The Gulf

Tobias Ellwood Excerpts

Wednesday 4th May 2016 Westminster Hall

[Andy Slaughter]

I think you will forgive me, Mr Nuttall, if I do not stray into talking about Bloody Sunday this morning. The hon. Gentleman will have the opportunity to make his points in his own way. I am simply setting out these matters, perhaps as a correction to others that will be raised this morning, and I think that is perfectly legitimate and reasonable. Of course we must have a relationship with countries overseas whose human rights records do not match our own, and of which we perhaps do not expect exactly the same standards. However, if the hon. Gentleman is saying we should not raise the issues, I cannot entirely agree with him.

To deal briefly with the UAE, the recent case of David Haigh, the former Leeds United managing director—[Interruption.] I am being heckled because I am taking some time. I will take a little more time. I said I would not speak for a long time, Mr Nuttall, but if I continue to be interrupted, perhaps I shall speak for rather longer. We will see where that goes. I think, particularly given that the Foreign Office did not address the matter in its human rights report, that it is worth putting it on record. Again, I will simply read some headlines. The first is from The Law Society Gazette: “Solicitor claims he was tortured in Dubai jail”. Another headline reads: “Businessmen held in UAE were tortured into confessions, says UN report”. I have mentioned the number of British nationals—37 in the last five years—who have made allegations of torture or mistreatment in detention in the UAE and the fact that there are 27 such detainees there at the moment.

I recently asked the Minister the following questions. Will the Prime Minister review the UK’s special relationship with the UAE in the light of the report by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention calling on the UAE to release several foreign nationals, including from Canada and the US, who it says have been detained arbitrarily, tortured and forced to sign confessions? Will the Government confirm that no further Arab Partnership Participation Fund moneys will be allocated to the UAE by the Foreign Office until a review has been conducted in the light of the recent statement by UN special rapporteur on torture, Professor Juan E. Méndez? His office has received credible information that detainees were tortured and forced to sign confessions, and his request for a country visit to the UAE is outstanding.

I mentioned David Haigh, a former managing director of Leeds United who I think is a member of the Conservative party. He was recently released from a UAE prison and, on returning to the UK, said that he had suffered ill treatment and abuse:

“I was punched around, I was hit, I was tasered. People attempted to sexually abuse me. I now have a problem with my eyes. You are constantly kept in the dark…it damages your eyes.”

He was imprisoned, incidentally, under the cybercrimes law—a particularly Orwellian statute that criminalises electronic abuse. There are well-documented incidents of human rights violations in the UAE.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Tobias Ellwood)]

indicated dissent.

[Andy Slaughter]

The Minister is shaking his head. Will he respond to those incidents?

[Mr Ellwood]

The reason I am shaking my head is that many other Members want to speak. They want to hear what the Minister and, indeed, the Opposition Front-Bench Members have to say on these matters. Your guidance was very clear, Mr Nuttall, on speeches being four minutes. I was shaking my head not about the substance of anything the hon. Gentleman is saying, but because he has now been speaking for 10 minutes.

[Mr David Nuttall (in the Chair)]

I hear what the Minister has to say about the time limit. I am sure that the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) is about to draw his remarks to a swift conclusion. I am loth to impose a formal time limit but, reluctantly, that is what I will have to do. I look forward to hearing the final sentences of the hon. Gentleman’s contribution very shortly.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Tobias Ellwood)]

I am grateful for your chairmanship, Mr Nuttall. Before I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie) on a formidable speech and on securing this debate, as others have done, I thank the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) for a measured and appropriately balanced speech that pressed the Government while illustrating the many areas where there are synergies between what the Government and the official Opposition believe. The Gulf is an important part of the world for us, and we are grateful for the depth of knowledge that she has illustrated today, which underlines why we need to understand the region before we can comment on it.

That takes me nicely to my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West, who articulated the reasons why it is important not only that we debate such matters here, but that Britain continues this vital relationship. She has just come back from a series of visits, and speeches from both sides of the Chamber have reflected the importance of our engaging with and understanding the region. I encourage all hon. Members to do what they can to visit the region as frequently as possible, because that helps to dispel myths and allows us to have the frank conversations that we need in order to advance democracy, human rights and the rule of law—all the things that matter so much.

[Margaret Ferrier]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Ellwood]

I will make some progress first and then, time permitting, I will be delighted to give way. There are a lot of issues to cover, but I will give way if there is time.

I welcome the breadth of knowledge that has been displayed in this debate, and I ask for that to continue. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West spelled out some of the challenges with which the middle east, with its diversity, is having to contend in a modern setting. We have obviously had the Arab spring and its aftermath, and the drop in oil prices is having an enormous effect on all countries in the region. The growth of extremism is hugely challenging in that neck of the woods, and then there is the advance of the internet in a culturally conservative part of the world that is suddenly having to deal with a very liberal way of sharing information and making comment. That has to be mapped out with a growing youth population, which is looking over its shoulder and saying, “We want a very different set of views, values and outlook on life from our parents or the generation before them.”

The Gulf is going through immense challenges, which provides opportunities, but it also means that the Gulf’s friendships outside the region are all the more important. Without mentioning any names, there are other parts of the world that have disengaged somewhat from the middle east, and it is therefore all the more important for us to remember our strong bonds, which are not just about today or about the visits. As has been said, the bonds go back to historical agreements over 200 years that established maritime, trade and diplomatic relationships and allowed us to develop the enormously strong bonds and bilateral ties that are evident today.

The Gulf’s stability is our stability, and we must recognise that the Gulf states have been the custodians of much of the world’s oil and gas supplies in recent decades, helping the world to keep the lights on. The region’s security is tied to our security, but the region’s prosperity is also our prosperity. That was reflected in the last security and defence review, and it has been illustrated today by a number of hon. Members who referred to our commitments from a military perspective right across the Gulf.

However, we also must recognise that it is not just on security and hydrocarbons that we have established strong relationships; our relationships are now diversifying. I can share with the House that we now have six-monthly bilateral working groups with every single Gulf nation—I will go with a team to one of the countries or they will come here. The last one was with Oman, and we go through the entire relationship, from security, defence and hydrocarbons—those norms that we understand—to, now, education: how the British Council can do more work on getting English taught in schools or developing the curriculum. We also discuss how we can help work with police reforms, ombudsmen, processes to allow women’s rights to be established, and so forth.

Many of these things are happening behind the scenes, because that is the way those countries prefer to do business, and we have success; we are able to move forward, which is very positive. I stress to the House that just because people do not see the headlines or hear us shouting out about things, that does not mean they do not happen. That is very important to remember. Any hon. Friends or hon. Members who have taken the time to visit the region will be aware of that themselves.

[Margaret Ferrier]

On that point, there has been much talk today about visiting the region, so will the Foreign Office guarantee my safety if I decide to go and visit Saudi Arabia?

[Mr Ellwood]

I am not sure how helpful that comment is. Anybody travelling to the region needs to read the travel advice. I encourage the hon. Lady to go to Saudi Arabia, because—as others have found—she will come back having learned something. She will discover, especially if it is a visit endorsed by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, that she will have access to many of the programmes that are taking place in what is very much a culturally conservative society.

There is a desire in this House for immediate, 21st-century change—to slide across our values, our standards, our processes and our democratic systems all in one. That is not going to happen quickly, in the same way that it did not happen quickly in this country, from giving women the vote to getting rid of slavery. The other day, I went back to my old stomping ground of the London Stock Exchange, where I worked—I made a visit there for a listing that was taking place with Morocco. Women were not allowed on the trading floor in the UK until the 1970s. Our first female ambassador was not appointed until 1976. These things take time.

Of course, in the 21st century we expect countries to take advantage of best practice and of the support and programmes that are available, so that they do not have to take the 800 years that we have taken since Magna Carta to develop the standards that we enjoy today.

[Lady Hermon]

Will the Minister take this opportunity to put on record the gratitude that is felt by a number of countries in the Gulf that have benefited from former members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary—very distinguished members of the RUC, from Northern Ireland—who have gone out to Gulf states and improved their human rights records in policing?

[Mr Ellwood]

The hon. Lady makes a valid point. That is a great example of countries using that experience of dealing with diverse groups and communities that have been broken in the past and that need to heal and move forward. That experience and knowledge can be taken to countries in the Gulf, so that it can be shared. I pay huge tribute to the teams who have gone from Northern Ireland to the Gulf. In fact, it is not only in the Gulf where they are doing such work; they are doing it even further afield. I am grateful to the hon. Lady for making that point and putting it on the record.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

My hon. Friend the Minister was talking about the role of women. Does he agree that the Bahrainis themselves have shown remarkable foresight, as their previous ambassador here was not only female but a Christian? Does that example not illustrate the kind of diversity that we see in Bahrain, which is one of our closest allies and best friends?

[Mr Ellwood]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. Change is happening, but of course we want to increase that change, so we are doing our best to advance it and expedite it. On the Shura council in Saudi Arabia, there were no women before; now there are women on it. In municipal elections, the most recent of which have just taken place, previously there were no women involved; now there are women being elected. In fact, when women were first elected to the Shura council, guess what happened? They were placed behind a glass screen, because the men on the council did not want them in the room. However, the women banged on the glass and said, “We want to be part of the actual debate,” and the chairman had no choice but to invite them in. When I visited Saudi Arabia a couple of months ago, I was delighted to meet some of the women connected with the British relationship—the British grouping—we were all able to sit in the same room together and have a conversation. That might seem quite small, but in the period that I have been honoured to have this role, it was an important step to allow those voices to come across.

There is even debate now about women drivers, partly because there is an economic cause. The drop in oil prices means that if a country has a workforce capable of driving, why not take advantage of it? The reasons for such a debate happening are not perhaps the ones we would want, but the fact is that the debate is now happening and that is very much encouraged.

I simply make the point that we have developed the strengths of our democratic society over many, many years, but as nation states the Gulf countries are very new. Saudi Arabia was not really formed, as such, until 1932. Oman and, indeed, the other Gulf nations did not gain their independence until the 1970s. It is from that starting point that those countries then had to develop from a centralised model of governance and move forward to provide change at a pace that is acceptable to their people. If we try to expedite the pace too quickly, we will find that the religiously conservative groups will not accept it, and we will end up seeing what we have seen in Syria taking hold in other parts of the region. That would mean that change had gone too fast to be accepted.

It is important that we stand with the Gulf countries. We encourage change—we do not step back from it at all—and we use the strength of our friendship and the trust bestowed upon us. However, there is also an expectation, because of the depth of the relationship, that we are there with them—that we have these conversations—and we do that better with them, rather than shouting from afar and expecting change to happen.

Many hon. Members have mentioned the challenge of extremism, which is something that Gulf nations are working incredibly hard to address. All the nations in the Gulf are part of the counter-Daesh coalition and are playing a formidable role in providing funds to tackle the movement of foreign fighters, in making efforts to stop the flow of money that is going into Daesh accounts and in helping with humanitarian support. All the Gulf nations have taken refugees, but again that is not shouted about perhaps as much as one would anticipate.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West mentioned the Sawab centre and the Hedayah centre, which are important aspects of allowing imams—the grand muftis and so forth—to recognise that there is a responsible way of preaching the Koran and of ensuring that the word of Allah is shared correctly, because it is among the vulnerable where Islam is misused, with the false promise of paradise that then encourages people to become suicide bombers and continue extremism. The United Arab Emirates is doing an incredible job in challenging extremism as it grows.

Time is against me, so I will end shortly, because I want to give my hon. Friend at least a minute to comment on this debate. I will just say, finally, that our mature relationships with our Gulf partners are deeply rooted in our shared history, and our future security and, indeed, prosperity are closely linked with theirs. The Gulf states have significant regional influence that they can bring to bear on issues that affect our national security, such as regional conflicts and violent extremism, so it is in our national interest to deepen co-operation with them, building on our existing relationships with them to our mutual benefit.