Jagtar Singh Johal

Debate between Stephen Timms and Rehman Chishti

Wednesday 7th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rehman Chishti]

On arbitrary detention and the specific point about release I will again give the answer I gave earlier: the focus of these cases is always to work in the best interests of the individuals concerned. There is no blanket approach to these cases, and they are tailored to specific individuals. I am sure that the new Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary will want to review this case as a priority, which goes to the point about determination of arbitrary detention in that regard.

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

The policy on intelligence sharing with overseas intelligence agencies is covered by a document called “The Principles”. At the moment there is a loophole in that, which allows Ministers to authorise tip-offs leading to torture, contrary to UK and international law. Will the Minister ensure that that loophole is removed, so that it is absolutely clear that Ministers must not authorise tip-offs leading to torture?

[Rehman Chishti]

If the right hon. Gentleman would write to me in detail on that specific point, I can ask officials to look into it and come back to him on that technicality.

Daesh: Genocide of Minorities

Debate between Stephen Timms and Rehman Chishti

Wednesday 20th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Timms]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is not clear to me how this can happen in the United Kingdom if the Government do not act. Last night we heard from a young woman, who has been referred to already, who had seen her father and brothers killed simply for being Yazidis. She herself had been raped and enslaved. She made it very clear in her evidence that what was going on was genocide, of Yazidis and also of Christians—she made it clear that Christians were included in the genocide—and as US Secretary of State John Kerry pointed out, it is certainly the case that Shi’a Muslims have been victims of genocide as well.

[Rehman Chishti]

The right hon. Gentleman says that Shi’a Muslims have also been killed by Daesh. Does he agree that Daesh itself has no religion, in that it kills Muslims who stand in the way of its warped ideology? Whatever a person’s faith, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, if they stand against Daesh, they will be killed.

[Stephen Timms]

I think the hon. Gentleman is right, but it is clear that Shi’a Muslims have been singled out. For example, in a prison just north of Mosul, nearly 600 were picked out from the rest of the inmates because they were Turkmen Shi’a Muslims, and were machine-gunned one by one. I hope that we can make a clear statement today that this is genocide, both to express solidarity with Yazidis, Christians and Shi’a Muslims who are the victims of this horrifying brutality, and to make clear our determination to ensure that those responsible face prosecution and a just punishment for what they have done.

I want to make some observations on how we can deal with the commitment to religious freedom that we all espouse. I recognise and pay tribute to the work of past and present Ministers on this, but we should be doing more. Others are doing more, and we should as well. I commend to the Minister an idea that was in the last Labour party election manifesto: the Government should appoint a global envoy for religious freedom, who would report directly to the Prime Minister, and establish within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office a multi-faith advisory council on religious freedom. That would be an important way for us to acknowledge and publicly commit to the importance of British influence being wielded on this front, through the work of Ministers and the Foreign Office around the world.

The Canadian Government deserve credit for establishing an Office of Religious Freedom. It has had a positive impact, but I am sorry to hear that it is now being wound down. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom was established a long time ago, in 1998, and it is an attractive model, with commissioners appointed by the President and by the leadership of both political parties in the Senate and the House of Representatives. Last December, the commission called for the US Government to designate the Christian, Yazidi, Turkmen and Shabak communities in Iraq and Syria as victims of genocide by ISIL.

Social Security

Debate between Stephen Timms and Rehman Chishti

Thursday 17th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Timms]

My point is that people who have been contributing to those schemes throughout their working lives have done so on the basis of a promise, but the Government are now saying that that promise should be torn up, perhaps just a few months before somebody retires. Is that fair? As I am sure that we will hear in this debate, a lot of people feel that it is deeply unfair—and we can all understand why they take that view.

Lord Hutton’s report on public sector occupational pensions pointed out:

“This change in the indexation measure”—

from RPI to CPI—

“may have reduced the value of benefits to scheme members by around 15 per cent on average. When this change is combined with other reforms to date across the major schemes the value to current members of reformed schemes with CPI indexation is, on average, around 25 per cent less than the pre-reform schemes with RPI indexation.”

Even the Minister’s own Department, in numbers slipped out at the end of last week, estimated a fall of £83 billion in the value of occupational pensions over the next 15 years as a result. For the 2 million members of defined benefit schemes, that is broadly the same as a pay cut, on average, of between £2,250 and £2,500 a year.

The figure of £83 billion has gone up by more than 8% since the Department last calculated it in December. We ought to know why the Department got their figures so wrong last time round. My worry is that the Department does not really know what the impact of this ill-thought-through measure will be in reality. I ask the Minister, therefore, whether he can assure us that this—in itself alarming—estimate of the scale of the loss to defined benefit pension scheme members will not be revised any further.

[Rehman Chishti]

Am I right in thinking that the shadow Minister was a Treasury Minister in the previous Government? If so, will he clarify the fact that when the coalition Government came into office last May, we inherited the worst financial deficit of the G20 and the worst structural deficit of the G7 countries, and that that is why we have to make some tough decisions?

[Stephen Timms]

I was indeed a Treasury Minister—on four separate occasions. We managed the global economic crisis with great skill, to the extent that the increase in unemployment, which was widely anticipated before the crisis hit, did not happen. Under the previous Government there was about half the unemployment and half the home repossessions that we experienced in the recession of the early 1990s. I was indeed a Minister at the Treasury when those successes were being achieved.

[Rehman Chishti]

The shadow Minister talks about unemployment and the previous Government’s actions. Is that why my constituency of Gillingham had 30% unemployment for 18 to 24-year-olds in 2006? The figure for youth unemployment remained at 30% in 2007 and 2009, and was the same in 2010 before we came into government. Will the right hon. Gentleman apologise to my constituents for that record?

[Stephen Timms]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the damaging impact of youth unemployment, and I hope that he shares my deep regret that it has increased again. It is now the highest that it has been since comparable figures began to be compiled nearly 20 years ago. The highest figure ever recorded was published in the statistics yesterday. I certainly take the view that the Government need to do more to reduce that figure.

The estimate of a hit of £83 billion on defined pension schemes makes it clear that long after the deficit is gone, the Government will be keeping pensioners out of pocket. I fear that the order is the start of a move that will mean that millions of pensioners and other benefit claimants experience a fall in the value of their benefits every year, relative to RPI. If the Government had simply applied the much-vaunted triple lock this year, the basic state pension would be uprated next year far below the RPI level that the previous system would have delivered. That is the problem with the Government’s proposition.

That is not the only Government measure to hit pensioners. The Minister proudly and fairly read out a list of excellent things that the previous Government did for pensioners, which the present Government will not abolish. I am glad that they will not. However, they have increased VAT, which means that pensioner couples will be £275 a year worse off, and single pensioners £125 a year worse off.

The Pensions Bill means that some women approaching retirement will have their state pension delayed by up to two years, with very little time to prepare. That will mean a loss of up to £10,000 in basic state pension, and up to £15,000 for those who would have qualified for pension credit.

My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) asked the Minister previously about an individual’s accrued rights, and I referred to that in response to an earlier intervention. Let me press the Minister again on the same subject. Why has he made such an abrupt U-turn? Before the election, he said:

“We are very clear that all accrued rights should be honoured: a pension promise made should be a pension promise kept. Therefore we would not make any changes to pension rights that have already been built up. I have confirmed that I regard accrued index-linked rights as protected.”

I am sure that the Minister would agree that all those who contracted out—all those in the local government scheme that was mentioned a few minutes ago—did so on the basis that RPI would be used for uprating. On the basis of what the Minister said before the election, those rights should also be protected. They are not; they are being explicitly downgraded in the Government’s proposals.