Parliamentary Sovereignty and EU Renegotiations
Pat Glass Excerpts(8 years, 5 months ago)
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Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)
This has been a very long debate, and I have sat through the whole of it. I counted 14 speeches in total, not including the winding-up speeches, and it started with that of the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron). The speeches were all passionate and eloquent, and we have heard some very strongly held views. The last Back Bencher to speak was the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), who is always eloquent and entertaining—so much so that, on occasions, I find myself nodding along, even though I do not agree with a single word he says.
It is depressing that we have heard a rehash of many of the same, often ill-informed, myths and stories about how Britain no longer has control over its own sovereignty, having yielded everything to Europe. What I found most disappointing is that, for people outside Parliament watching the debate in the Chamber, the speakers have largely been older, grey-haired men in grey suits—
Pat Glass
I said “largely”.
I do not believe that that represents the country we are here to serve or the views of the people outside Parliament. It has been yet another debate—I am sure there will be many more up to the referendum—in which members of the Eurosceptic right wing of the Tory party have been able to grandstand, while positioning an ice pick firmly in the back of their own Front Benchers and lining up to rubbish their own Prime Minister’s negotiations. Two of my Labour colleagues have joined in enthusiastically, but given that over 96% of the members of the parliamentary Labour party, including every member of the shadow Cabinet, are members of the PLP pro-EU group, it is absolutely clear that Labour is a pro-Europe party and that it is campaigning actively for a remain vote in the referendum.
I am conscious that the debate has been very long and that we have heard an awful lot from one side of the argument, but I want to be respectful of the House and to give the Minister time to sum up, so I intend to be brief.
Right at the beginning, the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay said that the electorate got very exercised about our sovereignty. Not in my experience: people in my constituency are concerned about jobs, youth unemployment, housing, the bedroom tax, tax avoidance by large companies and, yes, immigration, but the people I speak to never talk about the sovereignty of the EU, EU bureaucracy or Britain’s rebate. That just does not happen on the doorstep.
Pat Glass
No. I am sorry, but we have heard an awful lot from one side of the argument.
People in the Westminster bubble, particularly Conservative Members, are exercised about all those things, but given that I have no reason to believe that the people of North West Durham are any different from people across the country, they are simply not the top priorities of people working hard outside Parliament.
Pat Glass
No.
This is largely a Tory party drama—a blue-on-blue issue—with very little relevance to the lives of ordinary people who are struggling to pay their rents and mortgages, and to get their kids to school. The Prime Minister has repeatedly given in to his own right wing, seeming not to understand that they will never be satisfied on these issues. In doing so, he has risked this country’s future prosperity, safety and place in the world.
I will not go over them in great detail, but there are many reasons for remaining part of the EU. There is the economic case and the environmental case, as well as issues involving this country’s future safety and security and our place in the world. The Labour party is committed to keeping Britain in the European Union, because we believe it is in the best interests of the British people. For us, it is simple: Britain is a stronger, safer and more prosperous country as part of the European Union.
The world is becoming more and more globalised. The problems that we face are complex and they need complex international responses. We cannot solve the problems of climate change, international terrorism, international crime, people trafficking or mass migration across the world on our own; we can tackle those issues only by working with our partners in Europe. We are part of NATO and the UN, as well as of other organisations across the world, which means that we have given up some of the things we used to do ourselves for the greater good, the safety and sometimes the prosperity of our country. I do not see a problem with any of that.
I will move quickly on to what should happen in the future. I want our sovereignty to be enhanced through seeking democratic reform that will make EU decision makers more accountable to its people and not so metaphorically and physically distant from our communities. I want economic reform that will put jobs and sustainable growth at the centre of European policy, and that will bring in labour market reforms to strengthen workers’ rights in a real social Europe. I believe that we enhance our sovereignty by negotiating with our EU partners for policies and agreements that benefit us as a country and improve the lives of our citizens.
Ultimately, the referendum will come down to a decision to remain or leave, and I believe that the people of this country will vote for the future and not for a past that only ever existed in the minds of the Eurosceptics on the Conservative Benches.
Mr Speaker
Order. I should say to the Minister that I would like to call the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) to wind up no later than 2.58 pm.
Common Foreign and Security Policy
Pat Glass Excerpts(8 years, 5 months ago)
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The Chair
We now have until 5.34 pm for questions to the Minister. May I remind members of the Committee that questions should be brief? It is open to a member, subject to my discretion, to ask related supplementary questions.
Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)
It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wilson, as we are neighbours in the north-east.
I welcome the detailed report. I understand it runs to 301 pages and I have genuinely tried to read and digest them all, but the important outcomes detailed there highlight how the CSFP contributes to global peace and security. I have been involved with this matter for a relatively short time—just longer than three weeks—and the Minister has been involved for an awful lot longer, so perhaps he can help me here. There has been reference to NATO and to how it remains the main defence capability, but my understanding is that NATO is a relatively reactive organisation and that the report is about partnership, building capacity and using democracy building to keep us safe and proactive, rather than reactive. It would be interesting if the Minister could let me know if that is a correct understanding.
We live in an increasingly unsafe world. Some of the threats we face today, for example the re-emergence of Russian expansionism, are old threats, but there are also threats that we were not facing 20 or 30 years ago.
Pat Glass
The question is: is it right that the document is about being proactive, about building capacity across the member states? The European Scrutiny Committee believes that the Government do not have sufficient scrutiny arrangements in place, and the Minister has said that the arrangements have been less than perfect, so it would be helpful if he could set out what the future scrutiny arrangements would be.
Mr Lidington
I will try to reply to those points. The purpose of the common foreign and security policy is set out primarily in article 21 of the treaty on the European Union. I will not recite it in full—it is lengthy—but it is basically about developing external action in a way that promotes European values and the fundamental interests of security, independence and integrity, and consolidates and supports democracy, the rule of law, human rights and the principles of international law in external action. The article goes on to list other criteria too.
NATO is to some extent reactive, in that it is the ultimate guarantor of collective security for allies. I do not want to get drawn too far into this question, but I think it is fair to say that at the Wales summit and again at the Warsaw summit later this year, we are trying to ensure that NATO is less reactive and is, for example, focusing very much on questions of resilience and how to have effective deterrents and response plans in place against hybrid attack, not just conventional military attack.
EU external action has particular value added in two ways. First, of course, not every EU member state is a member of NATO, so countries such as Sweden and Finland are able to contribute to EU missions, including military missions, when they would not be able to do so as part of a NATO mission. For example, the Austrians have deployed forces as part of an EU mission in the western Balkans, whereas they could not participate in a NATO mission. Secondly, EU work can provide civilian expertise in things such as training of military personnel; training of police and security forces; border work, including the training of border forces; and missions to try to improve the governance of neighbouring or more distant countries.
The roles should be complementary. One could argue, for example, that the cyber threat to military communications and military capability should be dealt with at NATO level, but we know there is a cyber threat to key IT systems for energy distribution and even for retail distribution in a modern economy. It is much more difficult to say that those fall naturally into NATO’s remit, but effective co-operation and complementarity between NATO and the EU, if done well, can add up to a very effective security response.
On the question of scrutiny, with every CFSP document we check whether the document in question falls within the terms of the scrutiny reserve resolution. If it does, it goes to the Committee anyway for scrutiny. The challenge from the Committee—it is one I understand—is that some quite significant policy documents on EU foreign policy, including some described as action plans in the past, do not fall within the current terms of reference of the scrutiny reserve resolution. The volume of such documents is so large that I would be reluctant to agree to submit all of them for scrutiny, so it comes down to a matter of my judgment as to which I send to the Committee.
I remain open to trying to agree with the Committee a set of criteria that would enable it to have oversight of the documents that it particularly wishes to see and that are genuinely important. I would, in return, want to have a serious discussion about the fact that some documents—not necessarily CFSP documents—go to the Committee at the moment that frankly need not go through the formal scrutiny process and could be dealt with in a more streamlined fashion.
Pat Glass
It is becoming increasingly clear that these European Committees are less about the documents themselves and more about giving a stage to the Eurosceptics in the Tory party so that they can have a go at those on their own Front Bench.
My understanding is that the document is a report on what has happened in the past; there is no new policy in it. If we look at the detail of the document, it is reassuring to see the way in which the CFSP has responded to threats as they emerge across Europe, such as the sanctions against Russia following the illegal annexation of Crimea and the Iran nuclear talks. I am a sceptic and a cynic about Iran, but I am the first to admit that we have had some notable successes there. There is also the investment in Ukraine in the face of Russian expansionism, and the way in which the EU has spearheaded the international strategy in dealing with ISIL/Daesh.
I recall applying to go on a security and defence visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories a couple of years ago. I received a very detailed security and counter-intelligence briefing on all the groups then operating in the middle east, in which ISIL/Daesh was not mentioned at all. That was just two years ago. This illustrates how quickly changes happen in the most dangerous and volatile parts of the world, and how quickly and significantly these changes impact on us here in Britain. It is clear from the report that the CFSP can act mid-strategy to shift emphasis and resources quickly to emerging threats.
We live in an increasingly unsafe world. Threats including global terrorism, international criminality, people trafficking, international slavery and interreligious wars on a scale that we have not seen since the 16th century in Europe all can and will impact harder on the everyday lives of our citizens if we try to tackle them in isolation. They are global, complex and deeply dangerous, and need co-ordinated responses. To suggest otherwise is naive in the extreme, and risks the security of our citizens here and abroad.
I welcome this report. It is a comprehensive approach to promoting democracy and a long-term strategy for making the world safer. It is full of what I think the Minister called diplo-babble, but in many other ways it is pragmatic. It focuses not only on military capacity, but on civilian capacity and training, and on reacting quickly as new threats emerge in the world.
Action Plan on Human Rights and Democracy
Pat Glass Excerpts(8 years, 6 months ago)
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The Chair
We now have until 5.36 pm for questions to the Minister. I remind Members that questions should be brief. It is open to a Member, subject to the discretion of the Chair, to ask related supplementary questions.
Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)
As this is my first outing in one of the European Committees, Mr Rosindell, I hope that the Minister will handle me gently.
I understand that the action plan is about third countries and not our internal EU partners. None of us would have any problems in principle with the action plan, which the Minister described as a document of principles, high-level actions and practical steps. That is where I had a problem when reading through the document, because I think that I got more about what the practical steps are and what is going on from the Minister in a 10-minute speech than I did from two hours of reading that document. When I look at an action plan, I expect high-level actions, milestones, timescales, costs and some numbers detailing how many and by when. I did not see any such reference in this document. When I was a director of education, I had three banned words from action plans—ongoing, developing and progressing, because they mean nothing. In terms of timescales, 75% to 80% of the document before the Committee is ongoing. I had a problem with that.
The Minister referred to the Court of Auditors, so I am assuming that underneath this high-level document are other documents that will tell me exactly how many, by when, who is responsible and the costs, as well as where we are, where we want to get to and how we will get there. I think fellow Committee members were also looking for those answers. Is there a series of documents beneath this high-level document that will give me those specific, practical answers?
We are working with two different drafts, and my first question relates to objective no. 4 of the table in my version of the new action plan. I appreciate that it relates to third parties and not to our EU partners, but it does feel a little like, “Do as I say, not as I do.” Objective 4.b refers to the need to
“Monitor at bilateral and multilateral level the compliance by partner countries of their international obligations in terms of access to justice and fair trial, including legal aid”.
How does that sit with our Government’s recent action to cut back access to justice and legal aid?
My second question is about item no. 12, “Cultivating an environment of non-discrimination.” Objective 12.a is to:
“Develop an ‘EU Handbook on Anti-discrimination’ in third countries, outlining tools for anti-discrimination measures”.
Well, that is going to do it for the Ugandan anti-homosexual laws—that is going to make it happen. I was expecting something more than just a handbook. Who is going to do this? The EEAS, the Commission and the Council. It is a handbook, so surely they have some idea who is going to put it together.
My last point concerns no. 25, “Counter-terrorism”, which deals with
“how to prevent radicalisation and extremist violence among young people in third countries…in the field.”
I am curious about how that will relate to our Prevent strategy.
Those are my three observations. Overall, I think that the strategy is moving in the right direction, but I have concerns about who will monitor it, how it will be monitored and how we will judge whether it is effective and gives value for money. It will be difficult to judge whether the strategy is successful if we have no idea where we started, where we intend to be or what the milestones are along the way. Presumably, those things are in the low-level documents that the Minister is going to tell me about now.
Mr Lidington
I welcome the hon. Member for North West Durham to her new responsibilities. We miss her predecessor, but during her time in the House she has shown herself to be interested in and committed to European issues. I am sure that we will debate European matters across the Committee and across the Chamber on many enjoyable occasions. I will try to answer her questions briefly.
As I said in my opening comments, the plan is deliberately intended as a high-level statement of objectives and principles that should inform the whole range of external policy activity that the EU and its institutions undertake. Other documents, most obviously the annual reports on the EU’s human rights work, are worth looking at. The External Action Service will report on missions to particular countries and it will sometimes report to the European Parliament on the EU’s interaction with a specific third country. In those reports, hon. Members will see human rights issues being raised in accordance with the principles set out in the action plan. There are quite a lot of different documents, such as the EU’s human rights guidelines and a recently adopted EU framework policy on transitional justice, which add up to a more complete picture.
On the question of who will monitor this work, the EU institutions and the representatives of member states in Brussels—the permanent representations—have an important role in trying to ensure best value for money at all times. The European Court of Auditors plays a crucial role in monitoring that, as it does every other aspect of EU expenditure.
When I visited the Court of Auditors late last year, I was told that I was the first British Minister they could remember ever visiting the place, which I thought was rather a pity. What impressed me was that the Court of Auditors had a very clear objective to shift its focus from measuring inputs into particular programmes to looking at outcomes and focusing much more on whether the declared objectives of a particular EU programme have been achieved, rather than on how much money might be going into something and whether it had been spent on this particular line rather than that particular line.
I mentioned in my opening comments the European instrument for democracy and human rights as one of the external funding instruments. Precisely because human rights work is meant to be mainstreamed in everything the EU does in terms of its foreign policy, it is not possible to abstract a dedicated budget for human rights work alone. For example, what the EU does in relation to Saudi Arabia or Iran will include a human rights element, but it will include other things as well. The pre-accession funding programmes that are available to Turkey and to western Balkans countries that are moving towards membership, and some of the partnership funds to some of the eastern European countries from the former Soviet Union, will also have a human rights element as we try to encourage those countries to build functioning democracies and entrench the rule of law and human rights in their political culture.
I turn briefly to the three specific items that the hon. Lady raised. In fairness, even with the recent restrictions on legal aid, the United Kingdom’s legal aid system remains one of the most generous anywhere in Europe or the democratic world. What the EU is trying to focus on here is the fact that there are too many countries in which it is impossible for defendants to have access to an independent lawyer at all, and where everything that we take for granted in terms of such statutes as the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 or the rules of procedure in court are simply not available in the way that we would understand them. As part of the consular casework that I have dealt with, I have had British citizens, through their families, complaining that they have sometimes not had any opportunity to understand the charges being brought against them in court. That is the sort of issue that this policy is designed to address.
When it comes to anti-discrimination work, the reality is that such work has to proceed through persuasion, good practice and peer group pressure within international organisations. If, for example, we look at the way in which the United Kingdom Government first drove forward preventing sexual violence from being used as a weapon of war, placed that on the international agenda and then used our membership of the EU and of the UN to get other countries to take this issue up and make it a priority, that demonstrates one particular way in which this approach can work. We certainly see the EU’s action plan as complementing our own bilateral efforts to increase women’s political participation around the world, from the middle east to north Africa to work with indigenous groups in Latin America.
On the question of counter-terrorism, again we see the EU action plan work complementing what we seek to do under Prevent and other United Kingdom programmes. There are many countries around the world that face a genuine threat from terrorism but that also do not observe the standards in terms of human rights and due process that we would expect from our own police and judicial systems, so part of what we do bilaterally and part of what we do through EU activity is to have a dialogue with those countries and discuss how it is possible to combine effective action against terrorism with respect for the rule of law and for human rights. That is an issue that Members from all parties in the House have raised in the context of Colombia in debates in this House. It is an issue that we raise in our dialogue with Russian authorities, who face a genuine terrorist threat in the north Caucasus but who tackle it in a somewhat different way from how we might tackle terrorism here.
Oral Answers to Questions
Pat Glass Excerpts(8 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Hammond
As my right hon. Friend knows, national security is reserved to the member states and we regard it as very important that that should remain the case. However, there is a tension because national security interacts with many other agendas where the European Union does have competence—for example, around the regulation of telecommunications. Ensuring that that balance is maintained correctly, and that the crucial national security interests of the member states cannot be interfered with by the European Union, remains one of our priorities in the negotiations.
Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)
May I first thank the Secretary of State for the update on the situation in Istanbul? Of course, our thoughts are with anyone caught up in this awful situation.
Those campaigning to leave the European Union have made much of the unrealistic argument that Britain can simply walk away and magically retain trade agreements that are in place precisely because we are a member of the EU. What assessment has the Secretary of State made of the impact on British industry and British business of Britain having no say in future EU regulations that we will almost invariably be required to comply with? In other words, what will “out” look like for British industry and British jobs?
Mr Hammond
Let me first welcome the hon. Lady to her position on the Front Bench. Indeed, let me welcome all the new members of Labour’s Front Bench team, across the party. Let me also pay tribute to the former shadow Minister for Europe, the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden). It is a sad indictment of today’s Labour party that people get sacked for refusing to excuse the actions of terrorists who murder innocent people and threaten our way of life.
We are clear that Britain benefits from access to the single market. If Britain voted to leave the European Union, we could not be guaranteed continued access to the single market. Britain benefits from the free trade agreements that have been negotiated by the European Union with third countries. We could not guarantee that renegotiating such agreements with the United Kingdom would be a priority for all those third countries if we were outside the European Union. But in the end, this is a balancing act. A proper calculation has to be made between the costs and the benefits of membership. What we are trying to do in this negotiation is decisively to alter the balance in favour of British membership so that we can convince the British people that that is the right future for Britain.
Oral Answers to Questions
Pat Glass Excerpts(9 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Hammond
I do not have direct action with my Russian counterpart on Ukraine, because we handle this issue through EU channels, but I have spoken to him on the margins of E3 plus 3 meetings on Iran. The Russians are well aware of what they have to do to see the sanctions removed and the EU is keen to be able to reduce sanctions at the earliest opportunity, but only when Russia comes into compliance with its obligations.
Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)
14. What recent assessment he has made of the human rights situation in Colombia.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr Hugo Swire)
We welcome the Colombian Government’s efforts to improve the human rights situation, including through their land restitution and victims reparations processes. There has been a worrying increase in the number of threats against human rights defenders and we continue to raise that with the Colombian Government.
Pat Glass
I heard the Secretary of State’s response to an earlier question on human rights in Colombia and found it very disappointing. The UK is the second largest investor in Colombia, so does that not give us leverage in securing commitments from the Colombian Government to dealing with sexual violence in conflict, with trade unionists being locked up for being trade unionists and with human rights in general?
Mr Swire
Yes, and we regularly use it. In fact, we pushed hard in negotiations with the EU, Colombia and Peru for a legally binding and robust human rights clause in the text of the EU-Andean free trade agreement. These matters are raised regularly in the House by followers of the situation in Colombia and I always argue the same, which is that I think that the big prize is the peace process. I am glad that that has kicked off again in Havana. I can also announce to the House that I have got the Colombian ambassador to agree to host a meeting for Members of both Houses on 10 March for a full discussion on all of our interests in Colombia. I am sure that the hon. Lady would like to come along to that and raise her questions with the ambassador.
Oral Answers to Questions
Pat Glass Excerpts(9 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Hammond
As my hon. Friend knows, an election is taking place in Nigeria next year and, in the pre-election season, it is quite difficult to change government behaviour. We are working closely with the Nigerian security services, military and intelligence services to try to track down the Chibok schoolgirls and other people who have been kidnapped by Boko Haram.
Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)
T2. It is vital that the countries affected by Ebola get the right medical, logistical and engineering personnel they need not only to deal with the immediate situation but to rebuild their health systems. What advice and training are the Government giving to British nationals who are travelling to the region to help fight this virus?
Mr Hammond
The British Army medical corps has established a facility just outside York to train people who have volunteered to work in UK facilities in Sierra Leone. These people have nursing qualifications and experience, but they need training around the specific precautions that are required to be taken in relation to protective equipment to prevent infection by the Ebola virus. Ensuring that people understand how to protect themselves is the key to slowing down the transmission rate of this disease.
Iran
Pat Glass Excerpts(10 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Hague
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s support and for his wise words. Only Iran can determine whether it implements the deal in good faith, but I will say that, on the basis of our dealings with Foreign Minister Zarif—who has conducted all the negotiations from the Iranian side—I believe in his sincerity about reaching the deal and about implementing it. I hope that he will continue to have the necessary support in Iran—where there is, to put it mildly, a quite opaque and complex power structure—to ensure that the agreement is fully implemented.
Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)
The Secretary of State talked about the need for Iran to operate in good faith, but that is not what we have seen from Iran in recent decades. Is there a plan for action in six months’ time if we find that it has not operated in good faith and has not complied with this interim agreement?
Mr Hague
In that eventuality, we would not be able to renew the agreement. As I pointed out earlier, all the sanctions relief that we have signed up to here is reversible or is one-off, so it would not be repeated if Iran does not implement this agreement, but I think the Iranians have a clear understanding of that and that is part of the pressure on them to make sure that they do it.
Oral Answers to Questions
Pat Glass Excerpts(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Mark Simmonds
There are a number of key initiatives to support, through technical facilitation, the west African countries and to enable co-operation with our Navy, in its visits to the region, to train the necessary west African naval capacity to deal with these challenges. Ultimately, however, as we found in east Africa, the solution is on land, not on sea, so we are working with west African Governments to try to provide economic and developmental assistance to make sure that people have economic hope and the ability to provide for their families, rather than piracy off the west coast of Africa.
Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)
15. What discussions he has had with the UN special envoy for the great lakes on the situation in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mark Simmonds)
We are very concerned about the current situation in eastern DRC, in particular the impact on the civilian population in the region. I spoke to Mary Robinson about this most recently on 27 August, following an earlier bilateral meeting, and I made clear the UK’s full support for the UN and MONUSCO as they work to protect civilians against the M23 rebels.
Mark Simmonds
The hon. Lady is absolutely right to raise her concerns about the fighting that took place in the eastern part of the DRC. We have been working with the international community, including the United Nations. I have spoken, and offered the United Kingdom’s full support, to Martin Kobler, the UN Secretary-General’s special representative who is in charge of MONUSCO, and to Mary Robinson. I have also spoken to the Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in order to urge restraint, as I have to the Rwandan Foreign Minister. President Museveni of Uganda has called for talks in Kampala on 5 September, and I very much hope that that will be the beginning of the process so that everybody is focused on implementing the peace and security framework that was set out after the problems a few months ago.
Oral Answers to Questions
Pat Glass Excerpts(11 years, 4 months ago)
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Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)
1. What recent assessment he has made of the political situation in Tunisia.
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)
14. What recent assessment he has made of the political situation in Tunisia.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Alistair Burt)
We continue to watch events in Tunisia closely. We condemn the assassination of Opposition leader Chokri Belaid. We have watched the peaceful transference of the premiership from Prime Minister Jebali to Prime Minister designate Laarayedh, which has been accompanied by strong statements by those in Tunisia about their adherence to democracy and building democratic institutions.
Alistair Burt
Matters relating to dates and timings of the constitution and everything else remain unclear. We have seen nothing at this stage to suggest that any date should be affected, but a new Government have not yet been formed. The Prime Minister designate has until the end of this week to create a Government. There may be an extension after that, but hopes are high that that Government will be confirmed. It will then be easier to see what dates will follow for the other parts of the democratic process of rebuilding.
Oral Answers to Questions
Pat Glass Excerpts(13 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Bellingham
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her question, and I congratulate her on her appointment. Having been a special adviser at the Foreign Office, she will have a great deal to bring to her new Front-Bench job. The previous Minister with responsibility for the overseas territories, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), approved last year’s Cayman Islands’ borrowings at £217 million with conditions attached. This year, I approved borrowings of £123 million, with the same conditions attached. For the Cayman Islands to get their economy moving again, we strongly feel that they need to maintain their offshore status, and we are following the policy of the previous Government.
Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)
9. What recent assessment he has made of the political situation in Afghanistan; and if he will make a statement.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Alistair Burt)
We assess that steady progress has been made since the successful Kabul conference. The High Peace Council has been established, and it is working towards the political settlement. The UK is working with groups or individuals who are willing to accept the conditions that were laid down by President Karzai for a political settlement. Insurgents should cut ties with al-Qaeda, renounce violence and work within the constitutional framework.
Pat Glass
I thank the Minister for that answer. There have, however, been some differences between recent statements made by President Obama and the Prime Minister on troop withdrawal dates for Afghanistan. Can the Minister confirm that President Obama and the Prime Minister are talking to one another about these important issues, given that any discrepancies give succour to the Taliban and expose our troops to greater risk?
Alistair Burt
I do not think there is any discrepancy. The interests of all the international forces—48 countries are now represented—are the same: to ensure that the Afghans have a stable and secure country, and self-governance without outside influence. The work to ensure that that happens will be carried out by combat troops from this country until 2015, but the necessary work of development and governance will continue after that. The international forces are working together on these plans and proposals, are constantly in contact with each other and are working towards a series of political and military objectives in Afghanistan, with the full co-operation and activity of the Afghan Government.