Leaving the EU: Business of the House

Debate between Peter Grant and Anne Main

Wednesday 12th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant]

Absolutely. I agree entirely. Of course, we were told by the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) that the motion is premature. I wonder if she could tell us on which future allocated Opposition day she would like the official Opposition to bring this motion forward, given that they were told last week that they have had their allocation for this Session and that there will not be another Opposition day.

[Mrs Main]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I have just been asked to nominate a day. Mr Speaker, you are always a friend of all the Back Benchers. It seems to me that there is a worry about a particular candidate that Opposition Members may or may not like the Order Paper to reflect. If there is a worry about having a choice of how we wish to leave the European Union, I am sure you, Mr Speaker, would find a way to ensure there was parliamentary time. At the moment, however, we do not know what it is we are voting to have a day for. It is a fear of one or two of the candidates. If their fears were to be recognised, I am absolutely certain you would facilitate a debate.

[Mr Speaker]

I always seek to facilitate the House and to ensure that the full range of opinion is expressed. These are matters of debate and, notwithstanding the sedulous efforts to entice me into contributing to it, I feel I must exercise a self-denying ordinance. The hon. Lady has made her own point in her own way, with alacrity.

Zimbabwe

Debate between Peter Grant and Anne Main

Wednesday 30th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to begin the summing up in this debate, Mrs Main. I commend the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) for securing the debate and thank her for a very informative summary of where Zimbabwe has been in the recent past. She put into context what has been happening there in the past few weeks. The hon. Members for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon) have contributed their own knowledge, highlighting the underlying problems that have to be addressed before Zimbabwe can be returned to its people. Truly fundamental in the governance of any country is that the people should be allowed to govern themselves. The country should be governed in the interests of the people and not only in the interests of those who govern.

In any debate about alleged human rights abuses in another country there are two principles that we have to observe. First, we have to recognise the rights of nations to govern themselves. We have no right to interfere in the internal affairs of another country in normal circumstances. What is happening in Zimbabwe now cannot be allowed to become normal circumstances, because the sovereignty of individual nations has to be tempered by the fact that there are standards of behaviour and fundamental human rights that transcend all national borders. Where there is evidence that the power of the state is being abused to deny fundamental human rights, the international community, countries individually and collectively, have not only a right but a duty to intervene to set things right, initially through political and diplomatic efforts, but if necessary by the use of economic influence as well. I certainly take on board the caution advised by the hon. Member for Vauxhall about using economic sanctions, because too often the sanctions punish the victims without having any impact on the perpetrators.

There are obvious difficulties in knowing what exactly has been happening in Zimbabwe, but some things are clear and unambiguous, giving grounds for serious concern among the international community. I think they add up to overwhelming evidence that the international community has got to intervene.

There were large-scale protests after massive price increases left millions of Zimbabweans unable to afford the basic essentials of life. There were people with jobs who could not get to work because the bus fare was more than they would be paid. The police and army intervened in the protests and there has been significant loss of life, and significant numbers of people have been injured. Reliable reports are that at least 12 people have been killed, and 78 others were treated for gunshot wounds. A significant number were treated for other injuries. The Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission, a body appointed by the Zimbabwean Government, has identified at least 240 cases of assault and torture. We should commend the commission for having the courage to speak out. Many institutions in Zimbabwe, even if they are not put under the cosh by the Government, sometimes think that they are there to do the Government’s bidding. It is all the more remarkable that the human rights commission is publishing such specific, utterly damning indictments of the country’s Government.

More than 700 people have been arrested. Often, as the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend East said, there are wholesale arrests, when anyone who happens to be in a house close to an alleged incident is arrested, usually with extreme violence. People are often viciously beaten before being dragged away. Boys as young as 11 have been seen being beaten by gangs of uniformed police officers in the street. There has also been clear targeting of anyone seen as a political opponent of the Government. In one case, a councillor—not even an MP or shadow Minister—was dragged from his house, beaten almost to death and arrested, in front of his three-year-old daughter. Remarkably, that wee girl was able, despite the trauma she experienced, to give a detailed account of what happened. Hopefully one day soon her evidence will help to make sure that those responsible are brought to justice.

There have been numerous allegations—and numbers are increasing—of women being gang-raped by uniformed soldiers. It is all very well for Ministers in the Zimbabwean Government to say, “If this has happened to you, come forward and make a complaint, and we will deal with it.” It is difficult in western European democracies for women to have the confidence to come forward and report that they have been raped or sexually abused. It must be difficult to the point of impossibility for a woman in Zimbabwe to report such a vicious assault to the authorities whose very people are responsible in the first place.

The changing response from the authorities is notable and revealing. Initially, as always happens in such cases, they tried to deny anything had happened. They denied that there had been violence and said that such violence as there was had somehow been the responsibility of the protestors. Then they admitted that the police and army had used force, but claimed that it had been proportionate. A Government spokesman told the BBC,

“When things get out of hand, a bit of firmness is needed”.

It was only when there was incontrovertible video evidence that could not be claimed to be fake, making it clear that police and army officers were involved in assaults, that the authorities finally accepted it had been happening. Chillingly, the President’s own spokesperson said the crackdown was

“just a foretaste of things to come”.

We have to wonder whether the few police and army officers who have been arrested are being used as examples. Their cases seem to be the ones where the evidence is so overwhelming that no one can deny what happened. We must wonder whether a cynical attempt is being made by Mnangagwa and his colleagues to look as if they are on the side of justice, when all the evidence points to their being at least complacent about, and possibly actively complicit in, the brutality.

It is clear that the vast majority of Zimbabwean citizens have no confidence in the Government’s ability or even willingness to enforce the rule of law on its own law enforcers. The Government may blame rogue elements in the security forces, but they have a responsibility to control the behaviour of everyone they put into uniform in those forces, and the international community must take steps to ensure that they carry out that responsibility. If President Mnangagwa wants to be accepted as President he has to start accepting his responsibilities as President. Being the President, Prime Minister or monarch of any country is not a way for someone to enrich themselves and their pals at everyone else’s expense.

I want briefly to share the experiences of two of my constituents who were forced to flee from Zimbabwe during the regime of Robert Mugabe. Although in some ways their experiences may not seem directly relevant to what has happened recently, they illustrate many of the fundamental problems continuing to affect the country, which make it more difficult now for justice to be done, and be seen to be done. Paul and Brenda-Lee Westwood ran a successful business in Zimbabwe in partnership with a local businessman. Their share of the business was seized by someone who at that time was an MP in Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party. The seizure was illegal even under the so-called indigenisation policies of the Government of the day. Those responsible were put on trial for a fraud valued at more than $1 million but the case collapsed in circumstances that remain unclear. After Mr Westwood lodged an appeal the prosecutor died in mysterious circumstances and several of the accused and key witnesses disappeared and, as far as I know, have never been seen again.

The Westwoods then experienced months of intense intimidation with increasingly violent and explicit threats against them and their children. Eventually in 2012 after enduring that for several years, they abandoned the life they had built together and fled the country. Since then they have been trying to have their case heard in the Zimbabwean courts but, like the victims of the recent brutality, they can see nothing to make them believe that the new Government will make their chance of a fair hearing any greater. I know that the Minister and some of her colleagues in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office have been working on my constituents’ behalf, and I thank them.

The new Government in Zimbabwe is keen to rejoin the Commonwealth. I can understand why at one point a number of people and the UK Government would have been keen on that happening. I would support the UK Government in helping Zimbabwe to become fit to rejoin the Commonwealth, but it would be a disastrous mistake to encourage or support an application when, clearly, it is not fit for membership of that honourable organisation. We need to make it clear that it cannot rejoin the Commonwealth until it can demonstrate beyond doubt that it has fully re-established the rule of law and the principle of respect for the human rights of all its people, regardless of creed, colour, race, gender or political views. I have a duty to represent my constituents, and I argue that people such as the Westwoods, and others who have suffered similar ordeals at the hands of the Zimbabwean Government, must receive a fair hearing. If an impartial court so rules, they should be given proper compensation for their loss.

There must at best be severe doubt about whether the investigation of recent atrocities and the holding to account of those who committed the crimes, gave the orders, or stood by and watched can be left to the Zimbabwean Government. I do not think it can. The rule of law has become so unreliable that those incidents can be properly investigated only with outside help. That is what must happen, because what has happened in Zimbabwe is too serious to be ignored as an isolated, localised problem.

For generations—perhaps centuries—the people of Zimbabwe seem to have been misruled and mismanaged by almost everyone. That has lasted from the absurdity of their country, and often their lives, being seen as the possessions of a Government thousands of miles away, to the appalling racialism of the Smith regime and, more recently, the combination of disastrous economic incompetence and rampant corruption under Mugabe. That has meant that in a country whose natural resources are sufficient to give all its people a very decent standard of living the majority of the population are reduced to absolute poverty. I want the Government, in co-operation with other Governments and through bodies such as the Commonwealth and the United Nations, to help the people of Zimbabwe to see how to take their country back from the despots and dictators who have held sway over them for far too long.

What is sometimes called soft power, or soft influence, is often important. Exchange visits would enable elected politicians and others involved in civic society in Zimbabwe to come to the United Kingdom or other countries to see how things are and how they operate, in what looks like a reasonable democratic society. They could then see that it is possible for differences to be resolved without guns, tear gas and violence. We have to ask ourselves, just now, whether the way politics is being done in the United Kingdom is all that good an example for Zimbabwe or anyone else. Do some of the scenes that we have witnessed in the House of Commons Chamber in the past couple of days look like—

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman is straying far off the topic of the debate. Can he please confine his remarks to the topic of Zimbabwe? I do not wish to hear too much about yesterday’s debate.

[Peter Grant]

I will, Mrs Main. I suggest that the United Kingdom, and any other country that wants to set an example to the people of Zimbabwe about how democracies can operate, sometimes need to make sure that they are as good examples as they think they are.

The people of Zimbabwe have been through more than the people of any nation on Earth should be expected to tolerate. I want to see the day when Zimbabwe is returned to its people, and the citizens of Zimbabwe are able to enjoy the rights that all citizens should have: the right to self-expression; the right to assemble; the right to disagree with and protest against their Government; and the right to remove their Government and replace it with a Government of their choice, if that is their wish. I look forward to the Minister telling us what the Government of these islands can do to help the people of Zimbabwe achieve that goal.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Peter Grant and Anne Main

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 15th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I rise to speak to amendments 200 to 201 in my name and those of my right hon. and hon. Friends, and to new clause 45, which will be decided on at a later date. I also want to support amendment 217, tabled by our colleagues in Plaid Cymru.

Last week, with several members of the Brexit Select Committee, some of whom have already spoken about this, I went on a very informative visit to Brussels and Paris. It was very informative partly because the people we spoke to were so well informed and so forthcoming. They appeared to be a lot better informed and more forthcoming about what Brexit is really going to mean than a great many Conservative Members and, indeed, than some Conservative Front Benchers.

In about 20 hours of meetings, the shortest and most perceptive comment we heard—this sums up where we now are with Brexit—came from a member of the European Affairs Committee of the French Senate. He quite simply said, “Quelle pagaille!”—“What a mess!” I replied that if he thought it looked like a mess from the French side of the channel, he should try looking at it from the United Kingdom’s point of view.

We have a Government who rushed into a referendum too soon, at a time when the UK population was the least well-informed in the whole of Europe of what Europe is actually about. Article 50 was triggered in indecent haste—far sooner than it needed to be—simply to pacify some of the more rabid Brexiteers on the Government Benches.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

I was delighted to hear that we may have a consensual approach. May I gently chide the hon. Gentleman, because the public are rather fed up with being told that they are too stupid to know what they are doing, which is rather what he is saying?

[Peter Grant]

I can only refer the hon. Lady to surveys carried out immediately before the referendum. Citizens in every country in the European Union were asked a number of questions on what they thought the EU was about, and it is a matter of fact that UK citizens were less well-informed about the EU—not because they are stupid, but because this Parliament and the free press in this country have failed to keep them adequately informed. For example, Government MPs referred to the Syrian refugee crisis during debates on the European Union Referendum Bill, but the Syrian refugee crisis had nothing to do with our EU membership. In fact, it had everything to do with our membership of the human race—and as far as I am aware, there have not yet been any proposals for us to leave that.

EU Referendum: Timing

Debate between Peter Grant and Anne Main

Tuesday 9th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

I am pleased to be called so early in this debate in which there have been many interventions.

May I say to the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds), who proposed the motion, that I welcome this debate, because there are issues around the proposed date of 23 June? As someone who professes to want to leave the Union, I am happy that the date has been set sooner rather than later, but I can understand his concerns, and it is good that we explore them.

On the designation of the Leave groups, the Go groups, or whatever group there is for those who think that we will be better and stronger outside the European Union rather than in it and controlled by it, there is a real concern that the date will mean that they are less able to get their act together. In the end, though, I encourage the right hon. Gentleman to believe that whoever knocks on people’s doors—whether it is a Go campaigner or a Leave campaigner—they will all be asking the same question. There are only two questions on the ballot paper. It is not as though people will be asked which political party they support at a general election. The argument will be made by all groups, whether or not they receive designation, so I am not discouraged about the process, but I can see the point that he is making.

[Peter Grant]

rose—

[Mrs Main]

The hon. Gentleman has made a lot of interventions, and some of us have waited to make our remarks within our own speeches, so I will make some progress before taking interventions from those who have already intervened.

As I have said, I am not too discouraged by the designation process, but I can understand the right hon. Gentleman’s point. If several people knock on someone’s door and say why they wish to make the case for leaving the EU, it will only reinforce the views of that person and help them with their decision-making process when they cast their vote. None the less, I do understand that there is a concern for those of us who are waiting eagerly to see what date has been chosen.

I note that the word “contaminating” has been used in the motion. Although I would not use that word in relation to the date, I understand that it does give those who wish to remain in the EU a bit of an advantage. A lot of information will come out later in the year. I am not talking so much about the European Council meeting to which my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) referred. In a letter on subsidiarity, Mr Tusk said:

“The Commission will propose a programme of work”—

by which I believe he means the competences—

“by the end of 2016 and subsequently report on an annual basis to the European Parliament and the Council.”

Therefore, if we do have a vote in June, we will not know what the Commission is proposing on subsidiarity and on the competences that are being brought back. We will only know what our Parliament has control over after that vote. However, some of us in the Leave and Go campaigns believe that we can make the case already, but there will be very thin gruel, as my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) has said, for us to consider.

Another matter that we need to know, but that we will not know by June—we will probably not know it by the end of the year or at any other date—is to do with the proposal that the Prime Minister is currently exploring with other EU countries on limiting benefits across the 28 countries. After looking into the matter, I have found that some countries have very different rules on child benefit. Some have no child benefit; some have benefits for one child; and some have benefits for multiple children. That will be a minefield to explore. We have no details on it at the moment. More to the point, the deal will be struck behind closed doors, so before the date in June we will not know whether any of the deals that may have been agreed will hold up. That is a concern, but I am not sure that we will be any the wiser the longer we leave it. Whichever treaty we have in place either guarantees EU nationals the rights to claim welfare in each other’s countries or it does not. If those treaties do guarantee those rights, I am not sure how legally binding they will be in the future; they could all fall apart two days after the referendum. However, pushing the date further down the road to later in the year will not make us any the wiser.

The motion talks about a rush to the referendum, but I think that there is a compression. For those on the Front Bench with Eurosceptic leanings who currently feel constrained to speak, the compression gives them less opportunity to cite their views in favour of removing this country from the European Union. On that basis, I can see why having a date early might constrain some of our colleagues on the Conservative Benches who are waiting to hear what the Prime Minister delivers on 18 February. That is probably the only conspiracy theory that I can see going around. I personally think that the public would rather get on with this matter. Our Conservative manifesto promise is delivering this referendum. I pay tribute to the Ulster Unionists for their long-standing campaign.

European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between Peter Grant and Anne Main

Tuesday 8th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Main]

I rise to support the Government in this matter. I do not think it is reasonable that their lordships should decide to open the chequebook of this House for whatever amount. I am surprised that the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) seemed to think that this is a fiddling amount of money of no consequence. I think he is missing the point somewhat. It is important that the will of this House is seen to be done, and the will of this House, as we have debated many times, is not to extend the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds.

I listen with interest to the regular contributions of Scottish Members who say, “We gave young people the vote in the referendum on whether Scotland should be independent, but this House is not giving them the vote in the wider referendum on the EU. If it’s good enough for Scotland, how do we explain to them that they cannot have it in this situation?” I remind Scottish Members that they cannot have it both ways. What they choose to do in Scotland is up to them, but they cannot then use it as a wonderful precedent to insist that we operate in the same way. Something that has just been done in Scotland with which I fundamentally disagree is the provision in the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 whereby every young person under the age of 18 must have a “state guardian” appointed who will be expected to assess a child’s wellbeing under eight key indicators, including their being safe, healthy, included and respected.

[Peter Grant]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Mrs Main]

In a moment. Let me just expand on this point. On the one hand, Scottish Members of Parliament seem to make their presence felt in this place; I am sure that that is their objective and the whole point of their being here.

Immigration

Debate between Peter Grant and Anne Main

Monday 19th October 2015 Westminster Hall

[Peter Grant]

I think the contradiction is between the hon. Gentleman’s comments and the fundraising mugs that his party was selling during the election with the slogan, “Controls on immigration.” As soon as one starts to play the anti-immigration line in the context of anti-immigration political parties—one such political party has been reduced to one Member in the House of Commons—we have lost the chance to have a proper debate about a serious issue that concerns a lot of people.

Belatedly, I need to declare an interest. In fact, we all need to declare an interest, because one day not that long ago, we were all immigrants. This place operates on alien immigrant principles that were introduced by a bunch of illegal immigrants called the Normans. If we all go back far enough—some of us do not have to go back far at all—we are all descended from immigrants. My great-grandparents were immigrants. My father-in-law is an immigrant. My dear departed godmother, Auntie Mary, was an immigrant. I have a brother and a sister who are immigrants—not a half-brother and half-sister or step-brother and step-sister. We have the same mum and dad. We were born a few miles apart, because a new hospital had been built by the time they came along.

[Mrs Main]

The hon. Gentleman may not be aware of the report, “Community Cohesion and Migration”—in fact, I suggest he reads it—that the Communities and Local Government Committee produced. It is the pace of immigration that concerns a lot of communities. Controlled immigration, as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) was saying, is what most communities say they want. They are not anti-immigrant; they want control.

[Peter Grant]

I am sorry if I am not making the point clearly enough, but by conducting the debate on the terms of UKIP and those even more extreme than UKIP, it allows people like the gentleman who started the petition to believe that they are in the ascendancy and on the front foot. I do not know anybody—it is certainly not the policy of the SNP—who thinks there should be utterly open, uncontrolled immigration into Scotland, and I would not imagine that any UK parties would want the same for England. One of the big problems is how the controls are defined. For example, the salary control prevents qualified nurses from getting into the country. How ridiculous is that? It has been pointed out that the controls that were set up supposedly to stop bogus students coming in to go to bogus universities seriously affected the financial viability of some of our great and most ancient seats of learning.

To finish the comments I was making on my links to immigration, my Auntie Mary was born in Scotland. She was an immigrant. My wee brother and wee sister were born in Scotland, and they are immigrants, because one lives in Ireland and one lives in Germany. Why is it that, as part of the demonisation process that is so built in that we do not even recognise it, when other people come here they are immigrants, but when we go there we insist on becoming expats? Some of the biggest and most concentrated immigrant communities that can be found anywhere are of British immigrants in parts of southern Spain, Portugal and France. If we allow the debate to be carried out in the terms expressed in the petition, we are inviting the far right and other countries to demonise and discriminate against British citizens in exactly the same way as some people would want us to discriminate against the citizens of other countries.

Among the other great disservices of the past few weeks is what I can only assume is a deliberate strategy of conflating the humanitarian refugee crisis with controls or lack of controls over immigration. Those are two completely different issues. We are not required to take Syrian refugees or refugees from anywhere else because of our membership of the EU. That is not affected by our signing up or not signing up to Schengen or anything else. A fundamental requirement of international law is that we give proper succour to refugees if they come in fear for their lives. We allowed the Home Secretary to make a statement about the Syrian refugee crisis headed, “Immigration”, which was an utterly shocking piece of bad naming, misrepresenting the true situation in the Mediterranean. Where people want to come here because they are in fear for their lives, that is not immigration. I fully agree with the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak that it is utterly and totally wrong to include hopefully short-term or temporary succour to refugees in an immigration figure.