The Gulf

Debate between Phillip Lee and Flick Drummond

Wednesday 4th May 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Flick Drummond (Portsmouth South) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Nuttall. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie) for her amazingly erudite speech, which I will not be able to emulate. I, too, recently went to the UAE as a guest of its Government. That is declared in my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

My interest in this area started when I was a child. My father served in the Trucial Oman Scouts in the 1950s and, as an Arabist, spent most of his career in the middle east, in Suez, Yemen and the UAE, which was called the Trucial States in those days. The beginning of the close links between Britain and the UAE has been documented in his book, “Arabian Adventure”, in which he discusses events in the 1950s and ’60s, when he got to know Sheikh Zayed of Abu Dhabi, the founder of the UAE, through his weekly visits and recognised him as

“undoubtedly the most powerful figure in the Trucial States”.

My father says:

“I used to visit him weekly in his fort, and he would always describe the local political situation to me in an excellent manner. I always came to him with great respect and I left him with even greater respect.”

I mention that because I want to reflect on our long-term and close relationship with the UAE, which was very obvious during our trip in April. Since 1972, when I left as a child, the UAE has developed incredibly. Out of the desert have risen several cities in each state, from Ras al-Khaimah, Ajman and Umm al-Quwain in the north, through to Sharjah, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Fujairah in the east. Those states have come together and work closely, the richer states sharing their wealth with those that have not had the oil reserves but are developing in other ways.

It is with British help that businesses have become so successful. During our visit, as we have mentioned, we met Sir Tim Clark, who built up the Emirates airline, which now sponsors the Emirates Spinnaker tower in Portsmouth, and Simon Moore, who is running Jebel Ali, the port on which Dubai originally built its wealth. Dubai Ports owns Southampton port and has just built the London Gateway port. Investment is going both ways, including to the northern powerhouse, and my aim is to get more investment into the southern powerhouse and particularly Portsmouth. British people are leading at Masdar City, the first clean energy city.

We met British people working closely with counter-terrorism initiatives such as Hedayah and Sawab. Those organisations are identifying what is drawing our young people to Daesh and other terrorist organisations that have no state boundaries. Working together makes us more secure.

Many Emiratis have been educated in Britain, in our schools, universities and military colleges.

[Dr Phillip Lee (Bracknell) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the family links that she has and, indeed, the wider expatriate community throughout the middle east region has are the reason why Britain can play such a key role in the future of that region?

[Mrs Drummond]

Absolutely. There are 120,000 British people living in the UAE, compared with just 50,000 Americans. We are the most important country to the UAE, and that must be continued.

Some Emiratis were educated at the same school as me, the English Speaking School in Dubai, and many were taught by my headmistress, Miss Dorothy Miles, who spent all of her working life teaching generations of Arab and foreign children in Dubai and Sharjah.

It is the case that 70% of university graduates are women, and women are encouraged to build a career and to continue it even when they have children. The Speaker of the UAE Parliament is a woman. Women sit side by side with men in their chamber; there is no segregation. Women are quickly moving to the top of the professions there.

Some people are concerned about human rights, and we looked into that when we were in the UAE. I am a believer that it is better to work closely with countries that are developing than to ignore them, and I was pleased to hear UAE Ministers appreciating that work is being done in this area and will continue. We heard about a domestic abuse charity set up by a female MP and work being done elsewhere. We met Tristan Forster, who runs FSI Worldwide to ensure that workers are not exploited. We were allowed to challenge Ministers on these points, and they are well aware of our views.

Only by continuing this close relationship can we challenge our friends and not avoid the difficult questions. Our ambassador, Philip Parham, is working hard to build the relationship, and I hope we continue to build on a friendship that has been part of our joint history for many years.

[Dr Phillip Lee (Bracknell) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie) on securing this timely debate. I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I should also state that my wife works in the Cabinet Office and has a significant interest in the Gulf region.

The Government’s strategic approach to our country’s engagement in the Gulf is a rare spark of hope in that troubled region. Because of the significant potential gain that that fresh approach can give Britain, I strongly believe that we would do well to replicate it in the wider middle east and elsewhere. I do not want to overstate the region’s prospects. It faces vast challenges. The continuing low oil price is cutting Gulf economies off at the knees. In response, those countries with a relatively recent history of significant state subsidisation of their economies, such as Kuwait, are going through the very difficult process of readjusting the scale of state intervention. In doing so, their nascent democracies are facing a real test. The Gulf states also face a resurgent Russia, an Iranian regime high on the after-effects of its nuclear deal, Islamist extremism nibbling at the borders, and the threat of internal instability because the current social contract between rulers and ruled cannot be sustained. The population is mushrooming, and unemployment, human rights abuses and sectarian strife fuel the discomfort. Without doubt, vast reform—economic, social, religious and governmental—is urgently required.

I do not want to overstate our role, either. Our relationship used to be of a great power protecting small local powers. We are the region’s oldest and staunchest ally, marking 200 years of relations with Bahrain this year. Today, the relationship has changed. It is one of partnership. Our long-standing and deep relationship with Kuwait has become one of deep, mutual benefit—investment and knowledge flowing in both directions. Qatar’s fast emergence in the region, along with its strong desire to use its new-found wealth to play a significant and constructive part in the region and the wider world, should be welcomed by us.

Clearly, Britain’s partnerships have become critical to our mutual interests in the wider region. None is more vital than finding the settlements to sustain stability, for if we leave a less stable middle east to our children, we will have failed them—and if we are to leave a stable world to our children, we depend on the Gulf states. If we support our allies through gradual transformation, they can change peacefully; if we do not, they will not. If we withdraw, we must brace ourselves for the opposite, and we cannot kid ourselves any more that we would not feel the impact at home; we would suffer, too. The Gulf states of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, the UAE and Qatar are an island of stability in a deeply unstable region. We have to keep them that way.

[Mrs Drummond]

I do not know whether my hon. Friend has seen the Arab youth survey by ASDA’A Burson-Marsteller, which talked to 3,500 young Arabs and showed that the UAE is the country that they would most like to emulate in their own countries.

[Dr Lee]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. More broadly than the UAE, across the whole region, the youth of the region is part of its challenge, but also part of the opportunity for the future.

I welcome the Government’s broad, deep and integrated approach—addressing what underpins long-term security, such as education, economic resilience and good governance, as well as increasing co-operation to address immediate threats from terrorism, organised crime and the like.

I want to mention three specific issues. First, tensions with Iran are at an ever increasing risk of boiling over following the nuclear deal. If in the long term the west is to get rid of the responsibility of helping to keep the peace in the Gulf—a responsibility that it would have little appetite to fulfil if tested—we must help the region to develop its own infrastructure for resolving such tensions.

Secondly, the Gulf states face extraordinary demographic challenges from growing youth populations at the same time as economic means are being slashed. We must gear our engagement to support economic diversification and entrepreneurship to grow and then sustain jobs for young people, and to engage in new ways via digital and social media. There are myriad opportunities in cyber, in space and at the forefront of science, technology and innovation that could enable them to leapfrog stages of development. If they are successful at doing that, we will all benefit.

The third issue is resource resilience and, in particular, access to water in a region that already faces the biggest water deficits in the world and increasing demand. The Gulf states’ existence is already a triumph of vision and wealth over the laws of nature. Human survival in that climate is a tribute to the miracles of air conditioning and desalination.

Finally, I am convinced—