Tibet

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Wednesday 10th December 2014 Westminster Hall

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Owen. I can do the maths. I congratulate the hon. Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton) on battling against his health to be here today for a long overdue and important debate. It is right that the House has an opportunity to express solidarity with Tibetans and to question the continued oppression in the Tibetan autonomous region and of Tibetans across the world at the hands of the Chinese. I cannot rival his Jewish-Buddhist perspective or the number of times he has met His Holiness the Dalai Lama. I have only had the opportunity to meet him twice. I have not been able to go to Tibet, but I have travelled to Dharamsala and met many members of the Tibetan community there and heard the appalling stories they have to tell us. At the outset, I pay tribute to the Tibet Society and in particular to Philippa Carrick. It does fantastic work in keeping the flame of hope lit and the flag flying for the Tibetan cause in this country and beyond. I declare an interest as an officer of the all-party group for Tibet. I welcome the Minister, who has shown a genuine interest in this cause in the past, and I am sure he will be listening carefully to what everyone has to say.

The hon. Member for Leeds North East rightly said that today was an appropriate day for the debate, as it is human rights day, but it is also 25 years since the Tiananmen Square massacre, which is another reminder of China’s inability to allow free speech and expression within its borders. I am particularly concerned—I will not go into the detail of all the cases that he articulated—that the situation has been getting worse over the past six years, since the Beijing Olympics. There have been severe security crackdowns and restrictions on freedom of expression, religion, movement and assembly. The climate within the Tibetan autonomous region can be likened to that of a military occupation. I do not think it alarmist to say that the Chinese Government have effectively created a climate of fear within Tibet. They strive to regulate virtually every aspect of public and private life in order to crush any form of dissent against Community party rule.

There has also been a dramatic expansion in the powers of China’s policing and military apparatus in Tibet. As the hon. Gentleman said, many Tibetans in exile report that they cannot talk to their families in Tibet on the phone because of the danger they might be put in through that contact.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

The hon. Gentleman is outlining the deteriorating situation regarding Tibet and China, but does he agree that as a society and a Government, we have to analyse the benefits of the UK-China human rights dialogue to see whether it is productive? It would appear that it was productive in the past in trying to de-escalate tensions between the United Kingdom and China. Should we analyse its benefits for the future?

[Tim Loughton]

Of course dialogue is best, but dialogue needs to take place on both sides. Everyone with an interest in Tibet needs to be given the freedom to express themselves in a peaceful way, and the Tibetans just have not been given that privilege within their borders or in other parts of the world. The Chinese Government, with their tentacles even in this country, try to suppress people who plead the cause for freedom of expression and freedom of movement for the Tibetan people. We need to adopt the guise of a critical friend and be in dialogue with China. We have much to benefit from trade and engagement with China, but it does not serve that cause or the cause of democracy that we hold so dear in this place if we turn a blind eye to the blatant suppression of the rights of millions of people who happen to live in part of what is China. It serves no purpose for what we are here to do if we carry on regardless. As a critical friend, dialogue is everything, but remember that some people are put in prison for trying to exercise just that right.

I am concerned about the escalation of surveillance and the issuing of propaganda by the Chinese within Tibet. They sent thousands of Chinese officials to carry out surveillance and what they call “political education”, and to disseminate propaganda. The example of forming a “correct view of art” shows how China’s tentacles go into every element of Tibetan society. The Chinese authorities have deemed it a counter-terrorism drive and, under that guise, they have organised large-scale military drills and intensified border security, and are holding training exercises for troops on responding to self-immolations and dealing with problems in monasteries—despite the absence of violent insurgency in Tibet. All the protests we have seen are peaceful.

Yesterday, the all-party group had a briefing from someone who recently travelled to Tibet and was allowed in as a tourist. Some of the worrying accounts he gave us of everyday life for Tibetans in their country are worth recounting. He had a Tibetan driver with a Tibetan car. There are fantastic new roads across the Tibetan autonomous region. In my constituency, we would die for such roads and the lack of congestion. The speed limit for Tibetans is 40 kph. Their arrival and departure from certain towns is closely monitored to see whether they have exceeded the speed limit. They are prosecuted or under fear of prosecution if there is any minor infraction of that speed limit, yet someone with Chinese plates is allowed to go a bit faster, it would appear. Police checkpoints are littered liberally across those roads, in the middle of nowhere—for what purpose?

Huge urbanisation is going on in the Tibetan autonomous region and, worryingly, most of the new businesses springing up are Chinese-owned. All the road signs are in Chinese, with the Tibetan language version in a small font underneath. People are unlikely to get work with Chinese businesses unless they speak Chinese, even within Tibet. We saw photographs of drones surveying monasteries across Tibet in a rather sinister way. We saw security cameras disguised as prayer wheels within monasteries and towns. We saw what Lhasa has become: a much changed place, I am sure, from when the hon. Member for Leeds North East visited some eight and a half years ago. For what is a holy place for many Tibetans is a sprawling modern city with the ubiquitous cloud of pollution overhanging it, as we see in so many parts of China. The region is home to some 3 million Tibetans, but receives approximately 13 million Chinese visitors. There has been huge immigration of Han Chinese into Tibet, swamping the language and culture and trying to dilute Tibet’s history by sheer weight of numbers. It happens day in, day out, and Tibetans have to suffer this oppression with a depressed resignation that can be seen in the faces of the people in the photographs and film we were shown.

Surveillance happens not only in person, but online. Reprisals are likely following searches for subjects such as “democracy”, “the Dalai Lama” and “Tiananmen square”. State censorship and the suppression of free expression are widespread across China, but since the protests that broke out across Tibet in March 2008, the Chinese Government have strengthened attempts to impose an information black-out across Tibet. That it is an offence to display the Tibetan flag—even a digital image on a mobile phone—because it is deemed to be a separatist activity punishable with a prison sentence, shows just how paranoid the Chinese have become. Singing a song can lead to a jail sentence. People who were legitimately protesting online about abuses in the fur trade earlier this year have also ended up in jail. It is an outrage that people suffer persecution and torture in prison and are then released before they die so they are not deemed to have died from their injuries in jail.

This House has a duty to flag up the abuse suffered by one of the most peace-loving peoples I have ever come across. To liken the Dalai Lama to a terrorist is quite extraordinary when he has spent his life preaching peace and harmony between peoples around the globe. He stands for freedom of worship and of expression. The Tibetans’ struggle for their culture, language, heritage and soul is one we have a duty to do everything we can to support.

I will end on the chilling note that the suppression is not only happening in Tibet. The tentacles of the Chinese Government reach into other Governments and local authorities and within education establishments and universities. I am particularly worried about the Confucius institutes or cultural centres that are co-operating with universities across the world. They have discriminatory hiring practices and seek to impose censorship on topics such as human rights, the Tiananmen Square massacre and any dialogue about Tibet. We must seek out, expose and resist such censorship of our freedom to speak out. When I was a Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), who cannot be here today, and I were warned off meeting the Dalai Lama at a private lunch because it might upset the Chinese—tough. We need transparency of dialogue and to be able to speak freely. When speaking freely in the House, we must say loud and clear that the Tibetan people’s struggle is a struggle for democracy and free speech in which all of us have an interest.

Government Strategy Against IS

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Friday 12th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I certainly share the hon. Gentleman’s horror at the ready accessibility of those images. He will understand that there are practical challenges in any Government anywhere in the world trying to control the internet. I will write to him about the specifics.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

As I found in my briefings in Jordan a few weeks ago, the border between Iraq and Syria has disintegrated. I saw freely moved weapons captured from the Iraqi army going straight into Syria. Last year, I did not support intervention in Syria. The challenge now is very different, with a clear enemy and clarity as to who our allies are. May I implore the Minister to ensure that for as long as we have clear achievable objectives, we keep all options open, because Syria and Iraq cannot be dealt with in isolation, just as ISIL cannot?

[Mr Lidington]

At the moment, no decision on British military intervention has been taken. All options remain open and nothing has yet been definitively ruled out. We do indeed need to see a process that eradicates the threat from ISIL across the region, not just within the recognised borders of Iraq. I say again that this could never be a matter simply of military action achieving miracles on its own. There has to be an inclusive political process within the region and there needs to be humanitarian assistance for the people who are in such desperate need.

Protecting Children in Conflict

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Thursday 3rd July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

The whole House will be grateful to the hon. Member for East Lothian (Fiona O'Donnell) for initiating this debate on protecting children in conflict. She was right to deal with the Palestinian situation, but I will not follow her example in any detail as I do not want to get involved in the debate about the rights and wrongs of the Palestinian issue, except for noting the suffering of both the Palestinian people and the Israeli people in a very difficult conflict.

I want to make some general remarks about how the British Government could try to improve the protection of children in conflict areas, particularly when it comes to education. Education is the subject on which I want to focus and I would be grateful if the Minister could deal with that problem when he replies.

I should perhaps declare a family interest. I am speaking today because both my elder daughters work for charities in Africa and have worked in Kenya, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic. They keep me informed of their work and what is going on and, a few years ago, I visited the Congo with War Child to look at the appalling privations that children faced, particularly because of the conflict and the use of child soldiers. My visit had a deep impact on me and I am sure that, even despite all the excellent work of my hon. Friend the Minister and other Ministers in the FCO and DFID, there is still more that we can do.

As I say, I want to concentrate on education, but why are children particularly vulnerable? It is an obvious point, but they are vulnerable because they are young. When a three-year-old loses their parents in a bomb attack, it is virtually impossible for them to survive alone. If a 25-year-old loses a parent, it is a tragedy, but they can survive. It is right that the House should focus particularly on the appalling impact of conflict on children, which is much greater than its impact on mature people.

Of course, children suffer appalling and severe trauma from witnessing events. They do not have the life experience or emotional maturity to integrate a particular scene into the rest of their life. We have been brought up in a very comfortable environment, but we all know how even quite small events from our childhood can have a traumatic effect later on. Imagine a child in a conflict situation witnessing their mother being raped or their brother being dragged off as a child soldier or witnessing murders or the appalling scenes that have happened in Syria. That trauma will live with those children for ever.

Children are targeted in conflict situations for sexual attacks. Girls and boys make up more than half the rape cases in such conflicts and that is an appalling statistic. Imagine the appalling emotional trauma of that. Children are also targeted by military groups that are keen to expand their ranks quickly and we have seen that in particular over the years in Congo. As I know from my visit to the Congo and as we all know, it is appalling to talk to former child soldiers who have been dragged into these events. They have committed terrible things and terrible things have happened to them, sometimes when they are just 13 or 14-years-old.

War destroys livelihoods, and children are often seen as a way for distressed families to get income. Girls can be married early for a price or used as sex workers and boys can be sent out to work in fields and factories or to collect rubbish from the streets. I occasionally visit the middle east, and we see the desperate struggle for survival, particularly for Syrian refugees in Lebanon or Jordan when there is no social security available to any significant extent. In conflict situations, families are desperate to survive, and we all know that children have to be used as part of that.

The point I want to stress and focus on for the rest of my speech is that it is children and not adults who lose their opportunity for education. Once that opportunity is lost, it is lost for ever and can never be repeated. Education is essential for children and particularly for children in conflict areas. It is a life chance that comes only once and a reasonable level of education is even more important for children who will be expected to build a peaceful recovery from conflict. Education keeps children safe. Obviously, if a child is in a school or in an educational environment, it is less likely that they will be married early, raped, abducted or recruited by armed groups. All that is much more unlikely when schools are open.

Actually, education is prioritised by families in conflict areas. We have seen on television, such as during the Iraq conflicts, and from our own experience how families that are often desperate and have nothing—owning nothing, surviving on nothing—still make the effort to dress their children in immaculate uniforms to walk through bombed-out streets to get school. Education is extraordinarily important for them.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

My hon. Friend makes a compelling case based on his experiences in Africa. It is deeply humbling when we go to developing countries in parts of Africa and elsewhere and see children who have walked miles and miles and miles to attend a classroom where they have no seats, but may have rocks to sit on, if they are lucky, and which have corrugated iron roofs. Their parents have made a contribution out of what limited resources they have, because they absolutely value education as the way out of poverty and conflict. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is deeply humbling for those of us here who take education for granted?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

My hon. Friend has made that point very movingly. We live in such a comfortable environment here where education is, frankly, of a fantastically high standard and is free—paid for by the taxpayer—that we simply do not appreciate the appalling sacrifices made in places where education is not free by parents who have nothing. They make that huge effort to try to educate their children, because they know, as we know, that education is everything.

We can establish a case that education is absolutely vital, therefore, in terms of taking children out of conflict situations and giving them life chances. So, having made that case, we would expect it to be prioritised by humanitarian agencies and Governments, but analysis of the 2013 United Nations appeal tracking data shows that only 1.9% of UN humanitarian appeal funds went to education. That seems to me to be very low, and I was surprised when I saw that. I cannot believe that the figure is so low, but that is what I have been told. Donors simply did not prioritise that part of the UN appeals.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I am delighted to follow the very thoughtful contributions made to the debate so far. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for East Lothian (Fiona O'Donnell) for making it possible, and I apologise for missing the very first part of her speech. I was talking about conflict and children in another context elsewhere. I had not anticipated taking part in this debate, but such is its importance that I want to pick up on some of the points made by previous speakers and draw on my own experiences of visiting conflict zones.

This is, of course, a timely debate, for the most tragic of reasons. The images we saw from Palestine earlier this week of the three Israeli children who became victims of war starkly brought home to us the ghastly things and tragedies that are occurring daily in other parts of the world. Another image that brought that home was that of the Nigerian girls, who were the subject of last night’s excellent debate—of which I read, but, alas, was not part—led by the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown). For hundreds of girls to be taken by terrorists from their schools, where they expected to be educated and to do all the things our children take for granted, and for their lives now to be in the balance—they have perhaps already been sold into the sex trade or whatever, because such threats have been made under the nose of that country’s Government—is absolutely alarming.

So alarming is that situation that we now have to talk about “safe schools”. Schools should be places of safety. When we send our children off to school, we expect them to be looked after and safeguarded. The fact that terrorists can make them pawns in some misguided holy war—that is how they try to portray their terrorism—is quite inconceivable to us today.

A third image that sends a chill down all our spines was one I saw on a news report from the conflict involving the so-called ISIS forces in Iraq: on the back of a pick-up were two boys, who could not have been more than 10 years old, with two AK47s and belts of ammunition to go with them. Those 10-year-olds are combatants of war, who have been expected to join, and coaxed and promoted into, the front line of the ghastly and misguided conflict in that country. We recently debated an amendment to the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill—I supported the amendment, which was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois)—to make sentencing mandatory for 16 to 18-year-olds caught in unlawful possession of a knife as a second offence. That is something pretty ghastly in this country, but to have children routinely taking AK47s into places of conflict perhaps puts it into context.

Those three images starkly portray the tragedy that we are debating today, but they are of course the tip of the iceberg, as are the 250,000 children—surely an underestimate—who are child soldiers, including the notorious ones in places such as Uganda. I repeat the tributes paid by all hon. Members to the staff of the NGOs, whom many of us have visited and worked with in places of conflict. They absolutely put their lives on the line to try to protect and to give some safety and security to children who, through no fault of their own, find themselves victims of conflict. I particularly want to repeat the tribute paid by my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) to Rob Williams and the excellent charity, War Child. He does such a good job with that charity, as he previously did with UK-based charities involved with families. Such images haunt all hon. Members and, I am sure, all our constituents.

There are, however, things in which we should take great pride, and I am sure that we will hear more about them when the Minister sums up. As in so many cases, the UK is setting the example—putting its money where its mouth is and leading the world—in trying to turn around the juggernaut of children’s involvement in conflict zones.

The international protocol on the documentation and investigation of sexual violence in conflict, which was launched by the UK, is working to establish international standards to help to strengthen prosecutions for rape in conflict, and it is increasing the prospects for successful convictions. We have got to bring people to book to show that such sexual violence is unacceptable. In whatever part of the world, developed or undeveloped, it must not happen and the perpetrators must not get away with it. We must all work together against the forces of evil who allow it to happen.

[Fiona O’Donnell]

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful speech. In looking at our record on international prosecutions for acts of sexual violence so far, would the suggestion made by one of his colleagues about having a local form of justice, rather the western developed world being seen to impose its standards on other countries, be a better way forward?

[Tim Loughton]

I absolutely agree. If there can be a home-grown solution—so that people have ownership of it, and it can be adapted to their cultures and to the baggage of tribal conflicts, histories and cultural identities that have been asserted through violence—that has to be better. Otherwise, there is a risk that the former colonial power is seen as trying to reassert its ways.

There are some common basic moral standards that we should not resile from asserting in the international context, including that children are children, not young adults to be sent into war zones or to become victims of war in all its ghastly forms. They are children, and we treat children differently—they need our protection and respect—whether they are in Khartoum, Boston, Worthing, East Lothian or anywhere else in the world. We should not resile from the expression of such international values, in which we should take pride.

The Government have already committed to providing more than £140 million to the survivors of sexual violence and their supporters. In the context of the many victims of historical cases of horrendous sexual abuse that have recently hit the headlines in the United Kingdom, a key factor is making sure that victims who have had the bravery to come forward get the support they need in order to come to terms with the trauma that befell them, often as children. In this debate, we are talking about victims who have perhaps seen their parents gruesomely killed in front of them, their homes burned, their sisters raped, or their brothers, sisters and school friends kidnapped and taken off into slavery or the sex trade. These children need our support, and they need rehabilitation to get over traumas caused by what happened in front of their eyes, which is why that project is so important. The Government have also called for all soldiers and peacekeepers to be trained not only to understand the gravity of sexual violence in conflict, but to help to prevent it and to protect people. Those are all practical measures that we can sometimes overlook.

The Government, particularly the Foreign Secretary, should be given great credit for the great initiative of the global summit to end sexual violence in conflict—quite rightly, it hit the media, including our television screens—which he co-hosted with the special envoy Angelina Jolie last month in the east end of London. It brought together more than 140 countries and more than 900 experts, making it the biggest global meeting ever convened on the issue. Let us hope that it was not just a talking shop, but that delegates from nations where such violence happens daily could take comfort, ideas and support, could make contacts and could engage with projects that will help them in the future.

The preventing sexual violence initiative—again, the Government are spearheading it—aims to strengthen and support international efforts to respond to sexual violence in conflict, including by enhancing the capacity of countries, institutions and communities to support survivors and to end impunity for perpetrators. A team of UK experts has been deployed to conflict-affected countries at the heart of the problem, such as Libya, Syria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Mali, to name but a few. The initiative provides good practical experience, and we should be proud that DFID, our Foreign Office and this Government are pioneering, leading and setting such an example on the global stage.

Education is absolutely vital in all this, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) mentioned. That is why I welcome DFID’s pledge that by 2015 it will spend half of its direct educational aid on unstable or war-torn countries where more than two fifths of the world’s out-of-school children are found and where a lack of education can contribute directly to conflict. In such a revolving doors scenario, kids are indoctrinated to hate other kids and families from other tribes and religions in other parts of the country. If they are brought up to accept that as normal, it is little surprise that they are susceptible to taking up arms when a conflict happens. We have to start at the beginning, by educating against conflict and the mentality of vehement retaliation right at the outset. Education is so important. The United Kingdom’s commitment of up to £300 million for the Global Partnership for Education over the next four years is therefore particularly welcome.

Many children out of school are marginalised and hard to reach, and nearly half of them live in fragile and conflict-affected areas. Marginalisation affects children right through the education system, from early education to university level. In post-conflict environments and fragile states, getting children back into school and addressing out-of-school youth, some of whom may have been child soldiers or refugees themselves, helps to bring back a sense of equity, justice and cohesion to what can be a fractured society. That has to be the start.

Girls’ education is a big issue. The girls’ education challenge will give up to 1 million of the world’s poorest girls the opportunity to improve their lives through education. The point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford was important: if more women were doing the educating—and, indeed, the negotiating before or after a conflict, as well—there might be a better chance of avoiding the worst excesses of conflict in the first place.

We will perhaps think of places such as Afghanistan, where under the Taliban regime girls were excluded from education. Despite all the horrors that have taken place in that country, one great success that we should never cease to emphasise is that so many young women and girls in Afghanistan now have the opportunity to get an education in school and to go on to university. We should never underestimate the importance of that. However, there are other countries, which are not in such familiar conflict zones, where young women do not get access to education. There is so much more to do, particularly in parts of Africa. That is why DFID’s priority of concentrating aid on getting more girls into education across the world is a good one that many of us can support.

I have seen projects in places such as Ghana. In my constituency, I run the EYE project—it stands for Eco, Young and Engaged—and every year we have an eco-summit; recently we had our seventh. A very enthusiastic local man called Jib Hagan runs a charity called CARE—Collecting and Recycling Ecologically. He collects old computers that are being thrown out by local schools and businesses, takes them to Ghana and puts them in schools, pre-loaded with lots of information about how to be more environmentally friendly, how girls can get better education, engagement in the democratic process and so on. In return, he brings back lots of wonderful shopping bags made from old plastic carrier bags by some of the kids and the families out there.

A few years ago, we did a satellite link-up with the British Council between one school in a very impoverished area whose pupils were using those computers and the 250 local kids at my eco-summit. Incredibly, the technology worked. British kids and Ghanaian kids in completely contrasting environments spoke to each other, and understood and empathised with one another. It was a wonderful moment. To see the advantage that a bit of old technology that we were throwing out had brought to those kids—it was going to transform their educational opportunities and, I hope, keep that country out of conflict—was deeply humbling, and a very proud moment for those of us who had helped to make it happen.

Girls’ education is a particularly important part of preventing conflict in the future. I will draw on a couple of examples. I do not need to go over all the statistics about what is happening in Syria at the moment, but there are now 2.3 million children in Syria who are out of school or at risk of dropping out of school. Many hundreds of thousands are refugees outside Syria, as well. I am due to visit some Syrian refugee camps in Jordan later this month—they are vast camps—just as some years ago in Syria I visited what was then the largest refugee camp run by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in the world. It was for Iraqis fleeing conflict who had gone to Damascus. I saw the great efforts of the UNHCR and other charities, which were trying to make sure that there was some normality in the lives of those kids. Getting some ongoing education for them was absolutely key. We must make sure that children who are displaced because of the horrible war dragging on in Syria can at least have some semblance of a normal childhood by continuing some form of education. The crisis in Syria has placed many women and girls at risk of violence, exploitation and insecurity. We often forget that.

Drawing on some of my previous trips, the very first parliamentary delegation that I went on, some 15 or so years ago, was to Ethiopia. That country had been riven by civil war under a particularly nasty Marxist regime. People had been driven out of their properties and sexual violence was part of the conflict. I remember visiting the Fistula hospital in Addis Ababa. It is a charity set up by some wonderful medics, where visiting clinicians go to help out. Daily I saw 12-year-old, 13-year-old and 14-year-old women—in some cases they had walked hundreds of miles—who had had bad experiences of giving birth because they had been too young. They were victims either of conflict, of misguided forced marriage or of being raped, effectively under the noses of their families in their villages, and had then been cast out. The only sanctuary and help they could get was by walking literally hundreds of miles to that wonderful hospital in Addis Ababa. The war in Ethiopia did huge damage but the country is, I hope, on a better path now.

I visited schools in the drought-affected areas, and, as I said earlier, kids were walking 10 miles or more each day to and from their homes to attend school, because it was such a big deal. They loved it. Nobody was playing hooky there; no truancy officer was needed. They went to school because their parents wanted them to go, as they could see it was a good thing. The kids themselves wanted to go to school and get an education, because that was their ladder out of poverty. It would stop them getting sucked into the conflict that so often happens in these impoverished zones, where people will fight over a little dustbowl of land.

I remember going to Mozambique—again, a country riven by vicious civil war over many, many years. There were many displaced kids who had fled parts of Mozambique and had gone to what they thought was the relative safety of South Africa, but had ended up in the sex trade. I worked with some hugely dedicated charities in Mozambique that were trying to rescue those kids.

A few years ago I went to Tajikistan, where I was taken to a school in Duschanbe, because I wanted to see some of the refugees from Afghanistan—there were a lot of them there. They asked me to give a class to kids of all different ages. They spoke wonderful English and were really enthusiastic about being there. They were there because they had been driven out of Afghanistan. There had been a big spate of kidnappings: brothers and sisters had been kidnapped; indeed, the teacher’s own children had been kidnapped and she had never seen them again. Tajikistan was giving them sanctuary, and had given them a school and some teaching resources, because the way forward is education.

There are many other subjects that we could mention in this debate. Forced marriages are another form of conflict, frankly. Female genital mutilation, of which we have been hearing so much recently, is another form of violence inflicted on children. It is not acceptable in the modern world, and we should not be afraid of saying so, whatever cultural differences might separate us from those people who say it is all right. It is not all right. It is not acceptable in this day and age. It is violence against girls and women.

There is no excuse for children being caught up in war and conflict. Children are different and special, and as adults we have a duty to do whatever we can to protect them, in this country or in any far-flung corner of the globe in which they are involved in conflict. In many of the countries that we are talking about, almost half the population is under the age of 18, so we are talking about huge numbers of people who are the future of those countries. If we do not get it right for those war-torn countries now, we will not get it right in the future. If they get back on the road to peace and prosperity, their kids might at last get an education and a chance to prosper.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 8th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Swire]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We got through the resolution that we wanted. The Prime Minister showed tremendous leadership on this. We were completely vindicated in our decision to go to the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting—my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary included—because had we not gone there, we would not be in the position that we are today. Now that the international community has spoken through the United Nations Human Rights Council, it is important that the Government in Colombo listen to what has been said and what is asked of them, and that we can conduct an investigation through the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to make that country a better place for all.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

Will the Minister also maintain the robust approach to human rights abuses in Tibet with the UK-China human rights dialogue coming up, and will he press the Chinese for a date for the visit to Tibet and China by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, to which China has agreed?

[Mr Swire]

We are of course looking forward to the human rights dialogue with the Chinese, for which a date will be forthcoming shortly. It is worth saying that the new configuration of the Human Rights Council means that it is less prepared to support country mandates, because re-elected along with the United Kingdom were Russia, China and Cuba.

Persecution of Christians

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon]

As this debate develops, the Minister or his civil servants will frantically write down the answers to these questions. I have a number of questions as well. I am sure the scribes in the corner will be writing furiously throughout the debate; I hope I was not insulting them by calling them scribes.

Those who drafted our international human rights clearly saw the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief as key to the inherent dignity of the human person and that it was important to protect it at all times. We should afford it the same weight; that is where we are coming from. To this end, I am pleased that the United Kingdom Government have designated the right to freedom of religion or belief as one of the top human right priorities for their foreign policy. We understand that to be the case and hope to hear it confirmed at the end of our debate. Will the UK Government agree that this right should be protected and promoted by all Governments worldwide? That is another question.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is being very generous in giving way, and what he is saying and some of the cases he is highlighting are deeply alarming. What I am particularly alarmed about is some of the instances he has mentioned within the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth is a huge broad church of different faiths, beliefs and religions and we are a family. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we should be using the Commonwealth more to promote freedom of worship, as we do poverty alleviation and education, so that Commonwealth countries can promote that among non-Commonwealth countries in the particular parts of the world where they are located?

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for those very honest and true words, which every one of us can take on board and believe in. I hope we can exert pressure, including through our membership of the Commonwealth, to try to exact change.

This Government are keen to pursue closer financial relations with China and there is nothing wrong with that. The benefits were outlined in the papers today, as were the pictures of the Prime Minister, but there are 100 Christian Church pastors in prison today because they are Christians—because they have a belief.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Hugh Robertson]

As the hon. Gentleman is no doubt aware, this complicated case stretches back many years. If I am correct, the trial was in December 2001—more than a decade ago. It is further complicated by the fact that there are intelligence implications and a read-across to other cases in Cuba. The UK has no direct locus in this case as it exists between the US and Cuba. If the hon. Gentleman has information that should have been made available about the case, I suggest it is made available to US judicial authorities as a matter of urgency.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

9. What his priorities are for reform of the terms of UK membership of the EU.

[Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)]

10. Which EU powers and competences he plans to renegotiate back to the UK.

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)]

In his speech at the beginning of the year the Prime Minister set out five principles for real change in the EU: global competitiveness, democratic legitimacy, powers flowing back to nation states, flexibility, and fairness between eurozone and non-eurozone. Those are our priorities for reform.

[Tim Loughton]

Does my right hon. Friend acknowledge that the great majority of those reforms, and those set out in the Fresh Start project manifesto and others, can be achieved without treaty change, and that when we make it clear that the new reformed EU that most of us want to achieve is not just a case of promoting little-Englander interests, but rather trying to achieve a sustainable outward-looking, globally competitive EU for the benefit of all 28 nations, we increasingly find that we are pushing at an open door?

[Mr Hague]

I warmly welcome the useful contribution that Fresh Start has made to the debate on EU reform, and I think my hon. Friend puts it extremely well. Indeed, many other countries are now also seeing that it is time to move on to new arguments and a new perspective on the European Union. For instance, following their investigation into subsidiarity, the Dutch Government said it should be ensured that EU action is taken only where necessary, with national action always pursued where possible.

Middle East Peace Process/Syria and Iran

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

As the hon. Gentleman will understand, we have not yet discussed the full range of global affairs during the meetings that we have had so far. Those meetings have concentrated on the nuclear issue, on Syria, and on bilateral relations. However, the appointment of the non-resident chargés that I have announced today will allow us to discuss with Iran a greater range of issues of mutual concern. Nothing is excluded from that, and what is happening in areas such as west Africa could well be legitimate topics for discussion.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I share the Foreign Secretary’s cautious optimism, given the not inconsiderable progress that has been achieved in the middle east since he last made a statement to the House. No little credit for that progress should be laid at the door of my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt).

Without being starry-eyed, as the Foreign Secretary put it, may I suggest that one area in which we can pursue issues of mutual concern, particularly with the ordinary people of Iran, is the hard-drugs trade? Many Iranians are now heroin addicts, and many have been killed at the hands of drug barons controlling drug paths in the north of the country. When I visited the country a few years ago, we had seconded to it Metropolitan police officers with expertise in drugs, who were doing some great work that was of mutual benefit. Is that not one of the routes through which we could open up an early relationship with Iran?

[Mr Hague]

Yes, it is. My hon. Friend makes an important point. Combating that trade is in the interests of both countries. I hope that it will be one of the issues of mutual concern that we address at an early stage.

Syria

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

That is a good point. It will be very important, exactly as the hon. Lady says, for there to be safe access. That might open up other opportunities, but it remains to be seen. It is very important that all our work to improve humanitarian access continues in parallel with that to deal with the chemical weapons. We do not yet have an agreement—we are still some way away from one—on how and whether this can be done, so I think the hon. Lady is getting ahead of where we are in negotiations, but this is a question that we will certainly keep in mind.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

Whatever side of the argument we are on, I am sure my right hon. Friend will agree that things have moved on substantially since the debate a couple of weeks ago, not least with the emergence of Russia as an active player, rather than a constant blocker of any settlement. What does he think has brought about Russia’s change of heart, although we are yet to see the genuineness of its actions as opposed to its words?

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend is right that Russia’s proposals on Monday were a very important change of approach. That is particularly apparent to me, given that I have on several occasions over the past couple of years discussed with Russian representatives whether there is a way of working together on the chemical weapons in Syria. It has always been the Russian position hitherto that the Assad regime would not use its chemical weapons—it did not expect it to use them. I think that the mounting evidence that the regime has used those weapons and the discussions, particularly those in the United States, about whether to take military action have produced a change in the Russian position. Whatever the motives and reasons for that, we should nevertheless welcome it and work with it, which is what we are now seeking to do.

European Union (Referendum) Bill (Money)

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 16th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mike Gapes]

Yes, I will, before I quote her.

[Tim Loughton]

I have been listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman. He might like to take the opportunity, before he ends, to mention the money resolution which is supposed to be the subject of this debate. So far he has not done so.

[Mr Speaker]

It is not necessary to repeat the refrain “money resolution” so long as the content of the remarks of an hon. Member relates clearly to the purpose of the resolution. I have been attending closely to the hon. Gentleman’s expatiations and so far he has met the criterion. I do not want him to depart from the path of virtue as he nears his end.

European Union (Referendum) Bill

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Friday 5th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. Actually, I think the British people know the issues now. They understand the issues that confront Europe, and I am not sure that a public education campaign is what they need, as long as we are committed to reform, and to changing the way in which the European Union operates. There is much that we need to change on the justice and home affairs agenda, for example, including measures on the European arrest warrant and on the way in which countries such as Greece have to deal with illegal migration. There are so many other areas that we need to look at. We can be part of that process as we go along within the European Union; we do not need to have a separate set of negotiations. The only way, in my view, that we can do this is to put the matter to the EU now.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Keith Vaz]

Yes, but many Members want to speak, so I give way for the last time.

[Tim Loughton]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman and I praise him for the candour of his approach to this debate. We all agree that reform is needed, but the British public need to be sure that sufficient reform is going to take place if we are to stay within the EU. Does he agree that having a referendum after the renegotiation has happened will absolutely crystallise in the minds of the rest of the EU member states the fact that we are absolutely serious that the current position is just unsustainable?

[Keith Vaz]

I think the member states know that the current situation is unsustainable and that they understand that we want change. The Prime Minister has made that clear every time he goes to a summit meeting of the European Union. I do not know whether the Minister for Europe has a row with his colleagues every time he goes to the General Affairs meetings, but the fact is that the Prime Minister always comes back to this House to make his statement after a European summit and says that he has confronted colleagues so that they know where Britain stands.

I think that the major political parties should be publishing their manifestos for reform. Frankly, we do not know what they are. I think we should be very clear about what we want to change about the European Union—and we can put that into operation now rather than having to wait.

My final point is that I hope nobody votes against this private Member’s Bill. I hope that it will go through unanimously and that nobody will seek to divide the House. That would send a powerful message that all parties believe that there is a case for the British people to make a decision. If we do that, it will mean that people will trust us even more than they do at the moment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Martin Horwood]

The point is that we can be in favour of reform, but not necessarily make that conditional on referendums. If we read the Prime Minister’s speech carefully, we can see that Liberal Democrats would disagree with very little of what he actually wanted to change in Europe. Indeed, we would enthusiastically support much of the reform agenda. We have gone along with Conservative colleagues in supporting the Government’s review of the balance of competences. I think that is a very important process, and I think it is an absolutely correct one to carry out, but I also think it was ill-judged to attach a time bomb to all this and say that unless we get what we want we will do this or that, and to try to negotiate on a unilateral basis. It is important now to try to achieve these reforms on a multilateral basis by co-operation with other European partners.

I was explaining some of the political background of the Conservative party’s position. In the 1990s John Major was in favour of a referendum, but only on membership of the euro. By 2001, that had changed and then we had an evolution of a policy that was really about—

[Tim Loughton]

rose—

[Martin Horwood]

I had better not give way repeatedly, but I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman for one final time.

[Tim Loughton]

I am sorry that the leader of the hon. Gentleman’s party was not able to flip a few lentil burgers last night to entice more of his colleagues to take part in this important debate. Will he just clarify his position? In the highly unlikely event that we have a Liberal Democrat Government after the next election, and this Bill, as is most likely, has been passed in this Parliament, would they abolish the undertakings that this Bill would give to tie us to a referendum, and thus give the British people a say at last?

[Martin Horwood]

I have already spelled out very clearly our position, which is exactly the same one as we took at the time of the Lisbon treaty and of the last election: at a time of treaty change, fundamental change or a transfer of power from the British to the European level, we would want an in/out referendum, and we would legislate to make that possible in the event of our having a majority in Parliament.

The Conservative position has flip-flopped dramatically. The position in the Conservative manifesto was enacted in the European Union Act 2011, yet within a year and a few months the Prime Minister was expounding a completely different position. Even that has changed between his speech and this Bill, because the question has changed from whether to remain in the European Union to whether to be in the European Union. [Interruption.]