Iran’s Influence in the Middle East

Lord McCabe Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Sir David Amess (Southend West) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) on securing this debate. It was well worth waiting two weeks to hear his splendid speech. I agree with every word he said. He made all the points that I wished to make, so I shall now speak for the sake of it.

This is a very well attended debate—there are representatives here from all political parties. I say to my hon. Friend the Minister, who is a splendid chap, that I have listened for years to the same tired Foreign Office line being trotted out. Governments come and go, but the line is always the same—it is always one of appeasement. Let us be frank—at the heart of this issue is oil. It would be wonderful to hear from the Minister something positive about what the Government intend to do. I hope that he will also reflect on the so-called achievements of the former Labour Prime Minister as middle east peace envoy—I would really like to hear about that—and tell us how he thinks former President Obama, whom colleagues mentioned, and defeated presidential candidate Mrs Clinton handled the situation. My hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter), who is not in his place, said that we hope for a different approach from the new President of America—although not through tweeting.

Iran’s influence in the middle east is dreadful. I will not repeat all the points that colleagues have made, but killing and torturing people is absolutely disgraceful. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) was absolutely spot on about the way Israel has been treated. Talking about wiping the state of Israel out of existence is absolutely disgraceful. I hope that the Minister will take seriously what Mrs Maryam Rajavi, the leader of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, said on 17 January 2017 about the Iranian regime.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

I do not want to detain the hon. Gentleman, but is it not the case that we need to hear a change from the Government? They must give a clear signal that we are considering proscribing the revolutionary guards and that, as far as protecting our citizens, such as Nazanin Ratcliffe, is concerned, we will not negotiate but threaten sanctions unless Iran stops its illegal detention of innocent people.

[Sir David Amess]

The hon. Gentleman makes that point far better than I ever could, and I hope that the Minister, if we give him enough time, will comment on it.

I shall raise a constituency case. Mrs Ratcliffe, a charity worker accused of security offences, was detained while trying to leave Iran with her baby daughter after visiting relatives last year. She was accused of plotting to topple the Government in Tehran—an absolutely ridiculous claim—yet those charges were never made public. Her family denies that she broke any laws. Her two-year-old daughter has remained in Iran because the Government confiscated her passport, and in January this year a court in Iran rejected an appeal against the five-year prison sentence given to Mrs Ratcliffe. The regime does not recognise dual British and Iranian citizenship, meaning that she cannot be given consular assistance. I hope that the Minister will write to me about that case once his officials have looked at it.

It would be wonderful if we did not hear the same tired line of appeasement trotted out by the Foreign Office. At the heart of this is the Government’s worry that we will lose oil supply. Given that all political parties are represented in the Chamber and I doubt that anyone will stand up and say, “The Iranian regime is absolutely wonderful,” it would be good, at this extraordinary moment in the history of our country, to hear from the British Government that we intend to engage with like-minded countries and do something about the dreadful regime in Iran.

Budget Resolutions

Lord McCabe Excerpts

Monday 13th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

It has not taken long for the gloss to come off this Budget. We have learned just how clueless those in charge really are. The reckless national insurance blunder told us what we need to know about the Chancellor; they saw him coming as he fell for a classic Treasury bottom-drawer policy. In the old days, it could take at least until the weekend for a Budget to unravel, but this Chancellor seems to have set a new record by producing one that disintegrated before the day was out.

What is worrying about this dreadful performance is that it is beginning to look like a pattern. As each day passes, we learn that this Government make it up as they go along, with Ministers woefully unprepared and in some cases just not up to it. We have had the City Minister relieved of key duties and an Education Secretary who hides from the press, goes around closing schools and pretending that huge cuts in funding are fair, and thinks she can sell grammar schools by promising an easier 11-plus. The health service is on its knees, so the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government is planning to take an extra £4.3 million in business rates from Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham, and has not even had the time to discuss the implications with Health Ministers. One measure they should have announced is that they are going to treat NHS hospitals like their private counterparts and exempt them from business rates. At the head of this shambles, we have a Prime Minister without a mandate who thinks that as long as she repeats it often enough, people will believe her: no sweetheart deals, the Home Office getting more efficient, Brexit means Brexit. The more she repeats it, the more we see right through her. Even the Chancellor’s allies are describing her key aides as economically illiterate.

I acknowledge that the performance on the Labour Benches is not always good enough, and that may be partly responsible for the extraordinary complacency we are now witnessing from Conservative Members, but that is no reason for them to think that they can get away with providing the British people with second-rate government. It is quite incredible that in this non-event Budget the Chancellor had nothing to say about preparations for Brexit, especially as we learn that the Government are seriously contemplating crashing out of the EU without a satisfactory deal. That is not respecting the will of the British people—it is abusing the referendum result to embark on a reckless course that threatens people’s jobs and businesses large and small, and guarantees the most enormous hike in food prices.

When will this nonsense stop? When will we stop having to listen to the Foreign Secretary? I never thought I would be grateful to the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) for anything, but I am beginning to think he did us all one enormous favour. They cannot agree on anything. The Foreign Secretary thinks it will all be all right on the night, the International Trade Secretary warns that leaving without a deal will be a problem, and the Secretary of State for Exiting the EU says he is thinking about a back-up plan. It is like a live performance by the Three Stooges. Just how much longer are these people going to try pull the wool over our eyes?

This Budget could have been the opportunity to clarify some of the confusion over Government policy. They could have tried to sort out the mess on the apprenticeship levy before it is too late. They could have done something about energy prices, and the fiasco that if someone puts in a smart meter and then changes supplier, it has to be turned off. If they persist with this, that is £11 billion of Government money down the drain. There are plenty of things that they could have done in this Budget, but of course what is wrong with this Budget is that this Government do not know where they are from one day to the next.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord McCabe Excerpts

Tuesday 21st February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend. I am grateful for the work that he has done in liaison with the family. I was able to meet Kamran Foroughi, the son, on 25 January. I spoke to Ambassador Baeidinejad about the case this morning and when I visited Tehran last month. I am pleased to see that Mr Foroughi is now going to receive the health test that he has been requesting, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right that there is a case for clemency there that I hope will be answered.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

Is anyone in the British Government able to make direct contact with the Iranian revolutionary guard, because they are the people who are arresting and falsely imprisoning our nationals? Surely if we are speaking only to the puppets in Tehran, no one from Britain is going to be safe to visit that country.

[Mr Ellwood]

I think we should be careful in the language we use. The Iranians, like those in many countries, do not recognise dual nationality, and therefore we have to conduct these matters with diplomacy. Our avenue with the Iranians, which was not there a couple of years ago, is through the Iranian Foreign Ministry and our interlocutors there. We have had communications from our Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, as I said, and now me, with our embassy opening as well.

UK Nationals Imprisoned Abroad

Lord McCabe Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2016 Westminster Hall

[Fiona Bruce]

It is now often the case that aid is not paid bilaterally to many countries. None the less, UK aid money is being spent in Ethiopia, as has been indicated by my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Dr Mathias).

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

While the hon. Lady is on the subject of aid, I wonder whether she had an opportunity on her visit to look at the MSc in security sector management. I understand it was initially funded through a Department for International Development programme and it appears that some of the people who were responsible for Mr Tsege’s detention had taken part.

[Robert Flello (in the Chair)]

Before the hon. Lady responds, I gently suggest that other Members wish to speak and that I will call the Front Benchers at half-past 10 o’clock.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) on securing the debate and giving such a succinct summary of the case. It seems to me that the crime committed by Andy Tsege is being an outspoken critic of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front. I thought that we in this country encouraged that kind of behaviour, so I am not sure why, as the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) has just said, we are now accepting the Ethiopian version of events.

What is clear is that if the cornerstone of the British case is that Andy Tsege should be allowed access to legal representation, that has to mean more than just a list of lawyers that he may or may not still possess. The bottom line is that we would not expect any British citizen to get such poor support from the authorities. Will the Minister demand private access to Mr Tsege? Will he ensure proper legal representation? In fact, will he do what we would expect him to do for anybody and demand this man’s release?

Thinking back to the case of John McCarthy, what would have happened if we had all just sat back quietly and said nothing? Would McCarthy ever have been released? We must shout loudly and clearly that we are not putting up with that for Andy Tsege, or for Nazanin Ratcliffe. We expect our Government to protect our citizens, stand up for the rule of law and make it absolutely clear to regimes around the world that if they have no respect for human rights and the rule of law, they will get no favours from us.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord McCabe Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

First, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for organising, as former Africa Minister, the very conference that he mentioned on Somalia in 2012, which helped to galvanise international support for Somalia. He is absolutely right. We need to work on the governance structures, and a federated model has come to the fore. We need to support the AMISOM troops as well. There is much work to be done. Although al-Shabaab has been pushed out of the capital cities, it is still in the south of the country.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

While considering the security situation in Somalia, how does the Minister assess the role of Ethiopa, and what impact is the continued detention of British citizen Andy Tsege having on our relations with the Ethiopian regime?

[Mr Ellwood]

I am aware of the state of emergency that Ethiopia has introduced, and I will certainly look at the consular case that the hon. Gentleman raises and perhaps write to him with more details. However, I would pass on congratulations to Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and the other countries that are providing forces and making an important contribution to the support and stability of Somalia.

Report of the Iraq Inquiry

Lord McCabe Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Alex Salmond (Gordon) (SNP)]

The parliamentary wounds of the Iraq war are still pertinent in today’s debate, but we should remember that they are as nothing compared with the wounds of the 179 families who lost servicepeople, the 23 British civilian staff who were killed, the 200,000 Iraqis and the thousands of American soldiers. The carnage in the middle east is still with us today—these wounds are still raw and open.

Like the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), I looked back at the debate on 18 March 2003, and I was struck by a number of things that we do not always remember. We all remember Robin Cook’s brilliant resignation speech of the day before, but we do not necessarily remember John Denham’s distinguished and measured contribution on the day of the debate.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman reminded us that public opinion at that stage was in favour of war, and those of us who spoke against it from the SNP, Plaid Cymru or Liberal Benches were not given a particularly easy time. I looked at the contribution that day of Charles Kennedy, who was barracked throughout his speech against war. “Chamberlain Charlie” was one of the more printable epithets, and the “toast of Baghdad” was flung at some of us who opposed the war.

I say that not just to make the point that Members such as the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe and others who argued against the war have been vindicated, but also to remind people of the nature and context of the debate we were engaged in. There are only 179 Members in this Parliament who were Members of Parliament on 18 March 2003; a little over a quarter of Members of this Parliament were present and voting in that debate. It is as well that people remember and understand the context if we are to understand the failings of parliamentary democracy—not of referendums, but of parliamentary democracy—that the votes on Iraq that day illustrated.

I have been checking the record, and I think I can honestly say that I do not think I have ever quoted The Times in 30 years in this place, off and on, but I will quote it today, because I thought its headline and first paragraph on the Chilcot report last Thursday absolutely hit the mark. Under the headline “Blair’s private war”, it wrote:

“Britain fought an unnecessary, disastrous and potentially illegal war in Iraq because of Tony Blair’s misguided and personal commitment to George W Bush, the Chilcot report concluded yesterday.”

It would be impossible to read the Chilcot report without looking at that personal level of accountability as well as the wider context of the legality.

The right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe started his speech by saying that this was not all about Tony Blair, but the rest of his speech illustrated why it is in fact very largely about Tony Blair. I want to quote from the executive summary of the Chilcot report, but these points are backed up enormously in the full report. On pages 58 and 59, Chilcot goes through the sequence of decision making between December 2001 and the immediate onset of the war. It would appear that if those decisions were the product of sofa government, it was a very small sofa indeed. Crucial decisions about the strategies and alliances involved were made by the Prime Minister and only a very few of his advisers. Chilcot finds that not even a Cabinet Committee discussed the crucial decisions listed on pages 58 and 59. The list starts with:

“The decision at the beginning of December 2001 to offer to work with President Bush on a strategy to deal with Iraq as part of Phase 2 of the ‘War on Terror’, despite the fact that there was no evidence of any Iraqi involvement with the attacks on the United States or active links to Al Qaida.”

It goes right through to:

“A review of UK policy at the end of February 2003 when the inspectors had found no evidence of WMD and there was only limited support for the second resolution in the Security Council.”

All those crucial decisions were made without reference even to a Cabinet Sub-Committee and without a range of colleagues in the Cabinet being consulted.

When the former Deputy Prime Minister concluded last weekend—in a way that Chilcot was not allowed to do, either because of his remit or because of the lack of specialisms on the inquiry—that the war was illegal and apologised for it, he should actually have been apologising for the fact that all this was allowed to happen through a sequence of decisions taken over 15 months by one individual, the Prime Minister, and his advisers without any account being taken of any kind of collective responsibility.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

Does Chilcot not also say that that form of government should be described as a “professional forum”, and that it should not be regarded as just advisers and cronies? Was not that the specific point of the evidence that Lord Turnbull gave to Chilcot?

[Alex Salmond]

I am dealing with the findings of Chilcot—

[Steve McCabe]

So am I.

[Alex Salmond]

The report states:

“The Inquiry considers that there should have been a collective discussion by a Cabinet Committee or small group of Ministers on the basis of inter-departmental advice agreed at a senior level between officials on a number of decision points”.

That is in paragraph 409 on page 58, if that helps the hon. Gentleman.

[Steve McCabe]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Alex Salmond]

I have answered the hon. Gentleman’s question. If he will let me continue, perhaps I will give way again later—

[Steve McCabe]

In paragraph 402—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We cannot conduct debate with people yelling from a sedentary position in a disorderly manner, and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) must not do that. If the right hon. Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) wants to give way later, he will, and if he does not, he will not. We will see how things go.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

I remember the events that we are discussing very well. They took place during my second Parliament as an MP, and they were not really the sort of stuff that I thought I had come here for. I remember how seriously people in and around the House discussed the issues in the run-up to the vote. I recall intense debates with colleagues and friends both inside and outside Parliament and, of course, I recall friends coming to different conclusions. According to my recollection, no one treated the issue lightly, and I do not think there is anyone who does not regret the loss of life. However, as one of those who were here at the time, and as someone who voted for the war, I take the view that we must all take some of the responsibility. We must bear some collective responsibility.

The only Cabinet resignation that I recall was that of the late Robin Cook. All the others stood firm and stayed on board, so they had a collective responsibility as well. While I understand that some folk are desperate to pin all this on one man, it is hard to see how that stands up in those circumstances. Of course there are legitimate criticisms and lessons to be learned, and I certainly accept the point about “sofa” versus Cabinet government, but Lord Turnbull actually said that he was talking about a style of government, and he also said in evidence that it was a “professional forum” and he was not talking about a bunch of advisers and cronies getting together. He was very clear about that, but it was not the impression that was given earlier.

Obviously one of the big lessons is about intelligence. I acknowledge that the Government have taken a significant step forward in that regard, but it is appalling to think that M16 knew that one of its principal sources of intelligence was a fraud, and chose not to share that with the Government before the vote. We should never let that sort of thing happen again. As for war planning and post-invasion planning, and what we have just heard about equipment, there are clear lessons to be learned, but they are not just lessons for politicians. They are lessons for intelligence officers, for the Ministry of Defence, and for senior military figures.

Part of the purpose of the Chilcot report is to enable us all to learn lessons. The tragedy is that if it is reduced simply to an attempt to pin it all on one man, we will not learn many lessons. If, after 13 years, the best outcome is a contempt motion, where will we end up? Will we end up back here saying, “What about the late Baroness Thatcher? We have found out some more details about the Belgrano”—or the Gibraltar assassinations—“so let us table a motion on that”? Will we end up saying that the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr Cameron) should be hauled back because of some new revelation, or apparent revelation, about Libya? I do not think that that is what we should be trying to do.

I recognise that Tony Blair is a Marmite figure, but we did have a parliamentary vote to go to war. It was not all down to him. Nowhere in the report does Chilcot accuse him of misleading Parliament, and I really do not think that we should use this House to try to settle old scores or enmities. We should be better than that. We need to recognise the risk that will be posed in the future, when there are difficult choices to be made, if we get this wrong. Real political leadership is not about settling scores, scoring points or addressing rallies; it is about taking really tough and difficult decisions. We should be very careful in our response to Chilcot, because if we get this wrong, we could put ourselves in a situation where the new Prime Minister, and any future Prime Minister, will be frightened to make a brave decision.

It is possible to make a brave choice and make the wrong choice, and we all know with the benefit of hindsight that there are elements of the Iraq situation that we would deal with differently, but if we turn this into a simple exercise of trying to pin the blame on one man in order to settle longstanding scores, we will do nothing to advance our ability to deal with difficult conflict situations in the future. This House needs to be bigger than that.

Europe, Human Rights and Keeping People Safe at Home and Abroad

Lord McCabe Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

It might have been better for the current EU debate if the Government had taken some time to sketch out the vision for Europe of those Tories who are committed to remaining in the EU, but I guess that could not happen because this is a cobbled together programme—a coalition Queen’s Speech of pro and anti-European Tories, and those who are pro and anti the Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister said that economic security always comes first, which is obviously why he has plunged us into a referendum, with the Government tearing itself apart while he is running around the country telling anyone who will listen about the catastrophic economic consequences of leaving. This is an “on balance” decision and choice between two visions. One is where we blame other Europeans for all our ills, conjure up an image of a return to an idyllic 1950s, and have to accept—without evidence—that alone we can be a land of milk and honey. Then there is the reality for our car industry, our food and drink manufacturers, and science and innovation budgets, and a future where our economic prosperity is intrinsically linked to our membership of the European Union. I have come to the conclusion that the interests of our children and grandchildren lie in being part of that successful trading bloc, and that that is also the best way to guarantee many other rights and freedoms.

However, it does not have to be an inflexible Union that is blind to new concerns. It needs more democracy and a better balance between the interests of the domestic state and the wider Union. A significant influx of people into parts of this country can put a strain on school places and other services. The solution is a European migration fund, so that those areas receive additional funding to help them cope with added pressures.

On the proposed Bill of Rights, it is hard not to see yet another measure to appease the Prime Minister’s enemies. We already have the Human Rights Act 1998, based on a convention drawn up by British lawyers and adjudicated on in our courts. What rights do we currently have that the Government want us to lose? If there is to be a focus on human rights, what about a bit more respect for the rights of disabled people? What about a measure that acknowledges the unfair assessment arrangements currently depriving them of the payments they rightly deserve and the lack of legal aid to challenge those decisions at tribunals? What about some action to address the rights of those being denied access to fertility services because of the bungled reorganisation of the NHS? Why are there no national standards for IVF in England and Wales? Why do Ministers stand by while clinical commissioning groups exclude couples on the basis of invented moral criteria and ignore National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines on IVF treatment? What about the human rights of those couples? What about the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign? What about their rights? How about a signal from the Government that they are going to right that wrong?

The Children and Social Work Bill is another mish-mash of what now passes for Tory policy. We see some welcome measures, with a promised covenant for care leavers. That ought to be applauded, because this is one group who suffer almost as much from the intervention of the state as they do from the circumstances that led to them being brought into care. They are deprived of education and are more likely to end up in prison or in receipt of psychiatric care. As welcome as the changes are, however, they are accompanied by changes to the regulation and training of social workers. How many attempts will the Government need before they think they have got this right? We will not get better social work by trying to reduce social workers to the status of some kind of functional technicians carrying around a manual of dos and don’ts based on the latest ministerial fantasies. On adoption, of course, we had a definitive piece of legislation last year, but here we are in Foster Care Fortnight back with another bite at the cherry in an effort to make the courts do the Government’s bidding.

On the Investigatory Powers Bill, we need a modern framework of power available to the police and security services, but we will not protect our country by turning it into a surveillance state. On the Policing and Crime Bill, why do police and crime commissioners not look at the Crown Prosecution Service as well as police complaints, because that is what many of my constituents are complaining about today?

Persecution of Religious Minorities: Pakistan

Lord McCabe Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2016 Westminster Hall

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

As we have heard, Ahmadis are peace-loving Muslims and yet, like other peace-loving people in our own history of Christianity and even today, they are persecuted in many parts of the world—especially in Pakistan—for no other reason than their beliefs.

Almost 40 years ago, the constitution of Pakistan was amended to declare Ahmadis as non-Muslims—to denounce them, effectively, as heretics not allowed to refer to their places of worship as mosques or quote publicly from the Koran. In this country, we rightly celebrate the courage of a young woman from Pakistan, Malala Yousafzai, for standing up to gunmen determined to persecute her and other young women for seeking an education. However, in the town of Rabwah, to which the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) referred, young Ahmadi women are forced to suffer in silence as they are often denied opportunities to pursue their studies and even prevented from living in local dormitories.

Unsurprisingly, as we have heard, in the face of that persecution many Ahmadis choose to flee to other countries. Many of them have settled in Thailand, where, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) said, a large number have found themselves subject to arbitrary arrest and imprisonment. In Indonesia, a similar pattern of persecution is developing against a community that has lived there peacefully since 1925. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas) pointed out, even in Bulgaria, which is a member of the EU and the Council of Europe, and is therefore required to respect religious freedom and human rights, we see Ahmadis being prevented from registering as a religious organisation.

If anyone wants to know more about the positive contribution of the Ahmadiyya faith, I recommend that they look at the international charitable trust, Humanity First, which works across the globe alongside bodies such as the Red Cross, Oxfam and Save the Children, offering disaster relief, emergency medical services, water for life projects in west Africa and orphan care in places such as Indonesia and Burkina Faso. While some Governments tolerate terrorists and persecute Ahmadis, the Ahmadiyya community offers love and help to people across the globe.

I have seen the effort and dedication of this community in this country. In Birmingham several years ago, my good friend, Dr Mubashar Saleem, took me to an old, derelict school building in Tilton road. The Ahmadis lovingly restored it and converted it into the Darul Barakaat mosque, a place where all faiths are welcome and members of the local community are regularly invited to events. From there they organise charity fundraising events such as Ride4Peace, joint faith seminars and sessions for people to donate blood, as well as pursuing their religious worship.

However, even in Birmingham, the standing advisory council on religious education permits Ahmadis to participate in the council, providing that they do not refer to themselves as Muslims lest they offend other Muslim groups, thus perpetuating the religious intolerance that forms the basis of the persecution that we have been hearing about in Pakistan. We need to do more to respect the rights of this religious minority and make it clear that both in this country and in our relations with countries abroad, and especially in Pakistan, we are going to stand up to those who persecute this group.

Europe: Renegotiation

Lord McCabe Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

The Prime Minister has made it very clear that we need to have outcomes that make sure that whatever package of reforms can be achieved, assuming that the negotiations are successful, they are legally binding and irreversible, for exactly the reasons that my hon. Friend gives.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

There has been a lot of speculation about an early referendum. Without a running commentary, will the Minister set out the essential steps and the timetable necessary to make it possible to hold a referendum next year?

[Mr Lidington]

We need to have the European Referendum Bill on the statute book and to have concluded the European negotiations. When both those criteria have been fulfilled, we need to allow time for secondary legislation that appoints a specific date to go through both Houses of Parliament, and after that we need to allow for a campaign period of a minimum of 10 weeks.

Dog Meat Trade

Lord McCabe Excerpts

Thursday 5th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello) on securing this debate. I want to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) for the work on this issue that he has led for a long time. I am delighted that he has been able to hotfoot it back to the Chamber for the debate following a visit to Croydon North.

I am sure that both my hon. Friends would agree that the cruel and barbaric treatment of dogs and cats for food in a small number of countries is a stain on humanity and a threat to human health that needs to be stopped. The majority of the British public consider themselves to be animal lovers, and they are strongly opposed to cruelty to cats, dogs and other animals. I am sure that they would welcome the fact that this debate is being held today.

There are commercial and cultural reasons why dogs are eaten. In some countries, dog meat is wrongly believed to have medicinal properties. For instance, it is believed to help in the treatment of impotence and poor circulation. However, there is no evidence to support any of these claims and there need to be stronger public information campaigns in those countries to educate populations to understand the facts. Consumption of dog and cat meat is also linked to human health and disease. The consumption of these animals is linked to the transmission of diseases such as cholera and the spread of rabies, in part because of the appalling conditions in which the animals are transported. Perhaps the most offensive aspect of the dog meat trade is the way in which the animals are treated. A huge proportion are family pets that are stolen, transported in inhumane conditions and slaughtered without any regard whatever for the level of suffering being inflicted on them.

I agree with Members who have said that it is not for people from one meat-eating culture to tell people of other cultures which animals they can or cannot eat, but there is a role to be played in seeking to secure global standards of animal welfare and in working with local campaign groups on the ground in the countries affected to help them strengthen their own cases. AnimalsAsia has conducted a detailed investigation into the dog meat trade, finding that the vast majority of dog meat in China comes from stolen dogs previously owned as pets. It found no conclusive evidence of large-scale breeding farms that could have been capable of supplying the up to 20 million dogs which it is estimated are eaten across China every year. Anyone who has ever owned a pet cat or dog knows how much they become part of the family, being loved, cared for and cherished.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

I agree with my hon. Friend that it is probably not appropriate to think we can tell other countries what to do, but is it not reasonable to tell them what the reaction of the British public will be if the sorts of things they are doing, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello) referred, become public knowledge?

[Mr Reed]

My hon. Friend makes a pertinent point, and I agree with him. There is certainly a case for consumer power in those countries influencing those countries, but the key is to persuade them of the need to change. Indeed, there are campaigns on the ground in those countries which we can support.