Foreign Affairs Committee

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Joan Ryan

Tuesday 19th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Joan Ryan]

Assuming the Labour Whips represent the Leader of the Opposition and are the vanguard for delivering his will, that gives ample evidence that there is something very personal going on here. May I at some point seek your guidance, Mr Deputy Speaker, on whipping business of the House in this way? Is that acceptable? It is certainly very unusual, as we know.

I think this is a mean-minded parliamentary manoeuvre by Labour. It is attempting to remove, from one of the most important Select Committees of the House of Commons, a man who has served on it for almost two decades, including as its respected Chair. Select Committees are one of the most important parts of Parliament, and they are integral to the way in which MPs scrutinise the work of the Government. They have always operated in a cross-party way and they are at their best when they are consensual. After members of Select Committees are elected to them by their colleagues, they are not ciphers for political parties; they are representatives of their constituents, performing an important function.

Traditionally, members of Select Committees, and especially their Chairs, are treated with respect by political parties and by this House. This motion is utterly disrespectful. That is true for both Members who are the subject of the motion, but let me talk for a moment about my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes), because it is especially true for him. He has been a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee since 1992, when he was appointed under the then Leader of the Opposition, Neil Kinnock. He was reappointed to that Committee by John Smith, by Tony Blair, by Gordon Brown, by the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) and by the current Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition, who apparently had faith in him then, the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn).

In total, my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South has served for 19 years on the Committee, with five years as Chair from 2005 to 2010. During his tenure as Chair, the Committee published reports on Afghanistan, Pakistan, the implications of cuts to the BBC World Service and to foreign language capability in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, relations with Turkey, the Arab spring, human rights, extraordinary rendition, the future of the EU and relations with the United States. And that is not all: in his time as Chair of the Committee, my hon. Friend took evidence from the Dalai Lama, despite Chinese protests, visited Guantanamo Bay, and exposed corruption and intimidation that led to the UK Government suspending relations with the Turks and Caicos Government, and it was only after the Committee criticised the Syrian Government that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office included Syria as a human rights country of concern. My hon. Friend has also been a convenor and for 10 years a member of the quadripartite Committees on Arms Export Controls.

With my hon. Friend in the Chair, the Foreign Affairs Committee always operated as it should, on a cross-party and consensual basis, not least thanks to his strong belief that the role of Select Committees is to hold Government to account and that Committee members are not there as delegates of their parties. He has served actively and constructively under Conservative Chairs, including Richard Ottaway, the former Member for Croydon South, and the hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) and the current Chair, the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat).

By virtue of his position, my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South has been a representative of our Parliament at home, welcoming foreign delegations, and abroad, liaising with diplomats and Governments. To this day, he continues to be active in the Committee, playing a role in amending draft reports and regularly meeting international visitors on behalf of the Committee.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

I hope the right hon. Lady will forgive me; I was chairing a sitting of the Committee just now, hence I missed the beginning of the debate. I echo her words, because she is absolutely speaking the truth. More than that, to a new Member who has had the good fortune to chair one of these great Committees very early on, the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) has been an amazing rock to lean on. His wisdom, his courtesy and his judgment have been of great value to me and, I hope, the whole House and the whole Committee, as he has helped to guide not just me but us all through some complex moments of foreign policy, where there have been very few more important subjects for our House, so I echo completely the right hon. Lady’s words.

[Joan Ryan]

I thank the hon. Gentleman, the Chair of the Committee, for those remarks, which I think are well received and well deserved by my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South. I take them as an endorsement of all that I am saying about the way in which he has served the Committee, the House and the country. I know that the Chair of the Committee and, for that matter, all its members do not want this to happen and have made that clear in their own way.

Membership of Select Committees is fundamentally a matter for the House of Commons. It should not become the subject of mean-spirited manoeuvres by party leaderships who do not brook dissent. Labour’s move is the latest indication of how its leadership is unable to handle criticism, alternative viewpoints or any dissenting voices—a very worrying development in a democratic Parliament. This Parliament works through the Commonwealth, the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and the Inter-Parliamentary Union to help other Parliaments around the world to learn from our examples and our experience to be good, democratic Parliaments, to strengthen democracy and to strengthen parliamentary democracy in particular. This move by the Leader of the Opposition absolutely cuts across and undermines all those aims, all of that mission and all that work.

--- Later in debate ---

[Joan Ryan]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and I could not agree with her more. This undermines those reforms in total, and also calls into question the ability of Select Committees to work in a consensual, non-tribal, cross-party way to properly scrutinise the business of government.

[Tom Tugendhat]

Does my right hon. Friend, as I will accurately call her, agree that equality before the law is one of the principles of British justice and that this House of all places should demonstrate that principle of equality? Does she not therefore feel it is slightly odd that the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) has not been singled out and the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) has not been singled out, yet the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin), who has spoken very clearly about antisemitism, and the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes), who has again shown his courage in this matter, should be the two who are singled out?

Proscription of Hezbollah

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Joan Ryan

Thursday 25th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Joan Ryan]

Well said—I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. Hezbollah is a terrorist organisation and it should be banned in its entirety—whoever you are a friend of—if you are not a friend of the terrorists. I would add one other thing: it is not just for Jews to fight anti-Semitism, and this is an anti-Semitic organisation; it is for all of us to stand up on that issue.

The distinction is not one that Hezbollah has ever recognised; in fact, it has consistently and explicitly refuted it. In 1985, its founding document stated clearly:

“As to our military power, nobody can imagine its dimensions because we do not have a military agency separate from the other parts of our body. Each of us is a combat soldier when the call of jihad demands it.”

It could not be clearer.

In 2009, Naim Qassem, Hezbollah’s deputy general secretary, made it clear that

“the same leadership that directs the parliamentary and government work also leads jihad actions in the struggle against Israel”.

It could not be clearer. He repeated this message three years later, declaring:

“We don't have a military wing and a political one; we don’t have Hezbollah on one hand and the resistance party on the other…Every element of Hezbollah, from commanders to members as well as our various capabilities, are in the service of the resistance, and we have nothing but the resistance as a priority.”

Those are Hezbollah’s own words.

Also in 2013, Nasrallah himself ruled out any notion that the military and political wings were somehow different:

“However, jokingly I will say—though I disagree on such separation or division—that I suggest that our ministers in the upcoming Lebanese government be from the military wing of Hezbollah.”

He also mocked our Government’s division between the two, saying

“the story of military wing and political wing is the work of the British”.

That is what he said. It is a distinction that, with good reason, many other countries throughout the world do not recognise. Those that do not include the Netherlands, Canada, the US, the Arab League and the Gulf Co-operation Council.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

The right hon. Lady’s passion and clarity on this issue are absolutely right. I agree that it is incumbent on the Government in principle—I hope those in the Opposition Front-Bench team would follow—to change the policy. Is it not absolutely possible to work with the Government of Lebanon—a Government with whom we are extremely friendly and whom we are assisting to defend herself against the predations of ISIS, initially, and now of other factions in Syria? Is it not absolutely possible to assist our legitimate and welcome allies in Lebanon against those things, yet still call out this terrorist group for what it is, for the violence it is committing in Syria and for the destruction it is carrying out in northern Israel and all around the region?

[Joan Ryan]

Absolutely. The hon. Gentleman is right. Those Governments that do proscribe Hezbollah in its entirety do talk to the Lebanese Government. If Hezbollah wishes to change its views on Israel—to not obliterate it—and to signal that it will give up its arms, I am sure that, whether it is proscribed or not, that would be the right road to take if it wished to take part in any peace negotiations, which it clearly does not.

Many Members of this House do not recognise the false distinction between the military and the political wing, as is evident today. Last summer, marchers at the al-Quds day parade in London displayed Hezbollah flags, causing great offence to many, especially in the Jewish community. Once again, they were exploiting the utterly bogus separation that the Government choose to make.

I pay tribute to Jewish communal organisations, such as the Community Security Trust, the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council, which have tirelessly campaigned on the issue of Hezbollah proscription. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman), as well as the hon. Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) and the Mayor of London, for their efforts to persuade the Government to proscribe Hezbollah in its entirety.

I note not only the Government’s unwillingness to do so but their inability to explain or justify why they will not act. I understand that, in conflict situations, it is sometimes necessary to keep open channels of communication to facilitate dialogue and to encourage those who are engaged in violence to abandon the bomb and the bullet for the ballot box. However, there is not a shred of evidence to suggest that this is Hezbollah’s intention. In both its rhetoric and its actions, this leopard shows no sign of changing its spots.

Nor do I accept the notion, which Ministers have previously advanced, that banning Hezbollah’s political wing might somehow—the Chair of the Select Committee touched on this—impede our ties with Lebanon, where Hezbollah exercises not just military but political power. Proscribing Hezbollah in its entirety does not appear to have hampered relations between Lebanon and any of the countries we have already referred to. I am deeply concerned that this Government are simply not taking the threat posed by Hezbollah seriously. Only last week, I was informed by the Home Office that it does not collect data on the numbers of Hezbollah members or supporters in the UK, a practice that is followed by other European countries, such as Germany.

The Terrorism Act 2000 allows the Home Secretary to proscribe an organisation which

“(a) commits or participates in acts of terrorism,

(b) prepares for terrorism,

(c) promotes or encourages terrorism,”

including the unlawful glorification of terrorism, or

“(d) is otherwise concerned in terrorism.”

As I have demonstrated, Hezbollah, the leaders of which assert that it is unified and indivisible, more than fulfils those criteria. Even if a distinction between the political and military wings could be drawn, the words of the former in promoting, encouraging and glorifying terrorism surely meet the Government’s criteria for proscription.

After last June’s terrorist attack at London Bridge, the Prime Minister said

“there is, to be frank, far too much tolerance of extremism in our country.”

I agree. Hezbollah is an organisation that is driven by a hatred of Jews, that promotes and encourages terrorism and that calls for the destruction of the middle east’s only democracy—a key British ally in the region. However, as long as the Government do not proscribe Hezbollah’s so-called political wing, the tolerance will continue.

Hormone Pregnancy Tests

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Joan Ryan

Thursday 14th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Joan Ryan (Enfield North) (Lab)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) on securing this debate. Like many Members, I represent families who strongly believe that their lives were forever changed because of the drug Primodos.

Today I speak on behalf of my constituents Chris Gooch and her daughter Emma Gooch. They have given me permission to share their story about how hard life has been over the past four decades, their criticisms of the expert working group’s report, and why they will continue to fight for justice, and they are with us here today.

In June 1970, Chris Gooch was prescribed Primodos by her GP to find out whether or not she was pregnant. Like any of us, Chris trusted the words of her GP and had no idea that the drug might be unsafe, or that it had been linked to deformities. It was only when Chris’s daughter, Emma, was born seven months later on 28 January 1971, that she was found to have limb deformities in her hands and feet, with both sets of fingers foreshortened and her toes webbed and foreshortened. Her mum, Chris, told me about how Emma has struggled to live with those deformities for her entire life. She said:

“There are many things that Emma would have liked to have done, like playing the piano or guitar, but she has been unable to do so because of limited mobility in her hands. This also came to impact her education and at secondary school she became school-phobic and was physically sick every morning before going to school. Emma has always suffered from severe back problems and has to live in intense pain all the time. She has sought treatment and scans confirmed that she has spinal deterioration, for which she was offered a spinal fusion. This only had a limited chance of success and risked making her condition worse. Emma refused this and is trying to come to terms with her long-term prognosis. She can’t work full time, has to pay for all her medications and has even been refused a blue badge, despite having to use a stick to walk and having no proper fingers or toes. Emma will be 47 next month and can now only manage to work for three days a week and even this she finds extremely draining. She is worried about her ability to keep working in the future, and the implications this has for her financially and socially.”

When I met Emma, she told me:

“Myself and many others have to live with the devastating results of our mothers being given hormone pregnancy tests like Primodos. Whilst the effects on me were much less severe than on some victims, I was born with very specific deformities which I have only ever seen shared by fellow Primodos victims, so in my mind this can be the only possible cause.”

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

The right hon. Lady is speaking very powerfully. Does she agree that there are many who are not as severely affected as her constituent, about whom she speaks so courageously, but who are similarly affected and nevertheless feel great pain? I speak of people I have the privilege to represent.

[Joan Ryan]

I absolutely agree. Members across the Chamber today have given examples, but there are many victims with different levels of disability, illness and deformity as a result of this drug.

When I asked Chris and Emma what they thought about the expert working group’s report and how the inquiry process had been handled over the past three years, their criticisms could not have been clearer. Chris told me:

“I feel angry that they treated us like idiots. We have been treated appallingly. The Expert Working Group produced a report in October and then, following a meeting with our Chair, Marie Lyon, they removed some material and re-issued it a month later. They said it was to make it more readable. They found no causal link, which they weren’t even requested to look for. They only gave us a day’s notice to organise a visit to hear the report’s findings and I am sure that is because they hoped no one would turn up to hear them. Now nearly 50 years on, our children, the ones who are still alive, are still suffering. I am angry that for Emma, and for many other members of the Association for Children Damaged by Hormone Pregnancy Tests, life is a constant struggle and we still haven’t really been heard.”

Emma herself told me that she

“cannot help but feel angry that for decades we have waited for an independent and unbiased enquiry, but the Expert Working Group’s obviously flawed report feels like an attempt to discredit us and instead protect the powerful companies and authorities that were at fault.”

Since I was first made aware of the issues surrounding the drug Primodos, I have been reminded of the thalidomide and contaminated blood scandals. I am reminded of the fact that it took decades of tireless campaigning before the truth and natural justice were reached. The inquiry has been accused of failing to consider all the evidence fairly, failing to have the trust and confidence of the victims for whom it was set up, and failing to be transparent and open in its due process. The inquiry failed to consider any evidence regarding systematic regulatory failures of Government bodies at the time. Campaigners have widely dismissed the inquiry as “seriously flawed”. I therefore join the cross-party calls for a public inquiry into the use of Primodos and its connection to deformities and other birth defects. I shall end by once again quoting the words of my constituent Emma Gooch, as I believe that her determination will be shared by Members on both sides of the House. She said:

“Sadly it is too late for some, but the victims and parents still deserve justice and we will continue to fight for it.”