Ukraine-Russia Relations

Robert Courts Excerpts

Tuesday 27th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

rose—

[Robert Courts (Witney) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

What a rich choice—I call Mr Kevin Foster.

[Alistair Burt]

I know from my experience in other parts of the international field that what my hon. Friend has said is correct. There is always concern if a state seeks to demonstrate its power through means that are questionable, or sometimes downright illegal. States will sometimes push the envelope. The risk is that at some stage there will be a miscalculation and a confrontation. The United Kingdom will do all in its power to prevent such a thing, but the risk is taken by others, and my hon. Friend’s point is well made.

[Robert Courts]

Persistent attempts to destabilise Ukraine’s economy are clearly unacceptable. What further practical assistance can we offer Ukraine?

[Alistair Burt]

As I illustrated earlier, there is direct support for economic reform in Ukraine and direct support to assist other reforms, including those relating to good governance and technical matters. Support is also being given in relation to information gathering and the need to combat disinformation. In all those respects the United Kingdom’s support is clear, as has been our response to these particular incidents. My hon. Friend may be assured that our concern will continue, and that further support will be made available to Ukraine as and when the United Kingdom judges it necessary.

Budget Resolutions

Robert Courts Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Robert Courts (Witney) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow so many hon. Members. They have spoken on a range of topics, one or two of which I will pick out.

Contrary to what we keep hearing from the Opposition, the economic picture is very rosy. We have a growing economy and record inward investment. The deficit has come down by three quarters since 2010, and debt will be falling as of next year. There has been an extraordinary economic turnaround, given the situation the country was left in by the last Labour Government.

We have the fifth biggest economy in the world, we are the fifth largest exporter in Europe and we are the top destination for inward investment in Europe. This is a Budget that seeks to strengthen Britain’s position in the world, to confront the challenges we face with confidence, and to embrace the technological future. Britain has a unique place, positioned as it is in Europe, but with close links to the United States, the Commonwealth and developing markets throughout the world. There are a number of reasons for that, including our outlook and our industriousness. We also have enormous soft power. Our education system educates the brightest and best, and it exports our values throughout the world.

Tourism and culture are important to west Oxfordshire. My hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) mentioned that £19.8 billion of investment comes into the UK. With a value of £300 million, and 4 million visits a year, tourism and culture is probably the most important thing to west Oxfordshire’s economy. Nationally, we have the BBC and a great number of other extraordinarily important cultural icons. Much of “Downton Abbey” is filmed in my constituency, and we also have Blenheim Palace, which has been a film set for everything from Harry Potter to James Bond. As we have heard, the industrial strategy builds on that through the creative industries policy and evidence centre, which will promote the inward tourism that is so important to west Oxfordshire and the country.

Exporting businesses are also important. There is incredible innovation in my constituency and throughout the United Kingdom in aerospace, information technology and manufacturing. The Federation of Small Businesses has called this Budget business-friendly—and quite rightly, too. This is a Budget that has an action plan to unlock £20 billion of patient capital investment to finance growth in just the sort of innovative firms that we have in west Oxfordshire. There will be a £2.5 billion investment fund through the British Business Bank, with private sector involvement taking the total to £7.5 billion.

Research and development is crucial, and it is getting the biggest boost for 40 years, with £2.3 billion extra investment from the national productivity investment fund, which itself has been expanded by £8 billion. This takes total direct R&D spending to £12.5 billion by 2021-22. We have heard about the investment in artificial intelligence and driverless cars. They are just the start of the emerging technologies throughout the country in which we will be able to invest, and this is of enormous importance. There must be investment in skills, too, so I am delighted to see that there is £177 million for maths teachers and computing.

In the last 30 seconds available to me, I will speak briefly about Oxfordshire. I am pleased that in addition to the investment in the companies I have spoken of, we have investment in the Cambridgeshire, Milton Keynes and Oxford expressway, an important road and rail link uniting the two great centres of learning and business with that great thriving city in the middle. This will be extremely important, and there is a Government package for investment and infrastructure of £30 million for each of the five years. This Budget ensures that this is a Britain that can face the future with confidence and thrive.

Yemen

Robert Courts Excerpts

Monday 20th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

As has been mentioned before, arms licences in the United Kingdom are subject to strict controls. Everything is done on a case-by-case basis. I stress that we regularly raise the importance of compliance with international humanitarian law with the Saudi Arabian Government and other members of the coalition. Saudi Arabia has publicly stated that it is investigating reports of alleged violations of international humanitarian law, and that lessons will be acted on. The coalition’s Joint Incidents Assessment Team has announced the findings of a total of 36 investigations, and the most recent were released on 12 September 2017. It is all being taken very seriously. However, the hon. Gentleman was right to condemn that missile attack.

[Robert Courts (Witney) (Con)]

What are the Government doing to bring all parties together, so that we can find an overall, collective solution to this tragedy?

[Alistair Burt]

The efforts to bring all parties together have pursued a number of different lines from the summer onwards, and, indeed, for months before that. At the New York General Assembly I hosted a meeting of the so-called Quad, which consists of the United States, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the United Nations, to see what could be achieved. There is shortly to be another meeting of the Quad, and also a meeting of the Quint, which includes the Omanis, because we believe that they are key to the mediation in the area.

We are working to support the UN special representative, who has been tireless in his efforts to seek a solution, and working with all those who are using back channels and direct contacts to try to make all parties see that there is no future in the conflict. However—I must be clear about this—there are people in the region who make money out of the conflict, and numerous Yemenis have said that at present too many people who are involved in the conflict are comfortable about its going on. It is hard for us to understand how dreadful that is, but it is true. We must ensure that achieving peace is more beneficial for more people than those who wish to perpetrate war.

Zimbabwe

Robert Courts Excerpts

Wednesday 15th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

The Commonwealth, along with the other multinational, multilateral institutions I have mentioned, can play an important role in encouraging Zimbabwe on that path. We have a wonderful Commonwealth summit coming up in April 2018, as my hon. Friend will know. April might be too early to welcome Zimbabwe back into the Commonwealth, but the summit may be a useful moment to bring Commonwealth nations together to exhort Zimbabwe to set Commonwealth membership as a target.

[Robert Courts (Witney) (Con)]

Zimbabwe a National Emergency—ZANE—is a wonderful charity based in Witney that provides much needed care to the people of Zimbabwe. Will my right hon. Friend please confirm that he will have any discussions necessary with the charitable sector to ensure that, during this period of political instability, much needed aid still gets through?

[Mr Speaker]

The charity is run by Tom Benyon, a splendid fellow and a former constituent of mine. He is a very fine man.

[Robert Courts]

And a former Member of Parliament.

International Freedom of Religion or Belief Day

Robert Courts Excerpts

Thursday 26th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Robert Courts (Witney) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. May I join the chorus of congratulations for the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on securing the debate and making such a passionate speech about his cause? He is a tireless campaigner on this issue and many others, and I thank him.

This is an extremely timely debate, particularly in the light of International Freedom of Religion or Belief Day tomorrow. I congratulate the APPG and the hon. Gentleman on their report. I have looked through it. Hon. Members who have had a chance to look at it will have seen on page 6 or 7 a picture of the memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin. If anyone has not had a chance to visit that memorial, I recommend they do so, because it is an extraordinarily moving experience that really illustrates everything we are talking about today. You start at ground level and descend into the centre of the memorial, as you are overwhelmed by the blocks on either side, which of course is deeply metaphorical for the horror that overwhelms societies—Europe in this century, and many other places, sadly, throughout the world today—when we see such religious intolerance. It is an extremely moving experience. The ground is also worthy of note, because it has bumps, to symbolise the bumpy path that all countries have to go down on the way to religious tolerance.

I dwell on that for a moment to echo the comments made by a number of Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), about recognising that it was not so long ago that we had religious intolerance in this country. The hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) quoted Elizabeth I’s famous saying that she had no desire to have windows into men’s souls. Without going into a history lesson, Elizabeth I was really speaking out of political expediency rather than religious tolerance, as Catholic emancipation was still to come.

Indeed, it was only the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 —the Duke of Wellington’s last great battle, as it were—that enabled Catholics to stand as Members of Parliament. That ought to give us all pause. In 1834, the whole Palace burned down, which means that very few Catholic MPs sat in the old Palace of Westminster and the vast majority of Catholic MPs served in the same Chamber that we all serve in. To me, that brings home that religious tolerance in this country is a relatively recent phenomenon. That tradition now is happily long standing, but it was not always so.

Around the world, there is so much more work to be done in so many areas. That is a reminder for us all that religious tolerance is not just a moral absolute, although clearly it is the right thing to do, but has a practical benefit as well. As my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) said, religious tolerance so often leads to political intolerance. If we have freedom of religion and expression of any religion or none, we also tend to have free, prosperous and stable countries, and we see much less of the violence that has sadly blighted so much of the world and continues to do so today.

I will dwell in these short remarks on some of the areas around the world today where much more work needs to be done. One example is Egypt, which the Foreign Office has made a human rights priority country, as I hope the Minister will confirm. Daesh continues a campaign against Christians in that country. There were the Palm Sunday attacks only recently, where two churches were attacked, 44 people were killed and many, many more were injured and maimed. There is perhaps some promise in the fact that so many people from other faiths rushed to help in the course of those attacks, showing that tolerance is always there, in the human spirit. However, we need to work and use our good offices as much as we can in this place to ensure that Governments around the world allow people to do what, in my view, they naturally do, which is to allow others to worship in their own way.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way and sorry that I cannot stay for the whole debate. We have talked about the work done in this Parliament and by the APPG and my hon. Friend—I call him my hon. Friend—the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). Does he agree that the fact that the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia has felt it necessary to make remarks about turning away from extreme interpretations of Islam is a measure of the importance of keeping up pressure on the human rights front on Governments that, until now, have been excessive and repressive?

[Robert Courts]

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for that excellent intervention and I entirely agree. There is a real job that we can do in keeping up the pressure. It just shows that when we do that, results can be achieved.

Another country about which there is much concern in this country and around the world in respect of human rights is Iran. President Rouhani took office in 2013, and we have seen an increase in the persecution of religious minorities—people imprisoned because of their faith—and an increase in harassment and arrests. Of course, that causes enormous concern to all of us in the House. There has also been an increase since the elections earlier this year.

[Andrew Rosindell in the Chair]

The situation of Syria and Iraq has touched all of us in the House and, indeed, the entire country. I have met in my constituency in west Oxfordshire the six families whom we have settled. Of course, the situation has a special impact when one has met families and children who have had to flee their home and their country and find and make a new home elsewhere. It is also a fresh reminder to us—we have already touched on this—that religious intolerance is not just between faiths, but inside faiths. It has occurred between Christians, between Protestants and Catholics, in our own culture and among the different strands of Islam, which we have also touched on today. When we hear about the abduction, torture, rape, loss of property, destruction of property and forced conversions in Syria—500,000 Christians have been forced to flee that country, and I think I am right in saying that 230 are still in captivity—we realise how much there is still to do in that country before we can see a happy and tolerant place where people are free to practise their religion as they see fit.

I welcome all the work being done in the House by the APPG under the chairmanship of the hon. Member for Strangford, and everything that the Government are doing. I am pleased that freedom of religion or belief is integral to everything the British Government do, and I thank the Government for all that they are doing. Of course the Minister will freely acknowledge that there is more to do—it is perhaps trite for me to say so—but I want to put it on the record that there is much more to do throughout the world. We all recognise that freedom of belief or religion and, indeed, the freedom to have none at all is the foundation of everything that we are in this House and in this country, and we must do all that we can to ensure that the blessings of tolerance are spread further throughout the world.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Courts Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Robert Courts (Witney) (Con)]

West Oxfordshire has been celebrating the 80th anniversary of the foundation of Royal Air Force Brize Norton this weekend with a magnificent sculpture at the main gates. The extraordinary history of that station is exemplified by its response to our hurricane relief programme. Will the Foreign Secretary join me in celebrating that response and provide an assessment of the contribution that the station made to our humanitarian hurricane response?

[Boris Johnson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving me the opportunity to congratulate RAF Brize Norton on its anniversary and all its achievements in tackling the consequences of the hurricane. Along with colleagues on the Government Benches, I used RAF services during trips to the region, and the station will continue to be absolutely vital to getting those areas back on their feet.

Korean Peninsula

Robert Courts Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

I really must disagree powerfully with the hon. Lady’s assertion that somehow this crisis has been whipped up by the Americans, the President or the White House when, if we look at the history not just over the past year, but over the past 10 or 30 years, we will see that this has been a movement towards the acquisition of thermonuclear weapons by a rogue state. We have now come to a point where we have to use all the diplomatic and peaceful means at our disposal to freeze that nuclear programme and to ensure a peaceful solution.

[Robert Courts (Witney) (Con)]

Does the Foreign Secretary agree that Britain, with its close and established ties with the United States and its strengthened ties with Japan, is in a unique position to bring together regional players to achieve the sort of regional solution that we need in order to avoid the instability that none of us in this House wants to see?

[Boris Johnson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That was why the Prime Minister’s trip to Japan was so timely and why her interventions there were so warmly welcomed not just by our Japanese friends, but by the South Koreans and many others. As my right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary will confirm, the United Kingdom is committed to the security and stability of east Asia as much as it is to Europe.

British Prisoners in Iran

Robert Courts Excerpts

Tuesday 18th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) on her excellent speech and on securing this brilliant debate. She did not comment on another British value—a belief in human rights. I have a fundamental belief in human rights, but Iran is not a place where human rights are prevalent.

Human rights were not discussed at all during the P5+1 nuclear negotiations with Iran, in spite of Iran having one of the worst human rights records on this planet. In per capita terms, Iran leads the world in executions, and overall is second only to China. In Iran, moreover, it is mandatory for all women to veil their hair, homosexuality is illegal—I could go on and on.

[Robert Courts (Witney) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, and to the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) for securing this crucial debate. My hon. Friend is making some important points, and I want to add one. An important human right is that of legal representation to ensure access to justice. One of the most horrifying aspects of both Nazanin and Kamal’s cases is the absence of that legal advice. Will he comment on that?

[John Howell]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to stress that point.

At least three British citizens are detained in Iran. I have heard that a fourth person, whose name I do not know, has also been detained. We will have to see who that person is. Those four people stand in great contrast to the four Americans who were released from Iranian prisons in 2016 as part of a prisoner swap that came about following the Iran nuclear agreement. Nothing similar has occurred with regard to those Britons who have been detained in Iran over the same period.

In the few seconds I have left, I make the point that the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn fully identified the reasons why we need those people released. It is fine to hear warm words from the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister, but we need to see action on those words. We need a real release of prisoners from Iran as quickly as possible.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Courts Excerpts

Tuesday 11th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

I think I heard the hon. Lady raise this matter before. The case of her constituent is, indeed, very troubling. I am sure that the Home Secretary will have picked up what the hon. Lady has said today.

[Robert Courts (Witney) (Con)]

T3. I welcome the part played by British forces in stabilising the threat posed by Daesh. What role does my right hon. Friend see for British forces in ensuring that such an insurgency does not recur?

Budget Resolutions

Robert Courts Excerpts

Monday 13th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Robert Courts (Witney) (Con)]

The Budget’s measures include those that will be welcomed by constituents of mine who are concerned about business rates. Equally, the investment in social care will be of great relief to people who are worried about that. Likewise, schools have received welcome funding.

In the brief time available, I want to concentrate on skills. As we discuss Britain’s place in the world and forge a new identity for ourselves as a global Britain outside the European Union, it is right that this Budget puts in place the financial and fiscal measures that will enable us to make a success of Brexit. I believe that the Budget does that, and I want to focus on the skills associated with it.

There are strong underlying factors in the economy. We are an outward-facing, open and globally trading nation. Our economy grew by 1.8% in 2016, second only to Germany of the advanced nations. The growth forecast for 2017 has increased from 1.4% to 2%, and the deficit has been reduced by two thirds since 2010. That is all a testament to the underlying strength of our economy.

My constituency has a number of high-level technical businesses that are very skilled and, in many ways, world beaters. These companies include Polar Tech and Siemens in Eynsham, STL Communications in Witney, and home-grown businesses such as Darke and Taylor in Hanborough. There are also businesses that have not been grown in West Oxfordshire but that have come to make their home and invest in my area, including Airbus, Boeing and Thales in Carterton.

For many years, however, we have not been training the young people that those companies need, so home-grown workers do not have the skills required to work in my area. The CBI estimates that 75% of companies will need higher-skilled workers and that 40% will require intermediate-skilled workers. We are 16th in the OECD rankings, so I welcome the measures in the Budget that promote training people to make a success of our economy, both locally in West Oxfordshire and as we look to become a global nation.

Measures being brought in by the Budget include T-levels, with a fund of £300 million in this Parliament. This is the greatest reform of 16-plus education since the introduction of A-levels. It has long been time this that country had parity between academic education and technical education. That has never been more true than in my constituency, where we have so many excellent, world-beating companies that need highly skilled technical workers. These people, who make things and have ideas, drive our country and its economy forward. I wish to support them, and I am glad that the Budget does so as well.

I therefore applaud measures introduced in the Budget, such as the 15 specific routes to employment, the high-quality work placements and the maintenance loans for higher education students, meaning that such forms of education are seen in the same way as the academic sector. There is a £90 million fund to provide 1,000 PhD places beneath the underlying umbrella of the industrial strategy, of which 85% are in STEM disciplines and 40% are collaborations between business and academies, again under industrial partnerships. That is critical for companies like Abbott Diabetes Care in my constituency which need such a system of STEM education so that their workers have the level of education they require.

Lastly, I will touch very briefly on research and development, about which I am equally pleased. I welcome the £23 billion national productivity investment fund. It will focus on an area of enormous significance to my constituency, and it will improve the productivity of the country and its economy as a whole. I will quickly mention full-fibre broadband, which is of massive importance. My constituency is full of innovative, intelligent, creative and thoughtful people, but they need high-speed broadband to ensure that their businesses can operate and export to the world. It is very much the same with transport networks: the A40 has long been a source of contention for such people, and it is a real brake on the ability of my constituency to achieve the full potential of its economy that is just within its reach. Technology is important, as is housing that people can afford to live in, so that they can come to work in and remain working in the areas that they have grown up in and that are near all the wonderful companies I have mentioned. I welcome the measures on research and development and skills that the Budget will bring in. It is a Budget that underlines and supports the skills our economy needs, and I commend all these measures to the House.