Yemen

Tom Brake Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sir Michael Fallon]

I am happy to give my hon. Friend that very specific assurance: no United Kingdom personnel have been involved in the storage, transport, maintenance or deployment of any cluster munitions in Saudi Arabia.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I am sure that everyone in the House would condemn the murder of Saudi civilians as they do Yemeni civilians, but what we are talking about is the sale of UK weapons to Saudi. How many times have cluster munitions been dropped? Have they been dropped on any occasions by UK-supplied aircraft? Is the UK satisfied that all those targets were legitimate military targets, and what was the UK involvement in the targeting?

[Sir Michael Fallon]

We are only aware of this single allegation that has now been fully investigated by the Saudi authorities: a single allegation that cluster munitions were used in this particular incident around the turn of the year. As the Saudis have made clear today, they had been dropped by a coalition aircraft. I am sorry; what was the right hon. Gentleman’s second question?

[Tom Brake]

Is the UK satisfied that all those targets were legitimate military targets and what was the UK involvement in the targeting?

[Sir Michael Fallon]

The Saudi authorities have said today that these munitions were used against a legitimate military target in the border area on the Yemeni side of the Saudi border. On UK involvement, we are not involved in approving or selecting targets for the coalition in Yemen.

Defence Estate

Tom Brake Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

It has been solemnly pointed out to me that the question was some distance from the defence estate. Nevertheless, as I have had reason to observe previously, I am inclined, on the whole, to enjoy the creative licence of the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), provided of course that it is exercised within reasonable limits. He got away with it today.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

Can the Secretary of State assure me that this is not driven solely by the need to raise cash for the MOD and that the armed forces were actively consulted about alternative uses for the land that is being disposed of? Will he use every method of leverage possible to ensure that the homes that are built are affordable, both to buy and to rent? Will he acknowledge the concerns among service personnel about the future accommodation model and the potential impact on some service families?

[Sir Michael Fallon]

First, let me make it very clear to the House that every decision within this strategy is based on military advice—the advice of the service chiefs— as to how we better organise our capabilities. Secondly, in the end it will be for local authorities to rule on the exact proportion of affordable housing, but yes, we need more housing, and more affordable housing, in areas of shortage. Thirdly, we are consulting on the future accommodation model whereby we may be able to help service families in different ways. For example, rather than saying that their only option is to live on the barracks—on the estate—we could consider an option for them to have the money themselves to rent or, as has been suggested, to start to buy their own homes. We are looking at different ways of satisfying modern housing needs, but at the moment we are merely consulting on the different options.

Liberation of Mosul

Tom Brake Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sir Michael Fallon]

I was impressed by the confidence of Iraqi commanders on my most recent visit, compared with their approach to all this, say, a year ago. They have been encouraged by the relative ease with which cities and towns along the Euphrates river valley were liberated. They were—certainly a few weeks ago—very much looking forward to the Mosul campaign and regard it is as something that is difficult but doable. They have that confidence, and the Iraqi troops that I have seen being trained by our own forces are a very different army from the army that first fled in front of the Daesh advance in the spring and summer of 2014.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

First, I would like to wish our armed forces a safe and successful campaign. We have heard that up to 1 million civilians may flee Mosul, many of them children who will have been deprived of education, who will have suffered the psychological impact of warfare and who, in the case of young teenagers, may be screened by the Iraqi forces as they come out. What ability do the UK Government have—on the ground, directly—to monitor the safety, education and health of young children?

[Sir Michael Fallon]

Counselling of children, and indeed child protection, will be central to the work of the International Development Department and the United Nations programme after the liberation of Mosul, but the right hon. Gentleman is right to caution us. This is a military assault on a very large city; this is likely to be a war zone for some weeks and months. The Iraqi forces have done their best to warn the population of what lies ahead, but this is going to be difficult, and they are going to make every effort to protect the civilian population from the assault itself.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Brake Excerpts

Monday 12th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Michael Fallon]

We have supplied, as my hon. Friend knows, not only heavy machine guns to the peshmerga but ammunition for those heavy machine guns. I announced earlier in the summer a fresh gift from us of ammunition for those heavy machine guns, and I am very pleased to tell him that that ammunition has now arrived and is being used.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

The US-Russia agreement to tackle Daesh will clearly have an impact on British forces. Is the Secretary of State able to say anything about the deployment of our Air Force there, or indeed of our special forces?

[Michael Fallon]

We do not, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, comment in this House on the deployment of our special forces in any country in the world, but he raises an important point about de-confliction of the airspace. At the moment, we are party to the agreement between Russia and the United States, and that agreement ensures that there is minimum risk of collisions or misidentification of aircraft. That, obviously, will continue to be the case after the ceasefire, which we hope will take effect tonight.

Report of the Iraq Inquiry

Tom Brake Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I welcome the fact that the Government have allocated two days for this debate. This is an opportunity to remind the House that although all Members considered the same evidence, presented to the House by Mr Blair, some—from all parties—came to a different conclusion from others about whether military action was timely or legal.

The hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer) is no longer in his place, but I thank him for the service that he has given this country, as have other Members. I reassure him that although I, along with many other Members, marched against the Iraq war, I have always been fully supportive of our troops who were dispatched by our Government to fight that war, or indeed any other war. I have no criticism of them; I might have some for their senior officers, but that is a different matter.

Since the publication of the Chilcot report, Lord Campbell of Pittenweem has provided a helpful summary of events in a speech in the House of Lords:

“We know that the Cabinet was not provided with the full, detailed opinions of the Attorney-General. Sir John Chilcot forcefully finds that that was not proper and should not happen again…He found that military action was not yet the last resort, that diplomatic options were still available, that there was no imminent threat, that Dr Blix and Dr ElBaradei were still able to fulfil their responsibilities, and that there were conflicting views about Resolution 1441. When you add to that Article 2 of the United Nations charter which prohibits regime change, it is a legitimate judgment that this was not a legal war.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 12 July 2016; Vol. 774, c. 135.]

We also heard from Lord Tyler, who said that Chilcot was explicit that

“going to war without a majority in the United Nations Security Council ‘undermined the authority of the UN’.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 12 July 2016; Vol. 774, c. 144.]

The Liberal Democrats have always put great stead on the importance of supporting the United Nations.

In the same debate, Lord Beith focused on some of the inadequacies in preparation, from a military perspective, by the Ministry of Defence, and asked why there was inadequate preparation for the known dangers of improvised explosive devices, and a failure to provide adequately armoured vehicles. I would therefore like to speak for a few minutes about the focus on post-conflict reconstruction—an area that has not had much of an outing today. Better planning and preparation for a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq might not necessarily have prevented the events that have unfolded in Iraq since 2003, but Chilcot identified the major issue that there was no planning to speak of at all for the post-conflict stage.

Before I was elected, I worked in project management, and a cursory examination of paragraph 590—on page 78—onwards of the report’s executive summary highlights that if we consider the work done in Iraq as a project, it failed the most basic tests of initiation and execution for even the smallest project. For instance, is it clear who was responsible for which tasks? Paragraph 593 says no, and that

“the UK assumed that the US would be responsible for preparing the post-conflict plan”.

Were there any contingency plans? Paragraph 601 says that none were made for the possibility of the UK being drawn into a huge commitment of UK resources. Is there clarity about who had the power to take decisions? Paragraph 603 stated that no one had sufficient authority

“to establish a unified planning process across…the FCO, the MOD, DFID and the Treasury.”

Was it clear who was in overall control? Paragraph 609 states that no single person was in charge of

“overseeing all aspects of planning and preparation”.

Were sufficiently trained and experienced people available? Paragraph 610 states:

“The FCO…was not equipped by past experience…to prepare for nation-building of the scale required in Iraq,”.

Were the assumptions challenged? Paragraph 618 states that assumptions were not systematically challenged, and that in fact, they were very seldom challenged. Any project manager—even the most junior one—in IT, construction, or any other field, who designed a project that was as poorly planned, initiated, resourced and executed as this one, would have been sacked. Yet in 2002-03, our Government planned to invade a country, support regime change, introduce democracy, and rebuild the Iraqi infrastructure without so much as a plan written on the back of a fag packet. This lack of planning for the post-conflict period was one of the most shocking aspects of the Iraq war.

In conclusion, the Iraq war and its legacy—internecine religious war, some 180 UK troops killed, many casualties, car bombs, suicide bombers, hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqi citizens, millions displaced and instability—reverberates around the region to this day. We can argue about whether this was all linked directly to our intervention in 2003, but I do not think anyone could claim that our intervention in 2003 helped to stabilise Iraq—on the contrary. What we need from the Minister today is reassurances that the UK Government will never, ever again launch into such a reckless adventure on such a flimsy premise, with so little preparation. I wonder whether the Minister will be able to give us that guarantee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Fallon]

I can confirm that that is exactly the position. There is no shortage of briefing for members of the NSC. They are able to bring that expertise to the regular meetings of the council and to question the experts who are present. The recent strategic defence and security review shows how a cross-Whitehall approach is being implemented in practice and leading to better decision making.

[Tom Brake]

On that point about cross-departmental arrangements working more effectively, does the Secretary of State feel that any of the lessons identified in Chilcot in relation to reconstruction in Iraq might already have been fed through in relation to what happened in Libya? It is not obvious that that is the case.

[Michael Fallon]

I shall talk about the lesson on the importance of planning for reconstruction in a moment. I just want to finish this important point about the machinery of government.

The Ministry of Defence has revamped its strategy and policy making with the institution of an annual defence plan that reflects the outcomes of the strategic defence and security reviews, with senior leaders in the Ministry being individually held to account for their role in delivering it, and a defence strategy group, chaired by the permanent secretary and the Chief of the Defence Staff, to address how Defence can best contribute to delivering defence and security policy objectives.

NATO Warsaw Summit

Tom Brake Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

The summit reiterated support for Georgia and Ukraine. However, in practical terms, what steps are being taken to support those countries in their bid for NATO membership and to ensure the defence of their borders?

[Michael Fallon]

Georgia is an enhanced opportunity partner of NATO and a package of measures is in place to strengthen defence co-operation between NATO and Georgia. We are playing a significant part in the training of the Ukrainian armed forces, building up their capacity to deal with the insurgency in eastern Ukraine and to reduce the number of casualties that they were suffering initially. As for future accession to NATO, we have made it very clear that there can be no shortcuts to NATO membership. There are criteria to meet, and any future applications require the unanimous consent of all the existing members. Equally, the accession of Montenegro sends a very clear message that nobody, and certainly not Russia, has any kind of veto on future membership.

Yemen: Cluster Munitions

Tom Brake Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dunne]

In my response to the urgent question, I made it clear that 1989 was the last time we supplied any BL-755 munitions.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

The Government are digging a very deep hole for themselves. I have exchanged many letters with Ministers on this subject and have been informed that the UK Government have concluded that the

“Saudi-led Coalition are not targeting civilians”

in Yemen. How can the Government draw that conclusion when the Saudis have stated that whole cities—Sa’dah, where UN Security Council experts identified that hospitals, schools and mosques had been attacked, and Marran—are military targets; when the Saudis are apparently using UK-made cluster munitions; and when 93% of the casualties from air-launched explosives are civilians, according to the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs? Will the Government finally acquire a backbone, accept that Saudi Arabia is in flagrant breach of international humanitarian law and halt weapons sales to Saudi Arabia until it cleans up its act?

[Mr Dunne]

This is a civil war and in civil wars, difficult things happen. This is a very complex environment. Actors use whatever is available to them, in respect of the terrain that is there, to adopt positions. It is not a nice, straightforward, clinical exercise like a training event. Therefore, accidents do happen. As a result of our relationship with the Saudi Arabian armed forces, we are in a position to exert some influence on the coalition and, in particular, its leadership in respect of investigating accidents when they occur and allegations of incidents such as those that the right hon. Gentleman has mentioned. We are putting that pressure on the Saudis and they have given us undertakings that they are undertaking those investigations, and we are awaiting the outcome.

Counter-Daesh Quarterly Update

Tom Brake Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Michael Fallon]

It is in Russia’s gift to help push the political process on and to use its influence with the Assad regime much more constructively than it has done so far. Our own strike aircraft are covered by the existing memorandum between the United States and Russia, and so far are deconflicting the airspace around particular missions, but we are not otherwise co-operating.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

First, I welcome the quarterly report. We need to be in a cycle of delivering such reports with a focus on Daesh. Secondly, I thank the Secretary of State and the MOD for the very helpful briefing that was given yesterday in relation to Daesh. I asked two questions yesterday. One was about no-fly zones. The Secretary of State has been very clear in saying that there is no scope for no-fly zones at present. However, I hope he will keep that under review so that if at any point Assad and the Russians agree to it, we can implement that rapidly. The second question, which was not answered, was in relation to Raqqa and Mosul. If those two cities are turned into Stalingrad, what support can we give to civilians within them?

[Michael Fallon]

On the right hon. Gentleman’s first point, we are adhering to the quarterly rhythm: the first statement was made in December, the next in February and it is now the end of May. It is useful for the House to be updated according to that timescale.

On no-fly zones, it is simply the practical application of a no-fly zone that I need persuading about; I am not clear at the moment how a no-fly zone could be properly policed. The worst thing of all would be to offer a no-fly zone that is not actually safe.

On the right hon. Gentleman’s final point, Raqqa and Mosul are very large cities with, at the moment, large civilian populations who have not fled. That is why the operations are going to take a very long time. Ramadi took eight months. It is going to take a long time to persuade those civilians that Daesh is not their future and that it would be best for them to leave while the fighting is going on.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Brake Excerpts

Monday 18th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Defence Procurement (Mr Philip Dunne)]

We welcome wholeheartedly this month’s contract signed by Kuwait for 28 Typhoon aircraft. Kuwait thereby becomes the eighth country to select the Eurofighter Typhoon and the third in the Gulf to do so. It is very positive both for our bilateral and defence relationship and, as my hon. Friend indicates, for jobs across the British aerospace and defence industry, including the thousands employed by BAE Systems at Warton in Lancashire, many of whom are her constituents. It is excellent news for the whole supply chain right across the UK.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

T5. Following the Foreign Secretary’s statement that we“stand ready to provide further assistance to Libya and its people”,will the Secretary of State confirm what kind of assistance the UK would be willing to provide and how much notice this House would have before a vote on military action in Libya?

[Michael Fallon]

I have made it clear that we are waiting to hear from Prime Minister Sarraj and the new Government, who have only been established over the past few days, what kind of assistance they want, whether it be training or other support. On notice to this House, I repeat that there is no plan to deploy British troops in any kind of combat role. If there were a plan to deploy troops in a combat role in a conflict zone anywhere in the world, we would come to the House first.

Royal Naval Deployment: Mediterranean

Tom Brake Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Michael Fallon]

The German Chancellor is in Brussels today, engaging with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in a search for better control of migration policy. So far as the legal basis for what is happening inside Europe at the moment is concerned, it is of course the Schengen area, of which we are not part. We still retain control of our own borders, but that does not absolve us of the humanitarian responsibility to help where we can, and it does not absolve us as one of the larger countries in Europe from continuing to call on European countries to get some grip on the migration crisis.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

With more refugees being sent back to Turkey, I must ask the Secretary of State again the questions posed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael): what protection is in place for the refugees going back to Turkey to ensure that they will not be sent back to Syria; and is the Secretary of State confident that Turkey is a country to which refugees can be safely returned?

[Michael Fallon]

We certainly abide by our international obligations under the refugee convention, which means that we could not return any individual to a country where they might be in danger of persecution or inhuman treatment. That is why, as I said, those picked up in international waters or in Greek waters will not be returned to Turkey in the first instance. There are discussions going on with the Turkish Government to be sure that anyone who is returned to Turkey from outside Turkish waters can be dealt with safely.