Oral Answers to Questions

Steve Brine Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

Our general approach is to try to get things done using the mechanisms we have. We have an extensive diplomatic network around the world, and we have large amounts of soft power at our disposal, including the leverage that our large aid budget gives us. I do not think simply creating new posts and ticking a box delivers in the way the right hon. Gentleman and the previous Government seem to think it will.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

T4. The Minister will know that the UN has delayed by six months its report on human rights in Sri Lanka. A number of Sri Lankan constituents in my constituency are waiting for this report and are actively contacting their MP about it. Will the Minister push for the urgent release of this document, and will he please update us?

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr Hugo Swire)]

We have worked closely. I have been to Sri Lanka and met the new President, the new Foreign Minister and the new Prime Minister, and the new Foreign Minister has been here. We recognise the concern of all the victims. We remain firmly committed to the Geneva process. This will not be an indefinite deferral; the report is due by September. The extra time recognises the changed political context in Sri Lanka, and it will allow the new Government to deliver on their commitment to engage with the high commissioner and establish their own credible accountancy process.

Oral Answers to Questions

Steve Brine Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd December 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Hugh Robertson)]

I am sure there is total agreement right across the House that there is absolutely no excuse for the targeting of children in any form of military strike. I am not entirely sure how a drone could be that precisely targeted, but the hon. Lady absolutely has my undertaking that we regard this as a matter of the utmost seriousness, and we will take it up in no uncertain terms with the Israeli authorities.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

T9. In the light of the Prime Minister’s timely and very welcome visit to China, will the Foreign Secretary tell the House what he is doing to ensure that British diplomats speak Chinese and other languages vital to our success, and to reverse the decline in language teaching in the Foreign Office that he sadly inherited?

[Mr Hague]

This is a very important issue. Almost unbelievably, the last Government closed the Foreign Office language school. This year, I reopened it. It has 40 classrooms and is able to teach civil servants from across the rest of Government as well. We have sharply increased the number of posts that require the speaking of Mandarin, of Arabic, and of Latin American Spanish and Portuguese. The decline in diplomatic languages that the last Government presided over is now well and truly being reversed.

European Union (Referendum) Bill

Steve Brine Excerpts

Friday 5th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Denham]

The first point is that this is really a private matter for the Conservative party. Whether they believe that their Prime Minister is trustworthy or believable is primarily a matter for them, not for the rest of us. If they wish to humiliate their party leader, that is up to them. I do not intend to participate in the vote later today.

We know what happened. The humiliated Prime Minister was forced to let the Tory party publish a referendum Bill, and the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) was unfortunate enough, from his point of view, to come top of the ballot. He might have made his name by trying to improve the lot of carers, improve animal welfare or tighten gas safety, or by engaging with the traditional territories of private Members’ Bills, but instead he has introduced this Bill. I do not blame him for it, but the Bill is about the Tory party and not the national interest.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Denham]

No, I am going to make a little more progress and then I will take another intervention.

The aim seemed clear enough: to put the Prime Minister’s promise on to a statutory basis. We know what the promise was: after the next election to have a renegotiation and then to have a referendum by 2017. So imagine my surprise when I read the Bill, because it does not commit to a referendum after the next election. The Bill is very clear: the referendum could happen as soon as the Bill has been passed. It is not about after the next election or after renegotiation—it is any time now. That is very odd, because the Prime Minister is on the record as opposing a referendum Bill now. Why, then, does the Bill, which was introduced by the hon. Member for Stockton South and drafted in Tory party central office, provide for the possibility of a referendum now? The hon. Gentleman gave the game away in an interview, again I am afraid, in The Daily Telegraph. Discussing possible amendments to the Bill, he said that the most difficult amendment to deal with would be one calling for a referendum before the next election, because

“many MPs would be sympathetic”

to such a move.

There we have it: the Bill has been drafted as broadly as it has, because if it accurately reflected the Prime Minister’s January speech and excluded a referendum before the next election, too many Tory MPs would have turned up demanding to amend it for an early vote. Far from showing the unity of the Conservative party, all the Bill has done is show how thin is the veneer of unity that they are trying to present. Again, this is private grief and is no business for the rest of us. Of course, it is entirely pointless, because no Bill of this sort can bind the next Parliament. Either the Conservatives win the next election or they do not—this is a pointless exercise.

[Steve Brine]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman and near parliamentary neighbour for giving way. I think that the people of Winchester and Chandler’s Ford, which are both near to his constituency, are clear that they want a choice on our relationship with Europe. He has called the Bill ridiculous. Will he explain why he is so sure that the people of Southampton, Itchen do not want a say on our future relationship with the EU?

[Mr Denham]

Let me turn to the point I was about to address on how the national interest is served by this discussion. The national interest is the one thing that has been entirely missing from the debate so far. It is a debate about the Conservatives, and that is not the national interest. It is not a debate about the future of our country, our influence in the world or what is best for our children, but what is best for the Conservatives as they run away from the UK Independence party.

The debate is not doing the Tories much good. The January speech intended to lance the boil of UKIP, and some may have noticed that it led immediately to the Conservatives coming third in Eastleigh and losing seats all over the country to UKIP in the council elections. Again, that is private grief and I want to talk about the national interest.

Oral Answers to Questions

Steve Brine Excerpts

Tuesday 5th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

5. What recent steps the Government have taken to improve the prospects for a two-state solution to the conflict between Israel and Palestine.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

6. What recent assessment he has made of prospects for the middle east peace process.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

7. What recent discussions he has had with his Israeli and Palestinian counterparts to encourage the resumption of negotiations.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hague]

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that such actions hinder the search for a two-state solution. Our condemnation of illegal settlement building and of demolitions on occupied land has been very clear across the House, as I have said. The important thing in the coming months is to move beyond that and to get into successful negotiations. The only answer, in the end, will be an agreed two-state solution, and the time for that is slipping away. The hon. Gentleman rightly mentioned patience. The world has been patient, but the time in which a two-state solution can be agreed is now slipping away, partly because of changing facts on the ground. That demonstrates the urgency, and I believe, in the light of all the discussions I have had with Secretary Kerry so far, that he is fully seized of the importance and urgency of the issue.

[Steve Brine]

I know that the Foreign Secretary is very much of the view that time is not on our side, and he has just reiterated that this morning. With that in mind, will he update Members on the situation in Lebanon, which I know he visited last week.

[Mr Hague]

I visited Lebanon the week before last, and it is a country whose stability we want to support. While I was there, I announced additional support for the Lebanese armed forces as well as for the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. We do our best to contribute to the stability of the Lebanese state, but that is often fragile—not least because of what is happening in Syria at the moment. I believe that we have many friends in Lebanon and that our announcements were strongly welcomed there.

Oral Answers to Questions

Steve Brine Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

That is one view—and an important view, of course, coming from the leadership of a state such as Qatar. As I mentioned in reply to the right hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mr Alexander), the Arab League is meeting on the 19th and 22nd, so we should not presume that this is the view of the whole Arab League. Although we continue to increase the pressure on the Assad regime and strongly support the Arab League’s work, the hon. Gentleman will be aware that we have not called for military intervention in Syria, the consequences of which would be far more difficult to foresee than in Libya and the legal authority for which does not exist. As things stand, therefore, this is a distinct case from that of Libya.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

T8. The Foreign Secretary’s previously referred to visit to Brazil this week is welcome and continues his much-needed drive to make trade the cutting edge of British diplomacy. As the balance of world economic activity shifts to the east and the south, would he agree that a blinkered approach to trade inside the European Union is not only very last century but painfully lacking in ambition?