European Union (Referendum) Bill

Debate between Robert Halfon and Lord Wharton of Yarm

Friday 5th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[James Wharton]

Yes, I am.

It is important when we look at referendums to understand what they mean. They go to the heart of what democracy is about. They go to the heart of giving the British people their say on fundamental matters of importance.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way and for his excellent Bill. Which does he think the British public will trust—the last Government who refused to give us a referendum on the Lisbon treaty, or this Government who have vetoed an EU treaty, cut the EU budget, passed legislation on EU sovereignty and given us an in/out referendum?

[James Wharton]

My hon. Friend makes an important and valid observation. It appears that the Leader of the Opposition does not even trust his own party, because he cannot lead them one way or the other on this important matter, but he has ordered them to run away from the debate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Robert Halfon and Lord Wharton of Yarm

Monday 11th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

11. What assessment he has made of recent trends in unemployment.

[James Wharton (Stockton South) (Con)]

13. What assessment he has made of recent trends in unemployment.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Mr Mark Hoban)]

Unemployment has been falling in each of the last 11 months; on the International Labour Organisation measure it is down by 156,000. The unemployment rate is now lower than it was in 2010. This is testament to the strength of the private sector, which has created 1 million net new jobs since May 2010.

Sri Lanka (Human Rights)

Debate between Robert Halfon and Lord Wharton of Yarm

Wednesday 22nd February 2012 Westminster Hall

[James Wharton (Stockton South) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Benton. In the few minutes that I have left, I will first declare, as is recorded in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, that I visited Sri Lanka in January. I will visit again at the beginning of March with the charity, International Alert.

I have listened with great interest to the contributions made by hon. Members today. Some important points have been raised, although I would add that the unanimity of view of Members here is perhaps not as clear-cut as some contributions would lead us to believe. While I was in Sri Lanka, I saw quite a lot of positive progress being made. I am not dismissing the genuine concerns that many individuals have raised, but at the same time they should be seen in the context of what is being done. A great deal of rehousing work is being done, with nearly 50,000 houses having been built. Resettlement is going well. I visited Manik Farm, one of the internally displaced person camps. I met people there and heard that they were keen to be resettled back to the places from which they had been displaced. I also saw that the conditions in which they were living at that time were not as is sometimes described. They had good facilities.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend accept that the Sri Lankan military have now occupied more than 7,000 sq km of land in the Tamil majority areas in the north and east, for which they have no credible property rights?

[James Wharton]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. Throughout the period of conflict, the military occupied large swathes of land in the north and east, and they continue to occupy parts of land. One of the things that I saw while I was there is that the military are now contracting the spaces that they occupy. That does not take away from the genuine concerns that are raised about the military presence in the north and east, but it is none the less a fact on the ground that the amount of land that they are occupying is reducing, as that land is returned to its rightful owners. There have been areas of progress in Sri Lanka. I had hoped to say more on them, but I am conscious of the time.

Human Rights on the Indian Subcontinent

Debate between Robert Halfon and Lord Wharton of Yarm

Thursday 15th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[James Wharton (Stockton South) (Con)]

We have already heard much discussion today of the value of human rights. Human rights are indivisible, self-evidently of great value and internationally applicable, as the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) explained rather more eloquently than I will attempt. Human rights must also be understood in context—the context of where a country has been and where it is trying to go. That does not devalue the human right itself or the right to the individuals there. When we comment on other nations, their actions or the actions of those within them, we must have a full understanding of the historical context and of what has happened there to lead to the situation today. It is against that background that I would like to talk about Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka has only recently emerged from three decades of horrendous civil war, a civil war that claimed countless thousands of lives, both in the north among the Tamil community and in the south among the Sinhalese majority, with Government Ministers, ordinary people and Ministers and representatives of foreign Government being killed throughout that time of great conflict. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the breakaway group in the north and east of the country, waged a war using terrorist tactics including assassinations, suicide attacks, vehicle bombs, attacks on trains and buses, and even attacks from the air, in order to try to force the Sri Lankan Government to accede to demands for a breakaway state within what they perceived to be the boundaries of their own nation. Years of negotiations on ceasefires and attempts to bring an end to the hostilities failed or made no real progress, with neither side sufficiently trusting the other.

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend talks about history and human rights, and that is important. Before British colonisation of Sri Lanka the Tamils had their own kingdom in the north. Does he not agree that one of the problems that we face today arises from the effects of colonisation?

[James Wharton]

I agree that we, as the inheritors of the legacy of the British empire, have a duty to acknowledge our role in many of the problems that were created throughout the world by the way in which the empire ceased to be and by the legacies that we left behind. That is one reason why it is perfectly valid and right for this House to debate these issues today and for us as a nation to do what we can to set others on the right path by applying pressure and giving assistance where we can, so that where there are troubles and problems in the world we can make a small but, I hope, significant contribution to resolving them. In Sri Lanka, that legacy is part of its history, but its more recent history is that terrible civil war, which after years of negotiations had not been brought to an end and was continuing to hold back and drag down a country that has so much potential and could do so much for its own people and on the international stage.

In 2006, the Sri Lankan Government launched a campaign to bring the civil war to an end. It was an effective but ruthless military campaign of the sort necessary to put down an organisation such as the LTTE using military means. We have heard much discussion of some of the atrocities that are alleged to have been committed during that campaign, but in the context in which it happened we must all understand that the LTTE was one of the worst oppressors of the Tamil people during and before the conflict. That context must be understood and appreciated: the LTTE fought using civilian clothes, used civilians as human shields and had thousands of child soldiers in the field.