Gibraltar

Robert Neill Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Sir Richard Ottaway) and his Committee on their excellent report and on giving us the opportunity to debate this important issue today. We have had excellent speeches from everybody in this debate so far. The hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) and I may be able to look forward to the day when West Ham United sign up a Gibraltarian professional footballer if Gibraltar’s football team continues with its international success.

On a serious note, important issues have been raised. A key issue that we need to grasp—it was mentioned by the hon. Member for Ilford South and echoed by my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox)—is that Gibraltar has become a central plank of Spanish foreign policy. I regret to say that the defence of the British citizens of Gibraltar is not generally perceived as a central plank of the policy agenda of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Although I cannot disagree factually with anything in the Government’s response to the report, the tone could and legitimately should be more assertive in the defence of Gibraltar as a British territory. Sometimes there is this sense, which I know is not shared by my right hon. Friend the Minister, that, going back to the errors of 2001-02, defending Gibraltar has been seen as a bit of an add-on in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and we need to do more to put that right.

One area where the Government’s response is not adequate is around the potential use of article 259. It is quite clear that Spain is in breach of its obligations as a member of NATO and of the European Union. Frankly, its behaviour is not consistent with that of a friend and an ally. That is the tragedy and the reality. Although there have been difficulties in the past, it might be worth noting that previous Parti Populaire Governments in Spain, while always wrongly maintaining their claim, have not felt it necessary to escalate the tensions at the border in the way that the current Rajoy Government do. The Aznar Government adopted a rather different approach. Of course the Government are right to want to de-escalate the situation, but it takes two to de-escalate. If Spain is not prepared to do so, and if it is in breach of its international legal obligations, we should not be afraid to use the mechanisms available to us.

May I say gently that I am concerned about the undue reliance on the European Commission in dealing with these matters? I say that because, as a junior Minister, I had experience of the workings of the Commission. History shows that the European Commission cannot be regarded as having acted even-handedly towards Gibraltar in the past. Appendix B of the report sets out the background to the legal dispute, which makes it very clear that Spain should never have been allowed by the Commission to include what is called the Estrecho Oriental—territorial waters site—on the list of sites of community interest under the habitats directive. The habitats directive makes it clear that member states are allowed to designate sites within their own territories. Under international law, the European Commission should not have permitted the area designated by Spain that includes parts of Gibraltan territorial waters to be included. It breached that fundamental requirement, but was not challenged by the Commission, so it is difficult for us to have complete faith in the Commission’s even hand in this regard.

The appendix also sets out what seems to me at least to be a significant charge of negligence against the Foreign Office—even though this happened before the Government came to office, I do not mean this as a party political point—in failing to present the designation of the site of community interest at the time. The previous junior Minister at the Foreign Office said:

“The UK had no reason to and did not check the thousand or so existing or proposed Spanish sites.”

I am sorry, but we know that Spain has consistently adopted a hostile policy towards Gibraltar and that, as my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset has said, Spain has consistently sought to adopt an aggressive stance on territorial waters. One might think that if the FCO could have checked that—there is no reason why it could not have—it would have been an obvious check to carry out. It did not check and that is a serious error on the part of the FCO, which needs to live it down by being more robust.

I hope that when my right hon. Friend the Minister replies he will be more robust than the written text put out by the FCO on the question of the hypocrisy over Ceuta and Melilla. The argument is a strong one and the Foreign Office’s written response is too dismissive, simply saying that it is a different case. That is a nice bit of legalese, but morally it is not a different case. We should not only be saying that and putting much more pressure on Spain in that regard, but encouraging the development of practical links with Morocco, which has adopted a very constructive attitude towards Gibraltar in the past. Morocco has a better record of dealing with its recent difficulties than many other north African states and that is something practical we could do to strengthen transport and other links.

My hon. Friend the Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti) talked about the integration and community cohesion in Gibraltarian society. He is absolutely right and I have noticed that because I, too, had the pleasure of visiting Gibraltar in the autumn and I saw precisely that cohesion and harmony, including among many of the Moroccan residents who have come to Gibraltar and stayed there. Those are links we should develop. We should also remember that Gibraltar has a significant, active and welcome Jewish population. In current times, that is valuable and something we should cherish. Part of the reason for that is that Gibraltar is not only an economic and social success but benefits from a robust common law jurisdiction. During my visit, I had the opportunity to meet senior members of the judiciary and of the police and the legal profession.

At the beginning of last month, we had the opportunity in a Westminster Hall debate to refute some of the utterly false allegations that have been put about by the Spanish Government, which have been swallowed by one or two Members of this House who ought to have known better, that Gibraltar is in any way deficient in its dealing with those issues. It was made very clear—I am delighted to say that my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General said this on behalf of the Government in absolutely unequivocal terms—that Gibraltar meets the highest standards of international legal co-operation. Its police force, its judiciary and its legal profession operate to exactly the same standards as we would expect of those within the United Kingdom.

I am sure that many of us will want to congratulate the Attorney-General of Gibraltar, Ricky Rhoda, on being awarded the honour of Commander of the British Empire. He will be retiring next year after some 15 years in service. He is a distinguished lawyer and a distinguished public servant who works to exactly the same standards as we see in the UK. We need to say that robustly, because part of Spain’s attempt to undermine Gibraltar’s economic interests has been to attack its financial regime, its legal regime and key economic interests such as bunkering, the gaming industry and the aviation industry. We need to be more assertive about this.

I have been critical of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in some respects, but this autumn I also had the opportunity of visiting our embassy in Madrid and I pay tribute to Simon Manley, the ambassador, and his team there, who do a very professional job. What is required is a clear direction from the centre that we regard Gibraltar and its interests as of the same high priority as Foreign Minister García-Margall has made them for the Spanish Government. There is political will within the House to do that and it would have support on both sides of the House. I hope the debate has given us the opportunity to set out that approach.

We want Spain as an ally and partner within the EU and NATO, but that cannot be at the expense of undermining our protection for a dynamic British overseas territory with British citizens who meet the highest of British standards in every respect. They were—dare I say—developing a thriving democracy before that happened in their larger neighbour. There is irony in the attitude adopted by members of the current Government in Madrid, who have a very short view of history. The Government and the Foreign Office should not be afraid to stand up and say that robustly.