Iran

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Baron]

It is very straightforward. There has to be evidence of nuclear weapons. We were told, for example, that there was no shortage of circumstantial evidence about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but it turned out that there were no WMD there. That shows how careful we need to be and how clear we need to be about the difference between circumstantial evidence and concrete evidence.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware of any IAEA evidence on Israel’s nuclear weapons programme?

[Mr Baron]

The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. In certain quarters in the middle east, it is felt that double standards are being applied in that Israel has developed nuclear weapons and the west does not seem to worry about them. [Interruption.] My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) suggests that the evidence is circumstantial, and I am willing to grant him that point.

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[Sir Malcolm Rifkind]

That might be an option, but the political reality is that Israel has had nuclear weapons for 30 years and that has not led to Arab countries threatening seriously to develop their own nuclear capability. The reason the Saudis and others have reacted in such a hostile way to Iran is that they know that Iran is intent on geopolitical dominance in the Gulf region by being the only country of the Muslim world, other than Pakistan, to have nuclear weapons capability or the reality of it. I believe that we cannot rule out a military response because the potential for such a response must be part of the equation.

[Paul Flynn]

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Sir Malcolm Rifkind]

I do not want to accept too many interventions, for the reasons you have mentioned, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Thirdly, the use of force will never be a desirable response, but it might be the least bad one if all else fails. In considering that, let me put to the House what I think is a very important point. Many commentators have drawn attention to all the downsides of a military response. They suggest that an attack by the United States—let us concentrate on the United States at the moment—would lead to a hike in the oil price, which is correct. They suggest that it might lead to increased terrorist support by Iran for Hezbollah or Hamas and to attempts to block the strait of Hormuz and all that that would entail, and they are right. There are various other downsides, too. But, when we think about it, we find that almost all the examples—the correct examples that have been given—of the adverse consequences of a military strike by the United States are relatively temporary. They are short to medium-term: they might last a few days, weeks or possibly even months, but they would gradually cease to have any impact.

The alternative, however, of an Iran with nuclear weapons capability is not temporary; it is permanent. Therefore, we have to come to—we cannot avoid coming to—a judgment. If diplomacy fails, if negotiations go nowhere and if sanctions do not deliver, we will at some stage still have to come to an honest judgment: whether the downside, which I do not deny exists, nevertheless has to be borne if the long-term objective is either to destroy or seriously to degrade Iran’s nuclear capability.

That brings us to a crucial question: would such action in fact do so? Do the Americans have the capability? That is ultimately a military question, and we are not privy to the military advice that the President may be receiving. If the advice is, “No, it wouldn’t,” it is not worth considering the option, but, if the advice is that we could either destroy or seriously degrade Iranian nuclear capability so that it is pushed back five or 10 years, that is a different argument.

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[Mr Straw]

I have had a serious problem in my right ear since 1981, and I can tell the hon. Gentleman that there is a very good consultant just across the river at St Thomas’s, on the NHS. I have been treated there for 30 years. I think it was within the hearing of the House and Hansard when, within about my first two sentences, I spelled out that I would support the amendment moved by the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington. I apologise if it did not quite get as far as the bubble in which the hon. Gentleman sits.

[Paul Flynn]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the current situation is very similar to the prelude to the war in Iraq? Does he really think that going to war on the basis of what proved to be non-existent weapons of mass destruction was worth the loss of 179 British lives?

[Mr Straw]

The two are very different, and in any case I have already said that I do not regard us as being remotely close to the bar for military action at present. It is important that Members, particularly those who support the amendment, are cautious and do not get themselves into a lather, as some but not all did in respect of Iraq and other issues. It is very important to acknowledge the evidence.

If the House refers to paragraph 53 of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s report of November, it will see that it states:

“The Agency has serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme.”

However, it continues that information

“indicates that prior to the end of 2003, these activities took place under a structured programme, and that some activities may still be ongoing.”

The truth is that—until recently, we think—the major part of the programme stopped in 2003. It is my judgment, but no more than conjecture, that Iran’s aim has been to build up a nuclear weapons capability on paper, but not to turn it into a nuclear weapons programme. With respect to the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington, there is a big difference between the two.

Finally, I urge caution. I hope that we hear less of the suggestion that were Iran to get a nuclear weapons capability, there would automatically be an arms race in the middle east. I do not believe that. A senior Saudi diplomat said to me, “I know what we’re saying publicly, but do you really think that having told people that there is no need for us to make any direct response to Israel holding nuclear weapons, we could seriously make a case for developing a nuclear weapons capability to deal with another Muslim country?”

This is a complicated issue, and we need a resolution to it. We need to ensure that the Foreign Secretary does not go into negotiations without options open to him, but I also believe that with sensible negotiations, and working with the United States, Europe and other allies, we can ensure that there is a peaceful solution.

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) on securing the debate and welcome the opportunity to set out the Government’s policy towards Iran. I pay tribute to two distinguished predecessors of mine who have just spoken with the benefit of their enormous experience. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) made a compelling, almost unanswerable, case for his amendment and against the motion tabled by my hon. Friend. The right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), to whom I have often paid tribute in the House for his efforts to reach a rapprochement with Iran—I do so again today—spoke with his great experience of the difficulty of trying to arrive at an accommodation. I did not agree with quite everything he said, but he said many wise words about the current situation.

Iranian nuclear proliferation risks one of the most serious crises in foreign policy that the international community has faced in many years. As Iran moves closer to acquiring the capability to build and deliver a nuclear weapon, and as it continues its confrontational policies elsewhere in the world, that crisis is coming steadily down the track. Three years after Iran’s secret nuclear site at Qom first came to the attention of the world, it is expanding its uranium enrichment programme in defiance of the United Nations Security Council, and it is enriching uranium to 20% on a scale greater than that needed for a civil nuclear power programme. It remains in breach of its obligations under UN Security Council resolutions and it is not meeting the requirements of IAEA resolutions.

My hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay asked me to read the relevant extracts from the IAEA report of November. The right hon. Member for Blackburn has already referred to one of them. Paragraph 53 states:

“The Agency has serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme. After assessing carefully and critically the extensive information available to it, the Agency finds the information to be, overall, credible. The information indicates that Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device.”

The report goes on to make the points to which the right hon. Gentleman referred.

[Paul Flynn]

Does not the right hon. Gentleman see the danger that increasing tension between the west and Iran might well persuade it to expel the IAEA inspectors from its land, meaning that the transparency that we have now will end?

[Mr Hague]

First, it is of course not the IAEA’s view that Iran has been fully transparent. Indeed, it states in paragraph 52 of that report that

“the Agency is unable to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran, and therefore to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities”.

I hope the hon. Gentleman listened to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington, who pointed out that it could very well be argued that adopting the policy prescribed in the motion would increase tension and the likelihood of military conflict in the near term. I certainly hold to that view.

Another part of the IAEA report says that

“in 2005, a senior official in SADAT”—

that is, the Section for Advanced Development Applications and Technologies—

“solicited assistance from Shahid Behesti University in connection with complex calculations relating to the state of criticality of a solid sphere of uranium being compressed by high explosives.”

A solid sphere of uranium being compressed by high explosives can be found only in the core of a nuclear weapon.

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[Mr Alexander]

For the reasons that I have outlined and will continue to outline, I believe that it would be wrong to take those options off the table. When calibrating the way forward, one has to factor in the potential for change within the Iranian regime, given the prospect of elections next month. We are facing some critical months in terms of judgments to be reached in Tehran and elsewhere. That is why the responsible course at this juncture is to advance the twin-track approach that has characterised the attitude of the international community.

[Paul Flynn]

Does my right hon. Friend think that, although the Foreign Secretary rightly condemned what were probably terrorist attacks by Iran, he failed to attack incidents involving major explosions in Tehran, a cyber-attack against Tehran and the murder of four of Iran’s scientists? If we are to be taken as honest brokers, is it not right that we attack terrorism on both sides and insist on transparency not only in Iran but in Israel?

[Mr Alexander]

There is surely consensus on both sides of the House on the desire for a peaceful resolution to this crisis. That is why I argue that the strengthening of the sanctions regime to an unprecedented level is a necessary response to the growing tensions. All of us have an interest in a peaceful resolution.

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[Mr Llwyd]

The hon. Gentleman is right that that is the core of the debate. It is where he and I disagree. He may be right; I may be right. I know not, but this is the debate we are having. I do not pretend to be an expert in international law, but I heard it said that Iran will not be favoured; nobody wants to favour its position.

[Paul Flynn]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the immediate priority is to ensure that the present war of words does not deteriorate into a war of weapons, and that our task should be to reduce tension, not to increase it?

[Mr Llwyd]

That is absolutely right. I referred to sabre-rattling, and the hon. Gentleman puts it succinctly. That is not the way to have a diplomatic dialogue with any country.

We might not like the Government of Iran. Its human rights record remains appalling, despite reports last week that it is looking at revising its penal code. There are many Governments around the world, however, with whom we would not agree. Iran is a highly developed and complex society, and stereotyping makes it easier to demonise and create an atmosphere of fear based around simple sketches of society and the dehumanisation of those within it. It seems we have quickly forgotten the scenes in Tehran in 2009 when the green revolution was taking place and millions voted for Mousavi. Iran has a highly developed middle class, which often disagrees with Ahmadinejad. My point is to remind us all that the spirit of democracy is alive and well, and that when we make international judgments we should remember that the Government are not always representative of the views of their people.

As a party, we believe in being internationalist and in being committed to peace and justice. We are also strong believers in the importance of international law and diplomacy. We support the United Nations and we would like to see it strengthened. We reject weapons of mass destruction and military alliances based on the possession thereof. We support a role for the European Union in conflict prevention and peacekeeping. These, I think, must be our core aims, but as we speak, the drums of war are beating—and they are a ghastly echo of the run-up to the Iraq conflict. We must ensure that we do everything possible through every diplomatic means to silence those drums of war.

I hope that the IAEA’s mission in Tehran this week is unequivocally successful. With elections in Iran and in the US this year, we know that there is a lot of political mileage in talking tough and ramping up the rhetoric. Our role in this House, however, is surely to listen to the facts, make a calm and reasoned examination of the situation and scrutinise the actions taken on our behalf by our Government. I hope that every effort is made to pursue each and every diplomatic avenue vigorously in order to avoid war and the accompanying destruction of countries and lives. We should pause and listen to reason from informed observers.

One such person is Hans Blix, whose essay was published in the New Statesman of 20 February. He said that the idea of a nuclear-weapon-free zone for the middle east was originally advanced in 1974 in a UN General Assembly Resolution sponsored by Egypt and Iran. That was obviously aimed at Israel. He continued by saying that

“the idea of an agreement between the parties in the Middle East—including Israel and Iran—to renounce”

nuclear weapons

“does not seem far-fetched to me”.

He went on to refer to a recent poll in Israel in which a substantial majority of Israeli people said that they thought it would be better to have no state in the middle east with nuclear weapons than to have two states with them. I commend this article to all those listening to this debate. I believe that the motion is consistent with the good thinking of that article.

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[Nicholas Soames]

I agree. I think that the Arab spring is a very fragile flower, and that we must guard it with great care.

The role of the British Government should be clear: we should encourage every effort to ease tensions, and, for our own part, try to repair diplomatic relations. In that regard in particular, our strong connections and relationships in Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are extremely important in maintaining stability and retaining peace in the region. We need to work alongside them, the United States and Saudi Arabia.

I hope that our Government will be bold, and will be prepared to explore—either with or without our immediate allies and if necessary, of course, in secret—the options for setting the choreography, which is always so critical in these difficult matters, of who does what and in what order. I remember well that, in the midst of the cold war negotiations with the Soviet Union, it was considered essential for us to develop confidence-building measures so that each side could convince itself, through some small but significant successes—that could convince everyone—that it was worth working with the other side, and thus allow diplomacy to bear fruit. We in Britain must remember those lessons.

Given the American elections on the one hand and the Iranian elections on the other, this is a good time to think about some specific steps that could be taken in regard to confidence-building. I am sure that the IAEA will have some very good ideas on the technical side, and perhaps we could promote a protocol to prevent “incidents at sea”. I believe that it is only a question of time before some ill-disciplined patrol boat sets off a major shooting match in the strait of Hormuz. Perhaps we could also co-operate in dealing with drugs from Afghanistan. Iran, the United States and Afghanistan, perhaps with specialist European Union help, might be able to work together on controlling the flow of narcotics from Afghanistan into Iran. We know that Iran is worried about that, and of course we are very worried about it too.

[Paul Flynn]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Nicholas Soames]

I will not, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me.

Whatever steps are taken, they must not loosen the sanctions regime or, indeed, involve a renunciation of the possible use of force, but must rather show that we are serious about progress and the possibility—if it could be there—of reaching a peaceful agreement.

I do not believe that Iran has any interest in outright war, whether with the United States or with the wider international community. In my judgment, its actions and reactions must be seen through the prism of coercion. It is applying what coercive tools it has—for example, the ability to restrict traffic through the strait of Hormuz, or the use of terrorist proxies around the world—in response to the west’s application of its own coercive tools, such as the escalation of sanctions. New sanctions will cause damage to Iran. They will almost certainly enrich its strongmen, but they will not directly affect the nuclear programme. Unless we are prepared to break out of the conventional approach, this dance will get worse and worse.

The Foreign Secretary and his fellow Ministers have re-marshalled and re-energised the efforts of the foreign service to the great advantage of this country, and are in the process of revitalising the new global networks that will in future constitute a global super-highway through which great diplomatic and international disputes will be settled. I was very impressed by the line taken by the Foreign Secretary tonight, and with the commitment that he showed. I appeal to him to ensure that we in Britain use all our resources, all our relationships, and all our influence and help—quite apart from our relationship with the United States of America, and our conventional relationships in the Commonwealth, the European Union, the United Nations and the IAEA—to get ourselves into a position in which we can at least agree on some future ground rules for engagement and progress in the future. I fear that, in the absence of such action, this dispute has the potential to have the most dreadful long-term consequences, and we must avoid those at all costs.

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[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

This House engaged in a war with Iraq that was based on non-existent weapons of mass destruction, and 179 of our brave British soldiers died along with an uncounted number of Iraqis. We remained in Afghanistan and went into Helmand on the basis of a non-existent terrorist threat to the United Kingdom from the Taliban. When we went into Helmand, two British soldiers had died in warfare and five more in other ways; having gone into Helmand, however, the figure is now 398. We are now in a position of stumbling into another war on the basis of non-existent nuclear weapons and non-existent missiles.

Some of us present when those decisions were taken vividly remember how the decision on Iraq went through this House—not on the basis of truth or evidence, but because this House was bribed, bullied and bamboozled into taking a decision that many thought was wrong. The hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) was one Member and the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) another who opposed that decision because the evidence was not there.

We should look at the evidence before us now of the threat from a missile in Iran with a range of 6,000 miles. Members will recall that we heard of this threat three or four years ago when America wanted to set up missile sites in Poland and the Czech Republic. The Russians were quite rightly angry about this, but the pretext for it was the protection of the Russians and the Poles from missiles from Iran. It was a wholly implausible threat and we have not heard much of it since, but now that an election is coming up in America, the myth has been resurrected.

I claim some pedigree in opposing nuclear weapons and nuclear technology in Iran. I raised the subject in December 1992 in parliamentary questions—I shall not bore the House with the details—to the then Minister, Michael Heseltine. At that time, we were told that it was absolutely right to hand over nuclear technology to our ally at the time—the Shah of Persia.

One Conservative Member said, “We must still punch above weight.” Why? Punching above our weight means dying beyond our responsibilities. A young soldier from south Wales died last month, but he will not be counted among the 398 dead in Afghanistan. He was shot twice there and was slightly injured in two further incidents involving improvised explosive devices, but the event that destroyed him was watching his virtually limbless best friend die in his arms. He came back broken in mind, and last month he took his life.

We have lost 398 and at least 1,000 others are also broken in mind and body because we as a House decided that we wanted to punch above our weight in the world. That was our decision, and we cannot escape from it. The present Government and previous Governments have tried to minimise the extent of the bereavement and the loss. Those who have suffered because of this, the loved ones and the bereaved, will face an awful situation in the future. When the death toll reaches 400, which it surely must, although we all regret it, all the grief will be churned up again and there will be attention to it. To get the list of the dead on to the Order Paper requires 24 early-day motions, but what we should look at is what those people will see. Many of them were consoled by the belief that their loved ones died in a noble cause—that they died preventing terrorism on the streets of Britain. What conclusion will they reach when, in a few years’ time, we hand over the government of Afghanistan to the very people whom we said we were fighting against, to the very same threat? We will be handing it back to the Taliban.

The hon. Member for Northampton South (Mr Binley) was absolutely right. The effect of our intervention in Iraq was to replace one rotten, cruel, oppressive regime with another rotten, cruel, oppressive regime, and the result in Afghanistan will be the same. A bad regime, the Taliban, will go out, and we will replace it with what? With the Taliban again. It seems extraordinary that we have to behave as though we were still in the 19th century and that Britannia still rules the waves. We do not have to take on these situations. We do not have to be the Little Sir Echo to American policy.

There is an unsolved riddle in the House about how we have been represented. There was an investigation of the conduct of the last Defence Secretary that was alleged to constitute a breach of the ministerial code, but the investigation itself constituted a breach of the ministerial code because it was not carried out by the sole enforcer of that code, Sir Philip Mawer. He has resigned within the last couple of months and someone else has been put in his place. There is great concern that the person involved in this matter, Adam Werritty, who was the adviser to—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is about to return to the subject of Iran. I am sure that that is where he is heading next.

[Paul Flynn]

This is precisely about Iran, because it has been claimed that Adam Werritty and the former Secretary of State were in meetings with Israelis—indeed, it is a proven fact that at least five meetings took place—and that the subject of those meetings was Iran. That has been reported in many of our national newspapers. However, the investigation has yet to be carried out. We have seen a brief investigation by a civil servant who was not entitled to carry it out, and we have seen the resignation of the person who is the sole enforcer and who told a Select Committee that he believed that he, not Gus O’Donnell, should have conducted the investigation.

We have yet to find out what on earth was going on. Did we have a Secretary of State who was conducting his own foreign policy on Iran and perhaps bringing us closer to war? The Select Committee has yet to finish its report, but a fortnight ago I asked Philip Mawer’s successor, “If the Committee decides that you are not a fit person to take on this job”—because he has not shown the robust independence that is necessary to the job—“what will you do?” He said that he would relinquish his position. That has yet to be decided.

Finally, let me say that the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay deserves great praise for introducing the debate. He has already succeeded—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I call Mr Edward Leigh.

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[Mr Leigh]

Not for a moment does anyone in this House casually disregard it. I have always argued that there had to be a means, through special forces or even through the limited use of air strikes, to have controlled a Taliban Government. However, I am with the hon. Member for Newport West so far and, to an extent, I am also with him and with others who opposed the Libyan conflict. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron), and I also accept the argument that we should not assume that deterrence would break down if Iran acquired a nuclear weapon. However, Iran’s having a nuclear weapon would be of a different geopolitical order from what we were confronting in Iraq. Iran with a nuclear weapon would be a calamity, but a pre-emptive strike at this stage would be calamitous. Therefore, we are in an extraordinarily dangerous position. I do not need to say this, because it is so obvious, but as a Government we need to urge our American and Israeli allies to proceed with extreme caution.

There has not been a great deal of debate so far about what is actually happening on the ground. I do not accept the argument that all the evidence is circumstantial. The Fordow site has enriched uranium to 20%. Enrichment of 90% to 95% is required for weapons, whereas only 5% is required for less sophisticated civil reactors and more sophisticated reactors run on 3% or less. There is no doubt that this enrichment is for military purposes. I am not necessarily arguing that Iran would take the final step to acquire a capability to deliver these nuclear weapons, but I believe that we are in a very dangerous position.

An attack would be extraordinarily difficult. It would not be simple like the Israeli attack on the Iraqi Osirak reactor in 1981. As we have heard, the Iranian programme is geographically, as well as functionally, extensive. It includes not 15 sites, as was mentioned earlier, but up to perhaps 30 sites, which could not be destroyed in a single attack—it would likely take an air war lasting several weeks to do that. In addition, as we know, the Qom facility was kept secret. I do not believe that Israel alone could stop Iran’s nuclear progress; only America could reliably destroy the nuclear capability. The conclusion must be that Israel does not have the capability to attack effectively; it could wound but not kill, which might be the most dangerous thing of all. Israel does not have the capability and America does not have the will, and if Israel were to attack, it is plausible that Iran would retaliate against not only Israel, but, much more worryingly, Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia is only 150 miles from Iran at its closest point and shares a maritime border with Iran along the length of the Gulf. There are only 258 troops from US central command in Saudi Arabia at the moment. General Hossein Salami, the deputy commander of the elite revolutionary guard, has threatened retaliation, stating:

“Any place where enemy offensive operations against the Islamic Republic of Iran originate will be the target of a reciprocal attack by the Guard’s fighting units”.

There is no doubt in my mind that if there were an attack on Iran it would elicit an immediate and perhaps devastating response against Saudi Arabia. Israeli planes would experience problems, even in attack, and would have to overfly a combination of Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Saudi Arabia just to reach Iran.

Will economic sanctions work? We have to proceed on that basis, but they may not, which is why I come on to the second part of my speech. I am sorry that there is not a simple solution, but I cannot follow the hon. Member for Newport West in saying that we can do nothing—that we can accept the motion and rule out force and that somehow things will be all right. Yes, it is calamitous to attack, but it is even more of a calamity if that country acquires nuclear weapons.

[Paul Flynn]

Does the hon. Gentleman think that it would be better if he followed the example of Harold Wilson in Vietnam, rather than the example of Tony Blair in Iraq?

[Mr Leigh]

That is a very different situation, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me for saying so. I am not sure that what was going on in Vietnam was a direct threat to us or to the whole region.

What happens if Iran acquires nuclear weapons? We cannot just dismiss that and say that deterrents would work. It is widely believed—and I think that it is true—that Saudi Arabia would acquire nuclear weapons very rapidly. Could we forgive it for doing so, if Iran developed a nuclear weapon? Saudi Arabia is reported to have made a deal with Pakistan on buying nuclear warheads in exchange for the substantial assistance that it gave Pakistan during its nuclear development in the 1980s. If the Israelis attacked, there would doubtless be a response from Hezbollah. Iran is perhaps the worst governed country in the region, because of strong ethnic identities and the opaque system of government we have heard about. No doubt there would be a confused and difficult response.

What is my conclusion from all those difficult conundrums? As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) said, there is no good solution, there is only the least bad solution. I believe that any attack on Iran would have negative consequences for stability in the middle east in general, and would directly affect our allies in the region. Iran is extremely volatile, and it could easily overreact to provocation, so an attack at this stage would be disastrous. Any attack without American support would hinder but not stop the Iranian nuclear programme. My right hon. and learned Friend is right, however, that taking the possibility of an attack off the table would make Israel more likely to act unilaterally to retard Iran’s programme.

So what do we do? The only thing that we can do is continue with economic sanctions and be realistic about their likely impact; we must recognise Iranian concerns, and not engage in sabre-rattling; and we must recognise that it is a proud nation that feels that it is surrounded. All of that is very wise. We should try to take the issue off the boil and keep them guessing. That is why I am sorry that I cannot support the motion tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay, as it would be wildly dangerous to remove from the table the threat of military action. It is not necessary to do so. As I said, when dealing with tyrannies—surely, this is the verdict of history—we have to keep them guessing.

The Foreign Office had a policy of keeping our potential enemy guessing in the 1930s, but ultimately that policy, too, was disastrous, because there was no certainty about our intent, which brings me to my conclusion that there should be no pre-emptive strike. We should keep talking, and keep them guessing. Ultimately, the Iranian regime must know that if it is on the brink of acquiring nuclear weapons, the west—namely America and Israel—will act at that stage, and must do so to defend all our freedoms and to defend stability in the entire region.

Israel

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Wednesday 14th December 2011 Westminster Hall

[Guto Bebb]

I am grateful for that intervention from my right hon. Friend, who is a Liberal. When my colleagues and I were in Israel, one of the things we found quite amusing was that we, as MPs, occasionally complained about the fact that we had a coalition between two parties in Westminster. Obviously, Israeli politicians said they would be absolutely delighted if they could have a coalition between just two parties. Israel’s proportional representation system means that it has a vibrant political system, in which criticism of Government actions happens regularly.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

I was delighted to hear the hon. Gentleman refer, I believe, to a poem by Saunders Lewis, in which he urges Wales to follow the example of Israel, particularly in terms of reviving its language—it is a poem of great optimism. However, does he not agree that there is a world of difference between the Israel of Yitzhak Rabin and the Israel of Netanyahu?

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[Guto Bebb]

Again, the record, but, unfortunately, not necessarily the media in this country, would support that view.

More important than words are actions, and in 2009-10 there was a freeze on all settlement activity. For a right-wing politician in Israel that is a brave move. The 10-month freeze was met with nine months of no activity by the Palestinians—another missed opportunity.

[Paul Flynn]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Guto Bebb]

I will take a final intervention.

[Paul Flynn]

We all condemn the incessant use of rockets by Hezbollah and Hamas, but is there not another danger, given what is happening in Tehran, with the explosions, assassination of scientists and cyber-attacks, that we are in a perilous situation that could lead to war? I believe that the hand of other countries can be seen in what is happening in Tehran, and that is likely to provoke it into a shooting war.

[Guto Bebb]

I am sure that all Members of the House agree that the situation in Iran is dangerous and are concerned about that regime having access to nuclear weapons. Again, negotiation would be a much better option than direct action, and I am sure all hon. Members would agree on that too.

The final point that I wanted to make about the Prime Minister of Israel is that in September 2011 he fully accepted the Quartet initiative, which was the basis on which negotiations could restart. Again the response of the Palestinian Authority has been to obstruct the process and provide the Quartet with evidence without consultation with Israel. The whole point of the Quartet initiative was to ensure that proposals would go forward in tandem with Israel and the Palestinians. That did not happen. Time and again Israel has made generous offers, which have been rejected. That is not to say that it should not continue to make generous offers. It is simply to say that the exhortations to Israel to make the next move ignore the reality of the past 10 years.

The context of the statement to the House was the near euphoria in this country about the changes in many parts of the Arab world, which have been welcomed on both sides of the House. We welcome changes and moves towards democracy in Egypt. There has been a brave effort in Syria to deal with a regime that has been, to say the least, unkind to its people. There is successful democracy in Tunisia, and we all welcome those changes. However, it is crucial to put them in the context of how they appear to someone living in an Israeli state where the borders suddenly look extremely vulnerable for perhaps the first time in 30 years. Israel’s land border with Egypt has been a solid part of its security for the past 30 years, but suddenly there is a question as to where it is going. Syria has never been a friend of Israel, and no one in the Chamber would claim that it was; however, the border between them has been stable for a generation. Discontent is clearly being shown in Jordan, and that border too has been a successful part of the peace process in Israel. Israel seems to be threatened by change on all sides. Finally, the malign influence of the Iranian regime is present in both southern Lebanon and the Gaza strip. That, again, is part of the context that was missing from the statement.

I have three or four questions, and I would appreciate it if the Minister could respond to them. First, why did the statement ignore the efforts made by Israel over the past 10 years? That is a reasonable question. Secondly, why did the statement almost fully argue that the expectation was that Israel should make the next move? Israel certainly has to make a move, but to say that the onus is entirely on Israel’s shoulders was questionable. Thirdly, why was no equal and corresponding demand made of the Palestinian Authority to show a degree of flexibility? Finally, why did the statement ignore the context? As I said, although we welcome the changes, we must acknowledge that they look threatening to a state of 7 million people surrounded by potentially hostile neighbours.

The Israeli Government have shown a willingness to engage. I believe that the only way forward is a two-state solution, which will happen only through negotiation. The British Government, with our experience in Northern Ireland, can contribute positively to that debate, but the debate needs a balanced approach and balanced language.

[The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington)]

First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb) on securing this debate. The attendance of a large number of my right hon. and hon. Friends and hon. Members from other parties at this 30-minute debate indicates the importance that the House attaches to both the bilateral relationship between the United Kingdom and Israel and to the wider issues concerning the middle east peace process, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy alluded in his opening speech.

I want to make it clear at the start that the Government see Israel as a key ally and friend of the UK. That does not mean that we agree on everything—we do not hesitate to express our disagreements with Israel where we feel that to be necessary, and successive Israeli Governments have done exactly the same with successive Governments here in London. We enjoy a close and productive relationship with the Israeli Government, and that very relationship allows us to have the candid discussions that are often necessary between friends.

As a number of hon. Members have said, the potential for collaboration between the United Kingdom and Israel is enormous. Our partnership in the high-tech industry could become one of the drivers of Britain’s economic growth. There is a long way to go before we get to that point—America still remains the first thought for an Israeli entrepreneur thinking about international co-operation—but we need to change that mindset, and we have taken some important steps this year towards that goal.

First, in October, during a visit to Israel, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer launched a Britain-Israel high-tech hub. It is a new team, based in our embassy in Tel Aviv, tasked with promoting the high-tech partnership, with staff drawn entirely from the high-tech sector. Its job will be to help find partners for Israeli companies, bring the best of Israeli innovation to British companies and help our two economies to exploit each other’s potential.

Secondly, also in October, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Universities and Science went to Israel, too, with a high-powered delegation from our digital industries. We intend to continue the exchange of delegations from across the high-tech sector in the coming year.

Finally, regarding political initiatives, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu have agreed to launch a UK-Israel high-tech council. It will meet twice a year, once in the UK and once in Israel, to make sure that our strategy is right.

I could point to other examples of increased co-operation between our two countries. For example, in science and innovation, a major conference on regenerative medicine took place in November. Another example is education, where we are planning a campaign to ensure that the United Kingdom resumes its place as the destination of choice for Israeli students. A third example is cultural co-operation, where the work of the British Council and bilateral exchanges between Israel and the United Kingdom are helping to bring about a greater understanding of the culture of our two countries.

[Paul Flynn]

The political editor of The Daily Telegraph has alleged that a meeting that took place in February this year between the previous Defence Secretary, Adam Werritty and others was attended by Mossad. As the report that we have on the matter decided that that was a private meeting, is it not time that we looked at the policy followed by Mr Adam Werritty as possibly something that would lead to a conflict with Iran and had a legitimate report into the Adam Werritty-former Defence Secretary affair, because the only enforcer of the ministerial code is Philip Mawer—

[Mr Peter Bone (in the Chair)]

Order. I am afraid that that is far too long for an intervention.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The Minister is both well travelled and, as he has just shown, dextrous in his response to questions.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

May we assume from the Minister’s reply that the Government’s policy now is to encourage contacts with countries with records on human rights as despicable as that of Equatorial Guinea, and that hon. Members should accept private invitations for five-star business class visits paid for by the Governments?

[Mr Bellingham]

We have full diplomatic relations with Equatorial Guinea. We never hold back in telling that Government about our concerns regarding human rights and lack of good governance, and we have made it clear to the Government of Equatorial Guinea that they have a per capita income of $15,000 a year, yet that masks extremes of wealth between the very rich and the very, very poor. I welcome hon. Members going there with an open mind and reporting back to us.

Human Rights (Colombia)

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2011 Westminster Hall

[Jim Sheridan]

That is the objective of this debate: we are sending a clear message to the Colombian Government that what they are doing is simply unacceptable. We have sent clear messages to Syria and other countries on exactly the same issue.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is more fortunate than me, as my invitation to yesterday’s meeting is yet to arrive. I believe, however, that we, as parliamentarians, should send an important message to President Santos: in addition to the points raised this morning, we want to congratulate him on the courageous stand he is making to challenge the system that results in the prohibition of drugs throughout the world. We wholeheartedly support him on that.

[Jim Sheridan]

I am more than happy to concur with my hon. Friend, but, although I do not wish to be cynical, we have heard those words before. We are now at the stage where rhetoric is no longer acceptable and we are looking for deeds.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Jim Sheridan) for securing the debate and for his persistent campaigning. He clearly feels deeply about the tragedies that are taking place, and have been for decades now, in Colombia. He is absolutely right to continue to draw them to the attention of the House.

A low point was when we saw a British Foreign Office Minister posing and smiling among a group—

[Chris Bryant]

Not me.

[Paul Flynn]

Not my hon. Friend. That Minister was smiling with an army unit that was notorious for murdering trade unionists. We have a record of plenty of indignation and horror at the atrocities that are going on, but little practical progress that we can see.

I agree with those who say that we should seize the opportunity offered by the words of Santos and give him the benefit of the doubt—there are many reasons for doubting his sincerity, due to his past. However, he is now speaking a language that no one else has spoken for a long time in Colombia. The President of Mexico has made a similar plea to the one made by Santos the other day—Mexico has lost 40,000 people in the past five years due to drug trafficking and the drug wars—to address the core of the problem, which started not last year or 10 years ago, but in 1961, when the world decided, through the United Nations, that all illegal drug use throughout the world should be eliminated. It was a simple matter: we had only to increase the punishments and the surveillance and, within a decade or two, there would be no use of illegal drugs. In Britain, we passed the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. We had fewer than 1,000 people addicted to heroin and cocaine then; now we have 320,000. That pattern has gone on throughout the world. Santos is right to say that the divisions in his country, the armies that are funded entirely by money from drugs and the chaos that exists in many other South American countries are problems that we in the west, and particularly in the United Kingdom, have created.

Last week, the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction published a report that identified the United Kingdom as the second largest consumer of cocaine in our continent. The other countries that use drugs in similar record amounts are the United States and Spain. The reason for the chaos in South American countries is the demand that is coming from this country. We have mistaken the use of coca and cocaine. Coca has been used for centuries, particularly in Bolivia, as an appetite suppressant and to guard against altitude sickness. The way it was ingested ensured that there was no narcotic effect. In the west, however, cocaine is ingested in a manner that produces the narcotic effect. To a great extent, therefore, the problem is ours. If we are looking for some way to reduce this, we should listen to what Santos is saying now. He is bravely calling for a new look at drugs, perhaps including the legalisation of the use of cocaine and other drugs. He realises that he is taking a great risk and that he will be mocked and denounced, particularly by the United States.

Sir Keith Morris, former British ambassador to Colombia, said:

“Those of us who have campaigned for serious debate on the issue have been frustrated by the number of senior politicians who have agreed with us but said they could not take a public stand for fear of committing political suicide due to a hostile reaction from the US administration or public opinion or, in the UK, from the Daily Mail.”

How true that is. When we talk to one another and discuss these things—[Interruption.] Does the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) want me to give way? He does not. We know from private discussions among consenting MPs that there is general agreement that the drug laws are disastrous and that prohibition is increasing the problem. We must take a fresh look at the problem, which is what Santos is calling for. Sir Keith Morris went on :

“The fact that the president of Colombia, the country that has paid the highest price and fought hardest in the war on drugs, should have been prepared to speak out so courageously should inspire the many in American and European political circles who share his view about the failure of the war on drugs at last to make their voices heard.”

The problem and the bloodshed in Colombia would be best undermined if there was an act of courage by European and world politicians. We must face up to the awful fact that it is prohibition that is killing people in South America and on the streets of our cities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Browne]

It is not a new policy. We are completely committed to strong human rights in Colombia. We want a normalised military that observes and protects human rights rather than risking or, on occasion, abusing them. We are trying to ensure that the Colombian military has the characteristics that we recognise in our own military rather than those that we do not wish it to have. It is as simple as that. I stand by my previous point. I am in favour of mature debate about drug consumption in the west, but all politicians and all parties must approach that debate with equal maturity.

[Paul Flynn]

I do not want to mislead the House. The words that I quoted on the cowardice of British politicians were those of a former ambassador. Does the Minister agree with President Santos’s call for a new look at prohibition?

[Mr Browne]

The point I am making is that that was an example of a politician trying to make a broader point about the consumption and legal status of drugs in Britain. I suspect that the way that the politician was attacked in that election provided a disincentive for others to take the same approach.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I think the world has been not so much slow as not sufficiently united on this. It has not been possible for the Arab League to arrive at a clear, strong position, which makes the situation entirely different to that in Libya, where the Arab League called on the international community to assist and intervene. There has not been the necessary unity at the United Nations Security Council and at times Russia has threatened to veto any resolution. Our resolution, which was put forward with our EU partners, remains very much on the table and certainly has the support of nine countries. We would like the support of more than nine countries to be able to put it to a vote in the Security Council, but it is very much on the table and we reserve the right at any time to press it to a vote in the United Nations. The hon. Gentleman is quite right to say that recent events add further to the case for doing so.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

3. What recent progress his Department has made on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Alistair Burt)]

We continue to work across all three pillars of the non-proliferation treaty to build on the success of last year’s review conference in New York. I am particularly proud of the work we have done towards ensuring the first conference of nuclear weapon states, which was held recently in Paris—the P5 conference—in which further progress was made, particularly towards disarmament. Does not the tumult of the Arab spring mean it would be a good idea to advance the date of the planned conference next year? That would give us a real chance positively to involve both Iran and Israel.

Afghanistan and Pakistan

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway). I thank him for, and congratulate him on, the quality of his Committee’s reports, particularly the last report on this subject.

It was a disappointment to hear the Prime Minister present a statement that was very much the traditional one of unreasonable optimism, of exaggerating the threat of terrorism from the Taliban, which is almost non-existent—there is a threat from al-Qaeda, but not from the Taliban—and of ignoring altogether the most optimistic sign: namely, the possibility of talks with the Taliban.

We have heard so much accentuating the positives and ignoring the negatives. The Prime Minister spoke of the progress with the Afghan army and police, but said not a word about the fact that NATO delivered the final blow by bringing the helicopter in following the recent attack on the Intercontinental hotel, and made no mention of the group of UN workers who were lynched by a mob, even though they were being protected by the Afghan police and army. Nor did he mention the most depressing incident, when 500 prisoners, many of them Taliban who were captured at grievous cost in blood and treasure, escaped, almost certainly with the collusion of local Afghans. Those 500 are now free to attack our soldiers again.

I am concerned greatly by our attitude. We are trying to deny the truth and to protect ourselves, but there are no good reasons for that. It is extremely wounding to the families of the bereaved to suggest that the cause in which their loved ones died bravely was a noble but vain one, but we must get that across. The Prime Minister has a difficult task to convince the country that we must not only talk to but negotiate with the enemy. That will be difficult for the relatives or loved ones of the fallen.

It is disappointing that the Prime Minister did not give a clear answer on the hurt that will be caused if the plan to take the remains of the fallen to Brize Norton continues. They would then be taken via a circuitous route that avoids the most populated areas. Local people, supported by many of the families of the bereaved, say that they want and appreciate the opportunity to give public expression to their grief, as happened in Wootton Bassett. The public would like to pay their respects as they have done before. No impression should be left that there is any attempt by the Government or local people to deny the country the chance to pay its tributes and accept the true effects of war.

That has been done twice before. Last year on a Monday and a Tuesday, the names of the fallen were announced, but that was at a time when the House did not have the maximum attendance, or the attention focused on it, that it has at Prime Minister’s Question Time when those names are announced. It is impossible now, because of the rules of the House, to do what I have done in the past, which is to read out the names of the fallen in Iraq and Afghanistan. That is now forbidden. I would not look forward to doing that again, though, because to read the names of the fallen in Afghanistan and the thousands with serious injuries would take about an hour and a half, if I was to include their ranks and give a suitable pause to each one. None the less, that is the most effective way of getting across to the House the consequences of decisions that we took.

I was grateful to see the report on Helmand on BBC 2. It is worth remembering that, as has been repeated, politically we went into Helmand because senior politicians believed we would be there for three years and hoped that not a shot would be fired. We are grateful for the evidence given to the Foreign Affairs Committee and to the Public Administration Committee in which we saw the incredibly trivial reasons we went into Helmand. At that point, we had lost two soldiers in combat—five in other regions—but now it is 375. A written report to the FAC attributed it to the hubris of the Foreign Office, which felt that it might suddenly become a footnote. The conflict in Iraq was coming to an end and it wanted to be in the limelight. The military use the expression, “We must use them or lose them”, knowing that if their battle groups are suddenly stood down, there is the threat of major cuts in a future defence review.

[Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)]

Although I disagree with my hon. Friend, I have huge respect for his principled stance. However, when the Chief of the Defence Staff and the Vice-Chief of the Defence Staff came before the Defence Committee only three weeks ago, that was not the reason they gave for the Army going into Helmand. They gave completely different reasons: there was a job that had to be done, and if it was not done by the British, it would fall to one of our partners in the international security assistance force.

[Paul Flynn]

The evidence is in the reports from both Committees—in evidence from a distinguished former ambassador in Kabul and from two senior people in the civil service to the PAC. The evidence is clear. One witness said that no attention was paid to the national interest. It is difficult to see where on earth the national interest lay in stirring up a hornets’ nest in Helmand, but we know the result. This was a peaceful province. We went in to ensure reconstruction, but the result, tragically, was the loss of an unknown number of lives—possibly 9,000—and there was no reconstruction. Instead there was destruction on a massive scale from collateral damage alone. We set up posts that we defended at huge cost in lives to our own people and to the others.

This is a calamity on a scale nearly unprecedented in our military history—and that is saying something. When we went in, we did not take a decision in the House, but we had a debate. In that debate, someone said that this would be worse than the charge of the Light Brigade. This time Blair to the left of them, Bush to the right of them, holler’d and thunder’d:

“Theirs not to reason why,

Theirs but to do and die:

Into the valley of Death”,

into the mouth of Helmand, drove the 5,000. Before, there were two dead; now it is 375. That is three times the number killed in the charge of the Light Brigade and twice the number killed in the Iraq war, and I challenge anyone to come up with any improvements that resulted from the incursion into Helmand. What is better now? It was peaceful when we went in. There was no threat.

[Thomas Docherty]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving me the chance to intervene on him again. The Chief of the General Staff, Peter Wall, and the Chief of the Defence Staff made it absolutely clear to the Defence Committee that if we had not gone into Helmand, the Taliban would have moved north towards Kabul. It is completely untrue to say that Helmand was a peaceful province; or rather, it was peaceful only because the Taliban had complete control over the area.

[Paul Flynn]

I was not present on the Committee, but I saw the sitting on the Parliament channel and was profoundly unimpressed by the evidence given. However, I do not want to dwell on this issue; I want to give other people a chance to speak—I have the advantage of speaking early. I believe that at some point an investigation has to be conducted into why we went into Helmand. Of course it cannot be done now, while we are still there, but I believe that the story revealed will be one of military incompetence and political weakness. We are in the position now—the hopeful time—of talking to the Taliban. I do not know why the Prime Minister does not emphasise this more, but for the first time we are in the position of taking practical steps to build peace that would result in bringing our troops home.

The alternative is that we are currently in a period like that the Americans found themselves in in 1970 and 1971, when they knew that the war was coming to an end in Vietnam. We know that there is no happy ending in Afghanistan, and we should not build up the prospect of an Afghanistan that will somehow be like a Scandinavian democracy or anything of the sort. The ending will be messy.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way, and I apologise for missing the first part of his speech. Does he not think that after 10 years in Afghanistan, the fact that the Prime Minister now says that there has to be negotiations, including with the Taliban—something that has been patently obvious for a long time—is an indication of just what a military and political disaster this whole thing has been?

[Paul Flynn]

I am sure that that will be the judgment of history. I am afraid that we in this House will be seen as not having taken the decisions that we should either. We have not challenged our continuing presence in Afghanistan or the continual sacrifice of the lives of our brave soldiers. This has been a bad episode in our history. Tragically, just as we saw one rotten Government in Afghanistan brought down in 2001—they were not as rotten as the one before, who included the Mujahedeen—the current Government might well be replaced in five years by another rotten Government, and we will ask ourselves, “What was the sacrifice for?” We are now in the position that General Kerry, now Senator Kerry, described in ’71 when he asked himself the agonising question, “Who will be the last soldier I will order to die for a politician’s mistake?”

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Gilbert (St Austell and Newquay) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) because, in putting human rights at the heart of the long-term stability of Afghanistan, he touched on an issue that I raised with the Prime Minister earlier today about the preconditions that we might put not on talks—I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) that talks should be open and without conditions—but on power sharing.

The Afghanistan operation was legitimatised by the United Nations and was in this country’s national interest. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood), I pay tribute to the 375 members of our armed forces who have lost their lives in that part of the world. This country has spent billions of pounds on the operation and committed itself to the mission in that region for more than a decade. That gives value to the nation’s overall commitment to delivering both our security and a better future.

The Foreign Affairs Committee report makes it clear that UK operations and those of the international community have led to some tactical successes on the ground, but the situation overall remains precarious. The military surge has no doubt played a key part in that, but it is not sufficient. The Prime Minister was right when he said today that we now need a political surge. That political surge should be Afghan-led, however. It is right that initial conversations are being had with the Taliban. However, when we look to a future of power sharing, rather than just negotiation, it is right that we ask ourselves: what are our red lines on women’s rights? What are our red lines on minority rights within Afghanistan? Are we going to ensure that any Afghan Government that includes the Taliban maintains freedom of worship and continues to develop democracy within its borders?

The repudiation of violence is, of course, the first step to legitimising the Taliban, but it is not the only step that they need to take and it should not be the only line that the UK Government should push in discussions. We owe it to those 375 members of our armed forces to ensure that we deliver in Afghanistan the kind of environment that we ourselves would want to live in.

[Paul Flynn]

The hon. Gentleman has described in these red lines an Afghanistan that never existed in the past 2,000 years. Is there not a great danger that our beliefs and our aim of securing these rights are so unobtainable that they will delay the peace process?

[Stephen Gilbert]

The Afghan constitution enshrines those rights. I am not seeking anything more or less than what is already in that constitution. I simply want to ensure that we do not move backwards by involving in the government of Afghanistan parties that might seek to go back rather than forwards.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Spellar]

That is certainly to be encouraged, but Tehran will have a degree of involvement. It has a Persian minority within Afghanistan, it is a significant power within the region and it suffers considerably from the impact of the drugs trade on its own population. It will thus have to be engaged in its own interest.

[Paul Flynn]

My right hon. Friend will recall that when we went into Afghanistan, one of the reasons for doing so that we heard from the Dispatch Box was that Afghanistan provided 90% of the heroin coming into Britain. Will he remind us what percentage of heroin comes to this country from Afghanistan after the sacrifice of 375 British lives?

[Mr Spellar]

Still far too much, but I think my hon. Friend would also recognise the role of the Taliban in that trade and the money they obtain from it to fund their activities. As I point out again in this context, it is in the interest of the wider world and in the particular interests of the regional powers to act along the lines I mention and the regional powers obviously need to be engaged in the process.

Let me deal now with the Select Committee report. There has understandably been a debate about the decision to announce a deadline for British combat withdrawal by 2014 and about the manner in which it was taken. This features quite strongly in the report and was obviously the subject of the Prime Minister’s statement today, which was welcomed by the Leader of the Opposition.

I have to say, however, that the Government’s response was, frankly, inadequate—almost embarrassing—and if I were a member of the Select Committee, I would have been rather insulted by such an inadequate response to the very significant questions that it posed. The Select Committee might well want to pursue these at a future date. It reads very much as a “seat of the pants”, “top of the head”, “don’t bore me with the details” response.

Let us examine the Government’s response to paragraphs 156 and 157, which makes it clear that the 2014 decision was not made by the Cabinet or even the National Security Council. My right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham quoted from it earlier. The decision

“was made by the Prime Minister following discussions with a number of senior Ministers”.

It is not even clear whether those discussions took place collectively or individually. Obviously, in this context, sofa government is alive and well.

Nowhere in their response do the Government answer the Select Committee’s questions about what advice they had received from the military before the decision, and we consider that a significant omission. Equally unclear—especially in the context of the many references today to our engagement with the United States—is the answer to the question asked in the Select Committee about what consultation the United Kingdom had had with the United States. I do not know whether there has been any subsequent communication from the Government to the Committee on the subject, but the reply given on May 2011 did not match the significant questions that the Committee had posed. That is no way to run a war, and it is certainly no way to treat a Select Committee.

Further questions arise from today’s statement by the Prime Minister. First, it is clear that a dozen helicopters were ordered by the previous Secretary of State. The current Secretary of State, when he was the Opposition spokesman, raised the issue regularly—according to an estimate by my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), about 161 times—before the general election. Now he has put the order on hold. Given that the Prime Minister has committed British forces to two more fighting seasons, will the Government activate this order immediately? I gave the Minister notice of that question. I hope that he has a reply, not only for me but for the House, and, more important, for the troops.

Secondly, the Prime Minister announced a continuing military relationship with Afghanistan, and stressed that it would not involve a combat role for our troops. We have to ask—and the military too will seek an answer to this question—how force protection will be provided, and by whom it will be provided. We must also think again about the dangers of mission creep.

Because I want to give the Minister time to respond, I will end my speech now. The role of the Opposition in these matters is to support the national interest and, in particular, to take a long-term view of the issues and support our armed forces. However, on behalf of the country and our troops, we must also hold the Minister and the Government to account for their performance, and we look forward to the Minister’s reply to the questions that he has been asked.

Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Monday 16th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Negotiations on statehood are certainly the best way forward, but it is when those negotiations get nowhere that discussions about unilateral recognition get going in the world. That has to be recognised by all concerned. Yes, it is of course important for any peace in the future that all concerned recognise Israel’s right to exist, forswear violence and recognise previous agreements.

I am conscious that at this rate of progress mine might be the only speech in this debate and that I am yet to touch on Pakistan and Afghanistan, so I am going to be a little less generous in giving way and I will shorten what I was going to say about Iran.

The same urgency must apply to our efforts to address Iran’s nuclear programme, which remains a vital international issue. Tackling Iranian nuclear proliferation will remain at the centre of our approach to the region. We are seeking to intensify, including through the EU, the impact of existing sanctions in order to slow down Iran’s acquisition of material and finance for its nuclear programme and press the Iranian Government to reconsider their position. The people of the middle east aspire to a better future. Iran’s nuclear ambitions are a threat to that future, as are the continued efforts of terrorist groups operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

No country has suffered more from the scourge of terrorism than Pakistan. In the 10 years since 9/11, more than 30,000 of its civilians have been killed and many more maimed or injured, including the 80 people killed in a suicide attack last week. Osama bin Laden’s death is therefore a blow against the forces undermining the Pakistani state and an opportunity for Pakistan, working with Britain and its allies, to redouble the fight against violent extremism. Pakistan should certainly address the many serious questions surrounding bin Laden’s likely support network in Pakistan. We welcome Prime Minister Gilani’s announcement of an investigation, which must be credible and thorough, but it is right that we support the Government of Pakistan in their efforts to defeat terrorism. More than 1 million people of Pakistani origin live in the UK and what happens in Pakistan directly affects us. As we help Pakistan today, we are also investing in our future security. The enhanced strategic dialogue that our Prime Minister launched with Pakistan last month strengthens our co-operation on many shared interests and supports that long-term goal.

We want the people of Pakistan to know that the UK seeks a long-term partnership with Pakistan for generations ahead. British development support is helping to tackle inequalities in Pakistani society, to get more children into school and to build communities that are more resistant to radicalisation. Whatever its concerns about sovereignty, Pakistan should use the opportunity of bin Laden’s death to side unconditionally with all those aiming to defeat al-Qaeda, including Muslim countries. We hope that Pakistan will decide not to turn its back in any way on the west, but to take up the offer of partnership from us and the Americans and to use this moment in order to build long-term strategic partnerships.

Neighbouring Afghanistan remains at the top of the Government’s priorities in foreign affairs.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm the very welcome report last week that the Prime Minister intends to make an announcement this month on the repatriation of 450 British troops—a report that gave great hope to the loved ones of those soldiers?

[Mr Hague]

I am coming on to Afghanistan, and I will talk briefly about troop levels, but I will leave any such announcement for my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister.

We have received news in the past 24 hours—the hon. Gentleman’s remarks relate to this topic—of the death of a Royal Marine from 42 Commando Royal Marines, and the whole House will join me in paying tribute to that officer and in expressing our sincere condolences to his family.

Osama bin Laden’s death will not mean the end of the security threat posed by the insurgency, or of the need to build up the capacity of Afghans to take charge of their own affairs. We remain committed to building a stable and secure Afghanistan that is able to prevent international terrorist groups from operating from its territory. Bin Laden’s death presents a clear opportunity for the Taliban to break decisively from al-Qaeda and to participate in a peaceful political process.

I wish to spend the remaining few minutes of my speech—so that others can speak—updating the House on recent developments and on the Government’s overall strategy, treating these remarks as our quarterly report to Parliament on progress in Afghanistan. At the close of this debate, the Secretary of State for International Development will inform the House of development progress.

The next four years in Afghanistan will be decisive. The Prime Minister has made it clear that by 2015 our troops will no longer have a combat role or be there in the numbers they are in now. President Karzai and the international security assistance force coalition have confirmed that, by then, Afghanistan will be in charge of its own security. That process of security transfer is already under way, and President Karzai announced in March the first group of provinces and districts where the transition will begin. Lashkar Gah district in Helmand is in that first group, confirming the progress that we have made in improving security in central Helmand. The National Security Council has approved our strategy that will support this transition over the next four years.

The momentum of the insurgency has been halted and, in many areas, reversed. Afghan and ISAF forces are now working to consolidate gains, which are not yet irreversible, and levels of violence have been relatively low in recent months, although a little higher than in the same period last year. In April there were a number of insurgent attacks, including the barbaric assault on a UN compound in Mazar-e-Sharif and an attack on the Defence Ministry in Kabul, and there was the escape of a large number of insurgent detainees from prison in Kandahar. Those incidents underline the need to continue pursuing our counter-insurgency strategy and our efforts to build Afghan security capacity, but they should also be seen as of limited wider impact when placed in the context of the campaign. In early May, Taliban leaders announced the start of their spring offensive, and we must therefore be prepared for such attacks to continue.

The UK’s overall military contribution is well over 10,000 troops. In task force Helmand’s area of operation, our focus is on maintaining momentum and retaining the tactical initiative in preparation for the end of the poppy harvest, when Helmand’s fighting-age males, many of whom have in previous years turned to the insurgency for employment, must be encouraged not to do so again. We keep our force levels under constant review, and some reductions this year may be possible, to answer the question from the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn), dependent upon conditions on the ground and the implementation of the security transition.

If the transition of security responsibilities to the Afghans is to succeed and endure, we have to build up Afghan capacity, and we are making progress on that. Afghan security forces responded capably to the Taliban’s co-ordinated assault on Kandahar city on 7 May. The numbers in the Afghan security forces continue to grow ahead of schedule, but just as important are the improvements being made in their capability and professionalism.

Some 95% of ISAF operations are conducted side by side with Afghan forces, and about 74% of Afghan national army kandaks and 75% of Afghan national police are now rated as effective with advisers or effective with assistance. Eleven out of 12 planned ANA branch schools are now open, teaching the soldiers the skills they will need to move from an infantry-centric force to a more self-supporting organisation.

Literacy rates in the army continue to improve, with 80,000 members of the security forces having now completed a period of literacy training and a further 60,000 in training at any one time. The NATO training mission estimates that in nine months more than half the Afghan security force will have completed basic literacy training, compared with just 15% today.

We continue to work with the Afghan Government and our international partners to support reconciliation in Afghanistan and to make progress towards a political settlement. We want a durable and inclusive settlement that respects the interests and rights of all Afghans. I agree with Secretary Clinton, who said on 18 February that we must intensify our efforts on a political process. We need to take advantage of military and civilian gains to make 2011 a year of reconciliation and transformation in Afghanistan. We will work with anyone who genuinely shares the goal of a secure, stable and prosperous Afghanistan that is not threatening to its neighbours and who are not threatened by it, and we look to the Bonn conference later this year as an important opportunity for progress.

In all the countries and regions that I have discussed today, we have a strong national interest in both democracy and stability, and our country is playing a major role bilaterally through the European Union, the United Nations and NATO, including in Afghanistan, where we are the second largest contributor of international forces.

This year already stands out as a momentous year in foreign affairs—one that not only gives rise to great optimism about the potential for greater economic and political freedom in a part of the world that has known little of either, but that generates risks to the United Kingdom which we will work to anticipate and address, working with our allies to protect our nation’s interests while standing up for the highest values of our society.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The parallel is Vietnam 1963, when several thousand CIA advisers descended on that country. That eventually turned out to be 500,000 US troops, 100,000 of whom died there. A million Vietnamese also died in that conflict. We should be slightly more careful, more sanguine and less gung-ho about the process.

Turkey has tried to bring about a peace process, as has the African Union, but what hope is there for a peace process and a diplomatic settlement if the language coming from NATO and others is, “We are going to win this conflict”? That is the subtext.

[Paul Flynn]

It is an extremely rare event when I disagree with my hon. Friend on this subject, but does he understand the predicament of many of us in the House when that vote was taken on whether we should intervene? If we did not intervene, we were leaving the people of Benghazi defenceless against the bloodthirsty threats of Gaddafi.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I have no doubt that the forces of the Gaddafi regime were being very brutal to people in Benghazi, just as the forces in Tunisia and Egypt were brutal to people in those countries. If the west was serious about bringing about a diplomatic solution in Libya, the Secretary-General of the UN and Heads of State would have gone there and there would have been a real effort, but the subtext the whole time, by Sarkozy particularly, was that they wanted military intervention and a no-fly zone. I voted against it because I do not believe that the intervention was as high-minded as my hon. Friend suggests it may have been, and many Members who voted for the motion on that day are having some doubts about what went on on that occasion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

As the proud son of a soldier who was grievously injured on a battlefield and later cheated out of his pension by an ungrateful Government, giving him a sense of grievance and injustice that he took to his early grave at the age of 43, I do not need any instructions on the need for a military covenant from the Government. However, I believe that the military covenant should have as its first sentence the obligations of the Government, and it should read that they guarantee never to send our armed forces into conflict for causes that are avoidable or vainglorious. Earlier, I was accused of being a pacifist for suggesting that, but I point out that I have supported with my vote or voice all the conflicts and military interventions in which we have been involved over the past 24 years, except for two. Those were the ones that conflicted with what I hope will be the first line of the covenant: the second Iraq war and our intervention in Helmand province in 2006.

In the case of the Iraq war, Labour Members were bribed, bullied and bamboozled with a three-line Whip into voting for the war. To the great credit of 139 of us, we resisted that. In the case of Helmand, in March 2006 the total number of British soldiers who had died in Afghanistan, after five years there, was seven, only two of whom had died in conflict. It was said that to go into Helmand was to stir up a hornet’s nest, and it was compared with the futility of the charge of the Light Brigade. We have now lost not two but 365 of our brave soldiers, and I believe we have achieved very little for that. We are perhaps coming to consider why we went in there.

I wish to mention some points that give reason for optimism. On a point of order last Thursday I mentioned a story in The Daily Telegraph that gave us some hope, and I raised it again with the Foreign Secretary this afternoon. It stated that a decision was going to be taken within a matter of days that would bring 450 of our troops home from Afghanistan. As a result of that point of order, I had a stream of messages from wives, grandfathers and other relatives of soldiers out there saying, “For goodness’ sake, keep asking this question. Keep putting pressure on.” The character of the conflict in Afghanistan at the moment is such that they do not feel that the risk that their loved ones are taking is justified. There is good reason for that.

Will the Government please learn the lesson? We have never asked the Taliban why they are killing our soldiers. It is always easier to go on repeating the old lies than to reveal the new truth. We need to know why they are killing our soldiers—is it because, when they have killed them all, they want to come over to London and Newport to blow up people on our streets? Or is it because we are there as the ferengi, the foreigners, and it is their sacred religious duty to kill our troops in the same way that their fathers did the Russians, and as their great-grandfathers and all the previous generations have done? The great lesson of the recent actions is that the number of deaths that we have suffered has gone down greatly, not because the Taliban are slightly less wicked than they were, but because we are not in the north of Helmand. The sooner we make our exit, the better.

Another serious point is that as the rate of deaths has gone down, an increasing proportion of them have been among the immensely brave people who dismantle improvised explosive devices. The justification for taking the great risk of dismantling them rather than blowing them up, which would of course be perfectly safe, is to capture the members of the Taliban who constructed the IEDs. Details can be found such as fingerprints and so on, so that the Taliban who made them can be captured and put in prison. We know what happened recently—500 prisoners escaped. Those who risked their lives to ensure that those Taliban bomb makers were put in prison will now question whether their sacrifice was necessary. I urge the Government to re-examine their tactic and, instead of risking more lives by dangerously dismantling IEDs to capture Taliban who are detained for a very short time, to consider blowing up the IEDs.

I am hoping that there is a truth in what the Foreign Secretary expressed today, and that President Obama and the Prime Minister make a statement on making a start on the only sensible thing that we can do: bringing our people home. The question by which the Government should be haunted is the one that troubled Senator Kerry in Vietnam in 1971: who will be the last soldier I will order to die for a mistake?

Escape of Taliban Prisoners

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask what repercussions the escape of Taliban prisoners will have on United Kingdom soldiers.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Alistair Burt)]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) for raising the subject of this serious incident. It might help the House if I give some of the background to it.

At 4 o’clock in the morning on 25 April, 476 prisoners escaped from the national security unit in Sarposa prison, Kandahar. This prison is under the control of the central prisons directorate of the Afghan Ministry of Justice. A number of prisoners have been recaptured by Afghan security forces, and they continue to search for escaped prisoners. The Afghan Ministry of Justice will conduct a joint investigation into the escape with the national directorate of security. The head of the CPD, General Jamshid, is travelling to Kandahar and General Tahir, of the detention and investigation section of the NDS, is already there. In the meantime, all prisons in Afghanistan have been put on alert and have reviewed their security accordingly.

The UK has had no involvement with infrastructure builds, training, mentoring or any other support to Sarposa prison. We continue to support the development of the Afghan prison sector by assisting the Afghan Ministry of Justice’s central prisons directorate in developing prison infrastructure, policies and working practices; supporting and structurally maintaining the high security unit within Policharkhi prison in Kabul; providing training and mentoring to improve prison officer standards; and funding the construction of a prison in Lashkar Gah.

In answer to the hon. Gentleman’s specific question, this is a serious event that vividly underlines the importance of building a secure prisons sector in Afghanistan. We urge the Afghan Government to put every effort into recapturing those who have escaped in order to minimise the danger and damage to anyone—be they UK forces and personnel or anyone else—and to apply lessons learned from the planned investigation to ensure that this does not happen again.

[Paul Flynn]

The valiant professionalism of our soldiers in Afghanistan is as distinguished as that of any in our proud military history. They deserve our gratitude and they also deserve our vigilance to protect them against avoidable risks. This was not just a small incident—it was a disaster. Many of those who escaped were captured originally at grievous cost in blood and treasure. Now hundreds are liberated to attack our soldiers again.

The Government have been accused of being optimistic in their faith in the reliability and loyalty of the Afghan police and army. This is the second major escape from Kandahar. Three British soldiers were murdered by an Afghan soldier. This month, the Afghan police stood aside as United Nations peacekeepers were lynched. The Afghan security services have proved themselves, to a large extent, to be endemically corrupt, inept and probably, in this case, infiltrated by the Taliban. Their loyalty is often for sale. When will the Government realise that they cannot build an ethical reliable army and police force on rotten corrupt foundations? Will they now concentrate on a political solution in Afghanistan and abandon our misplaced trust in the Afghan army and police, which is now a deadly threat to the lives of our British soldiers? Optimism and trust become naivety when we do not know who to trust.

[Alistair Burt]

I understand, and go along with, a certain amount of what the hon. Gentleman has said. This is a significant event—a disaster, to use his term. It is a disaster in security terms; of course it is. Were those held in the prison detained at great cost? Yes, they must have been, to all who were involved. I understand that only three or five of them were originally UK detainees who were passed into the Afghan system, but that does not mean that others who were involved in capturing and holding them were not upholding the very standards that he was talking about, or that they have not been let down by the security situation. That is why there must be an investigation, and why we must find out what happened.

In answer to the hon. Gentleman’s other points, it is of huge importance to us all that there be a transfer of power and responsibility to allow Afghanis to be responsible for their security, because there is no other answer. Security cannot be held indefinitely by those outside Afghanistan. I am sure that he is well aware of the political process that is going on in parallel with the transition process and everything else. I do not think that those members of the Afghan national security force who, along with the international security assistance force, were involved so much in Helmand last year in clearing out the Taliban and working so hard to create a safe space for their fellow Afghanis would quite recognise his description of them. Of course, maximum effort must be given to the training of new security forces—both police and army. Loyalty must be an absolute basic and training must be rigorous, but it is not correct to dismiss them all because of individual incidents.

That this matter is serious there is no doubt. We must get to the bottom of it and there must be tightening regarding those responsible and the security system. The future for Afghanistan is, as the hon. Gentleman makes out, a political solution, but the military and tactical support we are providing to the Afghanis, who must ultimately be responsible for their own security and safety, must continue despite the setbacks.

Africa and the Middle East

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Monday 4th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend. I absolutely condemn the burning of the Koran in that or any other instance. It is fundamentally wrong and disrespectful. As he said, that does not excuse what then happened in Afghanistan, but we should be very clear that we condemn both.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Does not the failure of the armed Afghan police to stop the lynchings of the United Nations workers, along with the previous retreat by 300 members of the Afghan army when they were attacked by seven members of the Taliban, cause the right hon. Gentleman to reassess his very optimistic belief that the security of Afghanistan can be left in the hands of the police and the army when our troops retire?

[Mr Hague]

I do not think we have ever suggested that the Afghan national security forces are able to look after every security situation in Afghanistan on their own—clearly they are not. If they were already able to do that, we would not need to be in Afghanistan. We want to get them in a position in which they can do that from 2014 onwards.

Since the hon. Gentleman points to some of the deficiencies of the Afghan national security forces, it is important also to point out that many of them are doing excellent work, partnered with our troops in Helmand, and that a huge proportion of the military operations around Kandahar over the past year have been undertaken by the Afghan forces themselves. We must not give an unrepresentative account of the capabilities of those forces.

Libya and the Middle East

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

It is true, as far as we know, that Libya continues to have stocks of mustard gas. We continue to call on the Libyan regime to ensure that any stocks it has are absolutely secured, because the level of violence in Libya gives rise to concern about what might happen to them.

I am not sure whether the previous Government had knowledge of the stocks or why they did not comment on them, but this Government have been very open about our knowledge that those stocks exist, and they must be secured.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Does the Foreign Secretary recall the day when Minister Michael Heseltine, clad in a camouflage jacket and accompanied by 1,500 soldiers and police, arrived at Molesworth peace camp by helicopter in order to evict 17 peace campaigners and a goat? Is it not true of the Government that our brave British soldiers—our brave British lions—are still led by Tory Ministers who have overdosed on James Bond?

[Mr Hague]

I do not fully recall the incident that the hon. Gentleman describes—I was at university at the time and was probably doing something else—but I take his point. However, I would have thought that he would have taken this opportunity to pay tribute to the work that our troops did in rescuing so many people from the Libyan desert the weekend before last.