s presidential palace. I certainly felt very close to everything that was happening. A charity worker from Islamic Relief said to me that just six miles away there were Jihadi fighters. I had been live tweeting a lot of photos from the camps and at that point I thought it best to turn off the geo-location from the Twitter account and not do any tweeting until we got back to our safe haven of Beirut. I must admit that I felt like a bit of a coward doing that.

What we know about Syria is that 400,000 people have been killed in this humanitarian catastrophe, 5 million Syrian refugees have fled their country and 8 million more are displaced within its own borders. They are fleeing the terror of Assad, ISIL and now Russia. I met a woman called Hadia who told me how her husband was killed in Homs while working as a Red Cross volunteer. The UN had offered to take her and her children to Germany, but she declined because her mother was unable to accompany them. Four of her adult children are still trapped in Homs. Cases like Hadia’s demonstrate the terrible choices refugees face: you lose your husband, you bring your mother with you and then you are forced to leave your mother behind in order to seek safety for your children.

I also met a man who had a pacemaker fitted in Damascus and who, upon his return to Lebanon, was deregistered as a refugee because he had left freely and returned. This left him and his wife destitute. He was 65 years old and unable to work. He was destitute, lying on his back in a camp.

The vulnerability of those refugees in the Beka’a valley and elsewhere in Lebanon is growing, as we heard in the speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg). Their food allocation has been cut. They are on pretty much starvation rations, capped at five family members. I met 10-year-old girls labouring for seven hours a day in the fields, earning $4 a day and working one hour a day just to pay the rent for their family to pitch a little ragged tent on a disused onion factory. Those children’s childhoods have been stolen. Eight million people have been displaced internally in Syria, having suffered attacks from cluster munitions and chemical weapons, and the collective punishment of siege warfare.

At the last meeting of the all-party group on Syria that I attended with the then hon. Member for Batley and Spen, Jo Cox, we heard about 60,000 people disappearing and their families paying extortionate sums of money for news of their loved ones or just to receive their bodies for burial. We are seeing Assad carry out the extermination of his people. He has destroyed his country. He has destroyed one of the oldest civilisations in the world. He has destroyed the economy and destroyed all good will in that country. It is now a wartime economy, based on looting, corruption, arms and people smuggling. People are living under siege, their access to basic services denied. Eleven per cent of Syria’s population—2 million people—have been wounded or injured, and we have seen the terrible suffering of Syria’s children.

In August 2013, this House voted against military action in Syria. I shared the regret of many on our side of the House and of the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) at our cowardice on that occasion. We are now living with the consequences of that inaction. That vote was prompted by a sarin gas attack on civilians in eastern Damascus that killed 1,400 people, 426 of whom were children. The UN doctrine of the responsibility to protect allows military intervention to protect civilians from genocide and war crimes by their state and provides a valid legal basis for intervention. That responsibility to protect weighs upon us as heavily today as it did on that August day in 2013, when, after the vote, we went home, turned on our televisions and saw that Assad had carried out a napalm attack on a school. Using chemical weapons on sleeping children is a war crime. We know all the reasons for that vote, but we now know that we have to protect civilians from Assad and, now, from Russian intervention as well.

[Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that what the Russians are doing now to Aleppo is exactly what they did to Grozny? We need to learn the lessons from that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Nicholas Soames]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that this catastrophe represents a terrible failure of the security order that protects our very civilisation, and that if these prosecutions are not made, a terrible, terrible failure will be laid at our door?

[Boris Johnson]

I certainly agree with my right hon. Friend that we are all judged in the House by our actions and our resolve. I think it was my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield who spoke of the will of the House. I am afraid that that was absent three years ago when, as several Members pointed out, we took an historic decision not to intervene. I hope that we will show a different measure of resolve this afternoon. Those who are conducting this bombing and who are, in my view, culpable of these crimes should realise that the mills of justice grind slowly, but they grind small.

The same penalties should apply to those involved in deliberate attacks on humanitarian convoys. As many Members have pointed out, on 19 September a UN aid convoy was destroyed near Aleppo and at least 20 people were killed. The vehicles were clearly marked, and the convoy had official permission from the Assad regime to deliver those desperately needed supplies. Satellite photographs that are in the public domain leave no doubt that the convoy was struck from the air. The incident took place after dark; by Russia’s own account, the war planes of Syria’s regime cannot strike targets after dark, and—also by Russia's own account—its aircraft were in the vicinity at the time. All the available evidence therefore points to Russian responsibility for the atrocity.

I trust that the UN board of inquiry will establish exactly what happened, and we in the United Kingdom Government stand ready to help. I emphasise that it is the UK which, week after week, is taking the lead—together with our allies in America and France, and all like-minded nations—in highlighting what is happening in Syria to a world in which, I fear, the wells of outrage are becoming exhausted.

I listened to the passionate speeches from the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) and the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), the co-chair of the all-party friends of Syria group, who is carrying on the tradition of Jo Cox, whom we mourn. I listened to all the speeches that made the point that there is no commensurate horror among some of the anti-war protest groups, and I agree with the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley: I would certainly like to see demonstrations outside the Russian embassy. Where is the Stop the War coalition at the moment?

It is up to us in the Government to show a lead, and week after week in the UN we are indeed doing what we can to point out what the Russians are up to and to build an international understanding of what is going on in Syria. I believe that we are having some effect. As Members have pointed out, the Russians have now been driven to mount a veto in the Security Council to protect their own position five times. This is not some anti-Russian campaign; we are not doing this out of any particular hostility towards Russia. Indeed, the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, did his utmost to negotiate an agreement with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, that would at least have reduced the killing. Anyone who has studied the Lavrov-Kerry talks will know that John Kerry threw himself into that task in a Herculean way. However, on 3 October, he was driven to abandon his efforts by the attack on the aid convoy and the pounding of Aleppo, which destroyed all hopes of a ceasefire. The US Secretary of State has concluded, I think rightly, that Russia was determined to help Assad’s onslaught against the women, children and families of Aleppo regardless of any agreement.

Government Referendum Leaflet

Lord Soames of Fletching Excerpts

Monday 11th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I do not agree that this is negative. When people are considering how to vote on 23 June, they will want to weigh up both the arguments about the benefits that the United Kingdom gains from membership of the European Union and the potential risks of departure and of trying to forge some other kind of relationship with the EU from the outside.

I make no secret of the fact that the judgment about whether we should remain members of the European Union is a pragmatic one, both for the Government and, I think, for most British voters. We accept that not everything about the European Union is perfect—one cannot be Europe Minister for six years and believe that it is perfect—but we believe that the clear balance of the argument lies in continued membership that will help to keep us more secure and prosperous, and we have tried to express that in this publication.

[Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

I have received many inquiries from constituents who are eager to know more about the Government’s position, and I warmly welcome this decision. Outside the incestuous hothouse called the Palace of Westminster, and under the baleful influence of much of our dismal press, almost all grown-up sane opinion will want to know what the Government’s position is and how they intend to present their case.

[Mr Lidington]

I completely agree with my right hon. Friend.

European Affairs

Lord Soames of Fletching Excerpts

Thursday 25th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

Let me first congratulate the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) and my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary on their speeches. I warmly congratulate the Prime Minister and his negotiating team on their courage and tenacity. I include especially my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe, who had to bear much of the heat and burden of the day. This was a remarkable achievement, and I wish it well. As the right hon. Member for Leeds Central said, it is now for the British people to have their say, and have their say they will.

This is the 70th anniversary year of Churchill’s speech on the cause of a united Europe at Zurich on 19 September 1946. It has always struck me as ironic that that speech has been claimed by both sides of the European argument as being some sort of holy grail. I am daily on the receiving end of some vile emails and whatnot from people telling me that I am a traitor to my grandfather’s memory.

[Mr Baker]

I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. May I say that although I disagree with him profoundly on this issue, I regard him with the utmost respect? He has held these views for a very long time with complete sincerity, and people disgrace themselves by their insults.

[Sir Nicholas Soames]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend.

Of course, Churchill’s was a speech of great prescience and great vision. It was also a speech of the most profound analysis. Unlike most other hon. Members, I would like to reflect at a little more distance on Britain’s experience of the European Union and, in particular, my party’s long-standing commitment to the European cause.

It is worth the House reflecting for a moment, Madam Deputy Speaker, on the tragedy of what Europe must have looked like in 1945. It is only the winking of an eye in terms of time and history. It was only 71 years ago that the Germans surrendered to the allies and signed the instrument of surrender. It was only 70 years ago that the Russians drew down the iron curtain on a broken and suffering eastern Europe. Behind that line, in the wicked grip of a ruthless regime, lay all the great capitals and states of eastern Europe—Warsaw, Prague, Berlin, Bucharest and Sofia.

Most of the rest of continental Europe lay shattered and broken, after six years of war, for the second time in 25 years. There remained a vast mass of bewildered human beings, who gazed forlornly at the wreckage of their homes, their nations, their lives, their families, their possessions and everything that they loved. But from that awful scene of desolation, sadness, ruin and despair a little over 70 years ago, something truly remarkable has been achieved, which has brought freedom, security and prosperity way beyond the dreams that anyone alive at the time could ever have contemplated.

Not only have the sovereign states of Europe risen, phoenix-like, from the ashes of two world wars, but they have created of their own free will a European Union of 28 members comprising the biggest and most powerful single market in the world—one of 500 million people—in which we travel with our fellow Europeans in prosperity and peace in an era of constantly expanding co-operation, prosperity, security, safety and freedom.

When the cold war ended and the Berlin wall came down on that glorious, cold 9 November 1989, the Warsaw pact collapsed into dust without a shot being fired. Most of the eastern European countries joined the European Union, and most of them also joined NATO. Indeed, only six countries that are members of the European Union are not members of NATO.

Why did they join? They did so because the Europe and the NATO that they joined were and are prosperous, secure and free, and they wanted as soon as they could to find shelter in the institutions that had benefited from a period of peace, stability, freedom and security unprecedented in 1,000 years of European history. They hoped that it would protect them from a still predatory Russia. There is no argument but that the EU was absolutely central to those developments, and it is a very great credit to our country that we should have played such a leading role in seeing all this through.

The European Union has achieved a very great deal, but it cannot and it must not allow itself any self-congratulation in these very difficult times. Although we can see that the ice has melted on the landscape of the second half of the last century, and that power in all its forms has shifted and is shifting rapidly and unpredictably, we know how inadequately most of the institutions of the European Union have coped. This must be remedied.

As we look across Europe at all the achievements it has to its name, the pervasive mood is one of insecurity, lack of confidence and lack of optimism. Those characteristics are not found only in Europe. The troubles of Governments everywhere speak to the anxieties of their electorates and, sadly, to the mistrust in their politicians, their institutions and their leaders. The public across Europe know only too well that the world of easy answers, instant solutions and declaratory statements is a construct of fools, politicians and the media. As power shifts so rapidly and unpredictably, one might almost believe that we are today at the start of a new history.

Nowhere are these difficulties, insecurities and lack of understanding more obvious than in this country of ours. I am always wary of trying to work out what Churchill might have thought today, because I think it is an impertinence to do so. The one thing I absolutely know is that as the world has grown bigger for Britain, the opportunities greater, the chances more glittering for our commerce and our people, so the people who practise politics and government in this country, and especially those who write about it, have a sadly cramped and limited view of Europe and the rest of the world.

In this campaign, one of our most important tasks—all of us, whatever side we are on—is to remind our fellow citizens that we share a region, a climate, much of our history and demography, our economic space and our culture with the countries of the European Union, something that Churchill pointed out very clearly in his Zurich speech. Our business corporations, our leisure time, our intellectual and cultural life are all intertwined with Europe’s. We face shared problems in endless comparable ways. The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) rightly mentioned all the environmental issues on which Europe has been extremely effective.

However, our political and deeply shallow media do not engage with any of that, or, as the right hon. Member for Leeds Central pointed out, with the interests—vital to us—of our European partners, allies and friends. At least, that was the position until very recently. Now the media have finally woken up, like the great, slack monster they are, to the awesome prospect of combat, newspaper sales and competition as each side of the argument tries to persuade our fellow citizens of the right way.

I rejoice at the Prime Minister’s extraordinary achievement in Brussels, and I commit myself to making the same case to the best of my ability whenever I have an opportunity to do so. I am struck by the scale of support for the European Union from British commerce and businesses both large and small, and especially—in an important letter, published in The Daily Telegraph yesterday—from four former Chiefs of the Defence Staff and other former service chiefs, who drew attention to the great importance of the EU in the security sphere.

I believe that the case to remain is overwhelming on all fronts, but there is no point in pretending that the European Union does not face many major challenges that it has to find a better and more effective way of resolving. The refugee crisis, for example, has made the EU look deeply ineffective and purely reactive. It is clear that Schengen cannot survive without the most dramatic reform, and that the external borders of Europe need to be strengthened rapidly. None of us can feel happy that the European Union, which has brought such great stability to much of the European continent, now appears to be weak and uncertain. Its unpopularity matters, and it is damaging.

My hope is that our Government will seize the moment, and that, having rediscovered the great value of extremely energetic and skilled diplomacy, the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, the Minister for Europe and others will really push ahead in the EU to drive—along with like-minded colleagues and friends—the big reforms that Europe must swallow. They will find willing friends who want to do the same. There is a huge agenda in which Britain can and will play a leading role. On economic reform, on security, on energy, on defence and on foreign policy, there are practical and radical steps that can be taken.

May I finally indulge myself, Madam Deputy Speaker, by recalling the end of Churchill’s great speech to the Congress of Europe in The Hague in 1948, remembering that the founding fathers of Europe, with a noble vision, built this astonishing edifice on firm and very lasting foundations? This is what Churchill said at that conference:

“A high and a solemn responsibility rests upon us here this afternoon in this Congress of a Europe striving to be reborn. If we allow ourselves to be rent and disordered by pettiness and small disputes, if we fail in clarity of view or courage in action, a priceless occasion may be cast away for ever. But if we all pull together and pool the luck and the comradeship—and we shall need all the comradeship and not a little luck…and firmly grasp the larger hopes of humanity, then it may be that we shall move into a happier sunlit age, when all the little children who are now growing up in this tormented world may find themselves not the victors nor the vanquished in the fleeting triumphs of one country over another in the bloody turmoil of…war, but the heirs of all the treasures of the past and the masters of all the science, the abundance and the glories of the future.”

Those of us who fight the good fight to remain will do so with confidence, but also with humility and profound respect for those who hold long-standing views that are very different from ours, and in the sure knowledge that this issue is about the fundamental place in the world, for a generation to come, of a confident, open, engaged, pro-European Great Britain. Faîtes courage!

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jenkin]

Let me put it another way to the hon. Gentleman. Is he seriously suggesting that after the British people have rejected the treaty on the functioning of the European Union and the treaty on European Union, our European partners are going to say, “You may have rejected all that, but you are bound by this”? That is ridiculous. It is absurd. It is far more likely that Parliament will want to discuss the matter, the Government will produce a proper White Paper and we will proceed in an orderly and consensual manner, not in a precipitate one. The only reason those in favour of remaining are raising this is to try to scare people. It is another scare story, and we are not having it.

The hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge also talked about uncertainty. May I point out to him that every time we have a general election, there is a certain amount of uncertainty? My goodness, at the next general election, if there is any possibility of the Labour party being elected, boy, there will be uncertainty! There will be uncertainty in the markets, and there will be pound gyrations. Democracy is about uncertainty, but we get more uncertainty where there is no democracy: look at Greece; look at Spain; look at the eurozone. That is uncertainty, and it is the uncertainty that we want to get out of.

If we vote leave, we know what will happen. We will get our powers back. We will get control over our borders. We will be able to spend the money that we send to the European Union as we want to spend it, instead of subsidising our European competitors. Three hundred and fifty million pounds a week, or a net contribution of £10 billion a year—that is a lot of money. We will be able to pay for the roads in Scotland. We will be able to pay for universities. We will be able to pay for the investment in science and research that we need, and then some.

The real question in the debate is what happens if we vote remain. What new laws will be imposed on us after we vote remain? What judgments will the European Court of Justice visit upon us over which we have no control? What about the next treaty? We know that there will be another fiscal union treaty like the one that the Prime Minister vetoed a few years ago. The agreement states:

“Member States whose currency is not the euro shall not impede the implementation of legal acts directly linked to the functioning of the euro area and shall refrain from measures which could jeopardise the attainment of the objectives of economic and monetary union.”

It sounds as though we are giving up that veto. We will not be able to veto a fiscal union treaty if we have signed this agreement, particularly if it is legally binding and irreversible. We are going to be stuffed. In whatever way that treaty affects our interests—we can even have a referendum on it—if we abide by this agreement, we will not be able to stop it. Talk about uncertainty; I think it is safer to leave.

Let me declare an interest as a director of Vote Leave. Let me also praise my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames) for raising the tone of the debate and giving us an historical perspective. He underlined the fact that we are at a turning point in the history of our country. I was struck by the shadow Foreign Secretary’s reminder that more than a generation has passed since the last referendum, when his father was opposed and my father was in favour. Today, the shadow Foreign Secretary is in favour and I am opposed. I shall not speak for my father in this debate, but there has been a reversal of roles. The real question is: should the debate be about the past or the future? We do not live in the world as it was after the second world war—pre-globalisation, pre-global trade, pre-computers and the internet, pre-space age and pre so many of the scientific discoveries that affect our world today.

[Sir Nicholas Soames]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for what he says. I have huge respect for his views, but does he not agree that we cannot make a serious judgment about the future unless we are quite clear about what went before?

[Mr Jenkin]

We should be ready to recognise the EU institutions our continent has inherited as so last century, but I was going on to say that we must never forget the forces of history and the tragic errors of the past that have shaped the present on our continent, although we must also have the courage to embrace the change in our society and in the world that will otherwise leave us stranded with and clinging to outdated ideas and constructs. Our main contention is exactly that; the EU is an outdated construct.

Saudi Arabia

Lord Soames of Fletching Excerpts

Tuesday 5th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

Before I reply to the right hon. Gentleman’s important questions, may I just say that I am delighted to see him in his place today, following so much speculation? He commands a great deal of respect, and Parliament is all the wiser for his expertise in foreign affairs. I am pleased to see him back in his place.

The right hon. Gentleman has raised a number of questions, some of which related to the relationship between Saudi Arabia and Iran. He mentioned the importance of the work being done in Yemen and in Libya and also in Syria. It is fair to say that we ended 2015 in a better place—marginally—than we started it, so far as the middle east is concerned. We had a ceasefire in place in Yemen. We had agreement around the table from adversaries from Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United States and France, and from other participants and stakeholders in Syria, after waiting four years for all the necessary players to work together and agree on the requirements for a ceasefire and a transition process and on the necessary steps to put in place an 18-month approach towards elections. That could not have happened had Iran and Saudi Arabia not come to the table themselves.

The right hon. Gentleman is right to point out the involvement of Saudi Arabia in Yemen. It leads a large coalition—he is fully aware that it is not just Saudi Arabia that is involved there—and had that action not been taken, the Houthis would have moved all the way down to the port of Aden. The consequences of that would have been dire. So yes, Saudi Arabia has participated in the push-back, but it is following resolution 2216, as he is also well aware.

Saudi Arabia is bringing together the opposition parties that have not been at the table at the Vienna talks, and that is absolutely critical. That illustrates the work that Saudi Arabia needs to do. I hope the right hon. Gentleman agrees that we need to de-escalate the tensions. We have had confirmation from Saudi Arabia that it wants to continue to participate in the Vienna talks, and I am pleased that the President of Iran has condemned what happened at the Saudi Arabian embassy and at the consulate. That condemnation is important if we are to see a de-escalation of tension.

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned arms sales. He is aware that Saudi Arabia has the right to defend itself and to participate in UN-approved actions in places such as Yemen. We have in place a robust system of licensing and scrutiny. We will look at any aspect of this where we feel that UK arms have been seen to be used inappropriately. We are working to make sure that the coalition, comprising not only Saudi Arabians but Emiratis, Jordanians, Egyptians and all those who are involved, tries to follow the standards of military engagement that we honour in this country as well.

The right hon. Gentleman specifically asked about—or made reference to—judicial co-operation under the memorandum of understanding. I understand from the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab), that there is no agreement on judicial co-operation in that MOU.[Official Report, 11 January 2016, Vol. 604, c. 3-4MC.] We are working behind the scenes with Saudi Arabia and we are endeavouring to improve the situation in Saudi Arabia, but this country is pivotal to overall peace in the middle east. Only with agreement to de-escalate the current tensions will we see Iran and Saudi Arabia come back to the table to make sure that we can build on what we did in 2015, in Yemen, in Syria and in places further afield such as Libya.

[Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that although this is a complex relationship, the Saudis are often very difficult allies and they often find us very difficult and inexplicable, too? Does he also agree that in a region racked by civil war and political upheaval, they are essential and very long-standing allies and friends, and are not just to be cast aside like President Mubarak?

[Mr Ellwood]

My right hon. Friend, who has huge experience in this area, makes a very important point. I made reference to the fact that Saudi Arabia is a young state, created in 1932. There was no sense of nation state before that. There was no sense of central Government; rather, there were powerful tribal structures. It remains a mostly socially conservative society, where today’s leadership is on the liberal end of opinion—we must not forget that. We will therefore continue to work with Saudi Arabia to make sure that it moves towards its programme of reforms and modernisation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Soames of Fletching Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

Yes, we will do it through the International Syria Support Group that we have set up. The hon. Lady is absolutely right that we will not get a ceasefire or the opposition groups working with the rump of regime forces against Daesh unless and until they can be clear that Assad is going at a clear and defined point in the transition process. At the moment, we do not have agreement across the ISSG, particularly with the Russians and the Iranians, about that point. That is where we have to go, and the fundamental thrust of all our discussions is around trying to get agreement on a route for an exit by Assad so that the rest of the pieces of this jigsaw can drop into place.

[Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

13. What recent discussions he has had with (a) the Gulf Co-operation Council and (b) other Governments on plans to improve security in the middle east.

[Mr Speaker]

The Minister is a busy bee, and we are grateful to him.

[Sir Nicholas Soames]

As we face an epidemic of jihadist violence, can my hon. Friend assure the House that, in his extensive and close dialogue with our Gulf friends and partners, he will continue to press on them that the funding by some of them of these dangerous jihadi organisations really must stop?

[Mr Ellwood]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the five key traits of the strategy is preventing the funding that is taking place that is keeping ISIL alive. It is important that all countries across the middle east in the coalition of 65 work hard to prevent that from happening.

Iran: Nuclear Deal

Lord Soames of Fletching Excerpts

Wednesday 15th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

The hon. Gentleman has been a supporter of such a conference for a long time, and as he knows, the Government also support it. The UK has been advocating such a conference and moving forward on this agenda, but I do not think that removing the Iranian issue in itself will solve the problems with bringing the matter to a conclusion. None the less, we will continue to press for the conference.

[Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

However the House looks at it, the agreement is clearly a diplomatic triumph for the partners. Does my right hon. Friend agree that in this long-term project—with all the verification involved—greater contact between this country and Iran, across a much broader area than is currently possible, will be essential? Does he also agree that it is essential that the Arab partners to the deal are firmly brought in behind the efforts to normalise relationships with Iran?

[Mr Hammond]

Yes, I agree with my right hon. Friend. Contacts with Iran will now be critical, opening the country up through trade and investment, travel, people-to-people contacts and Iranian students travelling abroad. One thing the US will do as part of this deal is to end the pre-notification required for certain categories of Iranian students seeking to study in the US. The more Iranians travel abroad and the more foreigners travel to Iran, the better we will understand each other and the greater the chances of making this stick.