G7

Stephen O'Brien Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his response, particularly what he said about D-day, which I think for both of us, and indeed for the Deputy Prime Minister, was an extremely moving occasion. When it comes to the principle that the European Council should decide who is the leader of the Commission and that it should not be determined by some electoral process in the European Parliament that many people did not take part in, I am very grateful for the fact that this is a common British position that is held by the Labour party, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservative party. I also thank him for that. It is very important for others in Europe to know what an important issue of principle it is for all three parties.

On TTIP and the deal between the EU and the US, I can report that there have been five good meetings on progressing it. We are pushing very hard and trying to set some deadlines for the work. No specific deadline was agreed, but it was agreed at the G7 that further impetus needed to be given to the talks and, specifically, that domestic politicians needed to answer any specific questions or concerns from non-governmental organisations, or indeed public services, that can sometimes be raised and that do not always, when we look at the detail, bear up to examination. Perhaps I will do that with regard to the NHS and write to the right hon. Gentleman about that.

On tax and transparency, we want not only to make sure that countries sign up to the tax tool we have created so that we can see where profits are being earned—that is going very well, with a number of countries signing up—but to find the best way of sharing that information with developing countries so that they can make sure that they are not being ripped off by these companies.

On the 0.7% target, I would say that what matters more than legislation is doing it—actually showing the political will and making the arguments about protecting our promises to the poorest people in the world.

On climate change, the right hon. Gentleman is right that Britain and the EU can play a leading role in helping to achieve a deal. We need to make sure that the EU has the political will to get to the right position on this. That should happen in September, and there will be important discussions between now and then to make sure that it happens.

On Ukraine, the right hon. Gentleman asked about how we would respond to further aggression. The agreement at the G7 was, first, that the status quo in terms of aggression and destabilisation in eastern Ukraine is not acceptable. That has to be fixed, plus the fact that Russia must not respond to the trade elements of the agreement between Ukraine and the EU by taking unfair steps against Ukraine. If those things happen, that is how sanctions could be put back on the table.

The right hon. Gentleman talked about the withdrawal of Russian troops and the issue of weapons. I said to President Putin that it was welcome that a number of troops had been withdrawn from the borders and that we wanted to see more of that happen, but crucially we have got to see action to stop weapons getting into eastern Ukraine, because it is noticeable that the so-called rebels have, for instance, very technical, high-tech weapons such as MANPADs—man-portable air defence systems—and it is hard to believe that they could be coming from anywhere else.

I hope that that answers the right hon. Gentleman’s questions. I think that in a lot of these areas there is a good measure of cross-party agreement.

[Mr Stephen O’Brien (Eddisbury) (Con)]

In welcoming the full range of the Prime Minister’s statement, may I particularly congratulate him on showing how he was able to lock in so much of the success of the G8 at Lough Erne and on his references to the three T’s and Nigeria? Did he get any assurance that there is a continuing commitment that there should be no payments on kidnap for ransom, which was also a crucial element of his success at Lough Erne?

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for raising this issue. I raised it specifically at the G7 because I am very concerned that we signed the agreement at Lough Erne about not paying ransoms for terrorist kidnap, yet there are terrorist kidnaps taking place in our world and it is—how can I put it politely?—far from clear that some countries are not allowing, or even enabling, ransoms to be paid: ransoms that then go into the hands of very dangerous terrorist groups and fund weapons and explosives that could well be used in our countries back home. I raised this issue very forcefully, as did President Obama. It is very important that we do all we can to help to release those who are held, but paying ransoms for terrorist kidnaps is totally self-defeating—it makes the terrorists stronger and increases the chances of further kidnaps in future.