Oral Answers to Questions

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I am delighted about the new investment going into my hon. Friend’s constituency. We have backed the NHS, which will have almost £34 billion a year by 2023-24. There is an extra £1.8 billion going into 20 hospital upgrades, and we are providing £250 million to boost artificial intelligence, so that we can have earlier cancer detection, new dementia treatments and more personalised care. All that would be put at risk by a Labour Government, who would tank the economy.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

Q12.   I recently met a victim of domestic violence who continues to live in isolation and terror, even now that the abusive relationship is over. This Parliament has a duty to her, and to every victim of domestic violence, to pass the Domestic Abuse Bill, which is finally having its Second Reading today. Will the Foreign Secretary promise her that this life-saving legislation will not fall due to Prorogation?

[Dominic Raab]

I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman. Members on all sides of the House want to stand up to, and have absolutely zero tolerance for, any domestic abuse. The best way forward is for us to work together in a collaborative way, which, frankly, we have not seen in recent months and years because of Brexit. That opportunity will come today, when we debate the Domestic Abuse Bill on Second Reading.

Points of Order

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Tuesday 1st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his attempted point of order. I recognise, as many other Members will, that he speaks with very considerable personal knowledge and authority on this subject. If memory serves me correctly, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury said that cancer survival rates were improving. I think that is what he said. The hon. Gentleman has made the point that in respect of the seven most common cancers, the UK is at, or close to, the bottom of a league table. I say with no pleasure that those two statements are not mutually exclusive. However, I recognise that in the context of what is a point of debate, he was very concerned to put his thoughts on the record. He has done so, and that record is there to be studied by people within the House and outside it. I thank him for what he has said.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. We are aware that the Government’s major attention at the moment appears to be a couple of hundred miles to the north of where we are, but I do think that if Parliament is sitting and we are going to have urgent questions on matters as crucial as today’s, it is beholden on the Government to ensure that if the Secretary of State is unable to attend, the Minister is given the relevant information to be able to ensure that the exchanges can be performed in a way that actually provides information to people watching these proceedings and, crucially, to Members of Parliament. I do not blame the Minister himself, but on the key factor about what the UK has done either with the Iranians or with the Saudi Arabians, he has not been in a position to respond, and I do think that that diminishes these proceedings. I wonder if you are able to get a message to the Government to ensure that people who come to the Dispatch Box are in a position to be able to respond on the key factors that they are going to be asked about.

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his attempted point of order. The Minister has signalled an interest in responding, and of course I will hear him.

Yemen

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Tuesday 1st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Stephenson]

A large number of investigations have taken place. The Saudi Foreign Minister has been to this House in the past and has answered questions from Members about some of those investigations, and I know that more than 100 have now been brought to a conclusion. Of course we want damage or incidents involving civilian casualties to be investigated very thoroughly, particularly when NGOs or partner organisations are involved, and we ask searching questions about what has gone on in such incidents.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

What the Minister says about the UK calling on all sides to cease the fighting would be more convincing if he was able to tell us whether the Prime Minister mentioned Yemen in his meeting with President Rouhani. I appreciate that the Minister has stepped into the breach somewhat, but that would have been rather a key piece of information to bring to a statement about this conflict. I expect our Government to have relatively limited power with the Houthis and with the Iranians, but we should expect more from the Minister and from this Government in terms of our relationship with the Saudi Arabians. Given that the UK is continuing to trade weapons with the Saudis, can the Minister tell us a little bit more about what success we have had in terms of getting these investigations into breaches of humanitarian law and what actual influence we are having?

[Andrew Stephenson]

There is a range of questions there. I am sure that our Prime Minister raised this in his UN discussions, although I will have to come back to the House on the details. I know that the Foreign Secretary also met his Iranian counterpart at the UN. Between those discussions, I am sure that the situation in Yemen was of course discussed. The UK hosts regular meetings on this between Foreign Ministers in the Quad. We are taking a lead in ensuring that the needs in Yemen are never off the agenda.

Iran

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Wednesday 25th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

We are focused on two things. We are sending a clear message to Iran that its behaviour is unacceptable and that we hold it to account for the attacks on Aramco. As I have said to the House, we will entertain the request from the Saudi Government in relation to air defences as we would from any close ally. Equally, we want to de-escalate the tensions and avoid a military conflagration. Ultimately the best way of achieving that is having the widest international support for the widest measures short of military intervention. That is why yesterday’s statement by the E3 was so significant.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I agree with much of what the Foreign Secretary has said about the appalling role of the Iranians, not just in their own country but across the middle east region. Do not the actions of President Trump and their failure to ensure that the west has influence show that his kind of Twitter diplomacy, far from getting things done, weakens those forces in Iran who want to work with the west and strengthens those forces who want to say the west is the enemy?

[Dominic Raab]

The hon. Gentleman makes some interesting points, and I accept some of his concerns. The international efforts post the G7 summit with President Trump and President Macron, at which my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is at the forefront, to make sure that rather than an EU or US effort we have a broad, international effort, are the way to focus the minds of the hardliners in Tehran.

Oral Answers to Questions

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Tuesday 25th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin]

The UK has shown leadership on that initiative relentlessly since 2014, and I can announce that this November, five years on, we will host a summit to document progress and to highlight the fact that the world needs to continue to focus on this important issue.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

There is considerable potential for trade and for increasing Britain’s soft power in developing our relationship with the Kurdistan region of Iraq. What more can be done to review the Foreign Office security advice on Kurdistan, and can it be viewed differently from the advice relating to wider Iraq?

Oral Answers to Questions

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

I reiterate the earlier comments of my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary. We welcome Sri Lanka’s co-sponsorship of a new resolution of the UNHRC in March, which continues its reconciliation and accountability commitments. However, I understand that my right hon. Friend speaks for many of her constituents who come from the Tamil part of Sri Lanka. As a penholder, the UK has played a leading role in trying to bring the parties together, but while we accept that positive steps have been taken, much faster progress is needed. We shall continue to urge Sri Lanka to implement fully its commitments under UNHRC resolutions 30/1 and 34/1.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

T5. I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. The Foreign Secretary has spoken about the pernicious role of the Iranian Government in various disputes around the middle east, not least in support of the Houthis in Yemen. What more can he tell us about what Britain is doing alongside his counterparts around the world to put serious pressure on the Iranians, not only on human rights abuses in their own country but on the appalling role they play right across the middle east?

[Mark Field]

The hon. Gentleman is right; Iran’s human rights record remains a matter of serious concern. On 17 December, the UK co-sponsored a UN resolution on human rights in Iran, highlighting its failure to meet a whole range of international obligations in that area.

Yemen

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Wednesday 21st November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

The fighting is both the cause and the consequence of falling household incomes. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to draw attention to that. All I would say is that one of the suggestions in the resolution is to get foreign currency back into Yemen, particularly through the payment of civil servants of the Government of Yemen, so we can start to get some money back into the Yemeni economy. Getting some liquidity into people’s pockets is an absolutely key priority.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I commend, as many others have, the work the Foreign Secretary has put in place. I agree entirely with what he says about not wanting to legitimise the original actions of the Houthis that started the conflict. His draft resolution rightly criticises the Houthis by name, but by the same token the Saudi Arabians and UAE are only mentioned in terms of the positive steps they have taken. Across the House, we have been critical of many of the ways the Saudis have conducted this conflict. Can he say why there is not more in the draft resolution about the areas on which the Saudis should rightly be criticised?

[Mr Hunt]

I reassure the hon. Gentleman that there are plenty of things in the draft resolution that are uncomfortable for the Saudis. In fact, it is not clear at this stage whether they will actually support it. What we have to do is bring both sides to the table. We have to recognise that there was an injustice committed by the Houthis that was the start of this conflict, but we also have to recognise that part of the tragedy has been caused by the repeated failure of the Saudi military to conclude military operations in a short timescale, which is what they have always said they would be able to do.

Death of Jamal Khashoggi

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I absolutely agree. Until we get to a place where the Saudi authorities are giving an explanation that they can corroborate and that is consistent with the evidence from other sources, people will continue to ask the questions that my hon. Friend is asking, and we will continue to not feel that we can have confidence that the Saudi authorities understand the gravity of what has happened and will truly make sure that it never happens again.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

Many of us recognise the important strategic and economic relationship that we have with Saudi Arabia but simultaneously believe that its actions in recent months have simply put them beyond the pale. While of course we will allow the Turks to investigate what happened on their land, will the Foreign Secretary say that there is no credibility whatsoever to the suggestion that a 15-man hit squad came from Saudi Arabia and took part in the things that we have heard about but had no links back to Mohammed bin Salman?

[Mr Hunt]

The hon. Gentleman is making the point that many hon. Members have made, which is that the explanations we have had from Saudi Arabia about what happened lack credibility. It is vital that this changes. The world needs to know what is happening, and if the world is to have confidence that Saudi Arabia is reforming and that these kinds of things will never happen again, we need to see a different approach.

Gaza Border Violence

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

Israel makes it very clear that it does seek to abide by international rules-based decisions, but there are areas where we continue to have concerns, whether in relation to settlements or anything else. All I can do is make it very clear to the House and to the hon. Gentleman that we repeat these concerns—we are very direct—and, again, there will be no resolution to this if each side digs in and claims that it is already doing everything it can. There are fundamentals relating to the security of the state of Israel that it will never compromise, but we think that ensuring a better relationship with its neighbours and taking some of the actions urged on it by others is a better way to look to its future defence than the direction it sometimes takes.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

It is grotesque that the Americans are planning to block the independent investigation, but do we not already know that many of the people killed and injured yesterday posed no threat to the Israeli regime? Does the Minister not recognise that, by failing to come to the Dispatch Box and unequivocally condemn the murder of Palestinian citizens that we saw yesterday, he is actually strengthening in the minds of the IDF the idea that we will support the Israelis, even when we see this appalling slaughter?

[Alistair Burt]

No, I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman because I have made it clear that, should there be any investigation and should it be uncovered that any of the deaths or woundings were caused by breaches of international humanitarian law, the United Kingdom will stand four-square for the upholding of international humanitarian law and condemn those who work outside it. However, it is for the very reasons of concern that we have expressed our view about the use of live fire and called for the independent inquiry that we believe is necessary in order to find out precisely what happened. We of course share the concerns about the deaths and woundings that we have seen on film and video.

Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords]

Toby Perkins Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 1st May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I am confident of that, as I will explain further in a moment.

As is traditional on Report, it is important that I explain what the amendments do, if ever so briefly. Amendment 10 relates specifically to putting gross human rights abuses on the face of the Bill as a basis on which sanctions may be imposed. Amendments 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17 are consequential to that, introducing technical changes that will follow. Amendment 13 links the definition of a gross violation of human rights to the existing definition in the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, so that it includes the torture of a person by a public official or a person in an official capacity, where the tortured person has sought to expose the illegal activity of a public official or to defend human rights or fundamental freedoms. That will ensure that all gross human rights abuses or violations are explicitly captured.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

The Minister will not be surprised to know that I fully support the Government in bringing this change forward, as I am sure all Labour Members do, given that we have been asking for it for some time. On the subject of sanctions, will the Government publish the names of those who have been sanctioned under the Bill, notwithstanding what subsection (2) of new clause 3 says about not risking damage to

“national security or international relations”?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

There is an obligation to report, which I will come to in a minute. I would be happy to explain the exact details to the hon. Gentleman, although of course they are still being devised on the back of the obligations laid down in the Bill.

New clause 3 requires reports to be made—this relates to the question that the hon. Gentleman has just asked—about the use of the power to make sanctions regulations, including the specifying of any recommendations made by a parliamentary Committee on the use of that power and the Government’s response. It is right and proper that an independent review of the powers should be carried out by Parliament. This is a strong set of measures to address the Government’s approach to imposing sanctions for human rights abuses, and I would like to put it on record again that the Government are committed to promoting and strengthening universal human rights and holding to account states and individuals who are responsible for the most serious violations.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Margaret Hodge]

Open registers are an essential tool. They are necessary, but they are not sufficient. We also need a strong regulatory framework for the establishment of companies and strong policing arrangements to ensure that the regulations are implemented.

[Toby Perkins]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to pay tribute to Members from all parties, including the Conservative Members who bravely supported her even when the Government attempted to buy them off. On behalf of many Members from different parties, may I say how grateful we are for the tenacity that she has shown and the excellence with which she has pursued this campaign? It shows Parliament in a good light, and the measures that the House is set to approve will do a great deal of good.

[Dame Margaret Hodge]

I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words, but it really has been a team effort, with people from throughout the House and across all the political tribes.

New clause 6 would simply put into legislation proposals that David Cameron first articulated in 2013, when he spoke about ripping aside the “cloak of secrecy” and repeated the well-known mantra, “sunlight is the best disinfectant”. It would do no more and no less than fulfil the commitment made by the then Prime Minister five years ago.

Britain sits at the hub of the world’s largest network of secretive jurisdictions, and British tax havens are central to the movement of illicit moneys around the world. The secrecy under which they currently operate facilitates wrongdoing on an industrial scale. We have a weak regulatory regime, some of which was enacted by the previous Labour Government and needs reform, and sadly we have lax policing of our system. Couple that with the secrecy that prevails, and Britain and our overseas territories have increasingly become the most attractive destination for crooks, kleptocrats and corrupt individuals who engage in financial skulduggery. If we do not accept new clause 6, we will be in danger of sacrificing our traditional reputation as a reliable jurisdiction by our failure to challenge the secrecy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

That is a somewhat tendentious attempt at a point of order, which is rather revealed by the hon. Lady’s grinning visage. The convention in this place is that votes should follow voice. Votes should not be in opposition to voice, but as to how the hon. Gentleman voted I do not know. If the hon. Lady is suggesting that he spoke on the matter in one direction and then did not vote, that is entirely up to the hon. Member. The hon. Member has not behaved improperly. The hon. Member may have irked the hon. Lady, but that is another matter. If it was in relation to an amendment on which there was no vote, there is nothing to be said—that is no matter for the Chair.

[Toby Perkins]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I made the hon. and learned Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox) aware, as is the convention, that I intended to raise a point of order about the fact that he spoke very passionately in favour of the Cayman Islands when he has clearly, according to his own entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, done a lot of work on their behalf. That seems to have given him the opportunity to respond in advance to my point of order. Can you advise me, Mr Speaker, whether, on drawing the attention of the House to a particular entry, it makes any difference if a contribution is an intervention or at the start of a grandiose speech?

[Mr Speaker]

I would not refer to a speech as grandiose—that is the hon. Gentleman’s choice of language—but the short answer is no. If a Member is intervening in a debate, whether by intervention or in the form of a full- blooded speech, the responsibility to declare an interest is unchanged. I feel that the hon. and learned Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox) has clarified the position, which I think is appreciated, and I would like to leave it there. I thank him for what he has said.