Afghanistan

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 9th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

Most of the equipment in use in Afghanistan—the big kit, as it were, or the serious bits of equipment—will be brought back to the UK. Indeed, the vast majority of it has already been brought back to the UK, rehabilitated and brought back into core for the future use of the British Army as part of its Future Force 2020 posture. If equipment cannot be brought back but is of sustainable use to the Afghans, which means that they can sensibly use and maintain it—it is no good leaving them kit that they cannot service and maintain—then it will, where appropriate, be gifted to them. Equipment that fits into neither category will be destroyed so that it cannot possibly fall into the wrong hands.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

By what mechanism can international development assistance from a wide range of nations best be co-ordinated to ensure sustainable economic development for the Afghan economy?

[Mr Hammond]

The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are involved in that process, and the London conference in November will of course be a further opportunity to co-ordinate the actions of the donors.

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

There are threats to Christians, for example in the Mosul area, where they are experiencing intolerance and indeed brutality because of ISIL. That is a particular tragedy for Mosul, given that it has one of the oldest Christian communities in the world. We will work with the new Government in Baghdad to raise these matters further.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Does the state of Iraq have the necessary defence and security capability to recapture the territory lost to the caliphate forces?

[Mr Ellwood]

My hon. Friend asks an important question. Because of the disparity in the way Iraq is currently operating—I have encouraged a more inclusive approach—there is a disjointed capability. The Americans have moved in with their advisers and are working very hard indeed to upgrade the authorised military capability, so that we do not need to lean on the militias, such as the Shi’ite militias, to tackle ISIL.

Gaza

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Monday 14th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Those are the urgent representations that we are making, including all the ones I have been making over this weekend. The hon. Lady is right to refer to the loss of electricity. However, it seems that 70,000 homes in Gaza lost electricity because of a rocket fired from within Gaza that brought down a power line coming from Israel. So such power loss can be brought about by fire from both sides. We must bear that in mind, but, of course, our urgent representations will go on.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

The tragedy of Gaza is that, following the Israeli withdrawal in 2005, the Palestinians had a golden opportunity to create a model of how a Palestinian state would be run to give the Israelis the confidence ultimately to withdraw from the west bank. Instead, however, Hamas took over from Fatah and decided to spend all its money not on vital infrastructure but on building up an arsenal of 11,000 rockets. Where did those rockets come from to get into the Gaza strip? Is my right hon. Friend confident that the Egyptians have closed down the tunnels, the tolls from which fund Hamas in all its criminal activity in the Gaza strip?

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend makes a telling point. The history of the past nine years would be different had Hamas or any other Palestinian leaders in Gaza been able to take it in a different direction. However, I have also reiterated today the many criticisms that have been made of Israeli policy. The rockets or their components have clearly been smuggled in, probably largely through such tunnels. Egypt has closed many of the tunnels, which is one thing that has put Hamas under more pressure in recent months, but Hamas has to see that it is pointless to continue with this cycle of violence.

Israeli Teenagers (Abduction and Murder)

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Hugh Robertson]

Absolutely, yes. Everything that we and leaders right the way across the world have done is about ensuring that the reaction to this is properly targeted and—to use that slightly woolly term—proportionate. The key thing is that all the resources are targeted at finding those responsible, but that will clearly not be the case if people are pursuing other agendas. Such a targeted campaign will, I have no doubt, be carried out by the Israeli Government. The Palestinian Authority must play a full part in helping them to achieve that. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that that was clearly the case when I was there 10 days ago.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I applaud the Minister for his response to these appalling murders, but with respect may I say that he did not answer as fully as he might the question from the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman)? These murders take place against the background of the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners by the Israelis as a signal of good intent for the peace process, and of a constant stream of hate and abuse from state-sponsored TV and media in the Palestinian Authority. Surely this House and Her Majesty’s Government need to make it clear to the Palestinian Authority that this background of hate and contempt for Israel must stop if we are to have a meaningful peace process.

[Hugh Robertson]

I am very sorry if I have not given my hon. Friend the reassurance that he needs that the British Government are absolutely 100% committed to making that message clear to the Palestinian Government. We have made it absolutely clear to the Palestinian authorities that that sort of behaviour is unacceptable. As I have already said, I did not realise that there was any truth in these allegations. I have been specifically reassured that there is not. If the International Development Committee has evidence that that is not the case, we will be keen to see it. To be fair, when the technocratic Government were formed, they were very clear that they would sign up to the Quartet principles, which is an internationally agreed standard. They were absolutely clear and unequivocal on that, and they gave those undertakings to us, the Americans and the Israeli Government.

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 17th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington)]

I am sure that whenever the Prime Minister puts forward the name of the man or woman whom the Government wish to fill that role, there will be ample opportunity for Members of this House to express their various views.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

T2. Last year, the Palestinian Authority paid more than £60 million to Palestinians convicted of terror offences. What is the Foreign Secretary’s assessment of that policy of financially rewarding terrorism? Is he aware of recent reports that the Palestine Liberation Organisation has been mandated by the Palestinian Authority to continue that awful practice on its behalf?

Iraq and Ending Sexual Violence in Conflict

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Monday 16th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Yes, in many ways, because I think it was 2006 when, as shadow Foreign Secretary, I first proposed an inquiry on Iraq. I imagine that the hon. Gentleman’s party supported that at the time; I am sure that it did. Perhaps it even called for an inquiry before then. Had the inquiry been established then, rather than being resisted by the then Government for a good two years, we would certainly have had the result by now.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Why does the speed and extent of the success so far of the caliphate forces seem to have taken everyone by surprise?

Ukraine

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 13th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

That is a very important issue. Part of the plan being put forward by the OSCE involves a national plan for the disarmament of illegally armed groups within Ukraine. The Ukrainian authorities have also been playing their proper part in implementing the agreement at Geneva by collecting thousands of illegally held weapons—when I last looked the figure was more than 6,000. There is therefore a national programme and an internationally supported programme for collecting those weapons, but of course the people fomenting disorder in parts of Donetsk and Luhansk are in no mood at the moment to give in their weapons. It will be in the interests of all concerned, including Russia, that they ultimately do so.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend has always sensibly said that in this day and age a British Foreign Secretary has to deal with the world as it is, not as he would like it to be. Given the evidently huge support, rightly or wrongly, in Crimea for being part of Russia, is it the policy of Her Majesty’s Government that the annexation has to be undone or that the annexation is somehow regularised, ultimately to Ukraine’s satisfaction?

[Mr Hague]

It is an annexation that we cannot recognise. It is not an issue we can resolve today, but we cannot recognise this and we will bring further penalties into force, through the European Union, on companies trading from Crimea and on travel from Crimea. That is a further package yet to be agreed, but we will agree it in the European Union. The annexation has long-term consequences. Of course we have to face the possibility that this could become a long-term frozen conflict, whereby a place treated by Russia as a part of Russia is not recognised by us as part of Russia. This does not prevent us from working on the wider efforts to de-escalate tensions in the rest of Ukraine, and it is important for us not to be prevented from doing that by the Crimean issue.

Human Rights (North Korea)

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 13th May 2014 Westminster Hall

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

One of the many remarkable meetings that the all-party parliamentary group on North Korea has had with refugees and asylum seekers from that country took place last week, when Mr Jang Jin-sung came to speak to us. He is a former North Korean poet laureate and a counter-intelligence official so his knowledge of the hierarchy of North Korean society gave us an unparalleled insight. He told us that the world never really sees the true North Korea because although there is individualised cult worship of the dear leader, real political power lies with the Organisation and Guidance Department of the Korea Workers’ party. My hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) mentioned that and I commend him on bringing forward this debate.

The OGD apparently controls all chains of command within North Korea, but very few people who have left North Korea are aware of that; of the 26,000 or so who have left, perhaps only a handful have an insight into what we were told last week. There is, of course, no Parliament in North Korea. All laws are prepared by the OGD for signature by the leader. It gives all orders for the military, appoints all high-ranking officials, operates the prison camps, co-ordinates extensive surveillance and even appoints the leader’s own bodyguards. We were informed that at the end of his life, the former leader, Kim Jong-il, was effectively living under house arrest controlled by those very bodyguards. That startling revelation demonstrated to us the frailty of the apparent power of the regime and of this failed state.

Mr Jang told us, in his own words, that the regime is “ruined inside” and that there is effectively a divide in North Korean society between the governing classes and the market classes. We have known for some time that the governing classes will make sure that they and the military are well fed and provided for. What is becoming increasingly apparent is that the rest of the population simply have to fend for themselves. He told us that provision for what are called the market classes has effectively been abandoned by the governing bodies.

Mr Jang confirmed that the market classes can only survive through black-market dealing, and he spoke of the governing classes having “lost control of the market”, saying that there is a façade of power, but the daily currency of survival in North Korea has been converted from loyalty to the dear leader to money. The North Korean regime does all it can to control its people, but it cannot even control the price of an egg. He also told us that no one in the North Korean elite believes that the regime will last for ever. For us, that is good news. That day cannot come soon enough.

Mr Jang encouraged those of us outside North Korea to stop focusing on the regime and to look at what he called the “wedge of hope” within the country. I took the phrase to mean that if the North Korean people in numbers are now beginning to use their individual initiative to survive independently of Government provision through the use of the black market, often using goods illicitly imported from outside the DPRK, surely there is hope that those same people, given information and inspiration from the outside world, could begin individually to appreciate, ultimately understand and finally act on the fact that there is a different and more humane way for a society to live than that offered by their own Government.

Our role surely has to be to increase the size and impact of the wedge of hope in the people’s hearts. One day, change will surely come within North Korea. Kingdoms rise and fall; no despotic regime ultimately endures. Our role and our challenge, bearing in mind the deplorable suffering of the North Korean people, is to do what we can, however slight it may seem, to increase that wedge of hope, so that change comes sooner rather than later—for one day, one month, one year, surely it will come.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I am listening to my hon. Friend’s speech intently and I congratulate her on it. Is it her view that the wedge of hope will be enough to end the regime, or is China’s changing its stance a necessary condition for that?

[Fiona Bruce]

I think it is very important that our Government and other Governments in the international community press China to alter its approach towards North Korea—in particular, its treatment of asylum seekers. It is appalling that asylum seekers, when they are found in China, are sent back to North Korea for torture, and, in many cases, certain death. It is appalling that women who are sent back, if they are found to be pregnant or are even carrying a babe in their arms, will have to see that child sacrificed. That must change.

Ukraine

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Monday 28th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

No, not as things stand. As the hon. Gentleman knows very well, Ukraine is not a member of NATO. Our response to the situation has not been military outside NATO’s borders. Our additional assurance is to NATO members and relates to our collective defence. That does not extend to a military guarantee to Ukraine.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

While we are all looking at Ukraine’s eastern border, what is the Foreign Secretary’s assessment of the threat to Ukraine’s south-western border, given that the Russians have troops in Transnistria?

[Mr Hague]

That is another reason why I will visit Moldova and why my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe visited it recently. It is true that the security threats to Ukraine come from several directions: from the Black sea and Crimea, from Transnistria and from Russia forces on the eastern border. That underlines the importance of the strong messages about the costs of such intervention to Russia that I am sending today and that others, including the United States, are sending.

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 8th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Let me say to the Minister of State that to be fair to the hon. Member for Huddersfield, he was not part of that Government but a proud Back-Bench supporter of them. That is an important distinction, as I think the Minister would readily concede.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Brazil is the leading economic and political power in south America. How successful are we being in persuading the Brazilians of the merits of the Falkland Islanders’ case that their sovereignty should be decided by the islanders themselves and not by their Argentine neighbours? [Interruption.]

[Mr Swire]

I hope that Opposition Members are laughing about something else—perhaps they are not—because this is a very serious matter. Whenever we go around Latin America and, indeed, central America, we are always absolutely certain to make the case that the Falkland Islanders had a referendum in which they expressed an overwhelming desire to maintain their current status. That should be recognised by countries right across the world, not just in Latin America, if they believe in self-determination and human rights. Unfortunately, one particular country in Latin America continues to bully and intimidate the Falkland Islands.