Prime Minister’s Adviser on Ministers’ Interests
Nigel Evans Excerpts(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. If hon. Members will resume their seats, let me announce that this debate is time limited to 2.20 pm. I intend to call Gareth Thomas at 1.58 pm for 10 minutes, Nick Hurd at 2.08 pm for 10 minutes, and finally Mr Jenkin to sum up in the last two minutes. Six Members wish to contribute, so I ask them to take account of the time constraints in order to be fair to others.
Paul Flynn
No, it would not, because, under this Government, in the three serious cases I have mentioned, the code has not been used, when it should have been. The only time it has been called upon was in a case of some triviality, where the person involved admitted her guilt, and that went through. These other serious potential abuses have not even been investigated, and we must question the impartiality of the adviser because of his conduct on the day of the debate in question. All the misgivings we had were justified.
We, as an institution, are in grave danger of deepening public cynicism against us. We have had new cases of allegations, backed up with films showing a lobbyist trying to get access to the Prime Minister or boasting of access—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I will not put the clock on you, Mr Mulholland, but I ask you to resume your seat at 1.58 pm.
Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)
I am a member of the Public Administration Committee, and I am very proud that we have come up with this sensible and important proposal. It is hugely important for Parliament, as it addresses the holding of Ministers to account, which is one of our key roles. We must remember that it is important outside this place, too; it is important to ordinary people, who saw the unseemly events of the past few months and have therefore come to regard the current system of accountability as wholly inadequate. Recent episodes have also left a nasty taste in the mouths of Members on both sides of the House, who agree that the current situation is wholly unacceptable.
When Sir Alex Allan appeared before our Committee, we had what can only be described as a wholly unsatisfactory discussion with him in respect of both the realities of the role and, I am afraid, our confidence in his ability to perform it as it should be performed, rather than as it is, sadly, currently performed.
We must remember that this proposal was introduced by the previous Government. In response to the predecessor Committee’s previous report on the issue, they made it clear that the appointment would be a personal one by the Prime Minister and that he would need to have confidence that the person appointed would be able to provide independent and impartial advice.
We want the Minister to say that the Government will accept our sensible proposal, and we also want the Opposition to agree to it; they must accept the original principles of this new office as set out under the last Government. I have asked the same of the Deputy Prime Minister, and I believe that he is happy to do so on behalf of the Liberal Democrats.
The full title of this post is “the independent adviser on Ministers’ interests” but the simple reality is that it is the Prime Minister’s adviser on Ministers’ interests. The current title is fraudulent and misleading to Parliament and the public. If these reforms are not accepted and implemented, the Government should at least have the decency to change the title to “the Prime Minister’s adviser on Ministers’ interests.”
Sir Alex Allan was appointed to the post with no open competition. We do not believe anyone else was even in the frame for the job, and there was no detail whatever on the process he went through. That is simply unacceptable.
Our proposal is based on an extremely simple idea. If—free from political interference and regardless of any media witch hunt—the independent adviser believes there is sufficient genuine evidence for an investigation, he should intervene. That is all we are asking for.
House of Lords Reform Bill
Nigel Evans Excerpts(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. I remind hon. Members not to approach the Chair to find out when they will speak, as Mr Speaker has indicated. We will try to get in as many hon. Members as we can.
Mr Allen
My right hon. Friend, having been a strong member of a past Executive, knows where he is most powerful. Is he most powerful sitting on the Back Benches here, or was he most powerful when in Whitehall and commanding a Government Department? We could discuss how effective the scrutiny was that he went through.
To have an un-elected Chamber with a say in passing laws over our citizens is a democratic abomination. It is not a deficit, an anachronism or a quaint ceremonial corner; it is an insult to every elector in the land. It is hobbling and repressive. It says to our citizens, “You are not capable or worthy of deciding your own future, of deciding who should run your country.” It says that this country is about deference and patronage, about a lack of self-confidence and belief, and about insiders and those who know better. It is about our past, not our future. It is an open wound in the body of our democracy and it must be healed.
That wound can be healed only by introducing the elective principle to the second Chamber. That is what this generation of parliamentarians in both Houses can achieve over the next year, and it can be done without beheading those whose service in the second Chamber deserves our respect, not our abuse. For those of us who for 25 years or more have worked for reform, standing on the shoulders of a century of giants before us, these proposals are the most serious attempt yet to bring about a change in our democracy and bring it into the modern era. Their courage and ambition mock the flaccid indecision of recent years.
Are the proposals perfect? No, of course not. Only the 650 different plans in the minds of each hon. Member are perfect, but that is why, theoretically at least, we have a parliamentary process. There is a—
Regional Pay
Nigel Evans Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. To ensure that more Members are able to participate in the debate, the time limit is being reduced to four minutes as from now. I call Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Electoral Registration and Administration Bill
Nigel Evans Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 2, page 2, line 8, at end add
‘if the Electoral Commission believes that the new electoral system is operating effectively’.
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Nigel Evans)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 30, in clause 25, page 14, line 17, at end insert—
‘(1A) Before making an order under subsection 1, the Secretary of State must seek the views of the Electoral Commission as to whether the establishment of an electoral register made up solely of electors who have registered individually would help or hinder the achievement of the registration objectives.
(1B) For these purposes the registration objectives are to secure, so far as is reasonably practicable—
(a) that persons who are entitled to be registered in a register are registered in it,
(b) that persons who are not entitled to be registered in a register are not registered in it, and
(c) that none of the information relating to a registered person that appears in a register or other record kept by a registration officer is false.
(1C) The Commission must submit its assessment, with a recommendation, in a report to the Secretary of State, which must be laid before Parliament as soon as possible by the Secretary of State.
(1D) If—
(a) the recommendation in the Electoral Commission’s report is that the establishment of an electoral register made up solely of electors who have registered individually would help the achievement of the registration objectives, and
(b) the recommendation is approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament,
the Secretary of State may make an order bringing Parts 1 and 2 of this Act into force.
(1E) The Secretary of State may not make such an order if those conditions are not met.
(1F) If—
(a) the Electoral Commission’s report does not contain a recommendation to proceed to establish an electoral register made up solely of electors who have registered individually, or
(b) the report does contain such a recommendation, but it is not approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament,
within 12 months after the day on which the report is submitted by the Electoral Commission (in the case mentioned in paragraph (a)) or disapproved in Parliament (in the case mentioned in paragraph (b)), the Secretary of State must require the Commission to submit, by a specified date, a further report under this section containing the terms mentioned in subsection (1A).
(1G) For the purposes of subsection (1F)—
(a) a report is disapproved in Parliament when either House decided against resolving to approve the report (or, if both Houses so decide on different days, when the first of them so decides);
(b) the date specified by the Secretary of State must be at least one year, but no more than two years, after the day on which the requirement under that subsection is imposed.’.
Amendment 31, page 14, line 17, at end insert
‘with the exception of Schedule 5, Part 2, which shall come into force by order only once—
(a) the data matching pilots for pre-verification purposes established by the Electoral Registration Data Schemes Order 2012 have been completed,
(b) the Electoral Commission has reported on these schemes as under the terms of that Order, and
(c) the Electoral Commission believes that the completeness of the register will not be negatively affected.’.
Mr David
Labour Members support the principle of individual electoral registration, as we indicated on Second Reading; indeed, we legislated for it in the last Parliament. We believe that it is desirable to have a complete and accurate electoral register. We also believe that IER is a system that is compatible with modern society, and we recognise that it is outdated to rely on the head of the household. However, we have genuine concerns, and the amendments we have tabled reflect them.
Clause 1 will amend the Representation of the People Act 1983 to enable local registration officers to add individuals to the electoral register under the new system. Let me make it clear that we accept the need for clear guidance to be given during the early stages of the new system’s implementation, but we are extremely concerned about the huge power that the Bill will give to Ministers. It would be better for the Secretary of State to issue guidance, under section 52 of that Act, and for action to be taken following a recommendation from the Electoral Commission to follow certain guidance. We fully accept that that would not involve parliamentary scrutiny, but it would take us beyond the five years stipulated in the clause.
The mention of five years brings me to my next point. The Bill’s explanatory notes state in relation to clause 1(5):
“Subsection (5) provides that the requirement for registration officers to have regard to guidance about determining applications to register will cease 5 years after coming into force. This provision is included because after five years the new registration system, and the process for determining applications, is likely to have reached a steady state and guidance will no longer be necessary.”
I want to emphasise the word “likely” in that second sentence; there is no certainty about this. It involves a possibility, or perhaps a probability. This is “likely” to happen. Furthermore, the explanatory notes use the term “steady state”. I recall the captain of the Costa Concordia suggesting that his ship was in a steady state as it lurched on to its side before being beached. Is that similar to the state of this legislation? In view of the lack of clarity in the explanatory notes, we feel that it would be far better if the Electoral Commission were to determine whether the system was working effectively.
Debate on the Address
Nigel Evans Excerpts(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Chris Bryant
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. On 25 April, I told the House that the Leveson inquiry had published certain information regarding meetings that had been held between Rupert Murdoch and the Prime Minister. I believed at the time that that was the case, but it has subsequently turned out not to be true. I have, of course, apologised to Lord Justice Leveson, but I thought I should take this opportunity to apologise to the House as well. I hope the apology will be accepted. I had no intention of misleading the House; that was purely inadvertent.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I am grateful to you, Mr Bryant, for your point of order and for putting that apology on the record.
Public Procurement
Nigel Evans Excerpts(12 years, 9 months ago)
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Individual Voter Registration
Nigel Evans Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
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Siobhain McDonagh
Will the hon. Gentleman give way? Presumably he has contacted the police about that.
David Morris
This has led to an unknown number of people listing fictitious residents at their properties and voting by post on their behalf. The vital failsafe in our system—namely, going to the ballot box in person—has been removed. This means we need a new failsafe, and I think that that is agreed on both sides of the House. There are various ways we can do this and I know the last Government saw ID cards as the answer. I do not.
I support fully the proposal to have individual voter registration. It is simple, cheap to administer—unlike ID cards—and fits in with the existing system, because it works on the same principle. Individual voter registration requires very few changes to our system, and we know from Northern Ireland that it works. But in today’s debate, some hon. Members have got two different issues muddled up. One is the issue of fraud that IER seeks to address, and the other is how we encourage more people to go to the ballot box. Making fraud easier will undoubtedly boost turnout, but it will not encourage more real people to vote. People do not bother to put themselves on the electoral register because they do not feel engaged, and do not want to vote. Similarly, there are millions of people on the register who do not want to vote. We need to make those people feel that their votes count.
It is not surprising that people cannot be bothered when 70% of our laws are edicts from an unelected Government in Brussels. People feel as if they cannot make a difference whichever way they vote, and that is the issue that we need to address. I really believe that repatriation of powers from Brussels, devolving more decisions to local councils and electing more police commissioners will help to engage people in the democratic process, but this has nothing to do with individual voter registration.
Individual voter registration is about reducing fraud and building confidence in the system. Today, once again, we see that electoral fraud and confidence in the system seem to be an entirely secondary considerations. They must be our central considerations, not least because people will have less confidence in the system if they feel they will be outvoted by electoral fraudsters. How many people will bother trudging to the ballot box when they rightly or wrongly believe that their views will be overridden by the fraudsters?
Maintaining the status quo will continue to undermine our system, so we do need to encourage more people to the ballot box, but the way to do this is with greater democracy. We need to stop electoral fraud, and the way to do this is to make people register individually.
Public Confidence in the Media and Police
Nigel Evans Excerpts(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. As hon. Members can see, there are still a lot of Members who wish to get in. I want to accommodate as many as I possibly can, so the time limit is being reduced to six minutes, and it may even be reduced further later on.
Louise Mensch (Corby) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am sorry to interrupt the House, but I have just learned that the BBC journalist, Mr Paul Lambert, who reported yesterday on the egregious breach of security during the Culture, Media and Sport Committee sitting, has had his parliamentary press pass removed by the House authorities. I hope the House will agree that it is appropriate that we support the freedom of the press, particularly when the press are reporting on serious failures of security in this House.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I am sure that this will be looked into in more detail as news of what the hon. Lady has just spoken about arrives. It is news to me, but I am sure that it will be fully looked into and may be properly addressed later on.
Helen Goodman
Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. There are clearly a number of concerns about who gets press passes. I wonder whether, when the matter that the hon. Member for Corby (Louise Mensch) has raised is looked into, some consideration might be given to publishing who has press passes. At the moment, we do not know that.
Mr Deputy Speaker
Again, I am sure that will be looked into. I am not absolutely sure whether the names of those who have press passes are not already in the public domain in the directory that is made available to the House, but I will look into the matter myself to see what the truth is.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. The time limit is being reduced to five minutes.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
All of us should approach this debate with a degree of humility before we stand in judgment over the press and the police, given the collective black mark that we MPs received in the last Parliament because of the expenses scandal. We are right to comment on these matters, and to draw and learn lessons, but we should remember and put on record that our collective performance in the previous Parliament was not terribly good on certain scores.
It is wholly unacceptable that Rupert Murdoch was attacked in the Committee yesterday. If we want witnesses to come before Select Committees of this House—it is important that they do—they must have the assurance that there will be no repetition of such incidents. I am pleased to learn of the Speaker’s inquiry into the matter.
I have to raise a few points put to me by my constituents, who are urging us collectively to learn the lessons, move on, and deal with the serious bread-and-butter issues that face them day in, day out—jobs, public services, the economy, and what is happening in Europe. We are right to focus on the issue and learn lessons, but I think that they are collectively saying to us, “Remember what’s happening in our lives, day in, day out.” I just want to put that firmly on the record.
We need to accept that it is not a crime for politicians and journalists to talk to each other, and it will not be in future. Politics matters; it is about the conveyance of important ideas. We want politics to be in the newspapers, and the media and journalists enable our message to get out to our constituents. We want a healthy, open, and transparent relationship in future. No more entering Downing street through the back door. It is not a crime for a journalist to go into No. 10 Downing street; it just needs to be transparent and open, and I hope that we are moving into an era in which it is.
I remain extremely concerned about payments to the police from journalists, about which we have heard a certain amount today. I want briefly to illustrate that with three true stories that have been brought to my attention recently. A former Member of the House who went on to have an important position in public service was accused of fraud. At the time of his arrest at 6 o’clock in the morning at his family home there were television crews around his house. He was later found to be innocent and there were no charges to answer. It became obvious that an officer involved in the investigation had tipped off the press and camera crews to record what was obviously a traumatic event for him and his family. That is absolutely wrong.
Another person known to me over the last few years did fantastic service by fostering difficult teenage children in his home. One night there was an incident and one of the teenage children whom he had fostered made an accusation that he had been molested by my friend, who was then arrested by the police. Next day that matter was on the front page of the Daily Star in very lurid terms. There was no charge against my friend; he was wholly innocent. No action was taken, but considerable damage was done. Again, a quick backhander from a journalist to the police to get that story. That is absolutely not right. I am focused on ensuring that we have complete transparency and ensure that payments from journalists to the police do not continue. We need real systems to ensure that such payments cannot be made in future. That is something that the police and the press need to concentrate on.
We have heard about apologies made by newspapers. When the press do admit that they have something wrong or have maligned someone, there is a tiny reference to that on page 2 or 3—a small column on the side of the page—when the original story was on the front page—
John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
Yesterday Rebekah Brooks described The Sun as a “very clean ship”, and the Murdoch family appears to be suggesting that now that the News of the World is defunct we can move on. The Sun has had some remarkable scoops for which people do not appear to have gone to court and been convicted. These are scoops by one reporter; there are others, of course, under The Sun. The following footballers have been the subject of scoops, usually front page scoops, in The Sun by the same reporter, all of which can only have come from the Metropolitan police. There is no other possible source for any of these stories.
This is my squad for the World cup: Frank Lampard, Jay Bothroyd, Carlton Cole, Manuel de Costa, Paul Gascoigne, Armand Traoré, Cristiano Ronaldo, Paul Merson, Tony Cascarino, Stan Bowles, Bobby Zamora, Quincy Owusu, Jack Wilshere, Kieron Dyer, Nicklas Bendtner, David James, Didier Drogba, Juan Verón. Manager: José Mourinho—that was in 2007. Captain: Wayne Rooney—on 1 August 2008. Wayne Rooney was not arrested near Oxford street in London, but he was, according to The Sun exclusive, read his rights. All those stories involved footballers, all of them in London. However, when Mr Rooney and Mr Gerrard had run-ins with the police in the north-west, every newspaper had the story, with no scoops for The Sun. When Mr Robin van Persie, a London footballer, had an altercation with the police in Holland, The Sun was a day later than the rest of the media. Do not be a footballer in London and be in any situation with the police without being charged, if The Sun is around.
But this does not just involve footballers. Do not be a police officer, either. On 6 July 2011 a front-page headline read, “Threat to kill dead dogs in car cop”. Sackloads of hate mail targeted a sergeant who was a dog handler, in whose car two dogs had, sadly, died. The article said:
“One source said: ‘Thousands of letters were arriving’.”
The only possible source for that story was the police—the Metropolitan police. There were dozens of such examples while Brooks was in charge of The Sun, all involving the Met—no other police force—doing in their own.
Murder cases are involved too. I have written to Sue Akers about them, and I shall not go into them now, as this is a time to tread delicately around them. Suffice it to say that I am asking her to look into texts to or from murder victims that have mysteriously appeared in the media. Who gave the media those texts? There is a range of cases that the House will be familiar with, but they have not been mentioned in relation to phone hacking. Texts need to be part of the inquiry, not least those that appear in The Sun.
London’s celebrities are not just footballers: Hugh Grant, Ms Dynamite, Lily Allen, Peaches Geldof, Adam Ant, Jude Law, Liz Hurley, Rod Liddle, Keira Knightley, Leslie Ash, Elliott Tittensor, Mohammed al-Fayed, Woody Harrelson, Joe McGann, Christian Bale, Sean Bean and Mike Tindall; it could even be someone marrying the Queen’s granddaughter. They are all in London. If you want to have a car crash, have it outside London. If you want to have a drink and an issue with a photographer, have it outside London. If it happens in London, someone in the Met will be handing over or selling your information to The Sun.
Relatives of the famous are affected too: John Terry’s father, Cristiano Ronaldo’s cousin, Ashley Cole’s brother, Jermain Defoe’s brother, Sadie Frost’s sister, Tony Blair’s son, Patricia Hewitt’s son and Nelson Mandela’s grandson. On 4 November 2005 The Sun exclusive was Steve McFadden and Angela Bostock: police officers were there at the time. On the same day, Detective Constable David Dougall, a Scotland Yard officer, was convicted of selling information to The Sun. Why has that case, including the comments of John Ross, who bought the information, not been made public? The police dropped their investigations against The Sun because, Ross believes:
“It would have revealed a lot of conversations between Mike”—
Sullivan, The Sun’s crime reporter—
“and senior officers and they didn’t want to open that can of worms.”
Giving evidence on behalf of Ross were Sky News crime correspondent Martin Brunt and others. In the Press Gazette, Sullivan kindly put his diary—
House of Lords Reform
Nigel Evans Excerpts(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Jenkin
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Will you look into the House’s sound system? I distinctly heard the right hon. Gentleman the Deputy Prime Minister refer to the size of the House of Lords, when my intervention made no mention of that whatever, so he must have misheard me.
The Deputy Prime Minister
I will respond to that point of order, however. The issue of cost is, of course, directly related to the number of Members serving in the House of Lords; the larger it is, the more expensive it will be. Under our reform proposals, the size of the House of Lords will be cut to 300, less than half the size of this Chamber.
The Prime Minister and I are committed to reform, but the reform will go with the grain of the evolution that we have already witnessed in the Lords; it will be steady, ordered and careful; and it will be built on the widest possible consensus. That is why our proposals build on the work of countless others from both sides of this House as well as the other place over recent decades. The Wakeham commission, the Straw committee and the Cunningham report have all made hugely important contributions, and I pay tribute to the work of reformers on all sides of the argument. Without them, the case for change would already have been lost.
I also thank the cross-party Committee established to consider this matter last year. We reached agreement on most elements of the proposed package and in the end there were only two issues relating to the content of the reforms on which we did not reach final agreement. On both, we have left our options open in the White Paper.
Mr Sheerman
As the right hon. Gentleman knows, I represent Huddersfield, and presumably one of these 15-year senators, or whatever they will be called, would, theoretically, float above the two constituencies of Huddersfield and Colne Valley. They would be elected only every 15 years. My successor or I would be fighting an election every four or five years, whereas this person, who presumably might be from another party, would not get involved in my election, campaign in general elections, have any political will or conduct any activity at all. Is that what he is saying? A kind of neutered politician would float—
The Deputy Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman has, say, six Members of the European Parliament floating around, as he puts it, in his area already, and I assume that relations are perfectly cordial. I do not want to cast aspersions on the future reformed House of Lords by comparing it too directly to the European Parliament, but the idea that politicians with different mandates, elected on different cycles and different systems, cannot co-exist, is patently not the case. It happens now, and I think it will happen in the future.
By reforming the upper House so that it is more legitimate but still independent, we can ensure that it continues to function as an effective revising Chamber, able to hold Government to account, but with a new democratic mandate. We can preserve everything that is good about the other Chamber—expertise, independence and wisdom—but at the same time we can inject democracy into the mix and reform the Lords so that it is fit for modern times.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. I thank both Front Benchers for making short contributions so that more Back Benchers are able to get in. There is a seven-minute limit with two minutes of injury time, but Members do not need to take interventions or take their seven minutes.
Mr Williams
I will not, because time is very short.
During today’s debate, the proposals—[Interruption.] I anticipated being called to speak somewhat later—[Interruption.] I was about to say that the proposals have been characterised as a Bill. I would certainly lay that charge at noble Lords in another place. This is not a Bill but a draft Bill. There is much work to do, but it gives us the basis to develop a legitimate second Chamber which can undertake that scrutiny role. I was surprised that the Leader of the Opposition in another place described the proposals as a bad Bill. I sincerely hope that after the Joint Committee has finished, it will not be a bad Bill. She will have the opportunity to label it a bad Bill when the Committee’s work is done.
The draft Bill represents a huge step forward, and I hope that progressives on both sides of the House play their part in developing reform. I hope that we are not subjected to a Michael Foot-Enoch Powell 1968 holy alliance that stops otherwise sensible reform.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. I have never before heard an hon. Member complain about me calling them early, but there is a first time for everything.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. To assist the process of more Back-Bench Members contributing to the debate, the time limit is reduced to six minutes, but injury time for two interventions remains.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973
Nigel Evans Excerpts(13 years, 8 months ago)
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John McDonnell
I am saying that we should secure peace now that the conflict has started. I oppose Britain’s involvement in the middle east because we have a century and a half of involvement—in pursuit of the region’s mineral wealth—that is steeped in blood, murder and maiming. We do not have the credibility to intervene constructively.
Nevertheless, the conflict has started, and our role is to secure peace as quickly as possible. That is why the amendment seeks to secure peace through negotiations. Already, there have been offers of mediation, in particular through the ALBA group of Latin American nations. We should take that offer. The amendment also states—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. Passing reference to the amendment is allowed, but we must not have a detailed debate on it.
John McDonnell
May I refer to those points to which the Prime Minister referred? He said that he would support the sentiments of the amendment, particularly in respect of ensuring that we keep civilians out of harm’s way. When I asked him about depleted uranium, he assured me that we do not use it, but we have used it consistently over time, and it has caused all sorts of harm to people in the middle east. This country, along with France, objected to the international ban on the use of such weapons, but I hope that the Prime Minister’s statement today means that we will now support the ban.
The Prime Minister said that he supports what we say about the need for a middle east conference. We need to engage to try to secure peace and stability and to promote democracy in the region. My view is that we need to do all we can to demonstrate our commitment to peace. The military action has already caused deaths. We do not know whether they are civilians, but the reports from Tripoli are that they are not dividing people from Gaddafi, but actually consolidating his support. The sight of the same countries that invaded Iraq killing Arabs again is of immense value to Gaddafi in his argument that this is another crusader invasion.
We have heard already that the Arab League is falling apart, with different statements coming out in different languages to hide the dissent. The UN is also dividing, with Russia and China, as we speak, urging that military action cease. They are not abstaining, but are convening the Security Council to try to end the action. NATO itself is displaying divisions as well. We have also heard statements from Turkey refusing to take on a longer term role. I have to say that statements in the House and by Ministers are increasingly confusing about the objectives of the military action. The UN resolution does not refer to regime change, but ministerial statement after ministerial statement clearly lead to that conclusion. Although the resolution states that there will not be a troop invasion or occupation, we now know that there is the potential for special forces and boots on the ground. That is all playing into Gaddafi’s hands by calling up images of a foreign invasion.
The charges of hypocrisy cannot go away. There is the lack of action in Yemen, Bahrain and Oman. I am talking not about physical action, which I would oppose anyway, but about the mealy-mouthed ministerial statements. There has been no threat to use the international courts against these killer regimes or to seize their assets, and there has been no threat even of diplomatic isolation. Neither has it helped that the images are still fresh in people’s minds in the middle east of our Prime Minister’s recent tour of the region to sell arms to these barbaric regimes. Finally, of course, my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North has mentioned the hypocrisy of refusing a no-fly zone when Gaza was invaded. We now face the prospect of a long-haul engagement in military action in Libya.
We risk being dragged into on-the-ground bloody combat, followed by a counter-insurgency struggle and then vulnerability to a lengthy terrorist campaign. It will all threaten the peace and stability of the region and have consequences for our own people and the global economy. That is why the message today from the Chamber should be that we seek peace, that we want to ensure the safety of civilians and that our concern is for the peace of the region and the promotion of democracy overall. I urge the Government to take up the offer of mediation from the ALBA countries. I urge the Chamber to send the message that we strive in every way possible to bring all parties together to seek peace. In that way, we might yet have the opportunity to restore some credibility to the role of this country in the middle east. I do not believe that that will be done as a result of the bombs and missiles now hurtling down on the Libyan people and causing death and destruction.
Mr Allen
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Will you speak to Mr Speaker to ensure that the rights of the House are properly represented, so that in future, when a motion is put down by the Government, who are meant to be being held to account by the House, sufficient time is allowed for amendments to be organised and tabled by people in the House of a different view? We all have reservations. No one has spoken tonight and said that they are 100% certain about what we are doing. If we allow other voices and amendments, and if we allow colleagues to accumulate sufficient signatures, would it not be in order to have a debate with amendments that could be voted on and which could present a different point of view in the House from the choice we are presented with tonight?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
There was an amendment on the Order Paper, but it was not selected by Mr Speaker. However, the hon. Gentleman’s comments will be made known to him.