Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Yasmin Qureshi and Nick Boles

Tuesday 3rd May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

T9. Will the Secretary of State reconsider the decision to scrap bursaries for nurses? First, that will deter mature students and people from black and minority ethnic communities and disadvantaged communities, and secondly, while nurses are training, they spend 50% of their time doing practical work, looking after people. It is unfair that they should pay to provide services to others.

[Nick Boles]

What I share with the hon. Lady is a determination to ensure that the groups she mentioned and other groups that have been discussed today have the maximum opportunity, particularly in the NHS. That is one reason why we are making great steps towards developing a new nursing apprenticeship, which will offer people a way into the profession, gaining that qualification while they are working and earning.

Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan

Debate between Yasmin Qureshi and Nick Boles

Monday 16th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

When the tragedy of 11 September occurred, I was working for the United Nations mission in Kosovo. I was in the region of Mitrovica, which is divided by a bridge. Across the bridge, I could see Serbian Orthodox Christians burning American flags in jubilation at the events unfolding in America. On 2 May, I saw similar signs of jubilation in America after the death of Osama bin Laden. It is important not to confuse the desire for retribution with the desire to defeat an enemy. Because terrorism partakes of both crime and war, it is perfectly natural, and perhaps legitimate, to have both these attitudes towards Osama bin Laden—to think that we had to disable him, and to think that he deserved to die. However, Milosevic, who killed 100,000 Bosnians, was tried at The Hague.

His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Williams, has said:

“I think the killing of an unarmed man is always going to leave a very uncomfortable feeling, because it doesn’t look as if justice is seen to be done in those circumstances”.

It is deeply troubling if we are moving to a global assassination policy for our enemies. Surely, the norm must be that terrorists be dealt with as criminals, through legal processes of arrest and trial. Such a trial would have had the benefit of laying out before the world the evil of terrorism. It would have peeled away the mystique of bin Laden and shown al-Qaeda to be banal and ridiculous.

In recent weeks, a blizzard of questions and fingers have been pointed at the legitimacy of Pakistan as an ally. I was disappointed by the hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid), who seemed to suggest that more questions should be asked of Pakistan, although I was pleased that the Foreign Secretary mentioned Pakistan’s commitment to the international coalition against terrorism since 9/11. Pakistan has become the victim of an almost daily onslaught of suicide bombings in the very heart of its country. Just yesterday a suicide bomb killed 18 people. The US-led drone attacks continue to take civilian lives, resulting in a breeding ground for al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

Pakistan’s efforts since 2002 have cost it 30,000 civilian casualties, 5,000 security personnel casualties, and the devastation of property and infrastructure. Over the past nine years, its economy has borne the loss of more than $35 billion. The war on terror and the rehabilitation of internally displaced people has consumed a huge amount of the Government’s financial resources and halted economic growth. Unemployment is high, which is triggering other social problems and putting pressures on successive Governments.

The obligation to focus on security has contributed to a continuing failure to invest in key areas of public provision, such as education and health, and assisted the military and intelligence sectors in retaining power and influence in Pakistan’s political system. There may be some rogue elements in Inter-Services Intelligence, but to tarnish the whole of the ISI, the army and the Government of Pakistan by suggesting that they are not trustworthy is an insult to the people of Pakistan, including the civilian population, who suffer on a daily basis from atrocities that those of us sitting in this country cannot even imagine.

Many have mentioned the aid given to Pakistan over the past 12 years, which amounts to about $10 billion. However, the USA has spent $146 billion on this war on terror. In terms of loss—and, indeed, the near-destruction of Pakistan—$10 billion is chickenfeed. It does not even start to compensate Pakistan for the breadth of destruction that it has suffered. Let us remember that until the Soviets invaded Afghanistan—then we had 11 September—Pakistan had no quarrels or squabbles with Afghanistan. It got involved in the war in Afghanistan only because historically it was a US ally. Therefore, it is completely wrong for everyone to start pointing the finger at Pakistan, a country that is suffering the most.

[Nick Boles]

I am enjoying the hon. Lady’s speech so much that I want to give her a bit of injury time. Will she please continue?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that.

I was also a little disappointed that the hon. Member for Bromsgrove talked about Pakistan’s supposedly imagined problems with India. At the end of the day, each nation state is interested in its own interests. However, when two countries have gone to war on two occasions, as Pakistan and India have, when India supported the breakaway of East Pakistan, which became Bangladesh, and when every year it releases flood waters from dams, causing flooding in Pakistan, it is naive to say that Pakistan’s perceived security problem is an apparition. Rather, it is real. Indeed, Bishop Nazir-Ali, who is not normally pro-Pakistan, touched on Pakistan’s security in an article last week.

In all these wars that are taking place across the world, we lost the plot in the graveyard of empires, turning the hunt for the now largely irrelevant inventor of global jihad into a war against tens of thousands of Taliban insurgents who have little interest in al-Qaeda, but much enthusiasm for driving western armies out of their country. My hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn), who is no longer in the Chamber, referred to the ferengi, and that is exactly what is going on. The fact is that we are interfering in Afghanistan, while Pakistan, as an ally of the west, is having to pay the price for our war on terror.