House of Commons
Prayers
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Oral Answers to Questions
David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)
1. What discussions he has had with his counterparts in EU member states on carbon and renewables targets.
The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Mr Edward Davey)
I have engaged extensively with my EU counterparts on the European Commission's proposals for a 2030 climate and energy framework. This has included discussions at the Energy and Environment Councils in March, May and June this year; many meetings of the green growth group of like-minded EU Ministers, which I established in February last year; and various visits to individual member states for extensive bilateral engagement. Throughout these discussions, I have stressed the need for early political agreement on an ambitious and cost-effective 2030 framework. This is important to unlock low-carbon investment and to put the EU in a stronger position for the global climate negotiations in 2015.
David Mowat
I thank the Secretary of State for his reply. He will be aware that right across the EU, we are seeing the amount of electricity produced from coal increasing. In particular, in 2013, countries such as Germany, Holland and Denmark all showed a considerable increase, yet the UK, which is among the lowest carbon emitters in the EU, is phasing coal out at speed. How can that dichotomy of policy be rational?
Mr Davey
I do not think there is a dichotomy of policy. One of the key issues in the 2030 package that we are negotiating is reform of the EU emissions trading system to send a carbon signal that everyone had expected under the 2008 deal, which has failed to come through. It is right to proceed with this reform. I am proud that Britain is leading in Europe on the ambitious climate change package that is vital to tackle climate change.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
I welcome the Secretary of State to Bristol tomorrow for Big Green week. I think we will be having dinner together. [Hon. Members: “Ooh!”] The shadow climate change Minister will be there, too!
While I welcome the UK’s support for more ambitious carbon targets, surely Britain cannot credibly be described as “leading in Europe” if we do not support Germany’s renewables target—of 30%, which would be binding on national states. The previous 20% target gave a huge boost to the renewables sector in this country, so I urge the Energy Secretary to think again and support Germany’s plan.
Mr Davey
I am looking forward to dinner on Friday night. I did not realise it was in my diary, so I had better confess it to my wife.
The renewables target for 2020 was a very sensible one; it was needed to bring an immature industry forward, but I do not think it is needed for 2030. What is most important for 2030 is having an ambitious greenhouse gas reduction target. That is what we need to tackle climate change, and we need to do it in a technology-neutral way, which enables carbon capture and storage, energy efficiency and all low-carbon technologies to come through. I think that is the greenest approach.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
2. What progress he has made in negotiations with the European Commission on a derogation from the ban on the import or manufacture of incandescent bulbs for people with photo-sensitive health conditions; and if he will make a statement.
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Gregory Barker)
The regulation removing incandescent bulbs from the market has been in force since 2009. The UK is sympathetic to concerns raised about the potential health impacts of lighting. Although the scientific evidence of such impacts is limited, we take the issue seriously and will press the European Commission to take this into account in the upcoming review.
Sheila Gilmore
I thank the Minister for that answer and I appreciate that the responsibility for this issue has only recently been transferred from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. I hope that the Department has full records of the various times that I and other Members have raised it. Many people clearly suffer health ill-effects from both compact fluorescent light bulbs and LED lighting. The regulations under review offer an opportunity to make incandescent light bulbs available to this relatively small group of people, and I urge the Minister to press the Commission very hard on that.
Gregory Barker
I recognise the hon. Lady’s long-term interest in this issue, and she is right to say that the responsibility has recently come across to this Department from DEFRA. I read the Hansard of the hon. Lady’s Westminster Hall debate on this topic, and she made some very sensible points. I can assure her that, in the context of the upcoming review, we are pressing the EU to make sure that these points are taken into account.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
A derogation is all well and good, but what we really want is a complete exemption. Will my right hon. Friend tell us what chances there are, in the forthcoming renegotiations of our terms of membership, of this country getting back the right to be able to use whatever light bulbs we want—without being told what to do by the EU?
Gregory Barker
I am afraid I have to disagree with my hon. Friend. The fact of the matter is that by having energy-efficient light bulbs, we are driving innovation and driving down people’s electricity bills. We do not want to go back to having high-cost energy bills and turning our back on innovation, but we want a flexible approach and we want to ensure that the EU takes on board the health concerns that have been raised about these technologies.
Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
3. What steps he is taking to help households improve their energy efficiency.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
12. What steps he is taking to help households improve their energy efficiency.
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Gregory Barker)
Figures released this morning show that nearly 700,000 homes have benefited from direct energy efficiency improvements since the launch of the energy company obligation and green deal programme in January 2013. Nearly a quarter of a million people have been given green deal assessments, which, according to our research, are proving to be popular and useful in stimulating action. Last week we launched the green deal home improvement fund, which is already showing signs of providing a significant boost for the nascent green deal market.
Graham Jones
It is the ECO about which I am most concerned. On 16 January, the Minister told the House:
“we have extended the ECO out to 2017 and increased the number of people it will help”.—[Official Report, 16 January 2014; Vol. 573, c. 987.]
Will he explain why the impact assessment that his Department published on 5 March states that 440,000 fewer households will be helped to improve their energy efficiency as a result of the changes to the ECO?
Gregory Barker
The hon. Gentleman is looking at the wrong part of the impact assessment. The assessment relating to the period up to 2017—not 2015— makes it clear that we will be helping more people by extending the time scale of the ECO. We will also be providing long-term certainty for the industry, in contrast to the stop-go starts that we experienced under Labour.
John McDonnell
In my constituency, there has been a massive expansion in the number of buy-to-let properties. Landlords charge higher rents and cram large numbers of people into those properties, but do not invest in them. That means that families are trapped into high energy prices. What can we do not just to encourage but perhaps to force those landlords to invest in energy conservation?
Gregory Barker
The hon. Gentleman has made a good point. That is exactly why we took powers in the Energy Act 2010—the first Energy Act of this Parliament—to give every tenant the right to a green deal improvement from 2016, and from 2018 landlords will not be able to refuse it.
Mr Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP)
One of the best ways of achieving energy efficiency is replacing old and inefficient boilers. In Scotland the green homes cash-back scheme provides some help—albeit limited—with off-grid home fuel and liquefied petroleum gas boilers, but the ECO schemes of the main energy companies still do not cover those boilers. Will the Minister press the companies to reconsider?
Gregory Barker
I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point. We are keen to do even more for people living off the gas grid, particularly in rural areas. However, the hon. Gentleman failed to mention the significant payments that are available, through the new renewable heat incentive, to help such people manage the transition from expensive heating oil to new affordable technologies such as heat pumps.
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
There is no doubt that the Government disappointed hundreds of thousands of customers last December when they responded to concern about rising bills by choosing to cut funding for energy efficiency measures. Given that the consultation on the cuts closed last month, and given that even Boris Johnson submitted evidence that they were too severe, will the Minister tell us whether there is any scope for mitigation of the reduction in the ECO targets, so that the 440,000 people who will miss out can be offered some hope of a warmer future?
Gregory Barker
There are choices to be made. We are pressing ahead with an ambitious roll-out of energy efficiency measures, and targeting the fuel poor in particular through the ECO. As I said earlier, figures released this morning show that nearly 700,000 people have been helped since the launch of the ECO and green deal programme. However, we also have a responsibility to all energy bill payers, and we chose to reduce people’s energy bills. The hon. Gentleman clearly places Labour on the side of higher energy bills for all hard-working families, but I am afraid that, in our judgment, we need to bear down on the cost of living.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
4. What progress he has made in increasing investment in low-carbon electricity projects.
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Michael Fallon)
We estimate that nearly £29 billion has been invested in renewable electricity generation projects in Britain since 2010, and the Energy Act 2013 provides the framework for an increase in that investment. Last month we signed investment contracts, an early form of contract for difference, for eight projects: five offshore wind farms, two coal-to-biomass conversions, and one dedicated biomass plant.
Dr Huppert
According to Bloomberg, there was a 59% increase in finance for new renewables in the last year, making a total of £7.3 billion. Just in the last couple of days the East Anglia ONE scheme was approved, which will power 820,000 homes using clean energy. What will the Government and Minister do to extend this success and to tell people about our great success in renewables?
Michael Fallon
I think my hon. Friend has almost just done that, and I confirm that the Bloomberg analysis shows that investment has doubled during this Parliament. It increased by 20% last year at a time when it was falling in Germany. We now have the largest amount of offshore wind installed anywhere in the world. Two of the biggest wind farms in the world were opened last year. I know my hon. Friend welcomes the East Anglia ONE approval given this week, which will power over 800,000 homes, and more projects are coming on stream this year.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
Has the Minister made any assessment of the support costs for the procurement of low-carbon capacity such as field solar and biomass compared with the support costs for securing high-carbon capacity, such as gas, through the capacity auction mechanism?
Michael Fallon
Of course, we look at the different costs of the different technologies all the time, and we have to make sure all those costs are manageable within the levy control framework and within the figures that we have set out right through to 2020.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
I note the progress the Minister cites in agreeing contracts for difference for biomass and offshore wind. Is the Department negotiating contracts for difference for any other renewable energy technologies?
Michael Fallon
There are already investment projects proceeding in a range of different technologies. We have some 120 renewable projects under way which are not limited to offshore or onshore wind, but include solar, biomass, dedicated biomass with combined heat and power, and some of the other renewable technologies.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
May I press the Minister on this? If we want to improve innovation in this sector, is not the real problem that we are not getting down to small and medium-sized enterprises enough, and is not one way of doing that through having good partnerships involving universities? Could we stimulate local enterprise partnerships and universities to do more in partnership to move this on?
Michael Fallon
A number of the LEPs have put forward energy-related projects in the strategic growth plans that we are considering at the moment, and which we hope to finalise and announce early next month. In addition, there is the community energy strategy that encourages precisely that kind of work, and I look forward to visiting the university of Sheffield tomorrow morning to see the research that it is doing on carbon capture and storage.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
5. What recent estimate he has made of the value to the UK economy of the shale gas sector.
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Michael Fallon)
The Government are promoting responsible shale development for greater energy security, to deliver jobs and growth and to support investment. The recent EY report estimates that there could be £33 billion-worth of spend on shale gas exploration creating about 64,000 jobs, including over £20 billion on hydraulic fracturing and £8 billion on drilling and completion of the wells. That is why we are supporting exploration to understand just how much of this potential can be realised.
Priti Patel
I thank the Minister for his response. Given the enormous projected value of the shale gas sector and the opportunity shale provides for energy independence, do the Government have plans to support more investment in shale gas infrastructure?
Michael Fallon
Yes, we have set out the new fiscal regime that will apply to shale exploration. We have a system of robust regulation in place. There are some dozen companies now exploring, and I shall shortly be inviting applications for new onshore licences under the 14th licensing round, which will afford more opportunities for new companies to enter this market, and I know colleagues across the House will want to champion applications for licences in their area.
Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister in his reply referred to robust regulation, and he is right that robust regulation is important, as is comprehensive monitoring of those regulations to meet the higher public acceptability test for this technology. Given that groundwater can contain methane naturally, will the Minister explain why it is that, more than two and half years after the issue was raised with his predecessors, it is still the case that the regulations do not include the baseline monitoring of methane in groundwater, especially as there are concerns about such contamination in the US and elsewhere? Surely it is important that we have that as part of the regulation to ensure confidence in the regulatory regime for shale gas.
Michael Fallon
There are no examples from the United States of hydraulic fracturing contaminating groundwater because, as the hon. Gentleman will appreciate, the fracturing takes place very much deeper than any groundwater levels. I am happy to look at the specific point that he mentions about baseline monitoring.
Mrs Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)
6. What steps he is taking to improve competition in energy markets.
Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)
7. What steps he is taking to improve competition in energy markets.
Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)
16. What steps he is taking to improve competition in energy markets. .
John Robertson (Glasgow North West) (Lab)
19. What steps he is taking to improve competition in energy markets.
The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Mr Edward Davey)
The Government are strongly committed to improving competition. Since 2010, 12 new companies have entered the market, meaning that there are now 19 independent domestic suppliers competing with the big six. Latest figures show that half the households that switch are moving to independent suppliers and we are set to halve the time it takes to switch. Ofgem’s retail market reforms have delivered a simpler, clearer market, and its market maker obligation is improving wholesale market access for smaller suppliers. Last year, we asked the competition authorities to make an annual assessment of competition in energy markets. Consequently, Ofgem has consulted on a market investigation reference, which we strongly support.
Mrs McGuire
Notwithstanding the Secretary of State’s answer, around 98% of homes in Britain still take their energy supplies from the big six. Wholesale prices are falling and consumers are seeing no benefit. Does he not wish that he had been a bit braver in the Energy Act 2013 to ensure that when wholesale prices fall, consumers get some of the benefit? He could have included such proposals in the recent Act.
Mr Davey
I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for her question, but let me just correct her. The market share of the independents is now nearly 6% compared with less than 1% in 2010. That extraordinary growth in such a short period shows the value of competition, with 1 million people switching to independent suppliers over the past year. However, she makes an important point about wholesale energy prices, and we discussed that at length yesterday. We have taken action both through competition and through supporting the competition inquiry, which has real teeth. That stands in stark contrast to the previous Government. When the Leader of the Opposition was doing my job, he failed to take any action, even though wholesale energy prices fell much faster than they are doing now.
Susan Elan Jones
The Minister seems to have forgotten that his party has been in government now for four years, and that last autumn the Which? survey showed that consumers have been paying almost £4 billion over the odds since 2010. Why does he not show a little courage and leadership and break up the big six when the evidence is all in favour of doing so?
Mr Davey
Unlike the hon. Lady’s party leader when he was doing my job, we have referred the energy markets to the independent competition authorities for the most thorough investigation to check that they are behaving in the interests of consumers. More than that, unlike the previous Government who saw the number of energy companies fall from 15 to six, we have increased competition so that people have a real choice, and that is now working. There is still more to do, because the energy markets we inherited from the previous Government were in such a mess.
Mr Bain
Once again, the Secretary of State is sounding dreadfully out of touch. Has he not looked at the latest annual fuel poverty survey, which shows that 2.33 million households in this country are in fuel poverty, and that the gap between what households can afford and what they are expected to pay has increased to £480 under this Government? When are the Government going to stop the excuses, take action and bring in a proper energy price freeze so that consumers can get some relief from this rising cost of living?
Mr Davey
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising the issue of fuel poverty, because I do look at the statistics and we are focusing very much on that. It is worth noticing that fuel poverty went up under the previous Government, but under this Government it has gone down by 5% according to the latest figures. It is interesting that the figures have gone down under both the old definition and the new one.
Right hon. and hon. Members might want to understand why we brought in a new definition of fuel poverty. The old definition, which was introduced by the previous Government, was so ineffective that it described the Queen as being in fuel poverty in some years. We are targeting fuel poverty, and we are spending more on tackling fuel poverty than the previous Government. We have a good record, and we want to do more.
John Robertson
The Secretary of State once again manipulates the figures, and I think it is a bit of a con. He thinks that the Labour party’s policy is a con to restructure the energy market. Does he not agree, however, that the real con is the fact that the companies can sell their own energy to themselves? Does he not care about people in fuel poverty?
Mr Davey
I think I have proved that I certainly do care, because we have done a lot more than the previous Government. Let me take up the point about the wholesale market. The previous Government did absolutely nothing; they created the big six that sell energy to each other. [Interruption.] Opposition Members do not like it, but it is a fact. Under this Government, Ofgem has brought in the market maker obligation, which creates the transparency that the Opposition were asking for. The Opposition failed, but we have succeeded.
Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)
In my constituency, I have promoted the big switch, and I believe that the way to drive competition in the market is for people to vote with their feet. Will the Secretary of State advise the House and my constituents what actions he has taken to make it simpler and faster for them to switch to a better energy supplier?
Mr Davey
My hon. Friend makes an important point. The collective switch, of which that scheme was a part, has made big progress. We have seen a lot of initiatives and we are learning a lot of lessons. A lot of people are saving a lot of money because they are coming together for group purchasing.
The point about faster switching times is absolutely right, and that is one of the reasons why we called in the industry. We inherited a situation in which it took five and a half weeks, on average, to switch, which was unacceptable. We have now got commitments from industry, with Ofgem leading the way, to halve switching times by the end of the year, and we have a plan to get the time it takes to switch down to 24 hours. That is the right approach.
Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the price freeze that Labour proposes, but that many energy players and experts oppose, will not only reduce competition in the energy market but reduce investment in our energy infrastructure, which is sorely needed after too many years of neglect?
Mr Davey
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. An energy price freeze would hit investors, hit investment, hit energy security and hit our efforts to decarbonise. Worst of all, it would hit consumers, because energy companies would put up their prices directly after the freeze. Everybody knows that, and it is one of the reasons why we have been pushing competition. Competition means not merely freezing bills—five of the big six have announced that they will freeze their bills this year—but, because of independent suppliers, enabling people to cut their bills. Our policy is to cut bills; the Opposition’s is simply to freeze them. We are the ones who are ambitious and on the side of the consumer.
Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)
Many of my constituents live off the gas grid, and there is limited competition for liquefied petroleum gas or heating oil to heat their homes. Many of my constituents depend on one local supplier and have to pay whatever prices that supplier chooses to charge. What can my right hon. Friend do to help my constituents who are in that position?
Mr Davey
My hon. Friend makes a really important point. The Minister of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon) has been working with the industry on the concordat. The statistics that have emerged from the new fuel poverty definitions show, unlike previous ones, that much fuel poverty is in off gas grid areas. When we bring forward the fuel poverty strategy shortly, we will be focusing on off gas grid customers, because they are really suffering, and—guess what?—the previous Government did nothing about it.
Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)
There are more than 1 million families with children in fuel poverty, which is more than there have been at any point during the past 10 years. If wholesale prices are falling but those reductions are not being passed on to consumers, it is a clear sign that competition is not working. Yesterday, the Government opposed our proposal to give the regulator the power to force energy companies to pass on falls in wholesale prices if they have not done so. If the regulator does not have the power to protect consumers and if the Government will not give it that power, how does the Secretary of State expect the public, particularly the 1 million families with children in fuel poverty, to have any confidence in the energy market?
Mr Davey
The right hon. Lady will remember that yesterday I made it clear that we have real concerns about the energy market. That is one reason why we support the competition inquiry. I made it very clear that we are worried about the fact that when wholesale prices go up, retail prices follow them quickly, which is the rocket effect, but that when wholesale prices come down, retail prices do not come down as quickly—the feather effect. We believe that that has to be addressed. The previous Government had the same problem and they did not address it. We are addressing it.
The problem with the proposed regulation, as I told the House yesterday, is that when we look at the detail we can see that it would fail and would lead to prices going up. It is a bungee-jumping approach to energy prices and it would increase volatility and fluctuations. If the House wants a little more analysis, let me point out that a few months ago wholesale prices were coming down, yet in the past few weeks they have gone up. Are the Opposition saying that they would force energy companies to move directly with daily and weekly moves in the wholesale costs? That is surely madness.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
8. What recent representations he has received on the proposed changes to financial support for solar PV.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
9. What recent representations he has received on the proposed changes to financial support for solar PV.
Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)
15. What recent representations he has received on the proposed changes to financial support for solar PV.
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Gregory Barker)
Thanks to the dramatic fall in the cost of solar and the huge level of deployment under the coalition Government, solar can now be at the forefront of the transition to the new contracts for difference support mechanism, which had support in the Division Lobby from the whole House. The detail of the changeover from the renewables obligation is crucial, so we are carefully engaging with industry during the consultation period to ensure that we get the details absolutely right.
Kelvin Hopkins
Solar PV and onshore wind are two of the cheapest large-scale renewable energy sectors. Does the Minister accept that cuts to solar, coming off the back of his party’s promise to impose an effective moratorium on onshore wind, will lead to higher energy bills?
Gregory Barker
The hon. Gentleman is somewhat misled. We are certainly not proposing cuts to solar. We are putting solar at the forefront of our transition to contracts for difference, which set out the growth path for all renewable technologies well into the next decade. We are seeing tremendous growth in solar and our ambitious solar strategy will ensure that that continues for years to come.
Alison McGovern
May I push the Minister a little further on what he has just said? There seems to be genuine worry that the consultation represents disinvestment in solar photovoltaics. Will he say how that is not the case and confirm that to do so would be counter-productive?
Gregory Barker
Let me reassure the hon. Lady that this Government are 110% committed to solar. What is more, when we came into office there were a few megawatts of solar and there are now thousands of megawatts of solar. More than 3 GW of solar have been installed under this Government. We have a fantastic record and there is lots more to come, but the changes to which she referred simply refer primarily to large field-based solar and only to schemes above 5 MW. The feed-in tariffs system remains intact and is there for the long-term support of rooftop mounted and smaller scale systems.
Michael Connarty
The Minister seems once again to be deluding himself. The analysis is that the reduction of the renewables obligation for projects above 5 MW will result in the loss of 30% of the planned build— 1.3 GW will disappear. The regression tariff on roof-mounted solar above 50 kW will probably not encourage people with large roofs to make the investment that the Minister wants. That will damage the carbon promise that we made and people who want to use solar.
Gregory Barker
The hon. Gentleman is obviously a fan of indiscriminately building field-based solar. We have been very clear in our solar strategy that we want the focus for growth to be on roof-mounted systems and on-site generation. The fact is that all technologies will transfer from the renewables obligation to contracts for difference, and solar is simply at the front of the queue. We have an ambitious strategy and we are driving it forward.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
20. I congratulate the Minister on the significant expansion of solar on his watch and not least on the fact that every one of the 158 new properties in Sandringham drive in Houghton Regis has solar panels on the roof, really benefiting tenants. However, many more people want to benefit. What can the Minister do to help with the affordability issues that people face?
Gregory Barker
First and foremost, through our reforms we have helped to drive down the cost of solar. When we came into government, the cost of a typical domestic set of panels was close to £15,000. It is now available, say from Ikea, for under £5,000. Financing packages are available that will finance almost the whole cost, but I am also keen to open up the green deal to allow the FITs income to be taken into account for the golden rule. That will have a transformational effect, making solar available to pretty much everyone.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
In the Minister’s forthcoming plans, will he ensure that it is a requirement of any large-scale solar, or indeed any large-scale onshore wind, that communities derive a demonstrable and measurable benefit?
Gregory Barker
My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. That is very much the thrust of Government policy. As our community energy strategy makes clear, we are determined to drive forward the roll-out of a much more distributive energy economy and to empower communities, and giving them part of local developments, such as larger-scale solar, is a way of doing that.
Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)
The Minister has declared that it is his ambition to see 20 GW of solar PV by 2020. However, the reality does not match the rhetoric of that statement, or, indeed, some of his answers today. His own impact assessment for the latest review of solar predicts that there could be a 30% reduction in projected deployment under the renewables obligations, which would be enough to power 400,000 homes. Does he accept that that makes a mockery of his commitment to solar and, as it comes off the back of his party’s attacks on onshore wind, how does he expect to maintain any credibility on investment in the sector?
Gregory Barker
Oh, the Labour party does love doom and gloom! Labour Members should get real and realise that solar is going through an extraordinary expansion. It is a good news story that should be celebrated. I have been very clear that we will reach my ambition of having 20 GW of solar, which is absolutely credible, only if we drive down to zero subsidy. We will not get there if we are still relying on subsidy by the end of this decade. We are working with the industry to drive down the cost even further and eliminate subsidy altogether, with a focus on rooftop and on-site generation.
Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)
10. What steps he has taken to help home owners install renewable heating systems.
Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)
21. What steps he has taken to help home owners install renewable heating systems.
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Gregory Barker)
Our world-first domestic renewable heat incentive scheme opened for applications on 9 April, giving home owners an unprecedented opportunity to install greener, cheaper heating. More than 1,000 applications have already been accredited to the scheme.
Oliver Colvile
What pressure is being put on housing associations to reduce energy costs for tenants, especially those living in energy poverty and those receiving benefits?
Gregory Barker
It is typical of my hon. Friend to be particularly concerned about the more vulnerable and those on lower incomes, and he has done a great deal of work in his constituency to help them. We have a range of policies that will help reduce energy bills for tenants and home owners alike. Social housing was at the forefront in benefiting from DECC’s renewable heat premium payment scheme. We installed over 10,000 renewable heating systems in social housing. Social housing providers and the National Housing Federation are working closely with my team in DECC to look at more ways in which we can make the RHI available to social housing tenants.
Andrew Stephenson
My right hon. Friend was kind enough to visit Pendle on Monday and meet Fiona Imlach and Bruce Mills of Ashburn Stoves in Earby, a business that sells renewable heating systems for use in people’s homes. What assurances can he give the customers of such businesses that they will be supported through Government scheme such as the renewable heat incentive?
Gregory Barker
I thank my hon. Friend for welcoming me to his constituency, where I was very impressed to see the support he is giving to a number of exciting and innovative green businesses, which are clearly benefiting from the wider growth in the economy. Many products sold by Ashburn Stoves, such as the pellet stoves I was shown, are already included in our schemes. We want the RHI to drive innovation and we are clear that next year there will be a review to bring in new technologies that are proven to reduce carbon emissions.
Ann McKechin (Glasgow North) (Lab)
About a quarter of houses in Scotland are in the hard-to-heat category, having been built of stone or with non-traditional construction. Can the Minister give me an estimate of how many houses he believes will benefit from the green deal scheme between now and 2017, and what priority will he give to that category of property?
Gregory Barker
I am answering questions on the renewable heat incentive rather than the green deal scheme. I could not give the hon. Lady an answer about 2017 off the top of my head, but I will happily write to her with our estimate.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
11. What recent assessment he has made of the UK’s energy security.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
17. What recent assessment he has made of the UK’s energy security.
Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
18. What recent assessment he has made of the UK’s energy security.
The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Mr Edward Davey)
The UK enjoys a stable and secure energy supply, and we are working hard to ensure that it continues. As a Government, we are actively managing a number of risks to our current and future energy supplies, including the current challenges from Iraq, Russia and Ukraine. Our recent national gas risk assessment demonstrated that our gas infrastructure is robust. The measures recently announced by National Grid respond to the energy crunch that, owing to the legacy of under-investment and neglect, was predicted for this winter, but which will not now happen.
Andrew Gwynne
I thank the Secretary of State for that reply. As he will know, this week National Grid suggested that interconnection could save the UK £1 billion in its efforts to meet its supply requirements. What support are the Government giving to ensure that there are potential options for interconnection in future?
Mr Davey
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s question. We are giving huge support. We published the first ever interconnection strategy in December and we are working with Ofgem, which recently published a new registry framework. We hope that three interconnector projects will get to financial close very shortly—the Eleclink through the channel tunnel, the Nemo Link project with Belgium and the NSN project with Norway—and we think that two other projects could come forward with France. The question is really important as it involves the single European energy market, of which we are strong supporters. We are working tirelessly on that very point.
Mr Davey
The last thing we need for energy security is a new quango. The system involving National Grid, Ofgem and my Department is working incredibly well, which is why we dealt with the problem that we inherited. The demand load measures that the hon. Gentleman talked about have been welcomed by the CBI and industry; they are used an awful lot in north America and in other countries, but we have underused them. They are mainly used by companies volunteering to pay to use on-site generation, rather than national grid electricity, at the peak.
Tom Blenkinsop
Will the Secretary of State confirm that just one new gas-fired power station will have started construction and come online in this Parliament, under this Government, compared with the 10 GW of new gas capacity built under the previous Labour Government?
Mr Davey
I hope that the hon. Gentleman is not trying to suggest that the last Government were effective in investing in electricity production, because they were very weak. There has been £45 billion of electricity investment since 2010. The investment rate is going up, not just in gas but in renewables. The first nuclear deal was struck last October. We are going across the board, and the lights will stay on under us; if Labour’s policy had continued, they would have gone out.
Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
Does not the Chinese Premier’s reconfirmation this week of Chinese investors’ willingness to invest in a new generation of nuclear power stations in the UK demonstrate that the world sees the UK generally as a good place in which to invest? Does it not also show that the Chinese see the framework of the Energy Act 2013 as a good, sound basis on which to invest in energy in the UK?
Mr Davey
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The interest from around the world in the UK’s reformed electricity markets, particularly the world’s first ever low-carbon electricity market, is profound. It is not just the Chinese; there is interest from the French as well as from Japanese companies such as Hitachi and Toshiba-Westinghouse—and not just in nuclear, but across the low carbon piece.
Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)
The capacity market is meant to help secure our energy supply, but that must be done with as little cost to consumers as possible. There are 15-year contracts for new plant, compared with three-year contracts for existing plant. Will that not create perverse incentives, particularly for the big six, to build lots of new power stations, when it could be quicker and cheaper to refurbish existing plant?
Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)
13. What estimate his Department has made of the cost to the public purse up to 2050 of limiting the use of biomass in the decarbonisation of the UK’s energy system.
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Michael Fallon)
Biomass has an important role to play in meeting our renewables target and our future energy needs. We are supporting about 3.4 GW of bio-energy technologies, including waste technologies, through the renewables obligation. As I told the House earlier, contracts have been signed for up to 1.4 GW of biomass under the early investment contracts.
Nigel Adams
Within the levy control framework allocations in July, to what extent is the Minister considering the dispatchable and secure supply of solid biomass as a strong reason for implementing the electricity market reform delivery plan’s higher level of deployment, especially in the light of the risk to the UK energy supply caused by political instability elsewhere in the world?
Michael Fallon
The Government consider those risks very seriously. We are allocating over £1 billion of taxpayers’ money to support coal-to-biomass conversion at the Drax plant in my hon. Friend’s constituency, at Lynemouth in Northumberland, and at a dedicated biomass plant on Teesside. He will be aware, however, that the cost of that support has to be managed within the levy control framework if we are to keep our constituents’ bills affordable.
Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)
What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that wherever possible biomass is supplied from within the UK? What discussions is he having with the Welsh Government and other devolved Administrations to make sure that that happens in order to minimise the carbon footprint of transporting biomass across the waters into the UK?
Michael Fallon
I discuss these matters with the devolved Administrations in Wales, in Scotland, and so on. The hon. Gentleman is right: we have to make sure that biomass is properly sustainable and that the criteria applied to these plants are even across the different devolved Administrations.
Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)
Does the Minister stick by his Department’s claims that meeting our 2050 targets will cost billions more without the use of sustainable biomass?
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Mr Edward Davey)
In advance of our dinner tomorrow night, let me tell the House that in May, in response to the crisis in Ukraine, the G7 and the European Union re-evaluated our energy security plans and agreed a new approach that would strengthen our long-term energy security. The United Kingdom is rated the most energy secure country in the EU. To maintain this position, we are pressing forward with the diversification of our energy supplies.
In April, we announced £12 billion of investment in renewable energy projects, supporting 8,500 jobs under the final investment decisions enabling process, which is resulting in the development of offshore wind, coal-to-biomass, and dedicated biomass for combined heat and power projects.
To address short-term capacity issues, this month National Grid announced demand-side balancing reserve measures that will ensure that the risk of disruption remains at very low levels. Energy efficiency is also a key part of energy security, and in June we announced new energy efficiency funding worth £540 million over three years, including boosting cash-back offers under the green deal.
Kerry McCarthy
At Copenhagen, world leaders made commitments to the creation of a green climate fund and to mobilising $100 billion a year of climate finance by 2020. However, it is not clear how much progress has been made in securing this funding, and developing countries have said that they cannot set their emission targets until they know. Will the Minister please tell us what is going on?
Mr Davey
That is a very important question. We are one of the world leaders in promoting international climate finance, and we very much support this fund. It has taken a while to get together to finalise the arrangements. Some real progress has been made in recent weeks, at long last. We hope that countries will start pledging to the fund at United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s summit in November or at the UN framework convention on climate change talks in Lima in December. It is also important that we have private climate finance. Only last week, the Minister of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker), brought together many people to ensure that there is private money to help to get to the $100 billion target.
Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)
T2. With one of the potential investors unfortunately walking away from negotiations over our last remaining deep mines, will the Minister update the House on what he is doing to assist in finding replacement investment for UK Coal that will give workers at Kellingley colliery in my constituency the chance of a more secure future?
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Michael Fallon)
I understand the uncertainty that this is causing workers at Kellingley colliery in my hon. Friend’s constituency and at Thoresby colliery in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Mr Spencer). We have been working with the company since January to help it to overcome the challenges that it faces. The exceptional offer we made of a Government loan of £10 million to the consortium that was leading the rescue remains on the table despite the withdrawal of Hargreaves, and we continue to work with UK Coal and its directors to explore what other sources of private investment might be available.
Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)
As has been said, there is a great deal of concern about the future of jobs at Kellingley and Thoresby pits following the decision by Hargreaves to pull out from UK Coal’s managed closure programme. The redundancy process is already under way, but there may still be time to find a way forward, so could the Minister confirm that the £10 million loan is on the table and that the Government are still exploring all viable options, including an employee buy-out, to secure a future for these pits?
Michael Fallon
The only plan so far presented by the board of UK Coal is the plan from which Hargreaves withdrew last week. If further plans are presented by UK Coal, with which we are working each day, we will, of course, be prepared to ensure that the £10 million loan remains available. If there is a viable plan for an employee buy-out, we will certainly look at that as well.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
T4. Many rural communities in my constituency of North West Leicestershire have considerable concerns about the current flurry of planning applications for large-scale solar farms on greenfield sites. My constituents therefore have considerable sympathy for those protesters campaigning against the current high-profile application by Borchester Land to build a large-scale solar farm on the Berrow estate in Ambridge. Would a Minister care to comment on that situation?
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Gregory Barker)
My hon. Friend knows that it is a rule not to comment on individual planning cases, but, having looked at the issue very carefully, I draw the attention of South Borsetshire district council to the planning advice and solar strategy that we sent to all councils, making it clear that our focus is on brownfield sites, not high-grade agricultural land, and, wherever possible, building-mounted.
John Robertson (Glasgow North West) (Lab)
T3. The Secretary of State will be aware that an article in the Daily Mail at the end of last month said that British Gas workers “who doubled bills” were “treated like celebrities” and given trips to Monaco and Rome, plus other things, and that they targeted churches, charities and elderly people because they were easy targets. Does he think it is right for a company to be able to do that, and what is he doing about it?
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
T6. In contrast to the gloomy outlook from the Labour party, could we have an update on progress on improving access to and the availability of large-scale solar panels on commercial and industrial properties?
Gregory Barker
We need to see real growth in that rooftop space. To that end, the Department for Communities and Local Government will undertake a consultation in the next few weeks on granting permissive planning permission for rooftop solar up from 50 kW to 1 MW, in addition to the work we are doing to tackle non-financial barriers. I will spell that out in more detail when I address the rooftop solar conference being held by the British Photovoltaic Association on 1 July.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
T5. On the roll-out of smart meters, the in-home display accounts for about £15 of the cost per household, yet in a recent survey six out of 10 customers said that they would prefer to receive information on tablets, personal computers or smartphones. Does not the Secretary of State think that he is wasting money by going down the route of old-fashioned technology, and will he rethink it?
Mr Davey
No. There is an awful lot of research that shows that in-home displays lead to changed behaviour. There is nothing to stop an energy supplier offering other options in addition. If the hon. Lady wants the improved energy efficiency and lower energy bills that the smart meter programme wants to deliver, I hope she will look at the research, because it is pretty strong.
Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
T7. On the issue of PV solar farms, do Ministers agree that where local public opinion is overwhelmingly in support of such applications, that should be an important consideration for the planning process? We in Wroughton in my constituency want to see a solar farm at the old airfield, yet we now face a planning inquiry because of objections by the area of outstanding natural beauty. It is deeply frustrating, to say the least.
Gregory Barker
I thoroughly understand my colleague’s frustration—he is a fantastic champion for his constituents. That sort of large-scale solar development on a brownfield site on an airfield is exactly the sort of large-scale solar that we want to see and support, rather than one on high-grade agricultural land. It sounds like an exemplar project.
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
Constituents are still phoning us about problems with green deal suppliers, particularly those who take the money for the survey and then do not come up with the goods in spite of numerous phone calls. This often occurs over different areas, so it is not necessarily appropriate for just one local trading standards officer to take up the matter. Will the Minister consider talking to his colleagues in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills about having a more thorough investigation into what is happening on the ground with these companies?
Gregory Barker
We have an excellent relationship with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. We take all cases of potential mis-selling or poor practice in the green deal market extremely seriously, even though such cases are relatively infrequent. The Green Deal Oversight and Registration Body has particular responsibility for policing the market, but if the hon. Lady has specific examples of poor practice, I would be very grateful if she let me have them.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
The Secretary of State will recall that I raised with him an anomaly about the warm home discount scheme. Pensioners with social landlords who pay their bills collectively through the social landlord do not qualify for that discount. He promised to look into that matter, and he wrote to me. Will he update me on any progress he has made as it is of big relevance to many pensioners in social accommodation in my constituency?
Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)
Is the Minister with responsibility for the coal industry aware that when we met the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills to try to get something like £70 million to save the two pits at Thoresby and Kellingley, I inquired about the person sitting at the back and was told that he was representing the Minister? In other words, he was jotting down everything that we said—he was acting on behalf of the Minister alone—and therefore the Business Secretary was not able to talk to us frankly, and when we asked for the £70 million to save the pits, they refused. He was like a spy in the camp.
Michael Fallon
I really do not recognise that description of the meeting that I know the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends had with my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary. Let me make it clear: I met the unions on Monday, including the National Union of Mineworkers, and we are prepared to look at any new plan brought forward by the directors of UK Coal that will enable us to continue the operation of the two collieries into next year, but any contribution from the Government has to represent full value for money.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
May we have an update on the Wood review?
Michael Fallon
Yes. We are pressing ahead with early implementation of the Wood review. We will make a full formal response shortly, but we intend to establish the principles behind the Wood review in the Infrastructure Bill, which is before Parliament at the moment, and to set out the arrangements for collecting the levy to fund the new authority. We are also pressing ahead with the recruitment of the chief executive officer of the new oil and gas authority, who will be the senior regulator.
Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)
If the Government are committed to saving what is left of the British deep-mining coal industry, as has been expressed this morning, will the Minister give a commitment to guarantee that he will discuss state aid to the coal industry for any new potential investor?
Michael Fallon
Of course, we have been considering the state aid case and what has to be notified to the Commission in Brussels, but we need to see a subsequent plan. We can only act on the basis of a plan put forward by UK Coal Ltd, which is a private company. We are ready to help with any new plan that may emerge from the discussions going on at the moment with potential investors. I need to make it clear to the House that UK Coal Ltd has already had nearly £140 million-worth of taxpayers’ support during the past 10 to 12 years, and it is very important that any new loan represents good value for money for the taxpayer.
Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)
People who live in park homes are often on low incomes. What will the Secretary of State do to improve their access to energy and so help to bring down their bills?
Gregory Barker
We have taken it on board that, to date, and particularly under the last Government, people who live in park homes have had a very poor deal. We are doing two things. First, we are making the energy company obligation more applicable to people who live in park homes, accepting that there are challenges with insulating such properties. Secondly, we are exploring whether it is possible to pay the warm home discount to people who live in such homes. We understand that they do not receive that currently because they pay their bills through the site operator.
Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)
Working men’s clubs, such as the Innisfree in my constituency, are struggling to stay open. They find, like many of their members, that energy bills take up a large chunk of their limited budgets. What can the Minister offer to improve their energy efficiency and so help these important community institutions to stay open?
Gregory Barker
We take all measures to improve energy efficiency extremely seriously. I would be very happy to hear more about the example that the hon. Lady has mentioned. If she will write to me or meet me, we will see what we can do to help.
Business of the House
(9 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
Will the Leader of the House give us the business for next week?
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Andrew Lansley)
The business for next week is as follows:
Monday 23 June—Conclusion of the remaining stages of the Deregulation Bill.
Tuesday 24 June—Remaining stages of the Wales Bill.
Wednesday 25 June—Opposition day (2nd allotted day). There will be debates on Opposition motions, including on the subject of the private rented sector.
Thursday 26 June—General debate on the programme of commemoration for the first world war.
Friday 27 June—The House will not be sitting.
The provisional business for the week commencing 30 June will include:
Monday 30 June—Opposition day (3rd allotted day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.
Tuesday 1 July—Motions to approve Ways and Means resolutions relating to the Finance Bill, followed by remaining stages of the Finance Bill (day 1).
Wednesday 2 July—Conclusion of the remaining stages of the Finance Bill.
Thursday 3 July—Business to be nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.
Friday 4 July—The House will not be sitting.
I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 26 June will be:
Thursday 26 June—Debate on the Seventh Report of the Administration Committee on migration statistics.
I know that Members from all parts of the House will have been pleased to hear of the honour that was granted to the Deputy Speaker, the right hon. Member for Bristol South (Dame Dawn Primarolo), and the knighthoods that were awarded to my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames) and my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash). May I also congratulate Amyas Morse, the Comptroller and Auditor General, on the award of his KCB and all the other people, including those who are in the service of the House, who were granted awards in the Queen’s birthday honours list?
Ms Eagle
May I join the Leader of the House in congratulating all those who were honoured in the Queen’s honours list?
Iraq remains under violent siege by Islamic militants who seem set on overthrowing the Government, terrorising the population and dividing the country. The humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate and hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes. Given that the Prime Minister said yesterday that as many as 400 British citizens could be fighting for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, will the Leader of the House arrange for an oral statement to be made on how the Government will co-ordinate across Departments to ensure that those fighters do not pose a risk to citizens if they return to the UK?
The Leader of the House has given us the business until two weeks before the summer recess. I calculate that since the end of the Queen’s Speech debate, just half of our time will have been spent on Government business. There is still no sign of the Commons Second Readings of any of the 11 Bills that were announced in the Queen’s Speech. Of the three Bills that are in the Lords, one recycles old promises, one is only four clauses long and the other is only half written because the Government have not finished their consultation on fracking. It is only thanks to Labour that we have had the chance to debate issues as crucial as the passport crisis and rising energy bills and rent. Does the Leader of the House agree with the Education Secretary’s erstwhile adviser that the Prime Minister has
“no priorities, focus or grip”?
Why did it take an Opposition day debate for the Home Secretary to apologise to the nearly 55,000 people whose holidays may have been ruined by her passport shambles? Will the Leader of the House tell us when we might start to see some of his new legislation appear?
Another issue mysteriously missing from the future business is the promised regulations on standardised packaging for tobacco. Health professionals want it, the public want it, all the evidence shows it will help, and Parliament has voted for it, but last week the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison), who is responsible for public health, admitted that it is being blocked by No. 10. Does the hold-up have anything to do with the presence of Australian tobacco lobbyist Lynton Crosby at the heart of No. 10, and when does the Leader of the House intend to bring the regulations forward?
Each week, the gap between the Government’s rhetoric and reality just gets wider. During the flooding crisis in February the Prime Minister promised that money would be no object, but a report released by the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on Tuesday shows that instead of increasing spending on flood defences, the Government have cut funding by more than 17% in real terms, and that only 5% of the relief money that the Prime Minister promised farmers has been paid. That failure is no surprise when we have an Environment Secretary who does not believe in climate change, a Prime Minister who is more interested in public relations than results, and a chief of staff at No. 10 who has been described by the Education Secretary’s erstwhile adviser as a
“third-rate suck-up…sycophant presiding over a shambolic court.”
Will the Leader of the House arrange for a statement on the report in Government time, so that the Environment Secretary can take responsibility for his inaction?
This week’s “mind the gap” watch could go on all day. The Prime Minister promised to lead in Europe, but he is spending his time isolated and ridiculed. He pledged to transform the lives of 120,000 troubled families, but now we have learned that three quarters of those who have been through the programme have not been helped. His broken promise not to have a costly top-down reorganisation of the NHS has led to a GP recruitment crisis, missed cancer targets and more than a trebling in the number of NHS trusts in deficit. Does the Leader of the House agree, once more, with the Education Secretary’s erstwhile adviser that the Prime Minister is
“a sphinx without a riddle”
who
“bumbles from one shambles to another without the slightest sense of purpose”?
I ask the Leader of the House again to arrange for a statement from the Minister for the Cabinet Office, so that he can explain this Government’s complete inability to see through their promises.
I am sure the whole House would like to congratulate the rowers in the other place on their triumphant victory in the annual parliamentary boat race on the Thames last week. I understand that the Commons boat, which consisted entirely of coalition MPs, promised a great victory, but guess what? They failed to deliver, they did not work well as a team, they rowed slowly and in no particular direction, and as they reached the finishing line, they sank.
Mr Lansley
I am grateful to the shadow Leader of the House for her response to the forthcoming business.
The hon. Lady will have heard the statement on Iraq that the Foreign Secretary made on Monday, and he had the further opportunity to respond to Foreign and Commonwealth Office questions on Tuesday. Indeed, the debate that will follow business questions, on the statutory instrument relating to terrorism, will afford an opportunity to discuss some of the issues that the hon. Lady mentioned, particularly the security threats that the Prime Minister referred to yesterday.
We regard the developments in Iraq as extremely serious, as I am sure the House will agree. Fighting continues in Baqubah and close to Baghdad, as well as in the north of the country. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is a violent and brutal group, and we must ensure that we understand what is happening and how it is appropriate for us to respond. The debate on terrorism that is to follow will enable my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to amplify those points. Yesterday, the Prime Minister announced a further extension to our emergency support provided to refugees from that fighting, which the House will agree is tremendously important. The Foreign Secretary will continuously review whether it is necessary to make any further statement to the House.
Eleven Bills were announced in the Queen’s Speech—a substantial programme for a short Session. Three of those have been introduced in the Lords and three in this House. I am surprised that the shadow Leader of the House said that we have spent only half our time on legislation, because only half the time is available to the Government for legislation. In a four-day week of Chamber consideration in the Commons, two days are available to the Government, one day to the Opposition and one to the Backbench Business Committee. What the hon. Lady says is a statement of the—how shall we put it?—obvious.
Most remarks by the shadow Leader of the House seem to have been constructed around an interview given to The Times by Dominic Cummings. Frankly, I do not agree with anything he said, and I suspect that I am joined by my colleagues wholeheartedly in that thought.
Mr Lansley
No, it is true—we do not agree with Dominic Cummings.
The hon. Lady asked about standardised packaging. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Health (Jane Ellison) made a clear statement to the House, and that has not changed. The Government have decided to proceed with standardised packaging, and in due course we will bring forward the necessary regulation.
The hon. Lady asked about flooding, and we have often had that debate and demonstrated how we are making available additional resources to support flood defences. As I said in previous Business questions, my right hon. Friends in the Government are working on the lessons learned from the recent winter and the exceptional weather events, and on how we can improve resilience and recovery in the future. I hope that before the summer my right hon. Friend the Environment Secretary will have the opportunity to make a statement to the House on the lessons learned.
The hon. Lady made some assertions about the NHS. We have more GPs now than at the last election, and slightly more GPs per head of population. Health Education England has a mandate to secure 50% of doctors going through training to be GPs, and about £18 billion of efficiency savings have been achieved during this Parliament by this Government, in complete contrast to the Labour party. A pretty telling example is that in the year before the election, when Labour knew there was no money left, the administration costs of the NHS went up by 23% in one year. Since then, and by the end of this Parliament, we will have reduced NHS administration costs by one third, delivering a recurring £1.5 billion a year saving on administration. That is why we have 16,000 more clinical staff in the NHS than at the last election, and 19,000 fewer administrators.
The hon. Lady referred to the debates that the Opposition are bringing forward. Yes of course, but when it comes to the really big issues, they cannot have a debate. They cannot hold a debate on the economy, the deficit, jobs or welfare—Labour has failed to have a positive message on any of those topics because the Government are taking the necessary steps. Our long-term economic plan is working: the deficit is down, growth and jobs are up, unemployment is down, the welfare bill is under control, and this country is going in the right direction.
Mr Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend arrange for a statement next week to explain why Mr Deputy Speaker, the Chairman of Ways and Means, is not a member of the selection panel for the new Clerk of the House? Is there not a conflict of interest in appointing the right hon. Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge) in his place, given that the Clerk is the accounting officer of the House and the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee is responsible for scrutinising the spending of public money?
Mr Lansley
My right hon. Friend asks an interesting question. I have to confess that I do not know if the point he raises was considered before an invitation was extended to the right hon. Member for Barking. Accounting officers are indeed held to account by the Public Accounts Committee, of which she is the Chair. Whether a conflict of interest therefore arises is something she will wish to consider.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Leader of the House will know that the Serious Fraud Office is a total shambles. It is in all our interests to have an efficient and effective Serious Fraud Office that is properly resourced and properly manned. May we have a debate on the future of the SFO? The real danger of a weak SFO is that it relies far too much on big accountancy firms, such as Grant Thornton and KPMG, and that is not healthy for our democratic or legal process.
Mr Lansley
I do not know what the hon. Gentleman asserts to be the case. The National Crime Agency, legislated for by this Government and now operating successfully, includes among its objectives tackling economic crime and major fraud. The evidence is that the NCA is making a substantial improvement on past arrangements to tackle serious and organised crime.
Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD)
On a number of occasions I have raised failures of child protection services, including, sadly, in my own county of Somerset. However, the proposals in the consultation paper for the part-privatisation of the service are not the answer. I do not know whether this is another of Dominic Cummings’s brilliant wheezes, but will the Secretary of State for Education come to the House and say clearly that that will not happen under a coalition Government?
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend will be aware that the consultation on plans relating to children’s social care functions has just recently finished. It is not a proposal for privatisation, but a means by which local authorities have the discretion—not a requirement, but a discretion—to delegate additional functions to third parties, including child protection. That will, of course, give rise to opportunities for mutual organisations and charities to bring innovation. We have seen in recent years, in many aspects of public service, that that can be very beneficial.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
It was reported this week that the problem of A and E departments being overwhelmed by drunken patients is now not just a weekend phenomenon, but is spreading through the week. There are suggestions that such patients should not be admitted to A and E, but dealt with separately in specialist drunk units. When will the Government accept that Britain’s alcohol problem is serious? May we have a debate on the need for comprehensive legislation to deal with this growing national problem?
Mr Lansley
The hon. Gentleman will recall the alcohol plan, with which I was directly associated, that was announced by the Home Secretary. When I was Secretary of State for Health, we looked at the issues relating to so-called “drunk tanks”. We did not proceed with them, because of the dangers of mistakenly identifying somebody as drunk in circumstances where they are suffering a clinical condition that requires clinical treatment. As for whether we have an alcohol problem, yes we do. It is not so much about the overall consumption of alcohol, which is coming down—that is positive—but the abusive use of alcohol. Many of the measures in the alcohol action plan focus on that.
Mr Ben Wallace (Wyre and Preston North) (Con)
Can my right hon. Friend please find time for a debate on the west coast main line franchise and today’s good news that Virgin will continue to operate its excellent service right up to 2018, which this time will include, we think, a direct service from Blackpool to London, ensuring that hard-working families and others in my constituency can have a direct route from the coastal town to London?
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend rightly draws attention to the written ministerial statement that our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport made to the House this morning about the extension of the west coast main line franchise. Recent further announcements on franchises are bringing positive developments for passengers, which shows that this Government are now using the franchising process positively to benefit passengers.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
The Leader of the House will recall that a couple of weeks ago I asked him about the mutual defence agreement with the United States. Will he give us an opportunity for a full debate about it, so that we can examine the details of this agreement?
Mr Lansley
I will ensure that either I or a Minister in the relevant Department writes to the hon. Gentleman about that matter. However, he will have noted, if he was in his place, that a debate on defence spending will take place later today. I am sure it would not be regarded as out of order for him to make the points he wishes to make then and to ask that question again.
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
Many of my constituents who run small businesses are coming to me more and more frequently to complain about how business rates are calculated, which is leading to crippling charges that in many cases result in shops emptying. Will my right hon. Friend give us a debate on this vexed topic in the near future, which is affecting many businesses, not least in my constituency, but also right across the country?
Mr Lansley
Business rates are something on which this Government have focused positively and intensively, which is why small businesses benefit from rate relief. It is also one of the reasons why we have taken steps to ensure that the business rate burden is ameliorated for small businesses. I will ask my hon. Friends at the Department for Communities and Local Government to respond to my hon. Friend’s point about valuation issues.
Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)
There is another Government shambles, with delays to personal independence payments. Although I have had great help from the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the right hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning), and Jayne Benton in the Department for Work and Pensions, the delays to payments are causing untold misery to my constituents, including the injured firefighter who waited 52 weeks for payment, and there are many people suffering in silence. Can we please have an urgent debate on the PIP debacle?
Mr Lansley
I remind the hon. Lady that Ministers from the Department for Work and Pensions will be responding to questions on Monday. However, I am afraid that I do not agree with her description of what is happening with personal independence payments. It is tremendously important for us to move to a much better system of assessment—disability living allowance was never reviewed or properly assessed. Modest numbers are going through at the moment, but the plan is for large numbers of those requiring to be assessed to be assessed by 2018. In particular, one must bear in mind that those awaiting assessment are generally in receipt of support, including through the continuation of DLA or the employment and support allowance.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Around 3,000 horses are currently on land without consent in England and Wales, and there is still no low-cost legal remedy for landowners to address the problem. Can we have a debate on whether fly-grazing should be made a criminal offence, so that action can be taken swiftly and offenders brought to justice? In addition, we can draw on the experience of the Welsh Assembly, which has enacted the Control of Horses (Wales) Act 2014, which provides all Welsh local authorities with powers to seize and impound horses.
Mr Lansley
From my own constituency, I know of precisely the kind of circumstances to which my hon. Friend refers, which can be very distressing to a local community. We do not believe it is necessarily a solution to give local authorities powers to remove horses and kill them at public expense. We need to tackle the perpetrators directly. We need a co-ordinated and co-operative approach, using the available legislation. There is some legislation that was previously available, but there are also new measures to tackle antisocial behaviour that will soon become available, following the legislation passed in the last Session. I hope that will enable us to act more effectively in relation to those responsible for fly-grazing.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
May I press the Leader of the House for an urgent statement on the issue, raised by the shadow Leader of the House, of the number of British citizens fighting abroad? Information from Iraq this morning suggests that 400 are currently fighting there, and if we add that to the 400 identified as fighting in Syria, it becomes a very large number of people. This is separate from a discussion about the security situation in Iraq or indeed the proscription of ISIS, which will be debated later today. May we please have a statement on how we can stop our citizens going to fight abroad?
Mr Lansley
I completely understand the right hon. Gentleman’s point that there is a distinct issue here—a very important one, as the Prime Minister made perfectly clear yesterday—and we take it extremely seriously. It is linked, of course, to the question of the proscription and the more general debate about the situation in Iraq, but the issue of people going from this country to fight, the training they receive and their returning to this country, is a very important one. I cannot promise an immediate statement or debate, but we keep the issue very much in mind, and we will keep the House updated. The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that the House of Lords is currently considering legislation that includes measures to make the planning of terrorist attacks abroad a criminal offence in this country. That will give us more direct powers to deal with the issue.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
Will the Leader of the House look at providing an urgent debate on the importance of having regular elections? He may not be aware that the senior Labour peer, the noble Lord Grocott, has a Bill in the other place that would repeal the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, but leave no mechanism for dissolving Parliament and no mechanism for having elections at any point. Although that would lead to the remarkably positive result that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister would be in power for ever, the British public might occasionally like a general election!
Mr Lansley
My goodness, what my hon. Friend says sounds jolly tempting. I am surprised that the noble Lord Grocott considered it wise to legislate in such a way. Perhaps he and the Labour party are rather worried by the prospect of elections and the dangers they might represent. I am pleased to reassure my hon. Friend that we in the coalition Government are not frightened of elections and we have no intention of returning to a “Long Parliament”, as it were.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
Last week, BBC Radio Humberside and the Hull Daily Mail were reporting a scam alleging that the bedroom tax had been abolished and asking for people’s personal information so that refunds of their payments could be made. May we have a debate to make it clear that this bedroom tax policy was supported by the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives and that it will be abolished only with the return of a Labour Government in 2015?
Mr Lansley
I find the scam to which the hon. Lady refers shocking: people should not be exploited in that way, and I am sure that we agree on that. The trading standards department of her local authority might be in a position to take some action against it. The policy, however, is straightforward. It is about dealing with under-occupancy so that large numbers of people who are trying to access social housing will have an opportunity to do so through the better use of our social housing stock.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
I echo the call for a debate on developments in the middle east, which are arguably more significant than the events we have seen unfold in Ukraine. Britain is not isolated: we are very much affected by the diplomatic, economic, humanitarian and military issues that are for this place to consider, and who knows when the Executive might seek Parliament’s support in designing any response?
Mr Lansley
As my hon. Friend will know, the Foreign Secretary took immediate steps to update the House on Monday. I cannot promise an immediate debate on Syria and Iraq, because, contrary to what was implied by the shadow Leader of the House, there is legislative pressure on Government time. However, I will discuss the matter with the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee. We have given the Committee time in which to arrange debates on issues that are considered important by Members in all parts of the House, and I have understood from Members that they feel the need for a debate on Syria and Iraq.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
We recently marked the 30th anniversary of the Indian Government’s attack on the Golden Temple at Amritsar. Earlier this year, the Prime Minister set up an internal inquiry into allegations of collusion between the Thatcher and Gandhi Governments at the time. The inquiry was limited and internal, it did not include publication of all the documents, and it has not gained the confidence of the Sikh community in Britain, who have now launched a call for an independent, judge-led inquiry into the whole affair. Will the Leader of the House ask the Prime Minister to come to the House and make a statement in response to the Sikh community’s request?
Mr Lansley
The hon. Gentleman will recall the Foreign Secretary’s statement to the House following the Cabinet Secretary’s report. I saw the report and the papers associated with it, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman did. The Foreign Secretary made clear that the report constituted a comprehensive and conclusive response to the issues that had been raised, and I do not currently expect any further statement to be made.
Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
Next Monday, the House will debate the Report stage and Third Reading of the Deregulation Bill. My right hon. Friend will have noted that our hon. Friends the Members for Shipley (Philip Davies) and for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) have tabled a number of new clauses which, if passed, would completely deregulate Sunday trading. I must tell my right hon. Friend that any such move by the House would be seen by the Church of England—and, I am sure, by many other faith groups—as an act of bad faith on the part of Parliament. The present Sunday trading arrangements arose from a series of compromises that were agreed in the mid-1990s to strike a balance between keeping Sunday special and enabling more stores and shops to open on Sundays. I should welcome my right hon. Friend’s reassurance that if you, Mr Speaker, select any of the new clauses for debate, they will be resisted by the Government.
Mr Lansley
I am happy to say that my right hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House would respond on behalf of the Government if the new clauses were to be debated. I can reassure my right hon. Friend that the Government believe that the current position constitutes a reasonable balance between some people’s wish for more opportunities to shop in large stores on Sundays and the desire of others for further restrictions, and that we are therefore not minded to legislate for further liberalisation.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
The issue of passports was aired in the House yesterday, but we did not receive an answer from the Prime Minister to my question about the Passport Office. It would be helpful to hear some sort of statement about the matter. I should like to know why the Passport Office, which is providing such a terrible service, is being run not as a service to the public, but as a cash cow for the Chancellor. Last year, it made a £73 million profit.
Mr Lansley
Actually, I think that I did hear an answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question. The purpose of any agency of that kind is to cover its costs. Its charges should be set, and prudential levels of surplus will enable it to cover those costs. There would be no merit in running it in any other way.
The hon. Gentleman asked whether the Passport Office was being run as a service to the public. It is, absolutely. As is clear from the answers given by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary during yesterday’s debate, substantial steps are being taken—through the helpline, the provision of additional front-line staff, and the waiving of charges for urgent applications when people have to travel—to ensure that the service to the public is achieved as we wish it to be.
Mike Crockart (Edinburgh West) (LD)
Last week a tribunal judge gave the nuisance call industry the green light to cause misery to millions by deciding that the sending of illegal and unsolicited texts on an industrial scale failed to cause
“serious harm or serious distress”.
On 30 March, the Government published an action plan that included measures to deal with the problem. May we have a statement from a Minister in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport outlining what progress has been made, and when we can expect less planning and more action?
Mr Lansley
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question, because we have discussed this issue on a number of occasions and it is of importance to Members and their constituents. As he rightly says, the Government brought forward the action plan on 30 March. We are continuing to look, together with the regulators, at how the system of penalties for those breaking the code can act as the necessary disincentive to this kind of behaviour. I will ask my hon. Friends at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport when they think it might be appropriate to update the House and how we might do so.
Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
The Leader of the House will be aware that thalidomide is still an issue, especially as the victims get older and face new problems. May we have a debate on how best to help these people and, linked to that, a debate on a national birth register?
Mr Lansley
If I may, I will seek an answer for the hon. Gentleman in relation to the Government’s view on the national birth register. On support for those suffering from the consequences of thalidomide treatment, he will remember that when I was Health Secretary we made a very substantial settlement. In my view, that put the position where we would want it to be, and I do not know that there was more we needed to do at that time. Clearly, from the NHS point of view, those who are older who are living with the consequences of thalidomide treatment in the past often have increasing requirements, and the question is the extent to which the NHS can support those.
John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)
This week Salisbury city football club was faced with demotion and a funding crisis when one of its new owners failed to deliver on his promises, despite the Football Association waving him through a fit and proper person test. Will the Leader of the House make time for a debate on football governance so other small clubs across the country like Salisbury do not have to pay the price for this failure of proper governance?
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend raises an interesting point. He will know that football authorities collectively have introduced more checks and greater requirements around the owners and directors test, particularly at premier league and football league level, and that does support responsible ownership. In the case of Salisbury whites, the football conference took steps it believed to be appropriate to establish the club’s funding capability and its decision was to regulate the club. The conference has rigorous financial regulations in place, developed in conjunction with the FA. That has seen a substantial reduction in debt in the conference in recent years, but many Members feel that there is a case for a debate. A request for such a debate on non-league football was made to the Backbench Business Committee towards the end of the last Session. I will discuss with the BBC whether it would wish for that debate to take place soon. That may be of interest to Members across the House.
Mr Andrew Love (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)
Yesterday my constituents suffered the inconvenience and disruption of three trains in a row being cancelled. Sadly, this has been a more regular occurrence in recent years. May we have a debate in Government time on commuter rail services? It is not just that there are short franchises leading to a lack of investment and a poor service; the reality is that we are having real difficulty in getting anything like the service that is claimed to be provided. May we have a debate on this as a matter of urgency?
Mr Lansley
I will, if I may, ask Transport Ministers to address the specific points about the hon. Gentleman’s line and the circumstances that led to that loss of service. He will be aware that some of the recent franchise announcements have related to Greater Anglia, the line that serves north London and beyond, including my constituency. From my point of view, the level of service running into King’s Cross that has been achieved most recently has been satisfactory. Indeed, the capacity increases in prospect under the new franchise should make the experience of passengers considerably better.
Paul Uppal (Wolverhampton South West) (Con)
The whole House will have been disturbed by the figures released this week on the under-educational achievement of white working-class boys and girls, particularly in attaining five good GCSE levels. May we have a debate on how free schools in particular can bridge the ethnic education gap and, more broadly, about how we can help parents engage with their children’s education?
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend raises an interesting and important point. It is a good question to ask today because we have just heard from the Department for Education that approval has been given for 38 additional free schools. That is very encouraging news for parents as it will help them gain access to the schools they want and the places they want with the character they are looking for, and it will help us to drive up standards. The Education Committee makes some important points in its report, to which the Government will respond. I take pride in the fact that this coalition Government have ensured that more than a quarter of a million fewer children are being taught in failing schools.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
May we have a debate on the accuracy of information provided on Government websites, particularly on the Home Office website? We heard yesterday in the debate on the passport crisis of many constituents being misled about processing times. Despite the Home Secretary’s very lengthy statement, we are none the clearer on processing times, what constitutes a straightforward application and who is eligible for compensation. Does the Leader of House agree that our constituents have a right to get that information accurately—and now—on Government websites?
Mr Lansley
I am sorry but I simply do not agree with the hon. Gentleman. I was here for the statement and much of the debate, and I heard the Home Secretary accurately describe in terms what is on the Home Office website. She characterised the information as a promise of a straightforward application being achieved in three weeks. She quoted precisely from the website, which makes it very clear that that cannot be guaranteed in circumstances where additional questions have to be raised. The Home Office website is clear and the Home Secretary, in what she said yesterday, was absolutely clear about the number of passports that are currently a work in progress and the number that are in excess of the three-week objective.
Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)
I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, which states that I have shares in the company, Polity Communications. I am also chairman of the all-party parliamentary group for excellence in the built environment. Sir Terry Farrell has undertaken a review of architectural policy for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport recently. May we please have a debate on the future of architectural design as a real basis of our building for a significant amount of our heritage in the future?
Mr Lansley
I am aware of the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment and the important work it does in advising on the developments that are coming forward. We do have opportunities, not least in relation to new settlements and prospective garden cities, not only to reflect the successful design concepts in architecture of the past but to establish something in the 21st century that will be part of our architectural heritage for the future. As far as a debate is concerned, the subject might lend itself to an application for an Adjournment debate.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
My constituents are concerned that the future TransPennine rail franchise may curtail services from Cleethorpes to Manchester via Scunthorpe. Can we have a debate on TransPennine rail services?
Mr Lansley
The hon. Gentleman might also like to seek an Adjournment debate on that matter, but, to be as helpful as I can, I will ask Ministers at the Department for Transport to respond to him and update him on the position in relation to the TransPennine link.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
Tomorrow is national care home open day, and I will visit several homes in Harrogate and Knaresborough. Caring for those suffering from dementia is a major challenge in the care sector. We know that one in three people aged over 85 suffers some form of cognitive impairment. There has been a positive announcement today about the UK commitment to research into treatments, but any such treatment is still a long way off. Please may we have a debate about caring for those who are suffering from dementia in care homes; the support available in the community to help people stay in their own homes longer; and how we can make our society more dementia friendly?
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend makes a good point, and I am glad that he has drawn attention to the good work that is done in care homes. Too often, I fear, people hear about the occasions on which the quality in care homes fails, but many care homes do first-class work and provide an important environment for people who cannot look after themselves at home.
Dementia is one of the main reasons such care is required. I was proud to launch the challenge on dementia with the Prime Minister in early 2012, and a major step is being taken today towards global action to promote dementia research. That is tremendously important. As my hon. Friend says, creating more dementia-friendly communities is equally important, and we are making tremendous progress on that. Some communities across the country are leaders, and I hope that many communities will follow them in providing dementia-friendly support to people.
Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
The UK Independence party is proud of its newly formed alliance with a Swedish party that was founded by white supremacists, one of whom is a former member of the Waffen SS. Not to be outdone, the Tory party’s latest ally in Europe is a Dutch party that banned women from its membership until 2006. May we have a debate on whether those alliances are an example of what the Prime Minister means by “British values”?
Mr Lansley
At the Dispatch Box, I speak on behalf of the Government. The hon. Gentleman referred to matters in the European Parliament; they are not the responsibility of the Government. [Interruption.] I speak here as Leader of the House, and for the Government. As it happens, speaking personally, I would not draw the same conclusions as the hon. Gentleman did. It is important for us to look carefully at the relationships in the European Parliament, and I think that UKIP needs to reflect carefully on the relationships it is forming.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
The Leader of the House may be aware that together with our hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) and five other colleagues across the Chamber, I have written to the Home Secretary to ask for an independent inquiry into historic child abuse. That call has already been taken up by more than 70 hon. Members from across the House. Given that new stories emerge almost daily of grotesque abuse of children going back to the ’60s, does the Leader of the House agree that it is time that such an inquiry was held, and will he give time for a debate in the House to set the scene for it?
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend has done important work on tackling those issues. He will be aware of the range of inquiries that have taken place, some of which, I hope, are approaching a conclusion. As the Prime Minister has said and recently reiterated to the House, we have not been persuaded of the case for an overarching inquiry; indeed, we feel that there is a significant risk that such an inquiry might impede and delay the resolution of some of the issues in the separate inquiries that are taking place. As the Prime Minister rightly said, however, he will continue actively to keep the question under review.
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
The Government have allowed a situation to arise whereby Swansea prison now holds twice as many prisoners as it was designed for, which the chief inspector of prisons describes as a “political and policy failure”. Can we have a proper debate in Government time on prison policy?
Mr Lansley
I do not think that there is a case for a debate, because I do not think that the case that the hon. Lady makes was sustained in the questioning that took place on an urgent question on the subject earlier this week. On the contrary, the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice set out clearly the number of spare places across the prison estate; the reasons for the increase in the prison population; and the steps that we are taking to deal with any capacity issues that might arise, including plans for an additional 2,000 places to be made available over the next nine months. He set out the position clearly to the House, and that does not give rise to any further requirement for debate.
Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)
On Tuesday, the Punjab police force took action to remove security barriers around the Minhaj-ul-Quran headquarters and the home of Dr Mohammad Tahir-ul-Qadri in Lahore. Eight people are confirmed dead and many of the injured remain in hospital. This incident has caused outrage not just across Pakistan but across the Pakistani community living in the UK, so may we have a debate on what happened and on what pressure the UK Government can bring to bear on the Pakistani Government to ensure that a full inquiry is held?
Mr Lansley
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. The Government are concerned by the reports of injuries and deaths of protestors in Lahore on Tuesday. We urge restraint by all and call for calm. It is important, as he suggests, to ensure that the full facts are understood and we understand that the Chief Minister of Punjab has announced a judicial inquiry into the events.
Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)
Many coalfield MPs will recently have had the bittersweet experience of attending commemorative events of the 30th anniversary of the miners’ strike, and the memories are bittersweet. That has coincided with the publication of the official papers after 30 years, which have disclosed that there was—this was denied at the time, but is now clearly evidenced—a hit list of pit closures and allegations of collusion between the police and the state. Is it not now time for an inquiry, and will the Leader of the House find time for a debate on the Floor of the House? This will not go away.
Mr Lansley
I hear what the hon. Gentleman has to say. I have no knowledge of any intention to have such an inquiry. I say that without prejudice, of course, because, as he will be aware, the Independent Police Complaints Commission is continuing to consider the requests for an inquiry into matters at Orgreave. The hon. Gentleman’s reference is more general, and we are seeing the disclosure of public documents, as is the nature of events, but I would not interpret what happened in the way that he does. People will make their own judgments on the basis of the evidence as disclosed in the publication of the Government papers.
Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)
As the England football team continue their quest for glory, supported as we know by The Sun, will the Leader of the House make time for a debate on the controversy surrounding that newspaper’s free circular? That will give the Leader of the Opposition an opportunity to speak as well as offering those Labour Members who went in a delegation to him to complain—a delegation that might have included the shadow Leader of the House—the chance to put their views on the record.
Mr Lansley
I am happy to join my hon. Friend in extending our best wishes to the England team as they take on Uruguay this evening. I will be rooting for them. I noted that in her generally humorous remarks the shadow Leader of the House did not see occasion to poke fun at her own leader—
Mr Lansley
Yes, well—it is my job to answer questions. The hon. Lady did not even see it as an occasion to poke fun at the deputy leader of the Labour party, who seems to have contrived a position in which it was right both to have been in the picture in the first place and to have apologised for that. That seems to me to be a very curious position to have arrived at.
Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)
May I draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as I visited the west bank last year? The security of the Jordan valley is controlled by Israel, as the Israeli Government insist that they have significant security concerns about the misuse of the area should they relinquish control. That view is now justified following the kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers last week, possibly to be used in a swap such as that which occurred with Gilad Shalit. Given that only a return to direct peace talks can achieve a peace deal, may we have a Minister come to the Dispatch Box to say what the British Government are doing as part of the Quartet in seeking such a deal?
Mr Lansley
I know that my hon. Friend reflects the sense of distress that will have been felt by many in Israel and more widely about the kidnapping of teenagers in that way. That calls for condemnation and the House and the Government condemn the abduction in the strongest terms and call for the release of the teenagers to their families as soon as possible. Obviously, this is not strictly a matter for this Government but it is something about which we feel strongly and on which we have called for action.
Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism
(9 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for Security and Immigration (James Brokenshire)
I beg to move,
That the draft Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2014, which was laid before this House on 16 June, be approved.
Proscription is an important part of the Government’s strategy to tackle terrorist activities. The five groups named in the order all have links to the conflict in Syria. They are: the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham; Turkiye Halk Kurtulus Partisi-Cephesi; Kateeba al-Kawthar, known as KAK; Abdallah Azzam Brigades, known as AAB, including the Ziyad al-Jarrah Battalions; and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command. We propose adding them to the list of international terrorist organisations by amending schedule 2 to the Terrorist Act 2000. This is the 15th proscription order under that Act.
By way of background, the House will be aware that Syria is the No. 1 destination for jihadists from anywhere in the world. Proscription sends a strong message that terrorist activity is not tolerated wherever it happens. The reality is that the conflict in Syria has seen a proliferation of terrorist groups, with multiple aims and ideologies and little regard for international borders. For example, in the past week we have seen significantly increased violent activity in Iraq by ISIL. Today the UK is proscribing terrorist organisations that support the Assad regime, that are fighting against it, and that have ambitions beyond Syria and have taken advantage of the collapse of security and the rule of law.
Terrorism from, or connected to, Syria will pose a threat to the UK for the foreseeable future. Involvement in the conflict in Syria and its environs can provide individuals with combat experience, access to training, a network of foreign extremist contacts and a reputation that can increase substantially the threat that those individuals pose on return to the UK. The threat from returning foreign fighters was clearly demonstrated by the recent case of Mehdi Nemmouche. He is believed to have spent at least a year in Syria, during which he developed connections with ISIL before returning to Europe. He is the prime suspect in a shooting on 24 May at the Jewish museum in Brussels in which four people died.
Although the Government recognise that most travel to Syria is well intentioned and for humanitarian reasons, and while we are not trying to criminalise genuine humanitarian efforts, we advise against all travel to Syria. Anyone who travels, for whatever reason, is putting themselves and others in considerable danger. Both the regime and extremist groups have attacked humanitarian aid workers. The best way to help Syrians is not to travel, but to donate or volunteer with UK-registered charities that have ongoing relief operations.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
I am glad to see the Minister back on familiar territory, after dealing with passports yesterday. This morning, information has come out of Iraq indicating that up to 400 British citizens might be fighting there. He gave evidence to the Home Affairs Committee as part of its inquiry into counter-terrorism. Iraq was not mentioned, either in his evidence or in that of others. Can he confirm that figure? Are those people who originally started in Syria and have moved into Iraq, or are they a new batch of people?
James Brokenshire
The right hon. Gentleman will recollect the evidence that I gave his Select Committee about foreign fighters. It is often difficult to give estimates about the numbers of individuals; our current estimate is that more than 400 subjects of interest have travelled to Syria to become involved in the conflict there in some way. Clearly, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, is using the areas of land it controls in Syria and now Iraq as one theatre of conflict. I cannot state the numbers or give the other information that the right hon. Gentleman seeks, but clearly there is a concern that those who travel to Syria may then travel across the Levant into Iraq. We are keeping a close eye on that.
We are committed to finding a political settlement to the conflict in Syria that will deliver a sustainable and inclusive transition process and allow the country to rebuild, communities to heal and extremism to be rejected. We will also continue to back the moderate Syrian opposition, who are a bulwark against the terrorism of the extremists and the tyranny of the Assad regime. The Government are determined to do all they can to minimise the threat from terrorism from Syria, and elsewhere, to the UK and our interests abroad.
Those who travel to engage in terrorism face prosecution on their return. We are investing resources into understanding individuals’ motivation for travel and how they are being recruited and we are using that to inform public messaging and community events, to deter individuals from travelling to Syria in the first place. Our operational partners are disrupting individuals who are intent on fighting in Syria, using the range of tools available.
For example, following his return from Syria, Mashudur Choudhury was successfully prosecuted for engaging in conduct in preparation for terrorist acts. We are working intensively with international partners to improve border security in the region. It is right that we should proscribe terrorist groups linked to the conflict in Syria that pose a bar to a political settlement there as well as an increasing threat to the UK. We have already proscribed four groups that are operating in Syria: the al-Musra front, which is part of al-Qaeda; Hezbollah’s military wing; the Kurdistan Workers Party, the PKK; and Ansar al-Islam, also known as Ansar al-Sunna.
Proscribing the groups that we are discussing today will send a strong signal to terrorists operating on both sides of the conflict in Syria and those who may be thinking of joining them. Under section 3 of the Terrorism Act 2000, the Home Secretary has the power to proscribe an organisation if she believes that it is currently concerned in terrorism. Under the 2000 Act, an organisation is concerned in terrorism if it commits or participates in acts of terrorism, prepares for terrorism, promotes or encourages terrorism—including the unlawful glorification of terrorism—or is otherwise concerned in terrorism. If the test is met, the Home Secretary may exercise her discretion to proscribe the organisation.
The Home Secretary takes into account a number of factors in considering whether to exercise that discretion. The effect of proscription is that a listed organisation is outlawed and unable to operate in the UK. It is a criminal offence for a person to belong to, support or arrange a meeting in support of a proscribed organisation or to wear clothing or carry articles in public that arouse reasonable suspicion that they are a member or supporter of a proscribed terrorist organisation.
Proscription can support other disruptive activity, including the use of immigration powers such as exclusion, prosecution for other offences, messaging and EU asset freezes. Given its wide impact, the Home Secretary exercises her power to proscribe only after thoroughly reviewing the available relevant information and evidence on the organisation. That includes open-source material, intelligence material and advice that reflects consultation across Government, including with the intelligence and law enforcement agencies. The cross-Whitehall proscription review group supports the Home Secretary in her decision-making process and her decision to proscribe is taken only after great care and consideration of the particular case. It must be approved by both Houses.
Having carefully considered all the evidence, the Home Secretary believes that ISIL; Turkiye Halk Kurtulus Partisi-Cephesi, or THKP-C; Kateeba al-Kawthar, or KAK; Abdallah Azzam Brigades, or AAB; and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, or PFLP-GC, are all currently concerned in terrorism. Although I am unable to comment on specific intelligence, I will go on to provide a summary of each group’s activities in turn.
Keith Vaz
The Minister always puts the case very eloquently in respect of these proscription orders, which involve very serious matters. In all the time I have been in this House, the Opposition have never opposed the Government in this regard. Will he tell the House how many people have been successfully prosecuted once those organisations have been proscribed? We have a tendency, rightly, to accept everything the Government say on these orders, but it would be nice to know that at the end of the process somebody has actually gone to jail as a result of them.
James Brokenshire
Much proscription has the effect of seeking to prevent people from becoming involved in terrorism and the disruptive effects of that. A range of potential sanctions are available under the Terrorism Act, as well as under proscription. I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that 55 international and 14 Northern Ireland-related terrorist organisations are currently proscribed and that, between 2001 and the end of March 2013, 32 people in Great Britain were charged with proscription offences as a primary offence and 16 were convicted. This is an important power that supports our broader activities in preventing terrorist activity and ensuring that prosecutions are maintained.
Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)
Obviously, every step that can be taken to protect our people from terrorism should be taken; there is no dispute about that. However, there is a good deal of apprehension among some Government Members, as well as some Labour Members, about secret proceedings. I am speaking in general terms about proceedings in serious criminal cases that are heard largely in secret with all kinds of restrictions placed on reporters, and so on. Is not one of the great values of British justice that it should not only be done but be seen to be done?
James Brokenshire
The hon. Gentleman will remember the debates that we had in this House about the Bill that became the Justice and Security Act 2013 regarding the use of closed material proceedings in civil cases. The point that we made very clearly then was that this is about justice being done, and that many cases could not advance because of the sensitive nature of the material. There is a careful balance, with the oversight of the court, to ensure that evidence can be adduced so that justice occurs. The court will be very conscious, particularly in criminal cases, of the balance to be struck. Matters are heard in camera or not in open court only in very restricted circumstances. I would certainly not wish to give the impression of any move towards some sort of desire for closed justice. Of course, justice needs to happen, and wherever possible and practical it happens in open court. However, in cases where evidence is sensitive and relies on intelligence material, there will need to be different processes, and in the interests of justice that should be maintained.
Mr Winnick
I recognise that during proceedings where defendants are being tried some very sensitive evidence should not be disclosed—there is no dispute about that—but when the proceedings are virtually heard entirely in secret, there is bound to be controversy.
James Brokenshire
I am not aware of significant numbers of cases that are being heard in the way that the hon. Gentleman suggests. It would be inappropriate to seek to interfere with the judgment of the court. The court will assess the evidence before it and determine what is appropriate in the handling of criminal cases.
However, this is a broader issue that we have debated on previous occasions, and it is appropriate for me now to return to proscription and the different organisations that are under careful scrutiny by this House today.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
The explanatory memorandum states that one of the organisations on the proscribed list, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, has been involved in various forms of terrorist-related activities since 1968. Will the Minister explain why that organisation has not been on a proscribed list—this is a point against all Governments—since then? Why is it only now, when it seems to be fighting on behalf of the Assad regime, that we are listing it? It has been carrying out terrorist actions against Israel and elsewhere for a number of years, but it is only now, suddenly, that it appears on a list.
James Brokenshire
I was just about to come on to the specific aspects of each of the organisations, including the PFLP-GC. Home Secretaries of whichever Government will consider proscription based on a number of different factors, including the nature and scale of an organisation’s activity; the specific threat it poses to the UK; the specific threat it poses to British nationals overseas; the organisation’s presence in the UK; and the need to support other members of the international community in tackling terrorism. Organisations will be considered against those factors, and timing issues may determine whether an organisation should be proscribed at any given moment. I hope it will help the hon. Gentleman if I address each of the organisations in turn. Perhaps that will give him some assurance of the consideration that is being given and why action is appropriate at this time.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is a brutal Sunni Islamist terrorist group active in Iraq in Syria. The group adheres to a global jihadist ideology, following an extreme interpretation of Islam that is anti-western and promotes sectarian violence. ISIL aims to establish an Islamic state governed by sharia law in the region and uses violence and intimidation to impose its extremist ideology on civilians. ISIL has previously been proscribed as part of al-Qaeda. However, steps taken by al-Qaeda’s senior leadership to sever ties with ISIL have prompted consideration of the case to proscribe ISIL in its own right.
The House will also be aware not only that ISIL poses a threat from within Syria, but that in the past two weeks it has made significant advances in Iraq. The threat from ISIL in Iraq and Syria is very serious and shows clearly the importance of taking a strong stand against the extremists.
As I have indicated to the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, we are aware that approximately 400 British nationals have travelled to Syria and some of them will inevitably be fighting with ISIL. It appears that ISIL is treating Iraq and Syria as one theatre of conflict and its potential ability to operate across the border is a cause for concern for the whole international community.
In April 2014, ISIL claimed responsibility for a series of blasts targeting a Shi’a election rally in Baghdad. The attacks are reported to have killed at least 31 people. Thousands of Iraqi civilians lost their lives to sectarian violence in 2013, and attacks carried out by ISIL will have accounted for a large proportion of those deaths.
ISIL has reportedly detained dozens of foreign journalists and aid workers. In September 2013, members of the group kidnapped and killed the commander of Ahrar ash-Sham after he intervened to protect members of a Malaysian Islamic charity.
In January 2014, ISIL captured the Al-Anbar cities of Ramadi and Falluja, and it is engaged in ongoing fighting with the Iraqi security forces. The group also claims responsibility for a car bomb attack that killed four people and wounded dozens in the southern Beirut suburb of Haret Hreik.
ISIL has a strong presence in northern and eastern Syria, where it has instituted strict sharia law in the towns under its control. The group is responsible for numerous brutal attacks and a vast number of deaths. The group is believed to attract foreign fighters, including westerners, to the region, and has maintained control of various towns on the Syrian-Turkish border, allowing the group to control who crosses, and its presence there has interfered with the free flow of humanitarian aid.
ISIL is designated as a terrorist group by both Canada and Australia, and as an alias of al-Qaeda by the US, New Zealand and the United Nations.
Turkiye Halk Kurtulus Partisi-Cephesi, also known as the People’s Liberation Party/Front of Turkey, is a left-wing organisation. It was formed in 1994. The group grew out of the Turkish extreme-left revolutionary youth movements that formed in the 1960s and 1970s. THKP-C now operates as a pro-Assad militia group fighting in Syria, and it has developed increased capabilities since the Syrian insurgency. It is assessed as having been involved in an attack in Reyhanli in Turkey last May, which killed more than 50 people and injured more than 100 people. Its leader, Mihrac Ural, holds Syrian citizenship and was born in the southern province of Hatay, where the organisation has always been most prominent. Ural has formed several other groups under the THKP-C umbrella, including Mukavamet Suriye, which is reported to have been responsible for the recent Banias massacre, which killed at least 145 people.
Kateeba al-Kawthar describes itself as a group of mujaheddin from more than 20 countries that seeks a just—as it perversely says—Islamic nation. It is an armed terrorist group fighting to establish an Islamic state in Syria. It is aligned to the most extreme groups operating in Syria, and it has links to al-Qaeda. Abu Musab, who is also known as Rabah Tahari, a western mujahed commander, is its leader. The group is believed to have attracted a number of western foreign fighters, and it has released YouTube footage that encourages travel to Syria and asks Muslims to support the fighters.
The Abdallah Azzam Brigades is an Islamist militant group, aligned with al-Qaeda and the global jihad movement, that is currently fighting in Syria and Lebanon. It began operating in Pakistan in 2009. The Lebanese branch uses the name Ziyad al-Jarrah Battalions. It is named after the Lebanese 9/11 hijacker Ziyad al-Jarrah, who participated in the hijacking and crash of United flight 93.
The AAB has increased its operational pace since the onset of the Syrian insurgency, claiming responsibility for a rocket attack launched from Lebanon into northern Israel in August 2013. In November 2013, it claimed responsibility for a double suicide bombing outside the Iranian embassy in Beirut, which killed at least 22 people and wounded more than 140 people. On 19 February 2014, the group’s recently established media wing, the al-Awzaey Media Foundation, announced on Twitter and YouTube that the group claimed responsibility for two suicide bombings near the Iranian cultural centre in Beirut, killing 11 people and wounding 130 people, in revenge for actions by Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria. The group has threatened to launch further terrorist attacks, and it has demanded that the Lebanese Government free imprisoned jihadists. It has also threatened attacks on western targets in the middle east. It was listed as a terrorist group by the US in May 2012.
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command is a left-wing nationalist Palestinian militant organisation. It was formed in 1968. It is based in Syria, and it was involved in the Palestine insurgency during the 1970s and 1980s. It is separate from the similarly named Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. From its outset, the group has been a Syrian proxy. The PFLP-GC has been fighting in the Syrian war in support of Assad, including in the Yarmouk refugee camp in July 2013. The group has also issued statements in support of the Syrian Government, Hezbollah and Iran. It has been designated as a terrorist group by the US, Canada, Israel and European Union.
Mike Gapes
I understand from the explanatory memorandum that the organisation was involved in training Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which are already listed as proscribed organisations by our Government. Why has it taken so long for it to be listed as a terrorist organisation?
James Brokenshire
I have explained to the hon. Gentleman the factors that are taken into account. Indeed, a range of other measures under the Terrorism Acts can be taken against those involved in terrorist activities. The Government have to strike a careful balance in considering whether different organisations should be proscribed, taking into account the relevant factors that I have already explained to him.
Our determination is that it is now right to add the PFLP-GC, along with the others listed in the order, to the organisations proscribed in schedule 2 to the Terrorism Act 2000. Our judgment is that all five groups are concerned in terrorism and are active in or linked to the Syrian conflict, where their activities undermine the prospect of a peaceful settlement and fuel a conflict that is significantly increasing the terrorism threat to the UK. That is why we judge that proscription should take place. I hope that the House will support that in the debate.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for his speech and his usual courtesy.
National security is the foremost responsibility of any Government and, I am pleased to say, is always taken seriously by the House. Proscription is a vital part of our national security powers. Proscription orders enable us to tackle and disrupt terror groups that are co-operating around the world. That makes proscription a very serious matter. Proscription makes it illegal to belong to or support in any way a listed organisation. Any proscription order should therefore be taken very seriously.
For that reason, successive Governments have attempted to ensure that there is cross-party parliamentary support for proscription orders. As a matter of courtesy, the shadow Home Secretary and the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee are written to as soon as an order is laid in Parliament. However, on this occasion, the shadow Home Secretary and the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee were not the first people to be briefed.
It appears that journalists were briefed before the order was even laid in Parliament. The political editor of The Sun newspaper, Tom Newton Dunn, was tweeting about the content of the order two hours before it appeared in the Vote Office and long before the shadow Home Secretary was written to. I raised that issue in the House on Monday. I am grateful that the Minister looked into it and wrote to me on 17 June. I am happy to accept his assurance that he did not authorise the disclosure, and I hope that it will not happen again. However, that raises the question of who did authorise it.
Two weeks ago, the Home Secretary lost her most senior political adviser after an investigation into her conduct by the Cabinet Secretary. It now appears that somebody else in the Home Secretary’s Department is disclosing national security information to The Sun. I hope that the Minister will update the House on what steps have been taken to identify who was behind the disclosure, and how the Home Secretary is getting a grip on what is happening in her Department.
Diana Johnson
I am very grateful to the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee. He makes the point clearly that these are important matters that need to be treated properly by the Government in the way they behave.
To move on to the substance of the order, the situation in Syria and Iraq is a tragedy that poses a clear threat close to home. Today, we are discussing five groups that pose a threat to British interests at home and abroad. The scale of the national security threat that is posed to the UK by ISIS fighters was highlighted in the last annual report of the Intelligence and Security Committee. I would like to put on the record my thanks for the work that it does to keep the House informed of such issues.
The Opposition do not have access to the same intelligence as the Home Secretary and the Minister. However, on the basis of the assurances that the Minister has given the House and the information that he has set out clearly today, the Opposition are happy to give the motion our full support.
Rarely can a proscription order have been laid about such a high-profile group as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which is commonly referred to as ISIS or ISIL. It is now regarded as the world’s largest and most powerful terrorist group. As we have heard in interventions today, it is not a new group. I am sure I speak for everyone in the House and outside when I say how horrified I was to see the mass executions that ISIS claimed credit for just this week. The proscription of ISIS is unusual, because it is rare for an organisation to get so large and well funded before a proscription order is imposed. The US State Department proscribed ISIS in 2004, when ISIS was known as al-Qaeda in Iraq. Will the Minister confirm whether it was regarded as a proscribed group at that time because it was an affiliate of al-Qaeda? In 2013, ISIS attempted to merge with the al-Nusra Front, another affiliate of al-Qaeda. That merger seemed to prompt the United Kingdom Government to list the al-Nusra Front as an affiliate of al-Qaeda, and therefore as a proscribed organisation. Will the Minister be clear about the status of ISIS at that time and why it was not specifically listed?
I turn to financial support for the organisation. What measures are being taken to ensure that our financial regulations are used to prevent the money that ISIS now has from being transferred, and, if possible, to seize any funds? We know that a number of large banks have been guilty of serious errors in compliance in the past few years, and I would be grateful if the Minister said what extra steps the Financial Conduct Authority will take to ensure that terrorists’ funds are not being moved between countries through international organisations.
The other four groups that we are discussing are less high profile than ISIS but appear equally dangerous. All are fighting in Syria, which, as the Minister said, is destabilising a larger area and posing a threat to the UK and our allies, including Turkey. The first, Kateeba al-Kawthar, is an Islamist terrorist organisation with links to al-Qaeda, which has grown in Syria and is part of the movement to establish an Islamist Syrian state. The Abdallah Azzam Brigades is another Islamist terror group operating in Syria. As the Minister said, it originated in Pakistan and demonstrates how Syria has become the centre for Islamist campaigns across the world.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command started life as a group committed to the destruction of the state of Israel, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) said, it has been around for many years. In the past, it has blown up aircraft and used bombs. After a period of little activity over the past 20 years, the group has resurfaced in the Syrian conflict, supporting Assad, and has been active in refugee camps. Again, that demonstrates the ability of groups in Syria to destabilise the wider region.
The Turkish People’s Liberation Party-Front, or THKP-C, is another pro-Assad group that has been linked to a range of attacks in Syria and Turkey. Again, it is not a new group. It has grown out of a left-wing radical group but is now committing terrorist atrocities and poses an international threat.
All the groups that we are discussing are operating in Syria, but as I have said, British jihadists are joining them and thus posing a huge threat to the UK when they return. The scale of the problem is shocking. In evidence to the Home Affairs Committee, the Minister suggested that there are likely to be several hundred British fighters in Syria. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), who chairs that Committee, referred to that point earlier. The Prime Minister’s office revealed yesterday that there had been 65 Syria-related arrests since the start of 2013, of which 40 were between January and March this year. There have also been 15 passport seizures in the past year. What efforts are being made to identify the recruiters of those individuals, and are any of the groups listed suspected of actively recruiting in the United Kingdom? If they are, why were they not proscribed earlier?
The Prevent agenda has its limitations, and in recent weeks it has been shown to have some failures within it is as well. What changes to it have been introduced to address the rise of Syrian-related jihad, and what is being done to target those most likely to be recruited, and indeed the recruiters?
The Government are introducing new offences of participating in terrorism abroad in their Serious Crime Bill, and the Opposition—of course—support the principle behind that. As it is already an offence to support a proscribed group, will that cover those who leave the UK to join organisations such as ISIL or al-Qaeda now?
Finally, may I ask about TPIM orders—terrorism prevention and investigation measures? Of course we all want to see more prosecutions, and we support the new offences to try to obtain them. However, the Government have a pretty poor record of getting such convictions. None of the former TPIM suspects was convicted. That is because—I am sure the Minister will agree—the Government face the same problem as the previous Government: little of the available evidence against those suspects is admissible in open court. How do the Government intend to gather admissible evidence from Syria in order to take action against returning fighters? That is why we occasionally need to have TPIMs, control orders, or an equivalent. The independent reviewer of terrorism recognised that in his annual report, and suggested some changes to TPIMs, including reintroducing the relocation power. He also found that the TPIM regime was “withering”. Will the Minister update the House on the Government’s position towards such orders, which may well be necessary in coming months when we have to deal with those who are returning from Syria?
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
These are very serious matters. As the Home Affairs Committee said in our report on counter-terrorism, we face our gravest threat in the past 13 years, and the Government are right to bring a number of orders before the House, proscribing organisations that they feel undermine the security of this country.
In all my years in this House, when such orders have come before the House the Opposition have never opposed what the Government have suggested. When Ministers make statements about intelligence and the important reasons behind their decisions, we believe them and take what they say at face value. That is even more the case when we have a Minister who has proved himself over the past few years to be a safe pair of hands as far as security is concerned. It must make a welcome break for him, having had to deal with the Passport Office on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, to come before the House and in the space of half an hour ban five organisations from Iraq to Lebanon and into Palestine. I wish he did not have to do that and could do other things, because when he comes before the House and makes such remarks, we worry that some of those organisations that are present in our country are involving themselves in activities that put the security of our people at risk.
The roll-call of terrorist organisations is increasing, from al-Qaeda to Hezbollah, from Tehrik-i-Taliban in Pakistan to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and Boko Haram, and now five organisations which, to be frank, neither I nor other members of the Home Affairs Committee really knew about. In our long inquiry into counter-terrorism, no Minister or witness came forward and said that those are bad organisations whose members are up to no good and that they need to be banned, and I think we must look back and ask why. If there are concerns about such organisations, it is not a confidential matter to share them with the Committee or to tell the House, and that would make Members of the House more aware of what is happening.
As I have said, we will take at face value what the Minister has said about these organisations, and accept the need to proscribe them. My concern is whether that will be enough to deal with the large number of British citizens—some of whom, I am sure, are connected to those organisations—who have managed to end up in places such as Iraq, Syria, and indeed Yemen, a fragile country close to my heart. I was born in Yemen, so whenever I get the opportunity to speak on these matters, I always mention the country of my birth. That fragile state is under constant attack from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. If we think that banning organisations operating in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and other areas is enough, as we did with regard to Tunisia on the previous occasion when we discussed these matters in the House, I have to say that the situation in Yemen is not helped by what we do because these organisations do not seem to be operating there. That is why we need to be vigilant as to what we do in this House and keep a constant eye on what is going on.
My concern is the number of people who go from this country to Iraq and Syria as members of ISIS or the other organisations mentioned by the Minister. Today, senior Iraqi officers made an appeal on Sky television to Ministers saying, “Please come and help us to deal not just with the security situation in Iraq and those who seek to undermine the Iraqi state, but with British citizens.” Some could be our constituents—we do not know. They choose to travel from the safety of the United Kingdom to Syria or Iraq, often through Turkey, and fight and then return.
One of the issues with proscription orders, which are clinical and immediate, is what we do when people come back. I know the Prime Minister is concerned about this because he mentioned it at Question Time yesterday. I urge the Minister to look carefully at the counter-terrorism report and I urge him to respond before the deadline set by Parliament. Some of the issues we have raised are so serious that they need immediate action; they cannot wait for the usual parliamentary timetable. Select Committees make recommendations and the Government respond in 60 to 90 days. The record of the Home Office in responding to Home Affairs Committee reports is not brilliant, I am afraid. The last time I spoke to the Minister about a report in his portfolio—it probably is not in it any more—it related to firearms. I think it took the Home Office a year to respond. This issue is immediate. It is now. It is British citizens who go abroad and are not prevented from doing so. They carry on with their activities in Iraq or Syria, and then they return and seek to involve themselves in domestic terrorism. The evidence we received is that one in nine of those who return from theatres of conflict come back and involve themselves in domestic terrorism.
We did not hear about it from the Minister today, but it is important that he gets on to world wide web providers—Google and the other internet companies—to ensure that the examples of the activities of all these organisations, which are on YouTube and other parts of the web, are taken off the internet. There is no point in parliamentarians proscribing them if others do not respond with the seriousness that the situation deserves. The Government have been extremely good at working with the internet companies. We know this for ourselves—one of the seminars we held during our inquiry into counter-terrorism was in co-operation with Google. I think Google gets it, but it needs the co-operation of the Home Office.
We are not going to make internet companies change everything they do. This is not China. We are a parliamentary democracy and therefore we will have to persuade, but I think the door is open. I hope that winging its way to internet providers today will be the list of proscribed organisations, with a plea to the internet companies: “Please help us to make sure that the activities of these organisations, which are on YouTube, are removed as soon as possible.”
More needs to be done to prevent supporters of ISIS and all these other organisations from travelling abroad. We now have the power to remove passports. The Government have enshrined in legislation the power to remove passports wherever people are in the world. Following the Select Committee’s visit to Nairobi, where we looked at the aftermath of the terrible tragedy at Westgate, we urged Ministers, if they are going to remove people’s passports, to do so when people are abroad, rather than when they are here. That leaves them stateless—no country will take them—and therefore still in our country.
We need to be much tougher at dealing with these people. If people are abroad and are involved in terrorist activities and in undermining the values of democratic countries, Ministers should remove their passports, so that they do not come back. If they do come back, we should put them straight into the detoxification programmes that the Select Committee has suggested, including the successful Channel programme, so that we can have immediate engagement. Putting little tags on people is helpful if we want to know where they are—that is, when they do not escape from them, jump into taxis and disappear, as two of them have, sadly on the Minister’s watch. I do not blame him personally—I do not expect him to have daily contact with people with tags—but he has ministerial responsibility. However, we need to ensure that we engage with these people to find out why they are involved in such activities.
I hope that, in agreeing to the order, which the House readily will, we do so in good faith. When I was a Government Back Bencher, Ministers used to came before us and say, “These are the facts. We know the intelligence; these are bad people. We ask Members of the House: please ban these organisations,” and we always said yes, so there is a lot of good faith. I want the Minister to ensure that that good faith is not abused and that he comes back with information about what is going on.
Finally, let me say this to the Minister—this is not personal; this is business and it comes from chairing the Select Committee for the last seven years. In all the 27 years that I have been a Member of this House, we have never had a part-time immigration Minister, because the immigration portfolio and the security portfolio have always been full-time jobs. I put on record my praise for the Minister. I mean this: I think he is a first-class security Minister. He is a very safe pair of hands. He is the kind of person who comes to the Dispatch Box and the House believes what he says. I regard him as exceptionally good. I have not said that about many Home Office Ministers in the past, but I mean it about him.
However, the immigration portfolio is a job on its own. I know the reasons why it was put together with security, but when the reshuffle comes, which I am told it will imminently, I hope there will be plenty of volunteers—[Interruption]—such as the hon. Members for Hexham (Guy Opperman) and for Meon Valley (George Hollingbery). There are able people out there who can assist in this regard. Immigration and security are two big jobs. The Minister must be spending every moment of his day doing his job—I cannot think of the number of hours he puts into it—but he knows that if there is one mistake in a job of that kind, the world will fall around him. I hope we will look at that carefully and ensure that those changes are made.
For the purposes of this order, however, we support what the Minister is doing. We trust him and we on the Select Committee will do all we can to keep monitoring the situation. We hope he will treat us with equal respect in giving us the information we deserve.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
I will be quite brief. I want to pick up on the Minister’s comment that this list of five organisations has been brought before the House today because they are involved in or related to what is happening in Syria. In an earlier intervention I queried why one of the organisations, namely the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, which has been in existence for 45 years and has been involved in terrorist activities and terrorist training—maybe not every year, but throughout that period—has only now suddenly appeared on the list.
I support the proscription of those on the list, but there appears to have been a wake-up call. Perhaps we were not as strong about these issues in the past, as though it was somehow okay if the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command was engaged in terrorist activities against Israelis and it is only when countries or organisations are directly involved in terrorism against us or are a possible threat to us that we start listing them. We have to get away from that mindset. It is quite clear that there is a global connection. Many of these organisations—certainly the al-Qaeda-linked ones—have a global footprint and a global aspiration.
We also need to be aware that there is an ideological basis to this issue. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, referred to the internet. We know that some people are radicalised not through mosques or madrassahs, but through the internet. In that context, we need to drain the swamp as well as hit the crocodiles over the head—I think that phrase has been used by others, but I happen to agree with that. Therefore, we should be involved not just in proscribing organisations, but in trying to stop the recruitment of individuals as members of those organisations.
We know—because there have been cases that have led to people being on trial, detained, prosecuted and convicted, with some extradited—that there is a conveyor belt in this country. A young person who feels strongly about threats to the Muslim ummah might, perhaps misguidedly, be taken under the wing of someone who trains them, recruits them and mentors them, so that they become someone who is prepared to go to Syria or Iraq or to engage in terrorist planning and activity in Europe.
Keith Vaz
My hon. Friend speaks with huge authority, not just as a former Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, but as a representative of multicultural Ilford. This is not just about passing an order; it is about making the case, which means engaging with young people at all times among their peer group. We cannot make people change; we have to engage with them to change. He knows that, does he not?
Mike Gapes
That is absolutely right. One of the things we also have to do is make it absolutely clear that this country is proud of the British Muslims who live here and contribute to our society. There has been an horrific murder in the last few days. I will not comment on it because I cannot go any further, but there is an important message that we need to send out to young people in our British Muslim community: you are welcome here, you are equal citizens, men and women, and we will not tolerate attacks and abuse.
When Ministers have discussions, it is important that they do not just have discussions with the internet companies. Perhaps they should also have discussions with some of our national newspapers about the tenor and the tone of the language used. If we want to increase the possibility of people being recruited to go off to Syria, we antagonise them, make them feel angry, make them feel like victims and create a narrative that people are easily able to misguidedly put across to them so that they feel they are somehow not part of this society. We have a challenge, not just in this country but elsewhere in Europe. We have to deal with the ideology as well as the practice of this type of extreme, terrorist organisation.
I shall make two other brief points. There is obviously a spill-over from Syria into Iraq. The manifest failure of the Maliki Government to be inclusive, and the exclusion of Sunni Arabs and also Kurds from the institutional power structures under Maliki, who is not just Prime Minister, but Minister of the Interior and Defence Minister, are contributing factors to the growth of the support for the ISIL organisation. I believe that we in the international community—certainly the United Kingdom and, I hope, the United States—will recognise the urgency of the need to give assistance to the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq and also to the Iraqi authorities, to try and stabilise the situation and then reverse the defeats that they have suffered in the past few days. However, just giving sophisticated weaponry to a Government who are clearly incapable of providing training and leadership of their armed forces—such that Black Hawk helicopters get captured, and much of the $200 billion of American equipment that has apparently gone into Iraq may now be in the hands of that very well-financed terrorist organisation—is a matter of serious concern.
We can do our bit with these orders and we can do our bit, perhaps, to cut off the chain of people going from our country, but we all know that if, in the long term, there is an al-Qaeda state in the middle of Iraq and into Syria, it will be a threat not just in that region, but to Lebanon and Jordan, and a potential threat to other Arab countries and to Yemen and the Gulf. It is in our own interest to make sure that that does not happen and that that aim is defeated. I am therefore pleased to support the orders, but we must go much further.
Mike Freer (Finchley and Golders Green) (Con)
I was not planning to contribute much to the debate, apart from by sharing an experience. I hope that in his winding-up speech the Minister can explain how the orders can evolve once the groups have been proscribed.
I suspect that I am one of the few MPs who has been attacked by a proscribed organisation. Muslims Against Crusades is now proscribed, but I was subject to an attack during one of my mosque surgeries. The organisation posted various threats on its website and then interrupted several of my surgeries, as a result of which I now have to have additional security at my constituency office and at my home, and my diary has to go to the police every week.
That changed my view on proscription. Initially, I was not in favour of it because I wanted to see these groups out in the open, where we could monitor them, but having been at the sharp end of an attack, I fully support the measures that the Government are taking on such groups. My concern—and the question has been raised by the Chairman of the Select Committee—is how we deal with the people who are abroad. The woman behind the stirring-up of trouble in my constituency was radicalised abroad.
The hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) raised the issue of the internet providers. As soon as Muslims Against Crusades was proscribed, the web page came down, but the group reinvented itself within hours, and a simple name change got round the proscription. My worry is that we can list the names of the five organisations in the order, but within hours of their names being listed, they reinvent themselves as a fringe group under another name and seem to get round proscription. Can my hon. Friend the Minister address that point about how the orders can be flexed to deal with the evolving threat as these groups rearrange themselves?
James Brokenshire
With the leave of the House, I hope to respond briefly to a number of points that have been raised in the debate this afternoon. I welcome the broad support that the order before the House has received on all sides, reflecting the cross-party focus on the security of this country and the desire to see that our citizens are protected appropriately. I recognise that and I recognise a number of the comments that have been made.
I wish to underline my commitment to observe the courtesies of the House in respect of the release of information to the Speaker and the Opposition, and to assure the House that it is my clear focus and intent that information is supplied appropriately to Members, and that details are provided to the Opposition at the same time as orders are laid. The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) recognised that I responded promptly when I was made aware of her point of order on the Floor of the House earlier this week. I give that assurance to Mr Speaker and to right hon. and hon. Members because I take the processes and proceedings of the House extremely seriously, and it is important that we adhere to them. I assure the hon. Lady that no prior authorisation was given by Ministers or special advisers in relation to any of the matters to which she referred. We are still examining the facts and circumstances of the case that she drew to the attention of the House.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend confirm that he did not mean to say that a special adviser would give authority to anyone?
James Brokenshire
I do not know whether my hon. Friend heard the point that the hon. Lady made earlier. I was responding specifically to her point, which I have sought to address in correspondence as well.
On the substance of the orders, I welcome the support and the recognition that they fit into the broader approach and our strategy in confronting and combating those who seek to become involved in terrorism by virtue of their travel to Syria, the ongoing conflict in that arena, and the risk posed by foreign fighters. I have already spoken about the numbers that we believe have been involved, and there are foreign fighters across the EU as well who have travelled. A number of foreign fighters are involved in Syria and, as the crisis in Iraq extends further, they may transfer there.
On the point that the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) highlighted in respect of the situation in Iraq, he will have heard the comments of the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary over the past few days on this extremely serious situation. The UK supports the Iraqi Government in their fight against terrorism. We are taking action in three areas—promoting political unity among those who support a democratic Iraqi state and stability in the region, offering assistance where appropriate and possible, and alleviating humanitarian suffering. The Prime Minister made clear yesterday the additional funding that was being made available in respect of that last point.
We have made it clear that this action does not involve planning a military intervention by the UK. We are urging the Iraqi Government to take effective measures to organise their security forces and push ISIL back from the areas that it has occupied, while protecting civilian life, infrastructure and vital services. Any action by the Iraqi Government must include an inclusive approach to bring Iraqi leaders together.
Both the hon. Lady and the Chair of the Select Committee referred to Prevent, and to steps that we can take to prevent people from travelling and becoming involved in potential terrorist activity. I will make a number of brief points about that. The Government are giving key messages on not travelling to Syria. People who want to travel for humanitarian reasons risk coming into contact with terrorist organisations, given the parts of Syria that are controlled by extremist organisations. Although today’s debate has focused on the listed organisations, with much of the focus, understandably, on the operations of ISIL, it is important to underline that there are groups such as the al-Nusra Front and other extremist organisations that share the al-Qaeda narrative and the desire to create a global caliphate. People may come into contact with such groups, which have aspirations to attack the west. It is important to understand and recognise the diverse and dynamic threat from Syria, and to acknowledge the humanitarian support provided by this Government—£600 million—in the aid effort. It is important to reiterate, for those who wish to help for genuine humanitarian reasons, that the best way to do that is through the UK’s humanitarian aid agencies that are supporting that effort, recognising the importance that the UK Government place on providing significant financial aid to those in severe need as a consequence of displacement and the ongoing conflict in Syria.
It is important to stress, too, that we are providing targeted messages through Prevent officers and the Prevent programme, highlighting the reasons why travel to Syria is not appropriate and the risks that it poses. Right hon. and hon. Members will no doubt have noted the comments from Deputy Assistant Commissioner Helen Ball of the Metropolitan police about the role of mothers and family members in extolling the right messages. There are a number of different strands to ensuring that we prevent travel, in addition to measures such as the use of port stops under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act, the use of the royal prerogative to take passports away when the intent to become involved in terrorist activities is clear, and indeed the use of deprivation of citizenship—a topic recently debated in the House.
Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)
I have chosen my moment to intervene carefully. I have heard a lot of discussion about confiscating passports and preventing people from travelling. On certain occasions, people will travel and we will not be able to identify them beforehand. Such people are most likely to go through Turkey. As British subjects, we are required to have a visa for travel to Turkey, so will the Minister outline what actions he is taking, together with the Turkish Government, to identify people going into the country in order to travel on to the Levant, Syria or Iran or indeed coming back again?
James Brokenshire
I hope my hon. Friend will understand that it would not be appropriate for me to go into detailed operational discussions or intelligence issues. I can assure him, however, that we are in ongoing discussions with Turkey and other Governments, including at the European level. A number of EU countries have similarly seen their citizens travel to Syria, so there is some good co-ordination of activities, although there is still more work to be done.
On the issue of people returning, it is important to underline the arrests and prosecutions that have taken place. In the last 18 months, about 65 have been arrested. To put that in greater context, since 1 January this year, we have been notified of 50 Syria-related arrests, and 21 people suspected of being involved in travelling to or from Syria. Nine charges have been brought thus far. That shows that continuing operational activity, including broader disruptive and preventive activity, is taking place.
It is also important to underline the need for vigilance, which was highlighted by the Chair of the Select Committee in his comments about Yemen. There is an enduring threat from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which operates within Yemen. Al-Shabaab has come to the fore for some appalling atrocities that it has committed, and I could mention various other groups linked to al-Qaeda. The vigilance of our security services, police and Government is crucial. Terrorist risks are linked to the ongoing Syrian conflict, and I have spoken on a number of occasions about the enduring risk as a consequence. We need to remain vigilant against threats from wherever else they come. In that context, the hon. Member for Ilford South rightly highlighted the global connections of terrorism.
The hon. Gentleman also rightly mentioned the need for us to underline the contribution that British Muslims make to our country. I endorse that very clear message. Last summer, we saw some attacks on mosques and the appalling murder of Mohammed Saleem in the west midlands. During my visits then and since, I have been struck by the strength of communities across our country in coming together to stand against and oppose violence or threats to any part of our wider community.
My hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer) highlighted the need to keep matters under review and to be vigilant. I wholly endorse that. We monitor these issues closely, and where new names need to be used, aliases may be added to the proscription list. If something looks like a front for an existing proscribed organisation, prosecutions and other activities will not be prevented from happening.
Finally, the Chair of the Select Committee made a point about my responsibilities. If I recall correctly, Tony McNulty and other previous security Ministers have had other responsibilities as well—for policing, for example—so it is not a simple role that can be taken in isolation. I noted the right hon. Gentleman’s comments, but some uses of immigration powers have helped to underline the connections between the different strands—how we use our Border Force and the warnings index, for example. Use of advanced passenger information is important, too, to prevent those suspected of terrorism from getting on to flights in the first place.
I welcome the support for the order today. I think it will send out a very strong message and underline the Government’s commitment to dealing with terrorism and the serious issues we face in respect of Syria, Iraq and elsewhere.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That the draft Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2014, which was laid before this House on 16 June, be approved.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
I inform Members that I intend to allow approximately equal time to each of the two debates proposed by the Backbench Business Committee. If all Back Benchers who have indicated that they wish to speak are to be given the opportunity to do so, it would be helpful if Back-Bench Members took approximately 10 minutes—and no more. I shall not impose a time-limit now, trusting to Members’ decency in considering others as well as themselves. We will see how that works.
Backbench Business
The UK’s Relationship with Africa
(9 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the UK’s relationship with Africa.
I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allocating this debate on the UK’s relationship with Africa. The debate was called on a cross-party basis at the request of members of the all-party parliamentary group on Africa, which I have the honour of chairing, and stands in the names, as well as my own, of the hon. Members for York Central (Hugh Bayley) and for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood), whom I see in their places today. I would like to thank, too, the right hon. Member for Gordon (Sir Malcolm Bruce) for his support in securing this debate; sadly, he cannot be here on account of parliamentary business elsewhere.
The all-party Africa group works across a broad range of policy areas of relevance to Africa—from business to foreign affairs and from international development to security. It provides an important forum for 191 Members, across both Houses, to discuss issues relating to the continent. We are indebted to the Royal African Society for providing the group with a secretariat, and I am particularly grateful for the support of Victoria Crawford, without whom we could not achieve a fraction of what we are able to achieve.
We often hear of politicians who are called Europhiles, but I am a new and different breed: an Afrophile or an “Afro-optimist”—a term I have heard used by Mark Lowcock, permanent secretary at the Department for International Development. We are not many, but we are a growing breed, and what we lack in numbers, we make up for in enthusiasm and commitment. I see that as I look around the Chamber today.
Having worked as a banker in Swaziland, the Ivory Coast and Botswana, and having travelled to half the countries in Africa on business and for pleasure, I am passionate about the continent. Outside the House, I enjoy contributing directly to the economic regeneration of Africa, and I draw Members’ attention to the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, which reflects that. Not everyone, however, has been so consistently enthusiastic about Africa, both in the United Kingdom and globally.
We can tell a lot from the covers of two editions of The Economist, a decade apart. In 2000, the cover showed an image of a young African man carrying a rocket-propelled grenade in the shape of the outline of Africa, with the caption “The Hopeless Continent”. By 2011, The Economist had changed tack: an optimistic, multicoloured African continent was floating up into the air as if it were a helium balloon, with the title “Africa Rising”. We could do with a little more consistency in our relationship with and view of Africa. In April this year, The Times put it another way: referring to economic development, it stated simply “Africa is Hot”. I agree.
The “Africa Rising” story is compelling. The International Monetary Fund estimates that, over the next decade, seven of the 10 fastest-growing economies will be African countries; six already are. Recent oil and gas finds, as well as the spread of mobile phones and the internet, have great potential throughout the continent. While we shall not see an M-Pesa every week in every country, technology can leapfrog some of the development stages that have been undergone by other now developed countries.
This is a critical time at which to ensure that the opportunities presented by the Africa growth story benefit African citizens, as well as people in the United Kingdom and in the world more broadly. The UK is beginning to respond to the developments in Africa and in the international arena. Getting it right in the coming years and decades will be crucial, and will have huge potential upsides for citizens of both Africa and the UK.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
I congratulate the Backbench Business Committee on initiating this important debate. I only wish that I could stay for its entirety.
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it would be in the interests of the United Kingdom as a whole to pay as much attention to trade as to aid in its relationship with Africa? When I was working in Nigeria, I observed that Indian and Chinese companies were much more focused on trade than on aid.
James Duddridge
I could not agree more with the hon. Lady, whom I thank for her contribution to the Africa all-party parliamentary group. Aid is, perhaps, a smaller element of the UK’s relationship with Africa than trade and remittances. Although it is an important element, we should not focus on it exclusively. I hope to say more about that later in my short speech, but other Members who have contributed so much to the debate on trade and economic development will be able to speak about it in more detail.
Fifty years ago, African countries were gaining independence from, among others, the UK as a colonial power. We should now view our relationship quite differently: we should view it as a partnership that addresses global issues, and is not UK-led but Africa-led. It is clear that our connections with Africa are complex and interrelated, and cross many policy areas and Departments. It is essential for our Government to operate in a collaborative and complementary way. A good example of that is the work of the Whitehall Africa Group under the stewardship of the FCO’s Africa director Nic Hailey, who does an excellent job in bringing officials together. The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury does a great deal of work on revenue collection in Africa. In other words, he helps with the collection of taxes. That is not as sexy as feeding the millions, but it makes it possible to build long-term, stable economies that can free themselves from aid dependency, which is much more important to our relationship with Africa than Elastoplast aid solutions.
We should also consider the broader aspects of the relationship. The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) mentioned trade, and I mentioned remittances. The Government are beginning to become more involved in those, and in financial flows more generally. In the financial arena, we need to leverage our long-term relationship, our experience of the capital markets, the pre-eminent position of the City of London, the UK’s legal system, and the fact that the English language is increasingly the language of business, not just in the “Anglosphere” but in Francophone countries such as the Ivory Coast and Rwanda. Those countries now prefer English to French when it comes to transacting business. I suspect that we shall see similar developments in Portuguese-speaking countries, and, indeed, in north African Arabic-speaking countries.
The FCO’s high-level prosperity partnerships with five African countries are an extremely good start. I understand that each of those countries has something different to offer, and that a mixture of French, English and Portuguese is spoken, which I think is of great value. If we were to add a sixth country, I would encourage the Minister to consider one that is less focused on oil and gas. That might enable us to prove that such a model works, and that we should see beyond the success of economies such as that of Mozambique, which have the potential to grow incredibly quickly and to add multiples to their GDP over a decade. I should like the Minister to give us more details of the lessons that have been learnt so far from the prosperity partnerships. What is the shape of the programme for the future?
I should also like to understand a little more about the excellent work that Lord Livingston is doing. I understand that considerably more resources will go into embassies from UK Trade & Investment, and that a number of African countries, some of which have already been mentioned, will benefit from them. I urge the British Government not to view embassies as exclusively the home of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. I find it encouraging that staff from the Department for International Development can apply for posts as ambassadors and high commissioners, and I think that we should also enable staff from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Ministry of Defence, who have strong relationships with Africa, to take on the most senior roles. Perhaps we should look to UK plc, and recruit ambassadors and high commissioners from outside, particularly in countries where trade can help Africa to grow out of poverty.
The Africa all-party parliamentary group conducts a number of inquiries. I commend our recent report “Democracy Soup—Democracy and Development in Africa”. It explores some of the complicated relationships between democracy and development, and the influence of the United Kingdom. I hope that other Members will refer to our Parliament’s potential to help those relationships to become deeper.
Let me now say something about “the golden thread” and the post-2015 development goals. “The golden thread” is a term that was used by the Prime Minister to describe the conditions that enable open economies and open societies to thrive. The rule of law, the absence of conflict and corruption, and the presence of property rights and strong institutions are some of the key factors that ought to feature in the successor to the millennium development goals, which will expire in 2015. The Prime Minister has shown clear leadership on behalf of this country and the United Nations high-level panel, which he chairs. However, as we head towards the UN General Assembly negotiations in September, following the next session of the open working group, it is essential for some of the governance and economic development issues to be teased out.
The Africa narrative is a positive story. It represents an opportunity for the UK as well as Africa, an opportunity of which we should be unashamed. Our relationship is complex, and involves a number of interrelated issues. There is a need for collaboration between sectors, Government Departments and our global partners, particularly in regard to economic development and the golden thread that constitutes the post-2015 goals. The UK continues to be a world leader on those issues, but our fundamental relationship is now a partnership.
Africa is rising; Africa is hot. I hope that the debate will highlight the UK’s role and its relationship with an exciting, entrepreneurial and rapidly developing continent.
Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)
In view of your requirement for brevity, Madam Deputy Speaker, I have thrown away half my speech. I had intended to speak about the excellent report that the all-party group on Africa recently published, “Democracy Soup”, and some issues to do with conflict, but I will focus my remarks on the latter so that there is time for others to contribute to the debate.
I am a Europhile, but also an Afrophile, if that is the word to use, and I greatly welcome what the chairman of the all-party group, the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge), had to say about the need for optimism about Africa’s future. It matters to us because Africa is our nearest neighbour and because of the great trade opportunities in both directions between our country and Africa.
There are problems of organised crime and people trafficking. Some 5,000 African women are trafficked to Europe every year. We have a Bill to deal with the problem of modern slavery, and this is modern slavery because the vast majority of those women end up against their will as sex slaves in the sex trade.
Our Government have wisely decided to earmark 30% of our bilateral aid to conflict and fragile states, because they rightly take the view that conflict undermines development. According to the latest International Monetary Fund World Economic Outlook, Africa’s four poorest states are the Central African Republic, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Liberia, and they have all experienced conflict in recent years.
It is not just poor states that face conflict, however. Libya, of course, was engulfed by civil war a few years ago, and it is one of the richest countries in Africa with a per capita income of over $10,000 a year.
I welcome the Government’s focus on conflict. Trying to avoid conflict is a good thing for its own sake. The United Nations’ responsibility to protect places an onus on countries to intervene where the Government of a third country fails to secure the safety and human rights of its own citizens. One should respond initially by non-military means where one can, by using soft power—aid, UN Security Council resolutions and sanctions. The use of military force should always be the last resort.
Sometimes, however, a very low level of military commitment can make an enormous difference. I remember going some years ago with the right hon. Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry) to Rumbek in southern Sudan just one week after the signing of the comprehensive peace agreement that led to the independence and separation of South Sudan some five years later. A small contingent of six or 10 British servicemen with a couple of Land Rovers were doing an immensely valuable job, keeping hundreds of Government of Sudan soldiers and hundreds of Sudan People’s Liberation Army fighters apart. Perhaps I should add in this World cup week that they organised football matches between the two teams to try to deal with male testosterone, while a peace framework was constructed.
There are also enormous risks in deploying hard power—military force—however. We know from recent campaigns in Africa and elsewhere that for a well-equipped and well-trained military such as ours, or those of other NATO countries, winning a military victory is usually easier than building a sustainable peace.
In Libya, faced with an imminent threat made by Muammar al-Gaddafi against civilians from his own country in Benghazi, the UN Security Council passed a resolution permitting a coalition of the willing—led by NATO, but including other countries, including Arab states—to use military force to protect civilians in Libya. This force eventually toppled the Gaddafi regime, which led, not through our willing it, to the killing of Gaddafi himself. Almost three years later Libya is still awash with militia and state-sponsored armed groups, who refuse to disarm and who are intent on grabbing a share of power and a slice of Libya’s immense oil wealth.
In September 2012 the United States ambassador and three of his staff were killed. In October that year Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan was kidnapped, threatened and forced to change his policy. The country still has no national army. Prime Minister Zeidan subsequently left the country and went into exile. His successor, Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thani, appeared to resign after gunmen attacked his house, but then different gunmen attacked the Parliament to prevent his being replaced. For a time, Libya ended up with two Prime Ministers: al-Thani running an Administration in eastern Libya and Ahmed Maiteg, an individual who is close to a number of Islamist groups, running an Administration in Tripoli until his election was ruled unconstitutional by the supreme court. Now, former general Khalifa Haftar is using military force to try to take over the country, but the security situation is clearly deteriorating. Benghazi is once again a war zone and a curfew has recently been introduced.
When the United Kingdom—and the international community—engages in military action, I believe we have a responsibility after the action is over to help pick up the pieces, and I do not think we have heard enough from the Foreign Office about post-war reconstruction and development in Libya, so I suggest to the Minister that we should have regular, perhaps quarterly, reports on the political situation in Libya and on what the UK and other institutions, including the European Union and NATO, are contributing to that. They could, perhaps, be written reports—I am not necessarily saying they should be statements to the House—but I do think we need to be kept more informed than we currently are.
I also want to say a few words about Mali. It was once seen as a beacon of democracy in Francophone west Africa, but in 2012 it faced three interlocking crises. First, there was a Tuareg rebellion in the north of the country, fuelled by arms which many Tuareg mercenaries who had worked for Gaddafi in Libya brought back to Mali when the Gaddafi regime fell. Secondly, there was a political and institutional crisis precipitated by a military coup against the then President. Thirdly, there was an influx of extremist Islamist groups into the northern regions of Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu, which established very harsh and abusive rule in those parts of Mali.
At the end of 2012, those northern armed groups moved very quickly towards the capital in the south, Bamako, and the French launched Operation Serval, supported militarily by the UK, the United States and others. It swiftly defeated the uprising, creating conditions for a new President, President Boubacar Keita, to be elected, and set about retraining Mali’s army. I have seen British soldiers engaged in training—jointly, as it happens, with soldiers from the Irish Republic, which must be the first time British and Irish soldiers have worked together in a single military unit for many years.
Mali faces many long-term development challenges, including the need for job creation, for security sector reform, and for tackling trafficking and organised crime, which funds the activities of the insurgents and extremists. A year ago, there was a pledging conference, where some €3.25 billion was pledged by donors to fund Mali’s plan for sustainable recovery. The UK was a very small player because we do not traditionally have a bilateral programme in Mali. The trouble with our bilateral aid programme is that it is largely built around countries. In parts of Africa, we need to complement those country programmes with regional bilateral development programmes. Ever since decolonisation, many Africans and indeed Europeans have pointed out that Africa’s national borders make little sense; they were imposed as a result of colonisation with little reference to local and regional languages, ethnic differences, kingdoms or even religions.
The Islamists who created such a threat to Mali have been dispersed by Operation Serval, but many of them have slipped over the poorest borders and are regrouping in southern Algeria.
Hugh Bayley
I think, as so many Members are trying to get in, I will continue.
The point I made to the Minister is that to confront the problems that we face in the Sahel, we need to have a transnational response—a transnational response to transnational terrorism and transnational crime—and to promote growth across the region. We should be working with regional African organisations such as the Economic Community of West African States and the West African Economic and Monetary Union. I wish to see a proportion of British aid to Africa being allocated regionally, so that much of the money, though continuing to be spent by national Governments, could be spent on transnational projects, such as road and infrastructure, trade promotion, training and joint international security arrangements. The Department for International Development’s special areas of expertise in health education and water could be brought to bear in Francophone countries, and other countries’ expertise could be brought to bear in those former Commonwealth countries where most of our bilateral programmes remain.
Finally, the Africa all-party group submitted evidence to the last UK strategic defence and security review about security risks from Africa. A new review is imminent, and I hope that, within it, there will be a chapter looking at the African security risk. Indeed, there have been two military operations embarked on during this Parliament, both of which have been in Africa, and so those issues require some attention in the security review.
Sir Alan Haselhurst (Saffron Walden) (Con)
I hope that no one in Africa, on seeing this debate taking place today, believes that the UK Parliament has the impertinence to believe that it can dispose of this country’s relationship with Africa in two and a half hours. They should be assured that this is just another extremely welcome opportunity for hon. Members who have considerable affection for, and knowledge of, the continent to be able to express further their views.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge) on obtaining this debate for us this afternoon. It is also a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for York Central (Hugh Bayley) whose knowledge of Africa is both deep and extensive. He has made many important contributions on the subject in debates in this House.
There is a slight risk in thinking of Africa as a whole. We do not necessarily talk about Asia as a whole. We sometimes divide Africa, and say Africa south of the Sahara to differentiate it from the countries on the Mediterranean coastline. There is just a risk that we forget the very different characteristics and interests of some of the emerging African nations.
Europe’s evolution into a more peaceful and stable framework has taken about 2,000 years and we are still arguing intensely about its nature. I do not believe that the term African Union suggests that, at any time soon, there will be coherence of economics and politics in that continent. In the meantime, various countries will wish to develop in their own way, with their own national characteristics, and to capitalise on their resources.
Inevitably, my slant in this debate is from the point of view of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, which I have the honour of chairing. I want to draw the House’s attention to a paradox that I cannot help noticing after my years of involvement. Colonialism has not entirely been drained from the system, and there is a risk that some people in politics in the African countries are all too ready to accuse people from the former colonial powers of being patronising in talking with them about various matters. Yet that totally contrasts with the fact that there is huge respect for this institution here at Westminster. That is exemplified by the fact that we have this week the CPA’s Westminster seminar, which is attended by 92 delegates, 36 of whom—parliamentarians and Clerks—come from the continent of Africa. Next week, when we go on to a public accounts workshop, there will be 44 from Africa out of a total of 90 delegates. After regularly talking to those people, we appreciate that they like to have this interaction and believe it is in their interest so to do.
Another legacy of the colonial rule was an emerging commitment to parliamentary democracy. Every Parliament will always be restless in wanting to change, improve and develop the way in which it handles business and seeks to control the Executive. The CPA seeks above all else to encourage that process of thought and to exchange ideas through multilateral colloquia. I pay tribute to colleagues over the years, especially now, for their work, and that includes the Clerks of the House, not least of whom is the present incumbent Sir Robert Rogers, who has a real belief in the Commonwealth family of parliamentarians and has contributed so much to it.
Out of all this has come a mutual flow. The very idea that it is the former colonial powers that are trying to teach others how they should conduct themselves has developed to a point where we pinch ideas from other legislatures, because innovative ideas have been developed in other countries. That is as true in Africa as it is in other parts of the Commonwealth. In doing that, it is all too easy for us to be condemned by the media as simply engaging in fun pastimes and not seeing it as a serious purpose, but we have as much interest in this country as African parliamentarians in ensuring that representative democracy flourishes.
It is the recognition of good government that is likely to encourage trade and investment in the countries of Africa. More especially, the success and stability of parliamentary democracy in those countries seems to be the only way in which we will keep the faith of those many millions who are still struggling for a decent standard of living, and who might so easily be seduced into thinking that the elected parliamentarians have failed and therefore some other form of approach is necessary for their interests to be advanced. I have perhaps known South Africa the longest—over a span of years. I look at the level of unemployment among young people and think, “How long will their patience hold if we cannot demonstrate to them that their grievances can be best dealt with through a parliamentary system of Government?”
Importantly, the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association can, through interaction with other parliamentarians in Africa, promote parliamentary strengthening in their countries and improve understanding of some of the difficult issues on the conflicts that exist in Africa, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East and the hon. Member for York Central referred. Warm words are not sufficient to wipe away some harsh differences of view on certain issues, such as the education of girls and the very safety of women. I have tried to encourage various improvements during my time as chairperson of the executive committee. It is good to see that we have a strong Commonwealth parliamentary women’s network in the continent of Africa. I have tried to suggest to colleagues that individual mentoring should be sustained and expanded, so that people can ring up a colleague whom they have got to know who will give them some tips on what they might do, or exchange views as to how to tackle a joint problem.
Above all, I have done what I can to encourage the growth of the network of youth Parliaments, because such a high percentage of the population of the Commonwealth is aged under 25. We must make sure that they believe that their voices are being heard through representative institutions. That is not just a CPA job; it is the job of all bodies in the Commonwealth family that have an interest in the cause, whether it is the Westminster Foundation for Democracy or even the Department for International Development. We should be co-ordinating our efforts to ensure that the money that is made available can be directed towards the strengthening of democracy, because that is the key to other things. That may be the most incisive way of ensuring that aid money, if one wants to call it that, can be deployed in many of the countries of Africa to ensure better concentration of resources in that direction.
Africa contains countries that are of enormous importance to the future of world development. It seems to me that it makes sense for us to use every possible occasion, at parliamentary level and in wider parliamentary activities, to demonstrate our wish to strengthen the bonds of friendship with our African colleagues. To adopt a word used by my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East when he opened the debate, together we can be partners for progress.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
I want to concentrate my remarks on two issues. First, I will speak about the recent Foreign Affairs Committee report on instability and extremism in north and west Africa—that covers Mali, to which my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Hugh Bayley) referred—and secondly, I will talk a little about my impressions of Egypt, having been there at the weekend.
My first point relates to our earlier debate about the global nature of terrorism. Unfortunately, there were some serious adverse consequences to the liberation of the people of Libya from the Gaddafi dictatorship. Huge amounts of weaponry were dispersed, some of which ended up in Syria, as we have heard, but much of it is in the hands of mercenary fighters who had been part of Gaddafi’s military and protection forces. Bands of Tuareg went out across the ungoverned spaces of the Sahara desert, and existing terrorist groups were reinforced by weaponry and personnel. That raises, once again, the problem that although it is comparatively easy to go into a country and to remove the leader, the crucial period is not the declaration of victory but the subsequent construction of a stable political system. That can take years, if not decades, and it can be very difficult, particularly in failed or failing states.
Before it produced the report, which was published in March, the Foreign Affairs Committee went on several visits in 2012. I was part of the visit to Algeria, where we discussed the terrible consequences of the attack on the BP facility at In Amenas. I went separately to Mali, where I met our very small diplomatic post. The Committee’s report makes several recommendations based on our visits.
I also went last year to Nigeria and met, among others, members of the Nigerian security forces who showed us horrific captured DVDs of atrocities carried out by Boko Haram. We also discussed with the governor of Borno state the ongoing struggle of the Nigerian authorities, at governor level and centrally, with that dreadful terrorist organisation. The world knows about Boko Haram, because of the great publicity provided by the Amnesty International campaign about the captured young women. They have still not been found, months afterwards, and nobody knows whether they will be returned safely.
Boko Haram has been carrying out such activities against Christians and Muslims for a considerable period of time, and the Nigerian authorities need support. They need political support, because they are, after all, a democratically elected Government. It is no good simply condemning them for failing. The fact is that Nigeria is a large country, and it does not have the resources or the armed forces that it needs to deal with such issues adequately. Assistance from the international community is required to give the Nigerian authorities support in their difficult role.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
What sort of assistance can we give when even with all the technology we have, we have not been able to find those girls from the skies?
Mike Gapes
We are talking about long-term issues. The Nigerian armed forces are already getting some support with training and other activities. I believe, and the Foreign Affairs Committee has said clearly, that much more must be done to give them the help and assistance that they need. Nigeria is not only the biggest country in Africa by population, but a potential economic powerhouse. It has oil and other resources, and yet it has tens of millions of people living in abject poverty and millions not in school. There are huge issues of development, as well as of governance and security. There is also a large British Nigerian diaspora community in this country, who are mainly from the south of Nigeria and from Christian communities. We must recognise that the matter is of concern to us, and we must support Nigeria.
We were struck by the UK’s very limited diplomatic footprint in Mali and other parts of North and West Africa. That is mainly because many of the countries in the region are former French colonies, and there has been an assumption that France will take the lead role on its historic associations and the UK on others. However, it is interesting that President Hollande of France recently called a summit to discuss the situation in Nigeria and how help could be given. It is important that we recognise that in many Francophone countries—I certainly picked this up in Mali—there is a desire for us to have a larger presence. As the Foreign Affairs Committee said, we should work with our French partners and allies, with the United States and with the European Union’s External Action Service in a more co-ordinated way with the countries of the region.
In the time that is left to me, I want to say something about Egypt. The all-party parliamentary group went to Cairo last weekend, where we had a long meeting with President Sisi. President Sisi was elected with 23 million votes, and we must recognise that there were observers for that election and it was generally accepted that the result was fair. President Sisi’s total vote was significantly higher than that of President Morsi, who received 5 million votes in the first round and 13 million votes in the run-off second round. The people I met in Egypt—people from the Christian community, leading figures in the Islamic organisations in the country and members of women’s groups—were unanimous in their feeling that the President has the authority to introduce a political change to bring all Egyptians together.
There are huge problems in Egypt economically and with unemployment, particularly among large numbers of young people. A parliamentary system is not yet in place and parliamentary elections will probably be held in September or October. We need to recognise that Egypt is a very large country within Africa and, if we can sort the issue out internationally, it could become a permanent member of the Security Council. It is not just an African country but one of the leading largest countries in the Arab world, as 25% of the world’s Arab population live in Egypt.
We need to recognise that, historically, we have had important political, economic and cultural relations with Egypt. The recent past—unfortunately, I do not have time to go through it all—has seen the emergence of great aspirations since the events of 2011, particularly among young people, followed by the period of the Muslim Brotherhood President, which led to huge demonstrations against how he was governing and what he was thought to be trying to create. Then there was the intervention of the army and now there is a second election.
Egypt is in transition. It is an important country for the future of Africa and to the peace and security of the middle east region as a whole. I shall conclude my remarks and hope that the Minister will respond to those points.
Mr Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes), who has always shown a great deal of knowledge and expertise. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge) on securing and introducing the debate and I declare my interest as recorded in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
I want to say something about trade and investment in Africa, because as my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East pointed out, there is phenomenal potential in the continent of Africa. This is not only about its natural resources—in addition to those mentioned by my hon. Friend, Africa has 80% of world reserves of platinum and chromium and 40% of gold reserves—but about the growing middle class who are increasingly living in the 52 cities with a population of more than 1 million. One need only look at the extraordinary revolution in mobile telecoms to see that, as my hon. Friend pointed out, there is almost a leapfrogging of technologies. The potential is phenomenal.
The UK is doing pretty well, although not yet well enough. The figures for 2013 show that our total bilateral trade with sub-Saharan Africa is just under £20 billion and for the whole of Africa it is about £30 billion. That is positive, but let us put it in context. Our total bilateral trade with the Republic of Ireland is more than £40 billion and with Denmark is about £30 billion, yet we are talking about all those countries in Africa.
I am very glad that the culture at the FCO under the Foreign Secretary has become more proactive towards trade. On his first day at the FCO in May 2010, he made it crystal clear that every single head of mission had to go out and promote UK exports and UK trade. I remember that on my second day at the FCO as Africa Minister I went around the Africa directorate and the first question I asked each desk officer was, “What is the bilateral trade between the UK and your country? Where is the flag flying for Kenya, Uganda or Ghana?” Very few knew the answer, but from that moment onwards every brief started with the figures for bilateral trade. I am very glad that there is now a huge amount of emphasis on that.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister on his pursuit of the high-level prosperity partnerships, which are undoubtedly making a big impact. What more can UK Trade & Investment do in those countries that are not covered by high-level prosperity partnerships? I welcome the opening up of new missions in Africa, because unless we have people on the ground and have a footprint it is very difficult to make an impact. That is why I am delighted that embassies have opened up in Mogadishu, Juba and Abidjan and that there are plans to open one in Madagascar. If it is not possible to open up a new embassy in countries such as Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Burundi or Burkina Faso, we should at least put in place a prosperity or economics envoy with a small back-up staff as a prelude to opening up a full-scale mission.
I also want to mention the work being done by the Department for International Development. One thing that has struck me under the previous and current Secretaries of State is that DFID is considering the role of the private sector much more. I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry) has been pressing that point incredibly hard over many years. In the past, DFID was in too much of a narrow silo but it is now working incredibly hard to help improve the business environment in many of these countries and is working with the private sector. It was noticeable that on her recent visit to Tanzania the Secretary of State for International Development took a large trade envoy delegation with her. That would not have happened in the past and certainly not under previous Governments. Excellent progress is being made, and above all else DFID understands that the best way to relieve poverty is through trade. That is about creating wealth, empowering people and improving their circumstances.
I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to go on pushing the trade agenda. The potential across the whole of Africa is huge and there is enough to go around for different countries. People say, “What about the Chinese, the Turks or the Brazilians?” but there is enough to go around for everyone and although the UK is doing well, it can do better.
We all know that Somalia was, with the honourable exception of Somaliland, a complete and total disaster until quite recently. I have been very impressed with the progress that has been made over the past 18 months or so since the end of the transitional Federal Government under President Sheikh Sharif, under which very little progress was made. The TFG never controlled more than a few quarters in Mogadishu. We now have a new Government in place under President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and they have a great deal more control across Somalia, across south and central Galmudug and elsewhere.
It is one thing to remove al-Shabaab from many parts of south and central Somalia and to get control of cities such as Kismayo and large towns such as Baidoa, but there has to be follow-up so that the democratic deficit in those towns is met and so that the rule of al-Shabaab is replaced by strong, proactive local government. What more are Her Majesty’s Government doing to assist the new Government of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud to ensure that those structures are put in place very quickly? DFID is doing a good job in many of those areas. Specifically in Kismayo, where there is obviously a very complex clan structure, it is incredibly important that people are served by the new Government and have local democracy, local government and services delivered to them. Progress has been remarkable and the progress on countering piracy has been very impressive indeed. However, there is of course some way to go.
In closing, let me say something about Nigeria, which was covered eloquently by the hon. Member for Ilford South. Nigeria was the great hope in Africa and in many ways still is. It is the most populated country in Africa and has phenomenal resources, but the sadness is that it has been in the news recently for all the wrong reasons. I agree absolutely with what the hon. Gentleman said about Boko Haram. We cannot merely consider the Chibok incident in isolation, because over the past five years we have seen a series of appalling attacks on Christian communities and other communities in the north and around cities such as Kano, Maiduguri and Kaduna. Last week, there was the appalling murder of the Emir of Gwoza, Shehu Mustapha Idrisa Timta, who was a highly regarded individual, by Boko Haram.
What more can the UK do? Obviously more regional input is needed, because the border around those parts of northern Nigeria is incredibly porous, so we need the support of countries such as Cameroon. The Nigerian army is unfortunately diminishing in size and capacity. It has very poor intelligence capability and hardly any special forces capability. In addition to supporting the regional intelligence fusion unit and giving direct tactical training and advice to the Nigerian military, what more can we do to help regional partners? Can we do more to provide assets, such as Sentinel aircraft, which are very useful—although, as my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) pointed out, if the terrorists hide the kidnapped girls in deep jungle, it does not matter how good the assets are, because they will be unable to find them without more intelligence.
We used to look to the north of Nigeria as a beacon of stability, because there were wars raging in the south, for example in Biafra. It is from the north that some of Nigeria’s great business men, such as Aliko Dangote, have emanated. The country now has this appalling blight. I simply say to my hon. Friend the Minister that if Nigeria, the most influential and populous country in Africa, is unable to rebuild stability across the whole country, the prospects for Africa as a whole will be greatly diminished. I urge him to do everything he possibly can, working with other European countries and regional partners, to find a solution to this appalling problem.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I represent a constituency that has one of the largest groups of African diaspora communities in the UK. As I always say to constituents, one of my principal missions is to try to educate much of the British population that Africa is a continent, not a nation. Unfortunately, that observation has a hollow ring of truth for many of my constituents, who get fed up having to explain that to people.
I represent one of the largest Nigerian and Ghanaian diasporas in the UK, but we also have significant communities from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia, Eritrea, South Africa, Cameroon and Zimbabwe. In fact, French is the second or third most spoken language in Hackney, because of the number of French speakers and Francophone Africans. I even conduct some of my surgeries in French, because for many constituents English is a third, fourth or even fifth language, and when distressed it is easier to speak in a more familiar tongue.
My comments today will focus on Nigeria, as I chair the all-party group on Nigeria. Although they have been mentioned by several colleagues already, I think that it is worth touching on some of the major issues in our relationship with that country. When the all-party group hosts events, members of the diaspora turn up and we usually have standing room only and waiting lists for attendance, because they are very concerned about the country of their origin or that of their parents.
I will touch first on human trafficking, which is a huge concern. I do not need to say much about what the Government should do, because the new Bill on trafficking, which of course has cross-party support, is a really important step forward. I welcome its introduction. However, it is worth highlighting that Nigeria is the biggest source country for trafficking into the UK. I had the pleasure of visiting Nigeria last year—my most recent visit—with the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge), where we met the agencies trying to tackle trafficking. I observed, as we fed back to the Minister at the time—it is worth getting on the record—that they are battling against a huge onslaught. It is a big international crime. We need to ensure that there is as much support as possible between our nations if we are to tackle the evil people who traffic others across continents to the UK.
As a constituency MP, I often meet the victims of trafficking years later. I talked recently with the Nigerian Catholic Chaplaincy in the UK, which is based in a Hackney parish, and heard that they also see that. We find that people come to us later without leave to remain in the country or full legal support, and often they are not related to the people they have been brought up with as a family member. These issues rumble on in the diaspora, so it is a living issue in my constituency.
I want to talk about a number of issues, but in the brief time available I will have to canter through them. Security and trade in Nigeria are very much linked. As other Members have said, Nigeria is Africa’s largest country, in terms of both population and economy, and a significant player in west Africa and the continent as a whole. The UK and Nigeria have a long history of bilateral engagement. I welcomed the pledge between President Jonathan and our Prime Minister to double bilateral trade from £4 billion in 2010 to £8 billion in 2014. Growing insecurity, of course, puts that at risk. With two thirds of the population aged under 25—this is an issue I looked at when I visited with my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) in 2012—there is a real potential for Nigerian businesses to do business in Nigeria and in the UK, and vice versa. Many Nigerians in the diaspora are keen to expand their business opportunities. That is a huge resource for the UK: a group of people committed to Britain, but also with a footprint in Nigeria, who can be a real tool for us in engaging as a nation and for different businesses.
Other Members have talked about Boko Haram. We cannot talk about Nigeria today without mentioning that scourge and the threat it poses not only to the country, but to the region and, indeed, the world. Nigeria has been grappling with that threat for two decades, so it is not new, although the headlines are more recent. Boko Haram remains focused on destabilising the Nigerian Government. The crisis spills over into neighbouring countries, with an influx of refugees into Niger and Cameroon, so there are big regional impacts. Boko Haram’s radical form of Islam rejects not only western education, but secularism and democracy. Muslims who do not share its views are just as legitimate a target for that terrorist group as Christians are. The causes are multiple, complex and difficult to address in a short debate, but we know that local political and socio-economic factors have become fused with wider political and religious-ideological influences in fuelling that group. Of course, corruption and poor governance also play a role.
It is important that the UK continues to provide support, and not just in military terms. The Nigerian Federal Government are attempting a new “soft approach” to countering terrorism, with an holistic framework incorporating de-radicalisation and community engagement. There are examples of good work from the UK. The Tony Blair Faith Foundation recently held a programme for northern Nigerian Muslim and Christian faith leaders to come to the UK and work together to enable them to go back and try to educate from the grass roots up. We need more of the same.
I recently met the Metropolitan police’s Nigerian police forum. The Minister might be interested to know that up to 900 officers in the Metropolitan police alone are of Nigerian origin. In the past fortnight I mentioned that to the Prime Minister, who promised to look at the option of having some of those officers go to work with the police in Nigeria to help educate them in human rights policing, because we know, as a recent Amnesty International report has shown, that there are serious concerns about extra-judicial action by the Nigerian police. I do not have time to go into that today, and I do not need to educate the Minister about the challenges, but we have very experienced professionals in this country who are keen to make further links with Nigeria, so I hope that he will promise to look into that and meet the Nigerian police forum, which is a very committed group of individuals who are keen to do that.
In the run-up to Nigeria’s 2015 elections there is a real risk that we will see further politicisation of this complex situation. It is important that the UK Government and the international community support both Government and civil society in Nigeria, particularly in relation to criminal justice, investigative capacity and humanitarian relief. Of course, if we can tackle the terrorism at its source, the humanitarian relief needs will be far less great.
When I visited Nigeria in 2012 with my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central, we went to Minna in Niger state. At the time we were able to travel that far north, although sadly restrictions now mean that we cannot travel much further north of Abuja. We went there to see a scheme supported by DFID that was training young women to become teachers, because it was finding that in the north of Nigeria many girls were not going to school because there were not enough female teachers. The girls were living in a compound surrounded by barbed wire, because their husbands and fathers were keen that they should be secure while away from home.
It was also striking, particularly for two British women MPs, that the member of staff from the aid agency sponsoring the programme, Save the Children, told the girls in our presence, “When you go back to your homes, do not act too western. Stay the same as you are.” We found that quite jarring, because many of the girls had ambitions to study further. There is a real challenge there. Even where there is progressive thinking and girls are encouraged to be educated, there is a desire for them to go back to their communities and help educate the next generation, and going back in such a transformed way, with regard to their education, runs the risk that their fathers and husbands will not let the next generation be educated. That demonstrated in a very human way the challenges that remain when it comes to educating girls and women in Nigeria.
The Nigerian Government recently pledged to educate a million children in northern Nigeria to boost development, but more than 10 million children in the country still do not go to school. Some 60% of six to 17-year-old girls in northern Nigeria are not in school. On the same visit, I went to a school where I met parents who were very ambitious for their daughters—for all their children—but there is a need for support to get the children into school and ensure that they stay there, rather than having to earn money to support their families.
I do not have time to go into all the trade issues in Nigeria, but we know that the country is Africa’s largest producer of oil and gas. But other sectors are important, too. Agriculture accounts for 42% of GDP; sadly, however, it is underdeveloped—the majority of Nigeria’s produce is now imported. There is a real opportunity for UK agribusiness—perhaps some of our big supermarkets—to work in Nigeria to help improve food processing.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mark Simmonds)
indicated assent.
Meg Hillier
The Minister is nodding; I would be grateful if he commented on that in his response.
I mentioned the youth of the Nigerian population, which means that there is a growing demand for education and training services—another issue I have looked at in recent visits. That demand has grown faster than the Nigerian Government can meet it. There is a real opportunity for Britain to export some of our excellent education sector and work with Nigerians in Nigeria to ensure good quality education for that growing cohort. I am thinking of technical skills as well as academic education.
The Government must ensure that the bilateral trade, which has started, continues. They have not yet met the target. Will the Minister comment on that? Nigeria’s imports from the UK rose by 99% in 2012. That is good news, but a lot more can be done. Clearly, the security situation dampens down activity and businesses that I talk to worry about it a great deal. Will the Minister reassure them that the Government are aware of the situation and are willing to support them? Parts of Nigeria are still safe to invest and work in. We need to make sure that businesses not already in the country get across that confidence threshold.
I am aware that my time is running out. I turn briefly to the issue of oil; it is impossible to talk about Nigeria without mentioning that. Nigeria produces 2 million barrels of oil per day, making it the world’s 13th largest producer. In the first quarter of 2013 alone, at least 100,000 barrels a day were lost to theft from onshore production operations and the swamps alone. That causes environmental damage and affects communities. The stolen oil is exported; the proceeds are laundered through world financial centres and used to buy assets in and outside Nigeria, polluting markets and financial institutions overseas. It also compromises parts of the legitimate oil business.
This is a real issue. Nigerian officials are aware of the problem, but we need transnational action to tackle it. Nigeria’s partners, including the British Government, should prioritise the gathering, analysis and sharing of intelligence so that we tackle this scourge on communities in the oil-producing parts of Nigeria. It is not good for the world as a whole.
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
It is a pleasure to follow so many well informed and thoughtful speeches. I used to work for a development non-governmental organisation—Oxfam. I suppose that over the years what development organisations have tended to emphasise in their presentation of African issues has been the real challenges of poverty, ill health and lack of rights, although they have also tried to put across some positive images.
The theme of today’s debate, however, is that the story of Africa is increasingly about resilience in the face of many of the challenges, about potential and about growth. The economic success story is extraordinary now. The average growth in the continent since the year 2000 is 4% or 5%, which we would be pleased with. The GDP of about a quarter of African countries grew at 7% or higher in 2012; if the current momentum continues, more than half of sub-Saharan African states will be middle-income countries by 2025.
There are obvious signs that the Department for International Development and the Government in general are working hard to improve African governance and remove obstacles to investment in Africa as part of our development focus, but it is good to hear in this debate about more emphasis on UKTI and trade missions, to help British companies make the most of the economic opportunity as well.
We are not alone in noticing the transformation of African economies. China is well known as a massive trade partner of Africa’s, but it is also increasingly a source of foreign direct investment there. Some 80% to 90% of that investment goes into the energy and metals industries, but Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises are increasingly investing in manufacturing and construction, some of them taking advantage of the fact that the Chinese Government are providing generous loans for infrastructure investment. We have to be aware of that growing economic relationship.
I have seen a Foreign and Commonwealth Office analysis paper that points out that the slow-down in the Chinese economy and the structural changes there, given the rising labour costs, may pose something of a threat to the African economic success story. However, the situation may also present opportunities, particularly as labour costs rise in China, for investment in manufacturing in Africa. That might be a great opportunity coming down the track for many African economies. It would be good to hear from the Minister how we are encouraging British companies not to miss out on that potential economic revolution.
Many Members, including the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst), have emphasised the political context. Political reform and good governance are integral to Africa’s future success. In the 21st century, new political relationships are developing around the world. China is also politically involved in Africa and has been tolerant of some pretty unpleasant regimes, including Sudan and Zimbabwe. If there is a failing in its relationship with Africa, it is that it has not paid enough attention to human rights and good governance. We can encourage good governance and champion democracy in Africa.
The transformation towards democracy in Africa is spectacular. It happened before the Arab awakening and is on a par with what has happened in eastern Europe and Latin America. Although the process has often been faltering, with some countries seeming to take one step forward and two steps back, it is a long time since we talked about Botswana as virtually the only stable long-term democracy in Africa.
The Mo Ibrahim index emphasises the rule of law, accountability, personal safety, education, health, participation, human rights, and the business and public management environment. It showed that in 2012 almost 70% of African countries were improving their scores. The roll of honour—the top 10—are Mauritius, Botswana, Cape Verde, the Seychelles, South Africa, Namibia, Ghana, Tunisia, Lesotho and Senegal. Many of those were not remotely democratic only a few years ago.
Cape Verde is extraordinary. When I worked for Oxfam, it was probably one of the archetypal basket cases of African development. It was one of the least developed, poorest countries in the world and a byword for failing systems. Yet the Mo Ibrahim prize, which goes to former democratically elected African Heads of State and Government who have shown exceptional leadership, went to former President Pires of Cape Verde, who was singled out for his contribution to a country that is now characterised by stability, democracy and progress. That extraordinary transformation shows what is possible. Mo Ibrahim himself, who set up the prize, is a Sudanese philanthropist and telecoms millionaire who is also an example of how Africa can change and has changed in many respects already.
We need to look politically at Africa in a different way. We need to seek out strategic allies among the leading democracies there. South Africa is an obvious ally; we have a strong relationship with it and it is a fellow Commonwealth member and democracy. The issue of LGBT rights is still a problem across Africa; homosexuality is outlawed in 38 African countries. However, it is not always the best strategy for the former imperial power to lecture those countries about such issues. South Africa, however, has gay rights enshrined in its constitution, it has legalised same-sex marriage and it is a powerful advocate for LGBT rights. It can lead the attempt to change the political situation in some other African countries.
In Africa as a whole, and particularly South Africa, the other positive political relationship is the development of multi-party democracy. I am very proud, through the Liberal Democrats, to be a member of Liberal International, which probably has more African members than ever before. It includes the Democratic Alliance in South Africa, which in 1994 polled just 1.4% of the vote—even less than we got in the Newark by-election—whereas at the last general election in 2014, spectacularly, it got 22% and is now the official opposition to the African National Congress. It is no surprise that we are now taking strategic political advice from Mr Ryan Coetzee, formerly of the Democratic Alliance and now of the Liberal Democrats. We fully expect him to have a similarly spectacular impact on our political fortunes in this country.
There is not only a political and economic relationship, but a military one. British Government funding accounts for some 7% of UN peacekeeping operations in Africa, making us the fifth biggest donor in the world. Those operations include forces in Western Sahara, Mali, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, the Central African Republic, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan, with British personnel on the ground in the latter two. We also have permanent operations for the UK Army in Africa, including the British peace support teams in east Africa and in South Africa, the British Army training unit in Kenya, the international military advising and training mission in Sierra Leone, and many others. That is all part of contributing not only to good governance in the democratic sense but to the good conduct of Government operations through, for instance, the security services.
This is a positive story in many respects, but we still have an important development relationship as well. It is right to emphasise the work of DFID, not only in terms of aid. It is no longer just about aid but about development in a broader sense. I am proud that we have as part of our Government’s record the achievement of the historic goal of spending 0.7% of our national income on international development assistance, but that is not the whole picture. Among other things, that money has contributed to the GAVI Alliance funds—where we have committed billions of pounds, much of which is going to African countries—and to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, which since 2002 has contributed £200 million in South Africa, leading to a dramatic scaling-up of anti-retroviral medical treatments for HIV and AIDS and, in turn, to a dramatic drop in HIV. Since 2005, life expectancy in South Africa has shot up by six years, and that has had a dramatic impact. Millions of lives have been saved across Africa—across the world, in fact—by the British Government’s commitment to initiatives such as the global fund and GAVI, and we should be enormously proud of that.
We should also be proud of what we are doing to encourage private sector growth, which the Secretary of State for International Development has strongly emphasised. SMEs and small companies are often the engines of growth in African economies just as they are in this country. That is a very positive story.
There are also positive stories such as CDC, formerly the Commonwealth Development Corporation, which has created an enormous number of jobs by leveraging capital that it already had—so there is no extra cost to the British taxpayer, which will please my Conservative friends. This Government are very proud of having created 1 million private sector jobs in this country since the coalition began. CDC has helped to create 1 million jobs a year, contributing some £2 billion to local taxes. That is an amazing boost to development. CDC’s focus is now much less on dramatically growing economies such as the emerging markets in China and elsewhere, and much more on Africa, where it is seeking out hard-to-invest businesses. That is a real success story of which we should be proud.
Development work should be about good development. We need to check that everywhere we are working to support development it is having positive impacts. If I have to raise one concern, it is about areas such as the Lower Omo valley in Ethopia, where we are a contributor to the promoting basic services programme. That is part of an operation that includes the Gibe II dam project and the Kuraz sugar project, which will inevitably displace many traditional peoples from their pastoral lands. If some of that is forced relocation, and if the principle of prior informed consent is not being properly followed, that is a matter for real concern, and the British Government should be paying attention to it and raising it with the Ethiopian Government. Ethiopia is, in many ways, a great success story for economic development and progress, but there are human rights concerns there and elsewhere of which we need to be mindful.
The story of Africa these days is not so much about aid, charity and poverty as democracy, innovation and opportunity. For this country, it should be about seeking and developing strategic relationships with countries such as South Africa. However, we must also guard against any harmful consequences of the work we are doing and the development we are encouraging so that Africa does not repeat mistakes that countries in Europe might have made over time, and so that we have an entirely positive political, economic and development relationship with the countries of Africa.
Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)
I am grateful for the chance to speak in this debate and to the Backbench Business Committee for bringing the subject to the Floor of the House. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood).
I want to concentrate my comments primarily on education. With our partners, the UK can do much to build on the work of extending educational provision to more children in the poorest families in the poorest countries in Africa. Education is one of the most effective ways of helping development in poorer countries. It contributes to greater economic growth, healthier populations, and more stable societies. Equal access to education for all reduces inequality and poverty and increases empowerment.
Much progress has been made towards achieving the Education for All goals set by world leaders in 2000. As many Members have said, it is important to be positive, not least because that underlines to people in the UK that the money they pay in their taxes to support international development is well spent and brings about real change. It is good that since 1999 the number of children out of school around the world has fallen by almost half. Nevertheless, UNESCO recently reported that by next year many countries will still not have reached the Education for All goals. The situation is particularly serious in parts of Africa, especially sub-Saharan Africa, where 30 million primary-age children are out of school. Girls suffer most from this lack of provision. One in four girls is not receiving a basic education, and at the end of the last decade only 23% of children from the poorest households completed primary education. If recent trends in the region continue, although boys from the richest households will achieve universal primary education by 2021, universal primary education for girls from the poorest households will not be reached until 2086, and girls are not expected to achieve universal secondary education, even at the lower level, until 2111— 97 years away. That is clearly an unacceptable situation.
Unfortunately, just when funding for education is urgently needed to accelerate progress, that funding is in crisis. Although some African countries have managed to increase their domestic education budgets, others still spend too little—in some cases, less than 3% of GNP. Meanwhile, external aid for education from multilateral organisations and bilateral support from richer countries is declining. The UK is not in that position—it is leading the way in supporting basic education in poorer countries, including in Africa. That is happening under this Government and of course happened under the previous Labour Government. We have been increasing our aid to education at a time when several other donors have been making worrying cuts, not only in education support but in international development assistance.
Given what I said about the particularly serious situation regarding education for girls in poorer countries, I welcome DFID’s continuing commitment to supporting the education of girls, which is recognised across the House. The UK is also, of course, the single largest donor to the Global Partnership for Education. That leadership role gives us the opportunity to play an important part in influencing other donors to step up both their direct bilateral aid for education and their support for GPE.
The Minister will know that GPE’s four-year replenishment campaign will begin with a pledging conference in Brussels a week today, which will be attended by global leaders. It is not clear whether the UK Government will send a Minister to the conference or whether the UK will make a financial pledge to the fund. I certainly hope that the Government will send a Minister, so perhaps the Minister could tell us later. That would be an important way of emphasising our commitment to action.
UK non-governmental organisations have been calling on the British Government to make a number of commitments to the replenishment process. In particular, they have called for the UK to make a pledge of £525 million to the fund, thereby providing 25% of the target, if other donors also step up. The NGOs have called on the Government to continue the existing bilateral funding to education in developing countries, and to support developing country partners to increase their own domestic education funding, which is particularly important.
The campaign backing education for all has widespread popular support in this country, particularly from schoolchildren, who want to see children from poorer countries enjoying the same right to education as they do. Many Members will be aware of the “Send my Friend to School” and “Send my Sister to School” campaigns. Many schools in my constituency and, I am sure, others have taken part in them in this and previous years. I give a special mention to the children and staff at St Mary’s primary school in my constituency in Edinburgh, who a few days ago delivered just over 300 “Send my Friend to School” buddy cards to my office. Almost every single child in the school was involved and they were inspired by the school’s connection with a school and project in Tanzania.
Given the support for action from constituencies across the country, I reiterate my call for the Government to send a senior Minister to the pledging conference in Brussels next week and to make a financial pledge to the fund along the lines suggested by NGOs. If we do that, we can play a leadership role to influence other donors, help ensure a successful conference and allow the vital work, in which our country is playing an important and leading role, to continue.
Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz).
My involvement with Africa started with a visit to Ethiopia in 1981, a couple of years before I was first elected to Parliament. I found Ethiopia to be a beautiful country and I subsequently became chair of the Anglo-Ethiopian Society. It was perhaps not surprising, therefore, that in late 1983, when Oxfam and a number of other non-governmental organisations were concerned that the international community was not taking sufficiently seriously the famine in Ethiopia, I was one of the small team of parliamentarians asked to travel with Oxfam to Addis and across the country so that we could report back first-hand to Parliament what we had seen.
By coincidence, our visit to Addis coincided with the now famous and simultaneous visit by Michael Buerk and a team from the BBC. They had been filming in South Africa and were due to come home but had some spare time and were looking for another story to cover. They were told there may be some food problems in Ethiopia and they arrived to discover, as we did, not just food problems but famine and starvation on a biblical scale.
As has happened so often in recent history, BBC film footage instantly flashed around the world and the international community responded. Literally within days, I found myself standing next to the then Secretary-General of the United Nations, who had flown in, and suddenly the attention of the whole world was on Ethiopia, with airports there soon supporting RAF Hercules planes and Russian transport planes delivering emergency food aid to rural populations.
Later that year, just before the House rose for Christmas, I made a speech on Africa, which I have re-read for the first time in many years for the purposes of preparing for this debate. I observed:
“This year the rains have failed in Africa, a continent where two-thirds of the world’s poorest people scratch a living that is precarious at the best of times…more than 20 million people are facing starvation in Africa…The Save the Children Fund estimates that some 1 million people face immediate starvation in the area of Ethiopia, Eritrea and the Sudan…food produced in Africa has increased by less than 2 per cent. a year…Africa is now the only part of the world that grows less food for its people now than it did 20 years ago…The areas hardest hit by drought and famine also seem to be those areas of civil war and political unrest, which in turn means that there are now millions of political refugees seeking safety, food and shelter in parts of Africa other than their homes.”
I concluded:
“I urge my right hon. Friend the Minister to do all that he can to initiate an urgent programme to help Africa feed itself”. —[Official Report, 19 December 1983; Vol. 51, c. 232-36.]
Interestingly, I also noted that the then Minister for Overseas Development had the previous week written a letter to The Guardian indicating that there were difficulties in giving food aid. It is interesting to note that, even as recently as 1983, giving food aid and humanitarian support was still seen as politically difficult. It was all too often regarded as being a value judgment on the country or the regime of the country to which the food aid was being sent.
I have been fortunate in my parliamentary career over the intervening 30 years to make frequent visits to different parts of Africa, including when I was a Foreign Office Minister with responsibility for overseas development before the Department for International Development was set up, and when I was fortunate to Chair the International Development Committee. I have also been fortunate to travel to Africa either in my capacity as a barrister or at my own expense, as happened recently when I visited Somalia and South Sudan.
Africa today, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge), who opened the debate, has made clear, is a continent of the most amazing energy, dynamism and enormous potential. It is a young continent with huge numbers of young men and women working hard to improve their lives.
It was to the credit of Tony Blair, when Prime Minister, that he set up the Commission for Africa. In fairness, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), as Chancellor, did much to support the development initiatives so that at Gleneagles in 2005 the major countries of the world agreed to double aid to Africa, provide 100% debt relief to eligible countries, and create the Investment Climate Facility for Africa, the Infrastructure Consortium for Africa and the business action plan for Africa. Gleneagles gave support to the creation of the UN Peacebuilding Commission, which led in due course to the UN commencing discussions on an international arms trade treaty later that year.
It is fair to say that since 2005 Africa has made extraordinary progress. It continues to have sustained average annual growth rates of about 6%, and foreign investment and exports have quadrupled. This overall progress has been largely driven by the efforts of African Governments themselves to make it easier to do business in their own country, supported by increased African and international investment in infrastructure.
There have been record levels of demand for African goods and particular demand for Africa’s natural resources. The relief for debt of way over $100 billion and a nearly 50% increase in aid to Africa over the past decade have helped African countries increase their spending on health, education and civil society. There has been a substantial increase in investment in infrastructure in Africa. Growing donor support for initiatives such as the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation have meant that more than 300 million children have been immunised with GAVI-supported vaccines. African Governments’ commitments alongside strong donor support have ensured access to antiretroviral treatments for HIV/AIDS to grow from below 15% in 2005 to well over 50% now. More children in Africa get to sleep under a bed net that can protect them from malaria than ever before, and more children go to primary school.
It is clear that Africa’s potential is enormous. Realising that potential is not just in Africa’s interests—it is in all our interests. During recent years, we have seen significant economic growth in Africa; a surge in trade investment; new relationships with countries such as China and other non-traditional partners; ever-increasing demand for African resources; and increased investment in areas vital to growth, paving the way to ever greater investment. There has been growing spending power in African households, and increased external aid alongside debt relief has helped to support African Governments’ efforts to promote growth and development. It has also helped to increase school enrolment rates, check the spread of HIV/AIDS, expand vital infrastructure and support African efforts to attract investment.
Many positive achievements and developments in Africa would not have happened if it had not been for the encouragement and persistence of international development aid, including international development from the UK. For example, Africa has continued to expand as a major market for mobile phone technology. For a long time, it has been one of the world’s fastest growing mobile phone markets. Mobile phone technology in Africa is now estimated to employ more than 3.5 million people, and the spread of mobile phones continues to change the way in which Africans communicate and to bring a wide range of benefits. African farmers and fishermen are using them to get better information about market prices for their goods, which enables them to make better judgments about when and where to sell their products. For example, the Kenyan Agricultural Commodity Exchange has partnered with Safaricom, Kenya’s largest cell phone company, to equip farmers with up-to-date commodity market prices via their phones.
There are, however, some serious buts for Africa, some of which are structural. African economies remain among the least diversified in the world, with approximately 80% of all African exports coming from oil, minerals and agricultural goods. Only 12% of recent growth in Africa has been in the agricultural sector, which employs 60% of the work force.
Increased investment in and improvements to Africa’s infrastructure have been major drivers in its recent growth, but massive gaps still remain between the infrastructure Africa has and the infrastructure it needs. It is disappointing that there has been little or no movement towards an agreement on the Doha development agenda for the removal of agricultural subsidies, or more significant trade agreements between the EU and African countries.
Africa is still hobbled in all too many areas by conflict, by corruption and, often, by limited governance. On conflict and violence, I do not think that we should allow the eruption of events last week in Iraq to overshadow the very considerable contribution made by the global summit to end sexual violence in conflict. It is worth noting that only as recently as the establishment of the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone on war crimes that the international community and international law held mass rape to be a war crime.
I think the whole House welcomes the lead taken by my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, who have campaigned for several years to arrange the global summit, because we all believe that the time has come to end the use of rape in war. Governments, experts, civil society, survivors and members of the public were brought together last week in an unprecedented concentration of effort and attention. On Thursday, representatives from 117 countries met to agree international protocols on the investigation and prosecution of sexual violence during war. I hope that last week’s summit will act as a catalyst, and that it will inspire concrete action to tackle sexual violence around the world so that conflict-related rape can no longer—and will no longer—be considered as an inevitable by-product of war.
The House will not be surprised, given my particular responsibilities in this place, if I mention the comments of the Archbishop of Canterbury at last week’s conference. He observed that it is very often Churches around the world that pick up the pieces after rape in war zones and are the main bulwark against such brutalisation, and that Churches throughout the world show women who have been violated love, humanity and dignity, and challenge the culture of impunity that exists in many war zones, besides seeking to promote equality between the sexes.
On corruption, it is good that the UK Government have taken an international lead with the Bribery Act 2010, and that the recent Queen’s Speech includes a new public register of beneficial ownership, through the small business, enterprise and employment Bill. The Bill is one of the outcomes of the 2013 UK-hosted G8 summit. It aims to limit the use of shell companies for tax evasion, fraud, money laundering and corruption, which is estimated to cost the developing world billions of dollars each year.
The recent initiatives by the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary on conflict and for reducing the impact of sexual violence are much to be welcomed—I am sure the Minister and other hon. Members will comment on them in detail—but it is difficult to underestimate the damage done to Africa by conflict.
For example, when I visited Somalia earlier this year the security situation was so bad that the Foreign Office would in effect allow me to make only a day visit to Mogadishu—and then to go no further than the British embassy, which is located in the airfield complex in Mogadishu—all because of the activities of al-Shabaab. The President of Somalia very kindly came to the British embassy to meet me. He and his Government are clearly working extremely hard to try to bring some normality to Somalia. However, the very day after I visited Mogadishu, there was a significant car bomb attack on the presidential palace, which killed a large number of people. It is of course difficult to see how any country can make progress in the 21st century if it is impossible for members of the international business community, journalists or other interested parties physically to visit the country, given such a terrorism threat.
My next visit—via Nairobi—was to Juba. The complexities of the conflict in South Sudan perhaps merit a full debate, and I hope that there may be time for one on Sudan and South Sudan in the Chamber or Westminster Hall at some point. There is no doubt that the conflict in South Sudan has set the world’s youngest country back a very considerable way. I did not get beyond Juba. On his visit, however, the Archbishop of Canterbury went to Bor, where he saw for himself the mass graves of those slaughtered in inter-community fighting. I was glad to learn from press reports that, in Addis last week, the President of South Sudan and Reik Machar agreed that they would work together, as I understand it, in a Government of national unity, which I hope will take South Sudan from now until the presidential elections next year. However, I do not think that any of us can in any way underestimate the potential humanitarian disaster just around the corner in South Sudan. I hope that the cessation of hostilities will enable food aid, as well as humanitarian international agencies and NGOs, to reach all parts of the country.
In Nigeria and other countries in Africa, we are seeing a rise of organisations such as Boko Haram and of Islamic extremism. The President of the Republic of Sudan is a wanted alleged international war criminal. There are still far too few countries in Africa where the transition of power from one democratically elected Government to another is the norm.
We need to take stock of the progress of the millennium development goals and agree what to put in their place post-2015. I understand that President Obama will convene in Washington in early August a summit to which all African Heads of Government are invited. That will allow the United States and African Heads of Government to have a significant dialogue on what the agenda for Africa should be.
The United States has increasingly found itself involved in peacekeeping in Africa—it has a very large military base in Djibouti—but, similarly, China is taking an ever-closer interest and wants more involvement and investment in Africa.
Lastly and significantly, we also need to secure a global agreement on climate change. We must never underestimate the potential of climate change seriously to damage the economies and people of Africa.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
The number of Members wanting to speak shows how important it is to have a debate on Africa. I hope that a general discussion on Africa will become at least an annual event, because it is a way of drawing attention to a number of subjects. I will be brief, because we do not want to take time out of the next debate.
In any debate on Africa, we should have some thought for our role in Africa in the past, with the colonisation, slavery and brutality, as well as the incredible wealth made by British companies and families from colonial Africa right through to independence in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. In such debates, I always remember the prescient remarks of the former Member for Tottenham, the late Bernie Grant when he spoke about the African reparations movement and the need for justice in Africa. He was talking not just about money, but about justice in attitude towards Africa, as well as in trade and aid arrangements.
Owing to lack of time, I will restrict my remarks not to the whole continent, but to one area—the African great lakes region. I am a vice-chair of the all-party group on the African great lakes region. I have a considerable diaspora community from the Democratic Republic of the Congo in my constituency, as well as numbers of refugees from other conflicts in the region. The Minister will not be surprised that I raise such matters, but I hope that he will help me in his answers, or at least correspond with me afterwards. Next year, the year after and the year after that, there will be very important elections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda and Burundi, which I will consider in order.
We discussed the Democratic Republic of the Congo at some length in a recent Westminster Hall debate. Suffice it to say that its history is one of the most appalling brutality and exploitation, first by forces under King Leopold’s control in the 19th century, later by Belgian colonialists and then, following independence and the death of Patrice Lumumba, by a series of brutal military Governments. That has left the country with very limited infrastructure, while the majority of the population is extremely poor and life expectancy is very low. State organisations have very limited reach in any part of the country.
The death rate as a result of the internal conflict in the DRC and the fighting in the east is of almost first world war proportions. The number of people who have died in conflict in the DRC in the past 20 years runs into the many hundreds of thousands. The motive force behind much of that conflict is a combination of local determination and the huge mining interests in the DRC, as well as the other huge natural resources in the country, such as the forests.
One piece of good news—very little good news has come out of the Congo over the past few years—is the protection of the Virunga national park through the ending of oil exploration projects there. I hope that that is a permanent feature and that there is continued protection of that park. Other Members have referred to the protection of natural resources in respect of ecology and the ecosystem. Such protections are best enforced through local participation and support, rather than through quasi-military control.
As a result of the conflict in the DRC, the UN set up MONUSCO, which is the largest UN peacekeeping operation in the world. Its mandate is due to end fairly soon. I would be grateful if the Minister could outline in his response, or perhaps in correspondence, what the British Government’s attitude is towards that. What does he think of the performance of MONUSCO over the years?
I have been an election observer in the DRC and have made separate visits to the DRC, mainly on behalf of constituents. We have to look at the performance of the DRC Government, the use of EU and British aid in the DRC, and the human rights that exist there. The abominable treatment of women, particularly in the eastern DRC, where rape is a routine weapon of war, is appalling by any standard anywhere in the world. It is uniquely bad in the eastern DRC.
Although I recognise that there is now much greater world attention on all these issues, there is a big question mark over the transparency of the mining operations, what happens to the huge amounts of money that are made out of those operations and the very limited amount of tax income that the DRC Government get as a result. There is no reason why the DRC should be such a poor country. There are legitimate and important questions to ask.
Much European Union aid has gone to the DRC. One of the monitoring reports states that the EU
“needs to be more demanding of the Congolese authorities when monitoring compliance with the conditions agreed and the commitments made.”
It asks for the strengthened
“use of conditionality and policy dialogue”,
and for “time-bound” and “clear” conditions to be placed on aid, particularly EU aid, in future.
Anyone who meets any member of the DRC Government or anybody from the opposition groups will find that the conversation turns rapidly to relations with Rwanda and the strong allegations about Rwandan forces, and indeed forces from Uganda and other countries, operating in the eastern DRC. There are legitimate questions to put to the Rwandan Government about the behaviour of their forces and agents in the eastern DRC. Although an agreement was reached recently on a peace and reconciliation process, that has to be monitored carefully. Only a week ago, on 11 and 12 June, there was fighting between Rwandan and Congolese forces in which there was an exchange of fire.
Meg Hillier
I recently had the opportunity to visit Rwanda with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. My hon. Friend might go on to talk about the challenges for Rwanda in having a nation with the problems of the DRC on its doorstep, such as all the refugees coming into Rwanda. It is a difficult situation to manage and stability in the region is an issue.
Jeremy Corbyn
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. She is right that it is an extremely difficult situation to manage.
The genocide that happened to the people of Rwanda is one of the most abominable pages in the history of the planet. One can only have a sense of sympathy and horror at what happened to the lives of so many people during that genocide. One would support peace and reconciliation efforts and the development efforts in Rwanda. I accept that it is a well-run country in comparison to many others in Africa.
However, I have serious concerns about the treatment of opposition figures and the freedom of expression in Rwanda. In particular, I am concerned about the pursuit of opposition members by President Kagame and, of course, the death of Patrick Karegeya in South Africa on new year’s day this year. We have legitimate questions to ask of the Rwandan Government.
I will quote the International Development Committee:
“On our visit we met with human rights NGOs, lawyers and journalists in Kigali. They explained how difficult it was to have a mature discussion about human rights with the Government. A recent ‘genocide ideology law’ had made it difficult for journalists or human rights groups to express any concerns. Tensions were building up under the surface because people were unable to speak openly. The press reported that the Government of Rwanda was attempting to assassinate Rwandans in exile in the UK and that the Metropolitan Police were investigating this.”
Very serious concerns are being expressed about Rwanda. Given that Britain provided £45 million in aid last year, which is more than half the budget of the Rwandan Government, there are legitimate questions to be put.
Lastly, I have some questions about Burundi, which I hope the Minister will help me with when he responds. I visited Burundi as part of an Inter-Parliamentary Union delegation some years ago. Although it has had far less publicity than Rwanda and the DRC, the genocide that happened there and the poverty of its people are very serious issues that have to be addressed. They can be addressed partly through aid, but there are also issues with human rights and the freedom of expression. There are concerns about the freedom of expression of journalists and opposition figures in Burundi.
There are also concerns about the conduct of the upcoming election. The report made by Mary Robinson, the special envoy of the Secretary-General of the UN to the great lakes region of Africa, noted that she was
“very concerned about the constraints on political space and civil liberties which hinder the efforts of the opposition, civil society, and the media, in the lead up to elections in 2015. Burundi has made commendable progress in overcoming a history of conflict, but that progress risks being lost if action is taken to undermine the electoral process and prevent the full participation of all stakeholders.”
The African great lakes region has enormous resources and enormous potential. It has a dreadful history that includes how it was treated by its colonial masters and the genocide that happened after independence. I hope that we can put appropriate supportive pressure on it to bring about a more democratic, pluralistic society that has much greater respect for the human rights of the people of the region. The waste of human resources in war and conflict is appalling. The loss of life and the treatment of women are appalling. We should at least be able to make our views on those matters known in an appropriate way to the Governments of those three countries.
Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)
It has been interesting to listen to so many informed speeches by hon. Members, not least that of the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn). If I have a concern about this debate it is that at times we have been far too congratulatory about the progress that is being made in Africa, far too uncritical of the tools that our Government are using to assist people in Africa and far too confident of the progress that we believe Africa will make over the next few decades.
I speak as someone who, before becoming an MP, spent almost all of his professional life living in other countries that were at different stages of development. I have become a firm believer in and, I hope, a passionate advocate for political liberty and freedom, and economic liberty and freedom. There is nothing more powerful than seeing someone who has never been able to vote go and cast their vote. There is nothing better than seeing someone who has lived and worked in an industry throttled by monopolistic powers or corruption starting their own business and building a future for themselves, and nothing better than reading a press that is free rather than craven before its political masters. I believe passionately in those things, and as a British citizen I am proud that I can go around and say that I am from the United Kingdom, and that we as a country will stand up for those values wherever they need to be supported and nurtured.
However, I speak also as someone who has to validate to my constituents the expenditure of 0.7% of our GDP on international development. I applaud our Prime Minister for accomplishing that goal, and I support it, but I naturally have to ask some tough questions on my constituents’ behalf about whether that money is being spent effectively. That is particularly important when we examine the record in sub-Saharan Africa.
Over the past 20 years, a substantial amount of the resources sent from this country to Africa has gone through our aid budget. World Bank statistics show the impact of that aid: in 1990, 56.5% of people in Africa were living on less than $1.25 a day, whereas today the figure is just under 50%. For the billions of pounds that have been spent in aid, that is a very poor return on investment. Our Government need to challenge that by seeing where that money is being spent effectively and how we can be better.
Richard Fuller
I will not, because the hon. Gentleman has had his chance to speak and time is critical. I know that you want to move on to the closing speeches, Mr Deputy Speaker.
Aid is often incidental to, rather than responsible for, much of the progress that is made. I do not doubt the role of aid agencies, but I want to look critically at whether their tools and their role are what is needed to achieve the next level of development. I am also concerned to ensure that our Government support Africans with what they want, not our aid agencies with what they want for themselves. I am concerned that too often, we rely on institutional inertia: we carry on doing what we have done and lose sight of the original goal and how people’s lives and environments have changed. We need to change how aid is used, and I am proud of some of the changes that the Government have made recently.
Collier, in his book “The Bottom Billion”, which many hon. Members will have read, said that overseas development is not well suited to overcoming some of the challenges of the bottom billion in the world’s economy.
Richard Fuller
I am not going to give way, because of time. I know that the hon. Gentleman worked for Oxfam and has a record on the matter, but he should make his own points on a later occasion. It is fair to say that our Government have to examine whether our money is being delivered effectively to the people who need it.
Richard Fuller
No; I think I have made my position clear. Because of time, I am unable to give way. The hon. Gentleman can continue to attempt to intervene, but I will not give way. I am not being disrespectful to him; I am trying to be respectful to the Front Benchers.
Recipients can often see aid as being more about the donor than about them. I am concerned that insufficient attention is often given to the distortion that aid causes to local markets, local wages and supply chains. The public naturally support aid tremendously, but if we are to overcome institutional inertia, we must ensure that we get people out of poverty and into successful, safe and stable lives. We therefore need a Government who are prepared to ask challenging questions and set themselves targets for change. Equally, we need our NGOs to recognise that they may have to yield their role at times because they do not have the skill sets needed to get to the next stage of development.
I am pleased that the Government have announced changes to their development budget. They have shifted towards economic development by seeking to double the amount of expenditure on it by 2015-16. It is also commendable that they are focusing on jobs, which are an essential part of getting people’s income levels up. I would like to know what the Government are doing to encourage competitive markets—perhaps the Minister can talk about his work on that. As part of our policy, we need to support not only trade but the development of competitive markets. I draw his attention to the report that I wrote with Samuel Kasumu on entrepreneurship in Lagos, in Nigeria.
The Lagos state Government are creating a benign environment for the development of small businesses. The UK Government can give more help through the co-investment fund—many Members have mentioned the value of CDC—and through skills qualifications and skills transfer, particularly basic skills and education. The hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), who chairs the all-party group on Nigeria, mentioned that point. The Government can help also through the establishment of a diaspora fund. It is important that they are seen as supporting the march of the African entrepreneurs. We need to be the champions of that positive change in Africa.
I wish to hear from the Minister on one other matter—what our Government are doing to support the rights of lesbian and gay people in African countries. Some mention has been made of that today. The Human Dignity Trust has brought to my attention two specific pieces of legislation—of course I knew about them before, but it told me the specifics of the penalties. In Uganda, under the Anti-Homosexuality Act, there is seven years’ imprisonment for attempting to commit homosexuality, and in Nigeria, under the Same Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act, there is 10 years’ imprisonment simply for going to a gay club. Those are despicable infringements of human liberty.
I have heard the concern expressed that it is poor for the old colonial power to express its opinion on such matters. Rubbish. We have to stand up for what we think is right. I do not care about the colour of someone’s skin or where in the world they are—a gay person or lesbian woman should have the same rights everywhere. In a free country, where people of all backgrounds and sexualities have freedom, if our advocates in government and representatives in Parliament are not prepared to stand up and challenge other countries where rights and freedoms are not permitted, we are not living up to the beacon of freedom that is the country of which, in all the years I spent abroad, I was proud to say I was a citizen.
Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)
It is a real pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller), so that I can stress the importance in my job and the Minister’s of talking truth to Governments and adhering to principles. The hon. Gentleman eloquently explained why that is important.
This has been an excellent and extremely wide-ranging debate. It will be a challenge, in 10 minutes, to commend sufficiently the eloquence and knowledge that I have heard over the past couple of hours. I will try to refer to all Members who have spoken, however, because every one has made a valuable contribution. I will also go through various points that I want to make and touch on various issues as I do so.
I thank the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge) for securing the debate from the Backbench Business Committee, because we must continue to talk about the hugely important continent of Africa. A close relationship exists between the United Kingdom and Africa, and we need to reflect our knowledge to our constituents and show them that engaging with and meeting individuals from Africa is an important part of how we can do our job better.
Of course, as a Labour spokesman I am proud of the emphasis that the Labour Government who left office in 2010 gave to Africa. I thank the right hon. Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry) for referring to the work of Tony Blair and of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) and their commitment to Africa. At that time, organisations in all our constituencies, such as Jubilee 2000, placed on their agenda support for what has at times been a troubled continent. They got behind us as politicians and forced us to act, and the Government responded to that.
I congratulate the current Government on agreeing to achieve, and indeed achieving, the 0.7% of GNI target. The approach to the subject has been one of the best changes that I have seen in Conservative party attitudes in recent years, and I pay tribute to the Government for that. Within that consensus, it is important that we carry forward our perceptions across the Chamber.
We mentioned Africa’s strategic and economic importance, and we emphasised trade. The hon. Member for North West Norfolk (Mr Bellingham) worked hard as Minister for Africa, and was as assiduous and unfailingly polite as ever in carrying out that job. He was always keen to develop trade between Africa and the UK, and the envoys whom the Government have appointed have helped enormously with that. We must carry that forward.
Africa has not just close business links but also cultural links with our constituencies. I could not fail to mention Lesotho, which, as a number of Members know, is close to my heart. It was referred to as one of the beacon countries for democracy, and it has a close relationship with Wales and my constituency. Lesotho’s Commonwealth games team will be based in Wrexham this summer, as a follow-up to basing its Olympic team there. We are pleased that that relationship continues in civic life at a local level, and in our constituencies there is a huge interest in Africa as a whole.
As the hon. Member for Bedford said, it is important that our relationship with Africa is principled, characterised by consistency and built on partnership—I was pleased to hear that word. We have seen in Wrexham, and I am sure across the UK, how important it is that we learn from each other. I am unfailingly impressed by young people in Africa and their attitude to valuing education, health and family—I wish that some people in our country felt as deeply about those things as they do, because we have a lot to learn from Africa.
I join other Members in congratulating the Government on last week’s summit on the prevention of sexual violence in conflict, and I hope that we can build on those efforts with our international partners in areas of concern. We need increased co-operation between the UK Government and Governments in Africa to combat practices such as female genital mutilation—for example when it is expected that young girls are being sent to such countries to have that horrific form of abuse inflicted on them.
During the conference the UK national action plan on peace and security was launched. I welcome that and I met a number of women who expressed the need for women to be at the heart of security and Government issues. I am sure, however, that other Members would be as grateful as I would be for more detail on the implementation of that action plan, as we work on this matter in the days and months ahead. There is currently very little information on that, and if we are to work together to take forward that agenda we would like as much information as possible as soon as possible, so that we can co-operate.
Alongside the conference I had meetings scheduled with representatives from African countries, but they were unfortunately cancelled because visas could not be secured in time. Visas are often raised with me in my communications not just with Lesotho but with other African countries—particularly smaller ones—and across the House we would like to improve access to visas for people from Africa who want to come to the United Kingdom. That is a continuing problem, which I am sure inhibits trade and cultural relations between us.
Mark Lazarowicz
May I put on record my concern about the difficulties with visas faced by the Scotland Malawi Partnership, of which my hon. Friend and the Minister may be aware? I hope that some progress can be made on that.
Ian Lucas
I thank my hon. Friend for agreeing with me about visas and for highlighting the Scotland Malawi Partnership, which is almost as good as the Wales Lesotho partnership—high praise indeed. We need to work together, and we had some discussions in the Africa all-party group about visas. Perhaps we need to liaise on that with the Home Office in more detail.
A number of Members mentioned the importance of human rights across the continent, and I wish to refer to some of the smaller African countries. A number of representatives from the Gambia raised concerns with me about serious human rights abuses in their small west African state. Only last week, I wrote to the Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Baroness Warsi, about the continued detention of human rights lawyer Thulani Maseko and journalist Bheki Makhubu in Swaziland. They were first arrested in March following their publication of an article criticising the High Court in Swaziland, and they now face charges of contempt of court.
The Government must do more to ensure that mechanisms are in place so that small African countries are heard and not overlooked. It is often difficult for those in countries with which we do not have the closest relations to exert pressure on Governments, but I imagine that a cell in Swaziland is as bleak as a cell anywhere else to the person involved. What is the UK doing, together with its international partners, to ensure that such mechanisms are in place?
Earlier I mentioned religious extremism, and we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) about the challenges in northern and north-west Africa. I commend the report of the Foreign Affairs Committee to which he referred—he serves on that Committee—which is valuable in explaining an area of Africa that is not focused on enough but is extremely important. The collision of cultures that is taking place across northern Africa, from Somalia to Mali and across Algeria, is of massive importance and linked to the issues we face in Iraq. We must have a collective focus on why people are turning to extremism and the most appalling behaviour as some sort of warped way of seeking to improve their lives.
We have seen many dreadful incidents of terrorism in recent days and weeks, and Kenya has returned to the news over the past few days. The right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst) does much positive work with the CPA, and through its auspices last week I met some Kenyan parliamentarians and we had a good discussion. I was therefore saddened to see further problems in Kenya. We also heard from various speakers about the kidnapped schoolgirls in Nigeria, and the dreadful ongoing situation that reflects more generally the problems of extremism across the Sahel and northern Africa.
Bilateral and international efforts must focus on finding a long-term solution to combating Islamist militant groups such as Boko Haram. Further to discussions at last week’s ministerial meeting on security in northern Nigeria, will the Minister outline what leadership role the UK will play to help improve regional co-ordination to counter the threat of Boko Haram? More broadly, what steps are being taken on governance to try to improve and achieve a more successful approach to these massively important issues?
Stability is best achieved where countries can achieve economic progress that is balanced with stable consensual government based on democratic values. Whenever I visit Africa, it strikes me that the key to all of this, if I had to choose one word, would be “governance”—governance without corruption, and governance that people in that country believe in and think will improve their lives. The right hon. Member for Banbury spoke about Ethiopia, which he visited in the 1980s. For my generation, that was a hugely totemic country and a totemic issue that brought much political activity. There has since been great achievement and progress in Ethiopia, and it has performed well economically in many ways. We also heard about Rwanda, which has also economically progressed. There is, however, a political challenge in Rwanda and Ethiopia to develop a consensual form of government that deepens democratic activity and achieves economic success. That is the challenge for Africa and for all of us, and we need to work together to achieve that in the days, weeks, and years ahead.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mark Simmonds)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge), and the hon. Members for York Central (Hugh Bayley) and for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood), on securing this important debate on the UK’s relationship with Africa. All hon. Members who have spoken have done so with a huge amount of knowledge and passion, setting out the UK’s modern approach to its relationships with African countries and being clear about the belief in Africa’s prosperous future in the context, as the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) rightly said, of a modern 21st century partnership.
This has been a stimulating and wide-ranging debate, with significant expertise and knowledge on show. Historically, aid has been important, and it still is, with UK taxpayers’ money making a positive difference in Africa, but there is now a forensic focus by most African Governments on private sector investment driving economic growth, creating jobs and thereby alleviating poverty. As other hon. Members have rightly pointed out, all too often when Africa is mentioned people automatically think of conflict or poverty. We do need to focus on those issues, but Africa is much more than that. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst) rightly pointed out, Africa is not a homogeneous country but a vast, complex and varied continent fuelled by a rising middle class with middle-class aspirations, with improved governance and stability in some African countries. There is much evidence that Africa is rising. Everywhere I go across the continent I see ambition, determination, talent and entrepreneurial flair.
As Africa has risen, the Government have transformed their relationship with African countries. We have opened six new embassies, often in countries where historical engagement has been limited, including in Juba, Bamako, Mogadishu and Antananarivo. We have added more than 20 prosperity experts to our Africa network to develop the business environment. We are considering in detail expanding our UKTI platform and presence across sub-Saharan Africa. We have pulled together expertise from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Department for International Development and Ministry of Defence. They are now working together effectively as one team across the continent and across Whitehall, using our combined efforts and resources, including the FCO’s network of 36 posts and more than 2,000 staff, DFID’s 17 missions and 11 defence sections, including defence attachés, and the permanent training teams already mentioned.
Six of the 10 fastest-growing economies in the world are in Africa. Last year, five African nations outgrew China, and 17 African nations are ranked higher than India in the World Bank’s ease of doing business index. In 2013, trade investment between the UK and sub-Saharan Africa was almost £20 billion. This, however, is not sufficient. Africans tell me that they want British companies to invest. They want our expertise and they respect the ethical approach of our firms. I do not want this to be just London-centric; I want it to include the whole of the United Kingdom. That is why, later in this Session of Parliament, I will be taking part in a tour of the north of England to explain the opportunities to our entrepreneurial businesses in the north. These opportunities are not just in the traditional African markets, but in Francophone and Lusophone countries too.
I would like to address briefly some of the key points raised by hon. Members. In an excellent speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East rightly highlighted the optimism and positive economic activity that is already happening in sub-Saharan Africa. He was also right to say that there needs to be a balance between getting a fair return on capital invested and the benefit to Africans. That balance has not always been right. He asked about high level prosperity partnerships. I assure him that they are aligned with the priorities of the host African Governments and increasing building capacity.
The hon. Member for York Central was right to note the correlation between conflict, poverty and a lack of economic development. He also rightly raised the challenges of hard power. He gave us a very good example, Operation Serval, where in the short term hard power had made a positive difference—but it can only ever be a part of the solution. A medium to long-term developmental and economic plan needs to be put in place. He also raised the issue of whether the UK is committed to supporting the Libyan people and the Libyan Government across a whole range of areas, and I will consider his request for more information. He was absolutely right to say that these problems do not stick to traditional geopolitical boundaries, which is why the FCO and DFID, working in a joint team and working closely with the French, have put in place a north-west African strategy which we discussed at length with the Foreign Affairs Committee.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst) rightly highlighted the importance of the Commonwealth, and our ability and willingness to share and take ideas from elsewhere. From within the African continent there are internal Africa peer review mechanisms, particularly on transparency and governance. They are an essential cornerstone in providing confidence for business investment. He may be interested to know of the enthusiasm from non-Commonwealth countries in Africa to join the Commonwealth, demonstrating the respect in which it is held and its ongoing value.
The hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) also raised the issue of Libya. He will be well aware of the work that we continue to do regionally with countries around Libya to try to protect and shore up some of the very porous borders. He raised the important ongoing challenge of Boko Haram. I do not have time to go into exactly what we are doing to support the region, but we made announcements after both the Paris summit and the meeting we held on the fringe of the end sexual violence in conflict conference. I can assure him that we are working together on a multilateral and bilateral level with the French, the US and countries in the region.
My hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (Mr Bellingham), my predecessor, gave a hugely well-informed contribution, in which he articulated some of the very powerful contributions he made to the relationships between the UK and sub-Saharan Africa, and, in particular, on the positive contribution he made to progress in Somalia. I have been fortunate to visit Mogadishu twice in my time as a Minister. I noticed positive progress the second time I went, but it is still fragile. We therefore need to all work together with the region and the international community. There are in place new deal compacts that were set out in the Brussels conference. The Federal Government of Somalia are working towards finalising the constitution in the run-up to the 2016 elections.
The hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) has a huge volume of knowledge, interest and passion about Nigeria, which I share. She was right to raise the importance of inter-faith work, and I saw for myself in Kaduna the work being done between the bishop and some of the imams. She was also right to raise the importance of human rights and the challenges in both the Nigerian police and Nigerian military structures. The positive contribution that the Nigerian diaspora can make is essential to trade and to building capacity. I will look at the suggestion she discussed with the Prime Minister. I completely agree with the hon. Lady about the importance of the agricultural and horticultural expertise we have in the UK, which can make a positive difference.
The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) was absolutely right to raise the Chinese involvement and to highlight the potential opportunities for manufacturing and adding value. However, there are already some good examples of that, whether it be the Lonrho prawn-freezing factory in Maputo, the juice factory in Ghana or the glove factory in Ethiopia. All are examples of British companies investing in Africa, creating huge numbers of African jobs and exporting high-quality goods to the United Kingdom. The hon. Gentleman made many other good points, using his extensive knowledge of Africa, in particular about the significant contributions that the United Nations makes and our financial contributions through United Nations mechanisms.
The hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) rightly raised the importance of education, and not just basic education. I suggest that there are already significant higher education links across the African continent, with many more coming to fruition, and a greater appetite for the further education and vocational expertise we have in the UK, which is being demanded by African Governments and educational establishments. That is in addition to the excellent work the British Council does teaching the English language and a focus on girls’ education in particular, as well as the large role that private sector education in the UK has to play.
We also heard hugely important contributions from my right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry), who talked about Ethiopia and the positive progress that has been made, and the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), who spoke with great passion about the great lakes. He will be interested to hear that I met the World Wildlife Fund to talk about Virunga national park only this morning and I am going to Angola next week to talk about ongoing stability and how we can work in the great lakes region with the Angolans, who are currently in the chair.
I will ensure that the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller) are followed up by DFID Ministers, but I think the general thrust of this debate has been extremely positive. In every African country we now have FCO, DFID and UKTI teams working jointly on these partnerships to continue to drive economic development and progress across the African continent.
James Duddridge
I think we have clearly demonstrated that there is a greater appetite to discuss these issues. I will not go on a tour of everyone’s speech, but I will mention the excellent speech by the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn). I agree: this should be an annual affair.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the UK’s relationship with Africa.
Defence Spending
(9 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
It would be ideal if Members took 10 minutes as everybody could then be accommodated.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered defence spending.
May I first thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing this debate? It is much appreciated.
I contend that the UK is making grave errors in cutting defence spending. We need to spend more on our armed forces. In an increasingly uncertain world, we cannot keep cutting if we wish to defend our interests and play a global role. As we approach the next strategic defence review, Parliament must make it clear that defence and security has to be given precedence over other priorities.
It is said that the British seldom read the writing on the wall until our backs are against it. I fear that hard choices will now have to be made if we are not to repeat errors. The need for a strong defence policy is becoming more obvious and urgent almost by the day. The latest increase in China’s defence spending—a 12% real-terms rise—and confrontations in the South China sea and Ukraine remind us that countries not necessarily friendly to the west are increasingly capable and willing to use their military might.
I hope nobody could accuse me of being an interventionist. Having opposed our interventions in Iraq and Libya, the morphing of the mission in Afghanistan into one of nation building and, most recently, the proposed intervention in Syria, I hope my credentials are clear. However, I believe that those entanglements have distracted us, at least in part, from recognising the bigger picture, which is one of increasingly powerful countries elsewhere professionalising and bolstering their armed forces. A willingness to use them illustrates a growing confidence, if not assertiveness. That is significant, because Britain has global interests and needs to remain a global power to protect them. No one can predict—not with any certainty, anyway—where the next substantial threat will come from. As a consequence, our armed forces need to have sufficient capability so that, in concert with our allies, we will be best prepared to meet that challenge.
Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)
The hon. Gentleman will be pleased to know that this Essex MP supports what he has just said 100%. Does he agree that we also need to look at what is happening in the Baltic countries and in particular at Russia’s meddling in the air, at sea and on the land along the border?
Mr Baron
I completely agree. I will come to this point shortly, but the bottom line is that a strong defence policy is not just about ensuring peace—although that is terribly important, because it has a dividend—but about sending messages to potential aggressors. That is not just about fronting them, but about supporting allies and like-minded peoples who have a genuine concern and fear about the consequences of the actions of others. It is an extremely important point.
Mr James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con)
I welcome the debate and I agree with every word that my hon. Friend has said so far. Does he agree that although this Government face a difficult financial situation, it is very important that we stay true to our defence commitment to spending at least 2% of our GDP—our NATO commitment and the signal that we must send to our allies?
Mr Baron
Yes, I completely agree. If anything, we need to spend more than 2%, but there have been quite authoritative reports, most notably in the Financial Times, suggesting that our defence expenditure as a proportion of GDP will fall below 2%. One of my questions to the Minister—if he cannot answer it in this debate, I am happy to take a written response—is what truth is there in the suggestion that our defence spending will fall well below 2% or, as some figures suggest, 1.8%?
Mr Baron
Or 1.7%, as my hon. Friend suggests.
I believe it is particularly incumbent on us to ensure that we have a strong defence policy—more incumbent on us than on other powers, perhaps—because in addition to our global interests and territories, we are highly dependent on maritime trade. The South China sea and the straits of Hormuz may seem far-away places, but I can assure the House that if those sea lanes ever became closed, we would certainly feel the pinch. A shock on the other side of the world, as we all know, can have reverberations here—a rise in the oil price is just one example.
There are many less tangible benefits to a strong defence policy. These include maintaining influence, supporting our defence engineering and industrial base, and global partnerships through defence diplomacy. Despite bruising deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq, Britain still rightly sees itself as a global power, at the forefront of diplomacy. It is impossible to do this without the options that strong defence gives us. Furthermore, there are many strands to the special relationship, but the ability to deploy force by land, sea and air is an essential component. If this is not present, we can expect a markedly different relationship, as former US Defence Secretary Robert Gates recently testified.
I hope we will continue to be close allies of the US. We share common interests and common values. However, we need to play our full part in being a good ally lest our influence and, ultimately, our interests suffer. We should not forget that we would be foolish to depend entirely on the US. Sometimes we may have to act alone. The Falklands is just one example of that. In the absence of US support, we need to ensure that Britain can face the world with confidence, and that will involve strong and credible defence.
Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree also that we must do so in the context of NATO, and that it is about time that some of our NATO allies started stepping up to the mark and putting some money into it as well?
Mr Baron
Nobody in the House would disagree. It is a sad fact that many of our NATO allies are not pulling their full weight. But that should not stop us accepting what we need to do, particularly given our reliance on maritime trade and our global interests, territories and possessions. If anything, it is more incumbent on us than on many of our NATO allies to wake up and realise that we need to spend more on defence, but I take my hon. Friend’s point on board.
Despite the need for a strong defence policy because of both the tangible and the intangible benefits, we continue to make cuts. The Royal Navy, for example, has been reduced to a mere 19 surface ships. Not so long ago, a strategic defence review suggested the figure should be closer to 30.
Mr Baron
I will take further bids. For the moment, though, I will stick with my figure of 30. Have the threats declined since that defence review? No, not since we were recommended to have 30 surface ships. Our aircraft carriers are being built, but there is no certainty that the second one will see service. There is talk about it perhaps being mothballed. The other carrier will have to await fighter jets.
The situation is not much better in the skies. The F-35 fighter is beset with problems. Britain without a maritime patrol aircraft—that is an extraordinary position for an island nation such as ours to be in. We need to try to put that right.
I speak with a vested interest here, I suppose, but it is the Army that has borne the brunt of our short-sightedness. Cost-cutting plans to replace 20,000 regulars with 30,000 reservists will create unacceptable capability gaps in the short term and, I believe, false economies in the long term. Unfortunately, my attempt to get the Government to think again during the passage of the Defence Reform Bill fell on deaf ears, although Members of all parties made their views well known. It was, to a certain extent at least, a close-run thing, given the strong three-line Whip.
These legitimate concerns were echoed—in fact, I suggest, amplified—by an authoritative and critical report from the National Audit Office. It provides a list of critical conclusions, so let me read some of them. It states, for example, that
“significant further risks…could significantly affect value for money”.
Another conclusion was:
“The Department”—
it means the Ministry of Defence—
“did not test whether increasing the trained strength of the Army Reserve to 30,000 was feasible.”
It added:
“The Department’s recruitment targets for reserves are not underpinned by robust planning data”
and:
“Reducing the size of the Army will not alone deliver the financial savings required.”
It goes on:
“The Department did not fully assess the value for money of its decision to reduce the size of the Army.”
These are pretty damning conclusions. Another is:
“There are significant risks to value for money which are currently not well understood by the Department or the Army.”
It then states:
“The Department should reassess its targets for recruiting reserves.”
As I say, this is all pretty damning stuff. I believe that the decision taken in 2012 to cut the Regular Army by a fifth before the replacement reservists were even recruited has not gone well; in fact, it has been a shambles. The NAO has said that it does not believe that the MOD will be able to replace those lost regulars until 2025—a full 10 years away.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that with the MOD cutting the regulars, failing to recruit the reserves and continuing to recruit those under 18, many of those among the numbers quoted are likely to be under-18s and are thus incapable of being deployed?
Mr Baron
I share those concerns, and I shall share another one. I was not originally intending to raise it in my speech, but it is a significant concern. To get to the 30,000 reservists—or indeed 36,000 if we want 30,000 to be deployable—we will be heavily reliant on the existing Territorial Army. If we look at the age profile of the existing TA, we find that it includes regular infantry in their 30s, junior officers in their 40s and senior officers in their 50s. There is a demographic issue within the existing TA; it is not just about new numbers, so there are real concerns there.
The clear implication of the recent and critical NAO report is that the transition to 30,000 reservists may turn out to be more expensive than the steady-state costs of maintaining the 20,000 regulars they are replacing. The plan is complete and utter nonsense. We have seen not just a doubling of the ex-regular reserve bonus, the introduction of a civvy bonus of £300 and the equalisation of pensions, but the introduction of other financial incentives, bringing into severe doubt the financial logic and merits of introducing this plan. False economies loom, as acknowledged by the NAO, when it said that the plans could cost even more. We need to sit up, take note and ask questions. If this ends up costing more in the longer term, I really think heads should roll.
Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. I was hugely with everything he said in the early parts of his speech, particularly on the need to keep up spending on our armed forces and defence, but he is really going over the top here. Whatever one’s view of the NAO report, it did not suggest that it could be more expensive to have reservists rather than regulars. What it queried were some of the cost figures, but it could not possibly be interpreted as suggesting that, man for man, the reserves are more expensive than the regulars.
Mr Baron
I think that my hon. Friend should look at the report, because it concludes that there is a real risk that what I have described will happen. I understand where my hon. Friend is coming from, and I respect his enthusiasm for the reservist plan, which is clear from his contribution to the debate about it, but I think that he should look at the report extremely carefully.
The MOD went into typical “shoot the messenger” mode. It would not co-operate fully with the National Audit Office, and was not even willing to share its methodology with the NAO. Many questions need to be asked, and I am sure that the Defence Committee, for one, will ask them. I certainly hope so.
This plan has had distorting effects on the ground. As I have said, I have a vested interest: the 2nd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, which is one of my regiments, is one of the best recruited battalions in the British Army, but it is being scrapped to save less well-recruited battalions north of the border. Everyone in the Army accepts that that is a political decision that was made in the light of the Scottish referendum, and it is a complete and utter nonsense. It will cost more to try to maintain battalions that are not well recruited at the expense of those that are.
Britain needs to increase substantially the resources that it commits to its military capability. I know that my right hon. Friend the Minister will point out that we have the fourth largest defence budget in the world, but such cries ring somewhat hollow when estimates suggest that, when it comes to actually deploying force in the field, we rank closer to 20th or 25th. We seem to have a policy of hollowing out our armed forces, keeping expensive bits of kit while taking away manpower, which restricts our ability to deploy force overseas.
I believe—and I accept that there will be a keen debate on this—that a defence budget representing 2% of GDP is simply not enough, let alone a budget that will, in the view of the Financial Times, fall below that percentage. I think that our budget should be increased substantially. Given our dependence on the sea, we should, as a minimum, be funding two properly resourced battle groups centred on our aircraft carriers, and troops that we can deploy if necessary.
The military have done their best within the financial envelope that Parliament has given them. These decisions are for us. They are political decisions about who will get what, when, and how. I have no doubt that we will all have our pet subjects when it comes to the question of what could be scrapped if money were required from elsewhere. I voted against HS2 because it involved £50 billion that could be spent elsewhere over 10 years. I also believe that we still have too many quangos—and can anyone justify the fact that people in public sector management receive salaries far higher than the Prime Minister’s?
Abroad, international aid running to hundreds of millions of pounds for countries that can well afford to help themselves, or are corrupt, or both, should be stopped. If that money cannot be given to other countries that cannot help themselves, it should be channelled back to this country. Meanwhile, extravagant European Union budgets need to be cut. The EU is indeed
“too big, too bossy, too interfering”,
and it needs to be cut down to size. There is no shortage of places where money can be found if the political will is there.
We must reverse the trend, and significantly increase our defence spending. This is not a “call to arms”, but a response to the increasingly uncertain world that we inhabit, and with which we are increasingly ill-equipped to deal. Strong defence is a virtue. It does much to prevent conflict, and it can also be cheaper than the alternative: nothing is as expensive or as wasteful as war. However, if we are to change the mind of Government —any Government—Parliament must become more robust in its questioning of the Executive. It must ask more questions about what is going wrong, and about why we need to put it right.
The debate is overdue, but, as might be expected, it has been shunted to the end of a parliamentary week. It should have been in Government time, and we should perhaps have a debate in Government time on defence spending annually, if not more frequently.
The time has come for action. Opinion on the need to increase defence spending is hardening on both sides, yet we keep cutting. Talking the talk is no longer good enough; we now have to walk the walk.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. We are now going to be struggling on time, so the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) will understand if he does not get to contribute to the winding-up speeches. If Members take up to, but not over, 10 minutes, we should get everybody in.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) for taking the lead in calling for this debate, and I entirely agree that we have far too few opportunities to debate these matters in the House. This debate has been long overdue. Indeed, any defence debate is long overdue, and certainly an opportunity to hold the Executive to account over defence is long overdue. Members might not be surprised to learn that my approach to this debate will be a little different, however, as I wish to look at a way in which the Ministry of Defence has used its budget and resources to avoid addressing a grievance.
Members of the armed forces have no contract of employment or access to employment tribunals, except in respect of equal pay and discrimination. The only other ways in which to redress a grievance are via a service complaint or judicial review, yet more than 1,400 service personnel were wrongly disciplined over a period of three years and the failure to give full answers to parliamentary questions on this issue has prompted me to speak in this debate.
A police caution is a warning given to people who admit to a minor offence. In November 2008, a change to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 meant that police cautions should be considered spent the second that they are issued. With no exemption from the law, the change meant that the armed forces should have stopped disciplining soldiers who had received police cautions. The Army, however, noted the change only in September 2011, by which point about 1,400 personnel had suffered a range of disciplinary actions, including loss of pay or promotion or even discharge from service.
In January 2013, a year after the MOD noticed the problem, Deborah Haynes of The Times revealed that the Army had recognised in 2012:
“There could be potential claims from those Armed Forces personnel who have been subject to administrative action as a result of a police caution since Dec 08, in particular from those discharged.”
The Times estimated that the cost of compensation would be in the millions of pounds. The MOD responded:
“It is completely untrue to suggest that we have deliberately stalled on alerting soldiers affected by this. A number of options are now being looked at and discussions are ongoing.”
The Army had failed to note a major change in the law and had failed to notify those who were wronged, many of them Afghan veterans, of the options for seeking redress. They took a head-in-the-sand approach, ignoring the problem. A passage from one briefing reads:
“We are offering reinstatement to all soldiers discharged following a caution who make an in time SC”—
or service complaint. It continued:
“The longer we take no action the fewer the ‘in time’ complaints about other sanctions there will be. MOD policy may be not to accept out of time complaints on this issue.”
At the start of this year I began asking parliamentary questions about what options the MOD had chosen. I asked what progress the Department had made on addressing its wrongful application of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act measure and was told that the MOD was aware of the issue and was exploring a range of potential options—the same reply as a year previously. I asked how much compensation had been paid and was told that no such compensation had been paid. I asked how many had lost out on promotion and was told that the information could only be provided at a disproportionate cost. I asked what steps had been taken to reverse sanctions and how many people had been sanctioned. No steps had been taken to reverse sanctions and information on the number of serving personnel affected could only be provided at a disproportionate cost.
I asked how many personnel were out of time to make an official complaint. I was told that a service complaint must normally relate to an event that had happened in the previous three months—by now we were over three years into the time in which the Ministry of Defence had realised its mistake. As it is no longer the policy to consider administrative action against serving personnel who are in receipt of a police caution, all personnel who would have been subject to such action in the past would now be out of time.
My parliamentary questions failed, so in April I took my common recourse, as I often do with the Ministry of Defence, and submitted a freedom of information request, asking for copies of the minutes of the Army Justice Board meetings where the issue of administrative action taken against serving personnel after a police caution were discussed. In her reply, the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) said:
“Whilst there is a public interest in transparency in the service justice system my officials have determined that on this occasion this does not outweigh the very strong public interest in allowing officials and military personnel to exchange full and frank advice”.
Minutes that were already in the hands of The Times were not to be allowed into the hands of a Member of Parliament. I found that particularly interesting as the Ministry of Defence had managed, in response to another FOI request, to release very quickly other minutes that criticised the Labour Government and the Welsh Assembly. Once the minutes could reveal difficulties in a Conservative Government, however, they were denied to a Member a Parliament.
Despite that, I somehow obtained a copy of the Army Justice Board minutes. Those of October 2012 told me that 1,300 personnel had been cautioned; 246 had received career sanctions; and an unknown figure had been discharged from the military. The minutes also said that anyone not serving will now have to “take us to judicial review” rather than make a service complaint because they will be out of time.
The right to operate a separate military justice system is granted to the armed forces by Parliament. It is a right given to no other Department of State, and yet here we have clear evidence of flagrant injustice and a refusal to provide an MP with information, both of which were argued on the basis of cost. Military justice must be fair and transparent if there is to be no access to an employment tribunal and the only other option is judicial review or a service complaint where a person is deliberately not told of the injustice.
I do not condone whatever minor actions led to the police cautions, but the law must be upheld, even by the Ministry of Defence. Fortunately, the Service Complaints Commissioner agrees with me, because as well as submitting my FOI request in April, I also wrote to Dr Atkins. In her reply to me, she said:
“My stance has been that the just and equitable test does preclude a service from relying on its own failure to inform service personnel of the correct situation”.
So although lack of awareness that someone could make a service complaint may not be sufficient reason, a lack of awareness because a service has failed to inform someone that they may have been, or had been, wronged would be sufficient. The three months in those circumstances should run from the date on which an individual found out the position and was able to make an informed decision on whether to submit a complaint. The armed forces must track down the individuals affected and advise them of their right to make a confidential complaint via the Service Complaints Commissioner setting out the facts of what has happened to them. This wrong must be righted, at whatever cost to the defence budget. I hope that the Minister, in winding up, will confirm that he will ensure that that happens.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
May I begin with a double apology? My first apology is for the fact that, unfortunately, as is so often the case, I have committed to addressing a group of people about the workings of the Intelligence and Security Committee. That is at 4 o’clock, so I will not be able to return in time for the wind-ups, and I apologise to both Front-Bench teams and to the House more widely for that. My second apology is for the fact that, having only yesterday stepped off a transatlantic plane, my contribution today may be slightly more incoherent even than usual. [Hon. Members: “No, no!”] On cue, all my hon. Friends rush in to disagree, and I am very touched by that.
Seldom does a decade go by without one realising how brilliantly foresighted George Orwell’s classic political novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four” was for one reason or another, whether it be on state surveillance, the abuse of linguistics, or—as is relevant to this debate—the constantly shifting conflicts that arise between blocs of countries. Orwell may have had in mind the dilemma of the democracies in the inter-war years, which were torn between confronting Nazism and appeasing it, and between confronting Bolshevism and learning to live with it. Often, the reason why people found that to be such a dilemma was that they felt that they could not do both, and they were not sure which was the greater of the two evils.
These days, one might say that we are in a similar position. The democracies are faced with at least two worrying blocs: the Russia, Iran and Syria axis; and the movement of jihadism on an international scale—this is extremely topical—involving not only the takeover of Muslim countries but the infiltration of non-Muslim countries and the carrying out of terrorist acts there. Whichever side one takes as to which conflict is the more important or which enemy is the greater, the one thing we can all agree on is that we are living in dangerous times indeed. Even the one thing that everybody thought had gone away, namely the traditional cold war threat from the former Soviet Union, has reappeared. Therefore, we have to ask ourselves whether we are spending enough on defence.
I propose to adopt the Speaker Bercow speech essential that has been drummed into me over 30 long years, which is that any speech, in the House of Commons or elsewhere, should preferably have one main point. My one main point is that I want to hear from the Government that as long as this Government and this Prime Minister are in office, this country will never spend less than the recommended NATO 2% minimum.
My mind goes back—that is the trouble; it happens to people when they have been in this place for a long time—to the beginning of 2007, when The Daily Telegraph reported the Conservatives as bemoaning the fact that
“defence spending as a proportion of the UK’s gross domestic product is at its lowest since 1930”.
The article stated:
“Government figures show that 2.5 per cent of the UK’s GDP—or around £32 billion—was likely to be spent on defence in 2005/6 compared with 4.4 per cent in 1987/88.”
Of course, we know what had happened between the late 1980s and the early 21st century. The cold war had come to an end and there had been something called the peace dividend, so obviously defence spending had declined as a proportion of GDP.
In fact, in 2007, when the Conservatives were sitting on the Opposition Benches, we made much of the fact that when the Labour Government of Tony Blair had come into office they had reduced defence spending as a percentage of GDP in successive years. It went from 2.9% to 2.6%, to 2.8%, to 2.7%, to 2.7% again, to 2.5%, to 2.5% again, to 2.6% and so on. The bit we really did not like about that was that within the rough figure of 2.5% at which it settled was included the cost of the two ongoing operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, costs that were officially met from the Treasury reserve but that in reality were effectively met from the core defence budget. If the total figure was 2.5%, it did not really matter which budget was taking the cut, as it were, but effectively the real defence budget was much nearer 2.1% or 2.2%. That is where we stand at the moment, including the costs of our current military operational deployments. I must give immense congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron), who has consistently raised that point. As he pointed out, the figures quoted in the Financial Times on 16 June suggested that
“the UK’s military expenditure will hit 1.9% of the size of the country’s economy by 2017,”
which would, of course, be below the NATO target of 2%.
I found it almost incredible that this Government would ever dip below the 2% NATO GDP recommended minimum, so I have been trying to get the Prime Minister to confirm that we would do no such thing. I have not been doing too well. There was an exchange on 26 March in which the Prime Minister said:
“We should encourage other countries to do what Britain is doing in matching our at-least-2% contribution in terms of GDP and defence spending.”
I thought that that was an opportunity for me to be helpful to him, as I like to be when I can, and I intervened and said:
“May I take it from what the Prime Minister has just said that there is then no question of the British defence budget dropping below 2% of GDP?”
His answer was:
“We currently meet the 2% threshold. These things are calculated by different countries in different ways, but I am confident that we will go on meeting our obligations to NATO.”—[Official Report, 26 March 2014; Vol. 578, c. 359.]
That sounded reasonably encouraging, but he did not actually say that we were going to keep on spending the 2%, so I tried again on 7 May. This time, I asked whether he would
“confirm that under his leadership this country will never spend less than the NATO recommended minimum of 2% of GDP on defence”,
to which the answer was:
“We are spending in excess of 2% and we are one of the only countries in Europe to do that. The Greeks, I believe, are spending more than 2% but, if I can put it this way, not all on things that are useful for all of NATO. We should continue to make sure we fulfil all our commitments on defence spending.”—[Official Report, 7 May 2014; Vol. 580, c. 147.]
My final attempt was on 4 June when I again asked the Prime Minister to give that commitment, and he said:
“It is very important to meet such commitments. We will set our detailed plans in our manifesto, but throughout the time for which I have been Prime Minister, we have kept—more than kept—that commitment”.—[Official Report, 4 June 2014; Vol. 582, c. 23-24.]
This is all very encouraging stuff and I like to think that the thing is that we have a NATO summit coming up.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman need only to look at the Red Book, where the figures used in the Financial Times are quite clear. There is no need to wait for the manifesto.
Dr Lewis
I am talking about trying to get a future commitment. I want to hear that as long as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is Prime Minister this country will always spend the NATO recommended minimum of 2% of GDP on defence. We have not quite had that commitment yet. He might be intending to make that commitment at the NATO summit and to encourage other NATO countries to do the same, in which case I will applaud him. I do not wish to spoil his timing.
I will conclude with this point: it is necessary and understandable that this country’s intelligence services have a policy of “neither confirm, nor deny” in certain areas, but I do not think that that policy will do for this country’s Government when it comes to saying how much, as a minimum, we will spend on the defence of the United Kingdom.
Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)
The first responsibility of any Government, as every Member of this House will agree, is the security of their citizens. In order to provide security for our citizens, we need to work in partnership with our allies. The reason for that is that none of us in NATO, with the possible exception of the United States, has armed forces that are strong enough on their own to deter all the external risks we face and, if necessary, defend our countries against them. Even the United States would not want to go it alone, because it is in a stronger position when deploying military assets jointly with allies than when doing so alone.
To illustrate that point, we need only look at our defence assets and capabilities and compare them with those of the alliance as a whole. We have 19 surface warships, as we heard from the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron)—my notes said 18, but I bow to his expertise—but the alliance as a whole has 283. We have 330 combat aircraft, but the alliance has 6,531. We have 227 main battle tanks, but the alliance has 13,730. We spend around $60 billion overall on defence, or £33 billion, compared with expenditure across the alliance of $924 billion. Now, £33 billion might sound like an awful lot of money, but it is very much less than we spend on social security, health or education. It makes perhaps one twentieth of all Government expenditure. It is also much less than this country spent in the not-too-distant past.
I was interested to hear what the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) said about the Prime Minister’s commitment on 2%. I asked him a similar question after his G7 statement last week, to which he replied:
“We are, of course, still meeting the 2% that NATO countries are meant to meet”.—[Official Report, 11 June 2014; Vol. 582, c. 556.]
We need him to go further and make it clear to the House that he will not go below 2%. I agree with the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay that we need to spend rather more on defence than we do at the moment.
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is dangerous to pursue targets—2% is the minimum target, I know—because surely our duty as a country is to have the armed forces we need to protect our people and dependants and to meet our responsibilities in the event that we have to go it alone? The Falklands war is a classic case. We could not retake the Falklands now, for example.
Hugh Bayley
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, with which I agree, in relation to the Falklands. I certainly agree that one should not pluck a figure out of the air and say, “This is the target.” We need to look at the security risks we face and then at how we, perhaps on our own in certain circumstances but more usually in combination with allies, would deploy military force to counter those risks.
Are we spending enough? In the early 1990s, when I was first elected to this House, we spent considerably more on defence—4.2% on average between 1990 and 1994. It is perfectly possible for a Government, with all the pressures for public expenditure in a wide range of important and necessary fields, to spend more than we currently do if they believe that the security risks demand it. Of course, security risks constantly change. The question is whether we and our allies are spending enough, given the security environment that we now face. It is important to talk also about our NATO allies because, through article 5 of the Washington treaty, we have made a fundamental commitment: if we are attacked, they come to our defence, and if any of them are attacked, we come to their defence.
I am certain that defence spending should be on the agenda at the NATO summit in September. In the debate on the Queen’s Speech, I discussed Russia’s annexation of Crimea, its destabilisation of eastern Ukraine and President Putin’s threat to other countries in the neighbourhood with Russian-speaking minorities—the Baltic states and Poland—that he reserves the right to intervene if he in the Kremlin believes that the interests of those Russian speakers are under threat. The action in Ukraine follows the war between Russia and Georgia and, to my mind, tells us that a pattern of action is being established. A Russian foreign policy is being laid down that reserves to Russia the right to intervene and take territory from neighbouring sovereign states if Russia believes that it is in its interests so to do.
I believe that President Putin is testing us. He is biting off a bit of territory and seeing how we respond—whether he can go further or whether he needs to back-pedal a bit. As an alliance, we have to strengthen our position so that we deter further adventurous actions by Russia or anybody else.
It is 25 years since the fall of the Berlin wall. During that period, the west has put out the hand of friendship to Russia, helping it to modernise its economy, build stock exchanges and join the World Trade Organisation. As far as we have been able to, we have provided reassurance to Russia that we do not see it any longer as posing a military threat to us elsewhere in Europe. We have to reassess that now. We have to ask why President Putin feels that he can with impunity occupy the territory of neighbouring states. It is partly because his financial means are growing as a result of a petro-fuelled economy and partly because some European countries are not responding as robustly as they otherwise would, as they are too dependent on Russia for oil and gas. Europe as a whole, through the European Union, needs to address that by improving the diversity of our sources of energy.
President Putin may also feel that way because the United States has signalled that it is rebalancing its defence posture to pay more attention to the Pacific—it needs to, as there are real risks there, but the implication is less attention to Europe. There are also the defence cuts that so many alliance countries, including ours, have made since the banking crisis in the late noughties. Putin has also probably recognised a decline in public appetite or support for military action in many alliance countries.
Since 2008, Russia’s defence spending has increased by more than 10% each year—more than 50% over the five-year period. As we heard from the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay, China is significantly increasing its real-terms defence spending too. Over the same period, defence spending by NATO’s European allies has been cut by almost 10%. According to the UK MOD defence budget plans, the departmental expenditure limit has fallen from £34.2 billion in 2010-11 to £30.7 billion in 2015-16—a fall of 8.2%. I asked the Library to deliver figures about defence expenditure rather than budgets, and those figures show a rather greater reduction. According to the public expenditure statistical analysis, our defence spending has fallen in real terms, at 2012-13 prices, from £39.1 billion in 2009-10 to a projected £30.7 billion in 2015-16—a fall of just over 18%.
It is absolutely essential that defence spending is on the agenda for the NATO summit. It is also essential that the Government give a commitment before the summit not only that our spending is at 2% but that it will remain at 2%. As some Members have pointed out, far too many of our allies spend considerably less than 2%. We need to persuade them to spend more, but we are in a weak position to do so if we are cutting our own expenditure. We would be in a much stronger position if we said: “We have reassessed the risks we face. We in the UK will spend more, particularly as a growth dividend enables the Government to spend more, and we expect others in Europe to do the same.”
Rory Stewart (Penrith and The Border) (Con)
I am well aware that my No. 1 obligation in my new role in the Defence Committee is to sit down quickly to let other people speak who know a great deal more about the subject than I do. I will therefore, very rapidly, give a sense of what the Defence Committee has been working on for the past 15 years directly relating to defence spending.
Over the past three or four weeks, I have had a happy time going through an enormous number of Defence Committee reports; as one can imagine, after 15 years they fill almost an entire room. The central theme in everything the Committee has done is to argue that defence spending should be determined, above all, by our assessment of the threats we face and the strategy we have to deal with them—that it is not good enough to base a defence strategy, or defence spending, on what we have spent in the past or on what kit we have had in the past that we wish to replace.
Over the past 15 years, the Committee has identified three types of threat: state-on-state threats, threats from humanitarian catastrophes, and threats from terrorists. Today, in 2014, we face all these threats simultaneously—in some cases, in a more extreme and aggressive form than we have ever seen them before. First, on state-on-state threats, there is Russia. I have here the Committee’s 2008 report, in which the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) participated as a member, “Russia: a new confrontation?” As the hon. Member for York Central (Hugh Bayley) said, Putin’s actions in Crimea suggest a very dangerous type of threat—a type of threat that the Committee was beginning to point to in 2008 and has finally come to fruition. It is the threat, as proved in Crimea, of Putin’s ability to deploy unconventional measures almost without a shot fired. This is traditional spetsnaz or GRU activity whereby he is able to annex part of a neighbouring state without the deployment of full conventional forces. Another type of threat is represented by last year’s so-called Zapad 2013 exercises, which suggested that Russia is practising an airborne invasion of the Baltic and is able to follow this up with a maritime blockade and the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons.
The second type of threat is evident in Syria, where the challenge of humanitarian intervention can be seen at its most extreme, with 150,000 people killed and millions of refugees created.
Thirdly, on terrorism, we face in western Iraq almost the sum of all fears from the past decade. We have there exactly the problem that the global war on terror was supposed to solve for ever: an entire territory controlled by a jihadist group that now, in Mosul, controls a city of 2 million people. Unfortunately, that represents a real challenge to the west.
The question is what we—Britain and our allies—can do and what additional resources we would require to deal with those three threats. If we look at it on the surface, we will see that it is pretty depressing. It does not seem, looking at it directly, as though there is much that Putin would be worried about if he was contemplating chewing off a corner of Latvia. We need to be clear about the decline in our capacity and planning over the past 20 years. We have not been exercising for this phenomenon, nor have we designed troops for it. The kind of man who likes to go fishing with his shirt off might well be tempted to try to humiliate NATO. The chance of that happening might be 0.1% or 1%, but it does not matter how unlikely it is: the question is whether we are ready to meet it. Do we have the kinds of plans in place to make that article 5 defence credible? In particular, when we talk about tripwires, do we have a population prepared to use nuclear weapons to support a NATO member state?
On humanitarian intervention in Syria, the entire debate in this House showed the problems of us responding to that situation. On the subject of terrorism, the failure, ultimately—four years later—of the deployment of more than 100,000 American troops and $120 billion of expenditure to achieve a lasting settlement to the Sunni insurgency in western Iraq suggests that we will face a very considerable problem doing it again.
Nevertheless, on the basis of my very early superficial reading of what the Defence Committee has been saying for the past 15 years, I would suggest that the answer, ultimately, is more hopeful. What the Defence Committee has argued again and again is that to answer these kinds of questions we need to begin fundamentally with strategy. That means that we as a country need, bluntly, to get more serious. We need to invest far more in our thinking capacity and to rebuild a hollowed out Defence Intelligence. We need to rebuild the hard questions that were regularly asked in NATO planning meetings throughout the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s.
We need to focus on where we have got it wrong. If we are to win the public back again—if we are to win back public confidence in intervention and action, which we must—we can do so only if we are honest about our failures. We will not be able to carry the public with us if we try to pretend that everything we have done over the past 15 years has been absolutely perfect and all gone swimmingly; that nothing is our fault, but the fault of the United States or the local government; and that Britain has no lessons to learn. If we take that attitude, we will not be able to carry the public with us.
We must focus on what we can do. We can address these threats. We showed for 60 years that NATO knows how to contain the kind of threat posed by Putin—we have proved it again and again, year in, year out, and it is the greatest achievement of our civilisation. We achieved that peace in Europe and we can do it again. We have shown—my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) showed this in Bosnia—that we know how to do humanitarian intervention. We have proved it clearly and we can do that again—perhaps not on the scale of Syria, but that is not a reason for despair. Finally, on counter-terrorism, we have shown for the past 12 years that we have effectively prevented a repeat of a 9/11-style attack on the homelands of the United States or Europe, and we have done so without winning the counter-insurgency campaigns, creating rule of law and governance, or nation-building under fire.
As we go into the NATO summit, these lessons from the Defence Committee over the past 10 years need to be taken forward: investment in strategic thought; a focus on what we have got wrong and on what we can still do; and absolute leadership in NATO on the subject of the 2% spending. That leadership is essential to protect ourselves and to encourage other NATO countries to meet their obligations. Above all, we need a commitment to that level in order to show Russia that we are not bending or moving away and that we are determined to maintain the hard-won peace of the past 60 years.
If we can get that right and connect strategic thinking to defence spending, we can make this NATO summit in Wales a chance to say, finally, that Britain understands that if we cannot always do what we pretend, we can do much more than we fear.
Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) on securing this important debate. It is always a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), who made an excellent speech. I want to declare an interest: I have served in the Territorial Army for a few years, and I am currently in the process of joining the Royal Auxiliary Air Force Regiment.
The year 2014 is one of commemorations, with the centenary of the beginning of the first world war and the 70th anniversary of D-day. In an increasingly unstable world, those commemorations are timely reminders that freedom is not free. This year, we have seen the results of Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine and the renewed insurgency in Iraq, and we are facing a growing threat from jihadists around the world. It is therefore more vital than ever to ensure that we spend enough on defence, and it is crucial to have the political will to defend our freedom and our interests. As the former US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said,
“weakness is provocative. Time and again it has invited adventures which strength might well have deterred.”
It is not mere coincidence that after the US President failed to enforce his red lines in regard to the Syrian civil war and, specifically, the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime, we saw Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine a few months later, with the chaos and bloodshed that has followed. I believe that a major factor in the US President’s failure to enforce his red lines was this House’s refusal to back military action in Syria, and we all have to take some responsibility for that.
NATO is the cornerstone of British defence and security policy, and it is vital for our and our allies’ collective security, as hon. Members have said. It has secured the peace in western Europe for nearly 70 years. I want to make a few points about the importance of our allies’ defence budgets in relation to NATO. We expect—and we need to demand—that NATO members that want to benefit from the security of the alliance should fulfil their obligations on defence spending. In 2006, the member countries of NATO agreed to commit a minimum of 2% of their GDP on defence spending, as hon. Members have said. Such a commitment clearly indicates a country’s willingness to contribute to the alliance’s common defence efforts, and it has an important impact on the overall perception of the alliance’s credibility, so why, according to NATO figures for 2013, have only Estonia, the US and Greece—alongside the UK—invested 2% or more of their GDP in their defence budgets?
The combined wealth of the non-US allies, measured in GDP, exceeds that of the United States. Historically, the US has always spent more on defence, as we know. However, non-US allies together now spend less than half as much on defence as the United States. The US spent 4.4% of its GDP on defence in 2013. NATO members are clearly over-reliant on the US, which is under the same pressure as other nations to reduce its defence spending. US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel has recommended that US forces should be shrunk by 13% by 2017. We know that the US is increasingly focused on the strategic challenge from the Pacific, and expects us in Europe to take more responsibility for our own defence.
Today, US defence expenditure effectively represents 73% of the defence spending of the alliance as a whole. I therefore agree that NATO is over-reliant on the US for the provision of essential capabilities, including intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, air-to-air refuelling, ballistic missile defence, airborne electronic warfare and carrier strike responsibility.
According to NATO figures this week, we in the UK put 2.4% of our GDP into the defence budget in 2013, even though our Government were faced with sorting out one of the largest fiscal deficits in our history. Along with France and Germany, we represent more than 50% of the non-US allies’ defence spending in NATO.
Given their strategic position and their 20th-century history, what is particularly surprising about NATO’s figures for the estimated spending on defence in 2013 is that Latvia and Lithuania, who joined NATO in 1999, respectively spent only 0.9% and 0.8% of their GDP on defence. Luxembourg, the home country of our friend Mr Juncker, is estimated to have spent only 0.4% of its GDP on defence last year; the figure fell from 0.7% when Mr Juncker became Prime Minister of Luxembourg to 0.5% when he left office. Other NATO allies that spend 1% or less of their GDP on defence are Belgium, Hungary, the Slovak Republic and Spain.
The NATO Secretary-General said in May last year to the European Commission:
“If European nations do not make a firm commitment to invest in security and defence, then all talk about a strengthened European defence and security policy will just be hot air.”
My right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), the former Secretary of State for Defence, said in 2011:
“You cannot expect to have the insurance policy but ask others to pay the premiums.”
It is vital that all NATO members share the burden and responsibility of our collective security. We in the UK are playing our part in NATO and maintaining our commitment. I urge the Government, at a minimum, to maintain the GDP spend on defence and, as others have said, to increase it when the financial conditions allow.
Finally, two years ago I was privileged to be invited to the unveiling by the Queen of the Bomber Command memorial in Green park. My grandfather served with Bomber Command in world war two, first as a rear gunner and then as a navigator. I found one inscription on the memorial particularly poignant. It was a quote from Pericles:
“Freedom is the sure possession of those who have the courage to defend it.”
We must do so.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)
Order. We have four or five Members left to speak. Mr Brazier, do you wish to speak in the debate? I am sorry to ask, but it will affect my calculations.
Mr Brazier
I wish to speak if there is time, Madam Deputy Speaker, but as I did not put in to speak in advance, I will understand it if I am squeezed out by other people who did.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I will set the time limit at six minutes. You will probably get six minutes, Mr Brazier, but it might be a little less. I will advise you when we get there. There is now a time limit of six minutes on all speakers to allow time for the responses.
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
I welcome this timely debate. It is healthy that on a Thursday when there is a one-line Whip, there is such pressure on time because of the number of Members who wish to contribute. That reflects the importance of the subject.
As always, it is right to begin by paying tribute to the professionalism and courage of our armed forces and the sacrifices that they so often make. We owe them our thanks.
The world in which the armed forces and the British Government operate is changing. We have rightly talked about the changing nature of the threats, but another way in which the world has changed is that our financial resources are not as great as they were. I am sure that even the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) understands that. He mentioned by how much China is increasing its defence expenditure. I quickly looked up the figures of the International Monetary Fund on gross government debt as a percentage of GDP. China’s is only 22%; ours is 90%. That is a risky financial situation and is one of the reasons why we must have good fiscal discipline.
Otherwise, we might end up in the same situation as some of our NATO allies. Italy’s gross government debt as a percentage of GDP is 126%. Greece’s is 158%. If they allow that to continue, we all know what path they will have to go down—they will have to cut all sorts of expenditure, not least defence expenditure. If I had to speculate as to why Greece is one of the few countries within NATO that is achieving the 2% target for defence spending as a percentage of GDP, I would suggest that it is less to do with skyrocketing defence expenditure than with plummeting GDP.
That is one reason why we have to be a little careful about using such absolute percentages. If we were spending just above 2% and we had a good year in which GDP grew unexpectedly, we might fall below 2% mathematically without cutting our defence expenditure. If that happened temporarily, we would all regret it, but we must not fixate too much on the absolute percentage. Nevertheless, I agree with the broad thrust of the many contributors who have said that we need to encourage other NATO partners, when they can afford to do so, to step up to the plate. I certainly agree with the hon. Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti) that we cannot guarantee that America will continue effectively to subsidise the defence of Europe. We have seen the risk of American isolationism in the past and it may well raise its head again.
I do not have much time to talk about how we can economise on our defence, but I emphasise that we are still spending £38 billion in 2014-15, giving us one of the best-equipped and most technically advanced military forces in the world. It is still arguably the fourth largest defence budget in the world—it depends on whose figures we use, but I think the worst estimate that I have seen is that it is the sixth largest, which is still substantial for a country of our size—and we are over the 2% of GDP target for NATO members at the moment. We are constructing the two largest aircraft carriers in the Royal Navy’s history, and we are planning a fleet of destroyers, a new fleet of both nuclear and conventionally armed submarines and, further ahead, the joint strike fighter and the Type 26 frigate.
That will all put intense pressure on our defence budget, so we have to consider ways in which we can make it more cost-effective. That is not just about budget cuts—it is a great tribute to the Secretary of State for Defence that he has put such emphasis on efficiency and better management. He may have been slightly disappointed not to have become Chief Secretary to the Treasury at the outset of the coalition, but the Treasury’s loss has been the gain of first the Department for Transport and then the Ministry of Defence. He protected investment in transport infrastructure, and he has been good at prioritising more efficient defence spending and procurement. Both the 2010 strategic defence and security review—the first for 12 years, it has to be said—and more recently the Defence Reform Act 2014 have emphasised the strengthening and reform of defence procurement, perhaps saving as much as £1 billion a year. That compares with the last year of the Labour Government—
Martin Horwood
The shadow Minister shakes his head, but in their last year, the Labour Government clocked up a record overspend of £3.3 billion on the defence budget, which could not continue.
The best way to reduce defence expenditure is to reduce the need for it, and the current Government have signed up to the international arms trade treaty and have an important strategy of building stability overseas. Such things, which contribute to peacekeeping and the reduction of threats, are quite important, but inevitably we have to face up to some threats. It is right to look at Ukraine, and at Russia’s posture, and be concerned about it, and that should be reflected in our defence strategy. However, it is also right that we look at the different nature of the threat that we face now from that during the cold war. There is increasing need for flexibility and adaptability, and the Future Force 2020 strategy, with more emphasis on the reserves, is right. We can examine the potential for more co-operation with NATO and EU partners, and there are good models, such as Operation Atalanta, the anti-piracy operation.
Of course, I have to finish by pointing out that continuous at-sea deterrence, currently run in the same way as it was at the height of the cold war, offers some opportunity for savings. Only Liberal Democrats have really emphasised that opportunity, but I close by commending it to the Minister.
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
I thank my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) for securing the debate and the Backbench Business Committee for helping in that regard.
I pay my thanks to, and express my huge respect and admiration for, our armed forces, who continue, as they always have, to serve this country with courage and dignity.
There is one thing worse than weak armed forces, and that is a weak economy, because without a strong economy we cannot have strong armed forces. I realise that, and it would be foolish not to. I pay my respect to my hon. and gallant Friend the Minister, who I know does not like sitting here listening to Back Benchers, certainly those on the Government Benches, talking about our armed forces—no Ministers do, because they, like us, want to support our armed forces. I am sure that, in their hearts, they would like to spend more money on them.
Expenditure on our armed forces must surely be a matter of priority. The priority for us in this House is the defence of our country, our island, our dependants, our people and our many responsibilities around the world. I will raise the elephant in the room—or one of them—which is expenditure on overseas aid. I totally support help for the third world and everything that it implies. Unfortunately, by setting targets for those things we tie ourselves to perhaps unreasonable expectations, particularly when our own country is suffering economically.
Sir Bob Russell
Does the hon. Gentleman agree with evidence given to the Defence Committee yesterday by a former distinguished military leader in this country who said that overseas aid assisted Britain’s defence commitments?
Richard Drax
Yes, I have heard that and I am sure there is an element of truth to it. I argue, however—I do not want to go too far down this road—that if a country cannot grow crops, for example, we should send them not billions of pounds but a farmer: we teach them how to do it. That is the way to help people help themselves. If we give them billions or millions of pounds, the money tends to disappear down a plughole or, worse, into some despot’s back pocket and a new fleet of Mercedes-Benz.
I wonder whether some politicians in the House—dare I say, perhaps the more modern politicians—really understand what our armed forces are about. I mean no disrespect to them, but they have not served. I do not say that because I and other Members of the House have served that we are any better, or even any better informed, but I believe we have an instinct—a gut feeling—that the armed forces in our country are the very backbone of the United Kingdom because of our history, and we ignore our history at our peril.
When I was serving in the 1980s we had the Falklands war. Many of my friends went down there and served with great distinction, as did they all. Expenditure then was more than 5% of GDP, and I understand we had more than 60 warships. Expenditure is now 2% of GDP, and we have 19 warships. I do not understand what has changed in the intervening years.
Richard Drax
The shadow Minister says technology, and I agree that technology has changed. However, if we have one superb aircraft carrier and 10 Chinese submarines, and those submarines sink our superb aircraft carrier, we have nothing left. Technology is great, but it can be in only one place at one time, although it has a role to play.
Let me mention the list of responsibilities and wars that we have been involved in—I just literally scribbled them down. I asked what has changed, and my answer is “nothing”. The list contains Afghanistan, Bosnia, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Ukraine, Russia—as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), Russia is flexing its muscles, not least in the northern approaches with its submarine fleet and in the air—as well as piracy on the high seas and the Pacific. We as a country have other responsibilities. Northern Ireland has not gone away, and—God forbid it ever happens again—let us not forget that we had 35,000 troops at the height of the troubles. The list goes on: Malta, Gibraltar, Cyprus, the Falklands, Belize, and now Kenya and getting our citizens out of that country if it implodes. We also have NATO commitments, aid to the third world and disaster relief. Those are just some of the vast array of the United Kingdom’s responsibilities.
We are a tiny country with a small budget compared with many others, but we have had and still have huge responsibilities because we stand up—as we have always done—for freedom, democracy and the rule of law. To do that we need some muscle behind us in the event it all goes wrong. As sure as eggs are eggs and history is history it does go wrong, and the Falklands war is a classic case in point. As I have said, we would be pushed to retake those islands were they to be taken now, with no aircraft carrier and no air cover.
I also wish to touch on rumoured reports on the cuts and expenditure. A report of 15 June commissioned from within the British armed forces shows that UK spending will fall to 1.9% in 2017, and 1.6% in 2024-25. Will the Minister assure me that that is not the case?
My father and grandfather served in the Royal Navy with great distinction. My grandfather would be turning in his grave. My father is not in his—a long way from it, God bless him—but he is certainly not a happy man. As Admiral Lord West said, the state of our Royal Navy now is a national disgrace. Freedom comes at a price and we must be prepared to pay it.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)
Mr Stewart, are you standing? The reason I ask is that you are on my list as wishing to speak, but I have not seen you standing. I want to make sure you get the opportunity to speak.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
Sigmund Freud suggested that denial can be a psychological defence mechanism by which a person, faced with facts too uncomfortable to accept, rejects them and instead suggests such matters are simply not true, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. I saw such denial when, as United Nations Commander, I reported genocide in Bosnia during 1992-93. Many international politicians preferred to ignore the clear evidence given to them and avoid facing up to the fact that something had to be done.
I fear the dangers of denial are at play once more. We are consistently reassured that our armed forces are operationally fit for purpose. They are not, despite the fantastic bravery, quality and efforts of our service personnel in their various ships, units and squadrons. It is now clear that the 2010 strategic defence and security review is not working well enough. It has gone wrong in some parts at least, yet the Ministry of Defence persistently maintains that all is well when it is clearly not. I am not being personal here. Friends of mine run the Ministry of Defence and I know them to be deeply honourable, patriotic and decent. I understand when they say they must listen to current advisers, not voices from the past or people who are not involved in defence directly. I might say the same if I was in their situation. I have never held high office, but I wonder whether people in such positions can escape the shackling political requirements of their responsibilities. In the MOD, for both senior civil servants and generals, I suspect it could easily be career suicide to suggest that a plan is going wrong. In the battle of Whitehall bureaucratic politics, it is always safer to give the boss good, rather than bad, news. As a military commander, almost every single plan I carried out went wrong from the start. Is it not a well-known military truism that plans do not survive contact with the enemy, and need constant tinkering and revision from the moment they begin? Have such adjustments happened to the SDSR 2010? I do not think so, but I urge that such adjustment is necessary.
Let me end by talking about what I think is the direst manning situation in our armed forces—within the Royal Navy. The Navy’s manning overstretch is manifestly affecting its operational capability. For instance, highly trained and highly motivated people are simply leaving the service, because in their view they have no choice. The 2020 plan for our Navy is that it should be about 24,000 strong, with two aircraft carriers and about 19 frigates or destroyers. Admiral Jellicoe had 80 destroyers at Jutland! In the circumstances, I just cannot see how we are truly going to be able to man, equip, sustain, protect and fly from one aircraft carrier, let alone two.
Last year, HMS Bulwark, second of the Albion-class assault ships and currently flagship of the Royal Navy, was on operational deployment for 272 days out of 365. When she returns to her home port, many in her crew are required to stay on board to carry out essential maintenance. I recently spoke to two female petty officers, both highly qualified and trained engineers aboard the ship. They told me that even when they were given leave, the chances were that they would be recalled, sometimes to fill crewing gaps in ships other than their own. They said they had very little chance to have a social life, let alone get married and have a family, which they both wanted to do. As a consequence, they had no choice but to leave the Royal Navy.
The Royal Navy simply does not have enough sailors for the commitments it has to fulfil. My firm belief is that the Navy must increase its size by at least 6,000 service personnel, putting it back to roughly the same size it was before 2010. The undeniable truth is that we are simply not spending enough on defence, and our sailors, soldiers and airmen are suffering in consequence. As one defence attaché put it to the Select Committee on Defence two days ago, in defence terms the United Kingdom wants a champagne lifestyle but has a budget only for beer. We not only have to sustain spending on our armed forces at 2% of GDP; we should increase it, if we really wish to have the very best sailors, soldiers and airmen in the world.
Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)
Thank you for calling me to speak, Madam Deputy Speaker.
As I think everybody has said, defence of our country must be the No. 1 priority for the British Government. The use of the military is an important tool in finding political and diplomatic solutions. After all, when diplomacy goes wrong, we need to start using our military and some of its might.
In previous speeches I have paid particular tribute to our servicemen and women, particularly in my Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport constituency, which has 3 Commando Brigade, 29 Commando, the Royal Marines and, of course, the Royal Navy base that is the home to the refuelling and deep maintenance of our nuclear submarines. I remind the House that Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport continues to play a large role in defending our country. I also remind my hon. Friend the Minister that 25,000 people in Devonport’s travel-to-work area depend on defence for their livelihoods.
It is appropriate that we should be having this debate this month, because on 6 June we commemorated the D-day landings of 70 years ago, which saw the start of the end of the second world war. Today I would like to pay tribute to my uncle, Major John Majendie, who died at the age of 94 earlier this month. He served in the Somerset Light Infantry with the father of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) and regularly led post-war pilgrimages. Sadly, he died while preparing to make another pilgrimage to those battlefields.
In my SDSR submission, shortly after my election in 2010, I made it quite clear that, this being an island nation, the Government should focus on protecting our trade routes. Britain is our island story, and we expect our Royal Navy to perform critical humanitarian operations, as well as providing our nuclear deterrent. However, I should point out that although the Conservative part of the coalition Government is fully committed to retaining four continuous-at-sea submarines and the nuclear deterrent, the Liberal Democrats, I am afraid to say, are less happy with that.
To reduce the deficit, this Government had to take some difficult economic decisions. The last SDSR took place in that context, with every Department, with the exception of Health and of International Development, facing real financial cuts. My SDSR submission recognised that the Government had to work within a limited financial envelope, but I named spending on defence and long-term care for the elderly as my financial priorities. I argued in my submission to the 2010 SDSR that in order to do that, defence spending needed to rise to around 3% of GDP. Expenditure has hovered around 2% to 2.5% since 1997, which is surprising, given the significant amount of other stuff that our armed forces have been asked to do, in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as Somalia.
I very much welcome the investment in new ships, with the Government’s decision to keep some of the Type 23 ships at Devonport, rather than moving them to Portsmouth. I also look forward to the completion of the two Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers, which I hope will be used, the six Type 45 destroyers and, most importantly, the Type 26 frigates, which I hope the Government will base-port in my constituency. I thank my right hon. Friend the Minister for making sure that since 1 April HMS Protector is base-ported in my constituency.
Looking at today’s security threats, I am pleased that investment is to be made in unmanned aerial vehicles and is set to increase over the next decade. Those have the capability to give us a powerful global defence reach at a considerably reduced risk to life. I urge the Government to put some effort and funding into cyber-warfare as well. There would be nothing worse than for one of our submarines or, more importantly, one of our aircraft carriers to be off some piece of land where somebody was playing around with the software in order to try to fire missiles, for example. It is imperative that the Government take this threat seriously and allocate sufficient investment to ensure that we are properly protected against cyber-warfare.
We need to make sure that when people leave the services, they go to another job. We must also make sure that we look after their mental health. It is incredibly important that when people transfer their skills, those are recognised in the commercial work space. My father left the Navy having been a lieutenant commander signalman, and he ended up by becoming the head of outside broadcasting for Rediffusion Television. That was possible in those days because the qualifications were fully recognised.
Earlier this month the Chancellor came down to Plymouth and looked at Hasler unit. I hope he learned some lessons and will include them in the autumn statement.
Finally, next Wednesday the Military Wives choir is coming here to sing in Portcullis House, and I would be grateful if the Minister and his whole team attended. All these things can ensure that we have that great Nelsonian tribute that used to be played on board ship. We need to make sure that we give confusion to the enemy and make that a reality.
Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)
I, too, congratulate my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) on obtaining this debate. I, too, believe that 2% is an absolute and probably inadequate minimum for defence spending.
It is sobering to think that exactly 100 years ago in June 1914 the eyes of this country were firmly fixed on the threat of civil war in Ireland. The prospect of a major war on the continent had crossed very few minds. Just a week before the Falklands war, most people in this country had no idea where the Falklands were on a map. Only three months before the war with Saddam Hussein, the Ministry of Defence had firmly ruled out the possibility of ever sending tanks into an operation outside the NATO area. So of all the threats that we appear to face, the gravest may be one of which we are barely aware. Given how many we face, that is sobering.
I make just three points, two of which are echoes of earlier speakers. The first is an echo of comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), the new Chairman of the Defence Committee, in an excellent speech. The man who had risen in just five years from being an obscure academic to become the youngest brigadier in the second world war was asked what he thought should be our highest priority when the Berlin wall came down and defence cuts were made. Enoch Powell replied that above all we had to keep the armed forces’ thinking capability—the ability to operate staff at the highest levels and the ability to develop doctrine together.
The point has already been made. It is critical. We must redevelop—because we have lost it—a facility that combines the lessons of history with the very good work on ongoing doctrine, and we need to make sure that we keep the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps headquarters and the other ones and that they are staffed not just by regular officers; as both Monty and Bill Slim said in their memoirs, we need a broader range of people involved in them.
The second point is an echo of the comments that my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) put so well: the situation of the Navy is parlous, and rebuilding that, including maritime reconnaissance within the Air Force, must be the highest priority.
On the third area—the only one where I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay—I must respond to what was said about the reserve forces. The practical fact is that modern regular manpower is very expensive. I suspect that all of us present in this Chamber want to spend more on defence, but when it comes to any affordable defence budget we must learn from our allies: America, Canada, Australia, even New Zealand have a much higher proportion of reserve forces.
This is not just a question of a boutique decision, and it is not just a question of the Army. America and Canada do not throw away the skills of pilots who have spent half a career with the regular armed forces; instead, those pilots go on and serve in the air guard or the auxiliary squadrons of the Canadian air force. Those countries thus get two bites out of the expensive costs they incur. Across all our English-speaking counterparts, a large proportion of the ground crews and others are provided by reservists.
Even more importantly, we are in serious danger after two deeply unpopular wars of losing public support for defence altogether. The only adult uniformed presence in 350 communities in this country is through our reserve forces. It is essential for us to build up this capability and its connection to the nation.
Finally, I am immensely proud of our forebears—we have heard plenty of examples of them from around the Chamber—who fought in the two world wars. I hope to God that my two sons in uniform will not face the same thing. The first duty of Government, however, must be defence of the realm. There is nothing magic about a particular number, but the strongest message the Prime Minister could send to the NATO meeting he will chair is that while he remains Prime Minister Britain will be committed to 2% for defence.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
I thank the Backbench Business Committee for proposing today’s debate and the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) for introducing it. We have heard 11 contributions on the broad theme of the level of defence expenditure, while some of the new and developing threats to our nation have also been highlighted.
The debate is timely in light of last week’s National Audit Office report on Army 2020. I have seen many NAO and Select Committee reports over the years, but I have to say that this one has to be the most damning and critical I have ever read. The report is important, because it sums up all the shortcomings that characterise this Government’s position on defence. It also shows how the Defence Secretary simply failed to do his basic homework when it came to the Army 2020 reforms.
On page 7, the report says:
“The Department did not test whether increasing the trained strength of the Army Reserve to 30,000 was feasible”.
On page 8, it says:
“The Department did not fully assess the value for money of its decision to reduce the size of the Army.”
On page 19, it goes on to say:
“The Department…did not have a mature workforce model or good data to help it accurately assess how long it would take to recruit the required number of reserves”.
This is not rocket science—these are basic things that the Secretary of State for Defence failed to do in putting forward this defence reform.
Is it any wonder, then, that recruitment to the reserves is stalling? As of April 2014, the trained strength of the Army Reserve was 19,400 personnel, which has actually fallen in number since the plan was announced in 2012. That means that the reserves have recruited 67% fewer personnel than was planned for at this stage, and it is clear exactly how that has been allowed to happen. A series of preventable IT blunders were made because Ministers failed to follow through on their contractual obligations to Capita, the company selected to manage Army and armed forces recruitment. As a result of that basic incompetence, the taxpayer has incurred additional costs of around £70 million, written off an extra £6 million and, on top of all that, is spending an extra £1 million a month until the problem can be solved.
Since his first day in office, the Defence Secretary has prioritised the Treasury bidding and the need to ensure that the MOD meets the Chancellor’s deadline for cuts above all else. It is clear, and the NAO confirms, that there is only one element of the Army reforms on which the Government are making steady progress. It will not surprise Members to learn that, according to page 9 of the NAO report,
“The Army is ahead of its target to reduce its military staff…and deliver the staffing savings required by its reduced budget.”
Last week 1,000 more servicemen and women were made redundant, in addition to the thousands who had already lost their jobs. If Ministers had put as much effort into the detail of the Army 2020 reforms as they are putting into the issuing of P45s, Army 2020 might not be in its present parlous state.
Paul Uppal (Wolverhampton South West) (Con)
One sentiment has featured very largely in all the speeches that we have heard this afternoon. Obviously, much has been said about the 2% figure to which we aspire, but a deeper theme has emerged. It has been pointed out that modern politicians are often subject to short-term pressures, but these are, in fact, very long-term issues. I say that as someone who comes from a dual cultural background. When I speak to people in the east, they tend to say that we do not often have the stomach, the commitment or the long-term view to tackle these issues head on.
Mr Jones
This is not about a long-term plan; it is about basic competence, which the NAO report has clearly called into question. The report warns that there are “significant risks” to the Army’s operational capability because of the Government’s incompetence in handling these reforms. That is why we have called on the Government not to proceed with their redundancy programme until they have seen evidence that the recruitment of reserves has increased enough to fill the gap.
Defence Ministers have developed a habit of returning to a small number of stock phrases and soundbites, usually when their record is under pressure, and I look forward to the Minister’s trotting out a few of them today. No doubt we shall hear—as this has been their mindset from the start—that the Government had no choice but to make these reductions, because they had inherited a £38 billion “black hole” from their predecessors. Let me, for the umpteenth time, quote from the National Audit Office’s 2009 report. It states:
“The size of the gap is highly sensitive to the budget growth assumptions used. If the Defence budget remained constant in real terms, and using the Department’s forecast for defence inflation of 2.7 per cent, the gap would now be £6 billion over the ten years”—
not the one year that has been cited by some Government Members. No doubt the Government do not want to talk about the fact that the “black hole” has now increased to £74 billion because of the 9% spending reduction in 2010. No one seems to know where they got the £38 billion figure from. I suppose they think that if they repeat it for long enough, people will actually believe in it.
Remarkably, it was the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), who first claimed, in September 2011, that he had eradicated the “black hole” in less than a year. Six months later, the present Secretary of State claimed that he had plugged the gap. Perhaps the Minister will tell us who exactly should be credited with this feat. Those two individuals have clearly missed their vocation: if they can make a £38 billion “black hole” disappear in less than 12 months, they should have gone to the Treasury rather than the Ministry of Defence.
At a time when the Government are sacking highly skilled, experienced and brave servicemen and women and scrapping key elements of defence equipment, Ministers must be honest with our forces and the public about why they underspent their 2012-13 budget by almost £2 billion. They also tell us that the UK still has the fourth largest defence budget in the world. That may be true, but we on the Opposition Benches believe such a statistic has little meaning if the allocated budget is not actually being spent, and it is on this count that the Government have failed spectacularly. They gave us aircraft carriers without aircraft. They scrapped the Nimrod programme when three of the aircraft were almost 90% complete, leaving the MOD reliant on Twitter to counter the maritime surveillance threat. They have also sacked regular soldiers before waiting to see whether increased reserve numbers would be able to meet the shortfall.
As the NAO report summarises, the Government
“did not fully assess the value for money of its decision to reduce the size of the Army.”
If the Minister reads the report, he will see that the fact of the matter is that recruiting reservists will be more expensive than having regulars, and that cost will have to be picked up by the Treasury some time in the future. I refer him to page 8 of the report if he wants to read that later.
It is clear that when deciding the future size of the Army, the Government decided on cost savings as their first principle, rather than any strategic underpinning of their decision. The NAO report makes clear on page 6 that
“The future size of the Army was determined by the need to make financial savings”—
an approach which has characterised the MOD under this Government.
Commentators and the Select Committee agree that, blindsided by the desire to achieve savings above all else, strategic considerations have been sacrificed in favour of reductions in personnel and capability. Unfortunately, some people are having to carry the can for this—unfairly, I would suggest. The current Chief of the Defence Staff offered perhaps the most candid description of Army 2020 when he told the Select Committee on Defence:
“I remember the genesis very clearly. It was a financially driven plan. We had to design a new structure that included the run-down of the 102,000 Regular Army to 82,000, which is pretty well advanced now, to follow a funding line that was driven by the austerity with which everybody is very familiar…It triggered the complete redesign of the Army.”
Mr Brazier
I have written a reply to that report because I do not agree with it, but all the report says is that there are extra costs associated with recruiting for the next year and a half until the new system is in place, and it also queries some of the figures the MOD has put forward, but it nowhere actually suggests that a man or woman who is employed only for 40 days a year could cost more than a regular soldier. It—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)
Order. This debate finishes at 5 o’clock on the dot, and we have not yet heard from the Minister.
Mr Jones
I would do, but unfortunately I do not have the time.
Our approach is clear. Instead of having the Treasury-led SDSR conducted by this Government, we believe the UK needs a defence review that is genuinely strategic as well as financially viable. For us, these two factors are two sides of the same coin. This country needs an SDSR that provides strategic leadership and asks the most fundamental questions of all in terms of defence: what do we want our armed forces to actually do? As the shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), outlined in his Royal United Services Institute speech, we have got to be ambitious, but we also believe that to withdraw from the rest of the world as though it is not part of our problem is neither desirable nor possible to achieve. We are also realistic and know there are no gains to be made from promises that cannot be delivered; we saw too many of those at the last election by the Conservative party.
It is only by asking these questions and delivering the strategic leadership this Government have signally failed to offer that we can do our armed forces and the British public justice.
The Minister for the Armed Forces (Mr Mark Francois)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) on securing this important debate. Seventy years ago this month saw the success of Operation Overlord. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the allied forces who crossed the channel on D-day and who were quite rightly commemorated at events in Normandy recently. Not least of those was former Royal Navy Lieutenant Bernard Jordan who slipped away from his care home to join his former comrades, but thanks to a comprehensive information-operations campaign, assisted by the national press, he mitigated the potential wrath of both Mrs Jordan and his care home on his return. I am sure that the House will want to join me in wishing him well on his 90th birthday, which falls this week.
On Tuesday, I was privileged to attend a memorial service for those members of the 7th Armoured Brigade who lost their lives in their recent tour of Afghanistan, reminding us all in this House that our armed forces continue to exhibit the utmost courage and bravery on our nation’s behalf.
Finally on personnel matters, I understand that my opposite number, the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), is getting married next week. [Hon. Members: “Ah!”] I wish him all the best for the future, but I must caution him that this key decision may have important budgetary consequences in the long term.
Mr Francois
Having paid tribute to our personnel, both past and present, I wish to focus now on the Ministry of Defence’s capital programme, which is the largest in Government, accounting for some 20% of total capital spending this year. Our equipment programme comprises some £164 billion over 10 years, and is already published in our defence equipment plan. This will ensure that the Royal Navy continues to be one of the premier navies in the world by procuring and supporting, among other things, two new 65,000 tonne aircraft carriers, with HMS Queen Elizabeth, the first of class, due to be floated up next month in Rosyth; seven Astute-class nuclear attack submarines; six Type 45 destroyers, plus the beginning of the transition from the Type 23 frigate to the new Type 26 global combat ship, which will maintain a force of 19 frigates and destroyers, but with other surface warships as well, including a strong amphibious capability led by HMS Ocean. That amphibious squadron will be able, arguably, to transport the most effective maritime infantry force in the world, the Royal Marines, who celebrate their 350th anniversary this year.
Crucially, we are also making full provision for the successor deterrent system, providing the ultimate guarantee of our national security, and a re-elected Conservative Government will continue with that programme. In mentioning this, I pay tribute to all those who have supported the UK’s continuous at-sea deterrent and who have made sure that since April 1969 the Royal Navy’s ballistic missile boats have not missed one single day on patrol.
Turning to the Royal Air Force, we are investing to enhance the Typhoon via tranche 2 and tranche 3 upgrades to maintain its battle-winning edge, and to procure the new F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighter, placing this country as the only level 1 partner with the US in this key programme. We will further extend our global reach via a highly capable air transport fleet represented by the C-17 and C-130 aircraft, which are now being reinforced by Voyager, as well as the new Airbus A400M Atlas, the first of which is due to enter service before the end of the year. Combined, that will provide us with one of the largest and most modern air transport fleets anywhere in the western world. In addition, we have just taken delivery of the first of 14 new heavy-lift Chinook Mark 6 helicopters at RAF Odiham, which means that the UK has the largest Chinook fleet in Europe.
As part of the next strategic defence and security review, we will be examining the question of a maritime patrol aircraft to see what, if anything, can be done about this area of capability. We will do that as part of the SDSR, and I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) has taken a particular and long-standing interest in this subject.
As an ex-soldier, I should also add that we are ensuring that the Army remains well equipped. We will: upgrade the Warrior infantry fighting vehicle and also the Challenger 2 main battle tank; expand our fleet of battle-proven Foxhound armoured vehicles; upgrade our fleet of Apache attack helicopters; and procure the new Scout specialist reconnaissance vehicles.
Furthermore and importantly, we are significantly increasing our investment in cyber security—a point well made by my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile)—ensuring that our armed forces are equipped with cutting edge capabilities across all environments. That investment is not only securing the best possible military capability, but helping to secure UK jobs and growth to help complement our long-term economic plan.
Mr Francois
I will give way in a moment. UK defence exports in 2012 were assessed to be £8.8 billion, up from £6 billion in 2010, which is the second highest by value in the world.
I turn to overall defence spending and the defence budget. The defence budget this year is £33.6 billion, which makes it the fourth largest budget in Government. Defence spending will be a key issue at the NATO summit in Wales this September. My understanding is that the agenda has not yet been finalised, but we will certainly make the point that despite the fact that we have had to constrain UK public spending, UK defence spending has consistently met and exceeded the NATO target to spend at least 2% of GDP on defence. That point has been mentioned by almost every contributor to the debate. Indeed, we are one of only four NATO nations that currently meet that target. According to NATO, the UK has the second largest defence budget in NATO and the largest in the EU.
Rory Stewart
Do I understand that the Minister has formally committed, on behalf of the Government, to stick with that 2% base level on spending?
Mr Francois
The Chair of the Defence Committee pre-empts me. On current plans, defence spending will continue to meet the 2% target this year and next year. Decisions on public spending after financial year 2015-16 will be taken in the next comprehensive spending review, but that applies to all Departments and not only to the Ministry of Defence. I hope that that is a clear answer to his question.
At this juncture, it is important to recall that in 2010 we inherited a financial situation in the Ministry of Defence which was, to say the least, distinctly sub-optimal. It was exacerbated by a culture of short-term decision making, prevaricating over big decisions, slipping everything to the right and storing up costs over the long term. As Nye Bevan—that is Bevan, not Kevan—told the Labour party conference in 1949:
“The language of priorities is the religion of socialism”.
If that is so, there was a pretty atheist period when the Labour party last ran the Ministry of Defence. We inherited a financial shambles, which we have had to deal with for four years. The defence programme is affordable over 10 years after some difficult and painful decisions, and as a result of our better financial discipline, the Treasury has allowed us to roll forward recent in-year underspends to supplement our future plans. We are continuing to examine a package of additional investment, including on equipment and cyber. The details of that are currently being finalised, and they will be announced soon.
Mr Francois
If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I must say something about reserves, because I suspect that that is what he wants. I have four points to make on reserves. First, we are aiming for a trained Army reserve of 30,000 by April 2019. Secondly, we have gripped the problems regarding the IT recruitment systems and we have reduced bureaucracy in the process. Hon. Members know that we are investing £1.8 billion over 10 years to make the programme work. Thirdly, our target of a net additional 11,000 trained reservists for the Army is the equivalent of slightly more than 16 additional reservists for each parliamentary constituency, and I have to believe that that can be achieved. Fourthly, and crucially, we have halted 18 years of decline in our reserve forces; for the first time since 1996, the total strength of our reserve force has increased. Our forecast for the trained strength of the Army reserve was 18,800 by the end of quarter 4 last year. We have exceeded that forecast and there are a total of 19,400 in the trained strength of the Army reserve, which is 600 reserve soldiers ahead of the forecast. That is a five-year programme, not a five-month initiative, and as a former Territorial Army officer I remain confident that we can do that.
Mr Baron
I was not going to ask about reservists. Only time will prove us right in the end, but we need that time to pass. Briefly, will the Minister return to the 2% question? One hears what he says about the comprehensive spending review in two years’ time, but that should not preclude the Government from committing now to 2% of GDP, whatever that GDP is in two years’ time.
Mr Francois
I understand the point that my hon. Friend makes, but I have already attempted to give a clear answer on the position.
I referred earlier to D-day, which resonates with me because my father was at D-day on a minesweeper. He taught me a valuable lesson, which was never to take living in a free country for granted. I think he was in a good position to be able to say that. Yes, we must live within our means, but equally we must not shirk on our nation’s insurance policy. My father taught me that the first duty of Government is the defence of the realm, and I will always remain conscious of that.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered defence spending.
Revenge Pornography
(9 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
I would like to thank Mr Speaker for granting me this Adjournment debate this afternoon. I am particularly delighted to see that the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Mr Vara), will respond for the Government.
I asked for this debate because of the growing problem faced by adult women in this country who have had sexually explicit pictures of themselves posted online without their knowledge and without their consent on dedicated websites, readily promoted by search engines such as Google and Yahoo. These are ordinary women who have been in loving relationships in which nude or sexually explicit pictures have been taken in private, something that is not illegal. When that relationship goes wrong, their partner’s revenge is to post on the internet intimate pictures taken over the course of that relationship as well as distributing them to employers, families and friends.
The experience was first raised with me by a constituent. In my constituent’s words this bullying behaviour or harassment—perhaps we should call it sexual abuse—
“leaves the victim feeling powerless—it can result in that person losing their career, damaging their future job prospects and devastating their relationships”.
The term “revenge pornography” has been used to describe these actions, but however we refer to them, they have to be recognised as the abhorrent crimes they are, which take place mostly but not exclusively against women.
A great deal of time has rightly been spent in recent months and years on making young people aware of the dangers of sexting—that is, sending nude or sexually explicit pictures of themselves to friends. What I am talking about today affects adults and is a different but equally important problem. I believe that we in this House of Commons have a duty to ensure the law recognises such activities as criminal. At the moment, it does not.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for bringing this issue of grave concern to a large number of people before the House. My research reveals that such actions might—although not necessarily—fall foul of a number of Acts, including the Obscene Publications Act 1959, the Protection of Children Act 1978, the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 and legislation from 1988 and, most recently, 2003, years before much of the technology involved came into use. Does she therefore agree that the law on this distressing issue urgently needs clarifying and updating if we are to protect the women involved?
Maria Miller
My hon. Friend puts her finger on the main issue. The law predates the digital age and as a result of the work I have done I would say that it has not kept pace with the challenges we face today. I urge her to listen to some of my later remarks, which might address some of the issues she raises.
We all owe a debt of gratitude to the people who are already doing a great deal to support those who are affected by these heinous crimes: the UK Safer Internet Centre, particularly Laura Higgins, and, of course, the experts at Women’s Aid, who are doing a great deal of work in this area. I also thank Saffo Dias, who helped me with her expert legal advice as I prepared for the debate. It is the matter of law that we must focus on.
The UK Safer Internet Centre has identified between 20 and 30 websites displaying revenge pornography that are available for people to view in the UK. Some are pay-to-view, some are free to access, but all display sexually explicit images of women that have been posted without their permission. The situation in the United States of America is so severe that three states have already passed new laws criminalising revenge pornography and more are considering following suit.
The problem, as my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) said, is that the law we have predates the digital internet age and fails to cope adequately with such situations. In many ways we are trying to tackle digital problems with an analogue law. We now need to look at that in more detail. Some have sought to dismiss it as something that affects only the younger generation. Although the images are for the most part electronic, many have been scanned and clearly predate digital cameras, so the issue could affect many people of all ages.
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
I congratulate the right hon. Lady on securing the debate, which is on a subject that is very important to one of my constituents as well. One of the problems she has faced is not so much the existence of the website itself, but the search engine results, which almost always put the website at the top of the search. Google, while very sympathetic, will not act without a legal sanction. Is that something she thinks it might be possible to address by changing the law?
Maria Miller
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We must have the law in place first. As I will say later, if the act was illegal, of course Google, Yahoo and others would respond accordingly. The point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton is that at this point in time the situation is, at best, confused. I hope that the Minister can help to shed some light on the situation today.
As with so much to do with the internet, as a society we are constantly running to try to keep up. We all agree that the internet is a force for good. For the most part, internet service providers, social media organisations and many more want the internet to liberate us to think freely, to inform ourselves and to see our backyard as the whole globe, not just our street, village or town. However, a force for good can also provide a platform for those with less worthy aims and ideals. It is in that regard that the Government do have a role.
I applaud the work that the Government have already done in that area, for example to address illegal online child pornography. We heard in the news today about the sheer scale of the problem and the use of the dark net by those who want to access that sort of appalling imagery without the threat of being traced. I saw for myself how the UK is leading the way in cross-border action on the issue when I visited the Washington-based Centre for Missing and Exploited Children last year. It is vital that that work continues.
Internet revenge porn does not involve children, but it does use sexually explicit images to publicly abuse and humiliate a victim. An image that could have reasonably been expected to remain private can, with the press of a button, be distributed without permission to thousands of individuals in seconds, through the dedicated websites I have already mentioned, but also through a number of bespoke applications such as WhatsApp, Kik, Snapchat, which has 5 million active users every day, Facebook Poke—and the list goes on.
The case studies provided to hon. Members by Women’s Aid in preparation for today’s debate are, at best, alarming, demonstrating how social media and the posting of images, or indeed the threat of posting images, are being used to threaten and intimidate women. Some of the people Women’s Aid has supported have had such images taken under duress and then distributed to family members, friends and employers. Too often the victims of such crimes have found it difficult to get action—to get the police to take the crime seriously or to get the website owner to take the material down. One revenge porn website goes a stage further still by asking victims to pay a $400 fee to have the material removed—it is called reputation management, but I can think of other words to call it—although I understand that some material has been known to reappear on the same site.
It is clear that the police are struggling to identify a way to support women who have been subjected to revenge pornography. There are, of course, civil law protections under copyright, but few people have the resources to pursue that route, and does that level of legal sanction really reflect the nature of the offence? I do not believe that it does.
Some revenge porn postings are part of a pattern of behaviour. Given the nature of the material involved, the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 could be used to provide protection in some cases. However, a series of events would have to be involved—not a one-off, which many of these postings are. I am concerned that the existing legal framework does not provide the protection required. Perhaps the Minister will detail how many revenge pornography cases have been prosecuted under the 1997 Act, to indicate how effective it is already.
The days of treating the internet as the wild west are, I am glad to say, long gone. Freedom on the internet is not unconditional. The challenge for the Government is to be able to respond swiftly and nimbly to new cybercrimes as they present themselves. Today there is a clear opportunity for the Minister to provide leadership and reassurance to our constituents. There is a need to demonstrate clearly, as is happening in the US, that revenge pornography will not be tolerated in a modern free society and that loopholes in the law will be closed, and quickly. In the US, a number of states have decided to criminalise such actions and we should take a similar approach.
The Serious Crime Bill will shortly be before the House. It would provide a vehicle, perhaps under the Sexual Offences Act 2003, to establish as a serious criminal offence the distribution, without permission of the subject, of a sexual image or recording. That would sit well alongside other similar offences in the 1997 Act, such as voyeurism and indecent exposure.
Secondly, the Crown Prosecution Service is in the process of updating guidance to courts on the prosecution of domestic violence. Although not all cases of revenge pornography involve domestic violence, many do. According to detailed research done by Women’s Aid, 45% of domestic violence survivors have experienced online abuse in some form. As part of the current consultation process, which I believe closes next month, changes need to be considered to ensure proper recognition of abusive online behaviour as yet another part of the growing spectrum of domestic violence. The proposals in the consultation do not seem to cover online abuse; perhaps the Minister could clarify whether such a change could be made.
Then, of course, there is the role of the police. The same research identifies that three quarters of women who have been victims of cyber-based domestic violence said that the police simply did not know how to respond. A critical part of getting the issue right is ensuring that the strategic policing priority given to domestic violence is turned into operational reality on the ground—something raised by the recent Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary report, which identified that victims of domestic violence are still not always taken seriously by the police or, indeed, believed. That is a problem, particularly when it comes to cyber-based domestic violence.
We need to be assured that there is a strong programme of training on the nature of cybercrime and its corrosive effect. I very much welcome the National Crime Agency’s focus on cybercrime and hope that it can be expanded to include revenge pornography.
Finally, the social media and ISPs need to play their part. They should improve their policies, respond so that people can use their services safely and ensure that, when images are posted that should not be, there are clear ways to take action. I know from my discussions with Google, Facebook, Yahoo and others that they, as major global businesses, do not want their business model to include support for those who break the law. If revenge pornography were clearly illegal, they would, I am sure, ensure that such sites could not be promoted through their search engines. That issue was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton earlier.
This debate is about making sure that the law of the land supports women properly and about sending a clear message to the perpetrators of these crimes—that their behaviour should be seen as criminal and will not be tolerated. It is about saying that we as a nation show total abhorrence for all sexual abuse against women in whatever form, whether it occurs offline or online.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Shailesh Vara)
My right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Maria Miller) has made a very powerful and passionate speech on a hugely important subject. She has used this debate to highlight the truly despicable behaviour involving so-called revenge porn, which can cause serious distress and humiliation. The victims are, as she says, often women, but we must recognise that men can also be part of this category of suffering, the consequences of which can be absolutely devastating. I share her concerns about the misery and upset that such actions can inflict on others. Let me make it clear at the outset that I very much hope that victims of such behaviour will not hesitate to contact the police.
It may help the House if I outline some of the sanctions that we already have in place to combat this type of problem. All published material, online and offline, is subject to the Obscene Publications Act 1959, including material that has been uploaded to the internet. Under the Act, revenge porn material, depending on the content, may constitute an offence that carries with it a five-year maximum prison sentence. An article is deemed to be obscene if its effect, when taken as a whole, is such as to tend to “deprave and corrupt” persons who are likely to read, see or hear it. This general test of obscenity is flexible, allowing the courts to reflect society’s attitudes towards pornographic and other material.
Importantly, if images misused for revenge porn activity are of children under 18, and are perhaps being used to bully the young, legislation such as the Protection of Children Act 1978 could be used against those making or circulating them. The Government are determined to do all they can to curb the distribution of indecent images of children, on the internet and elsewhere. The law in this area is very clear. Under the 1978 Act, the UK has a strict prohibition on the taking, making, circulation, and possession with a view to distribution of any indecent photograph of a child under 18, and such offences carry a maximum sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment. The term “indecent” is not defined in the 1978 Act. The courts decide in each case whether the material in question is indecent.
Even if the content of revenge porn postings does not fall foul of the laws on pornography and obscenity, other communications offences might apply to this behaviour. For example, if the content is grossly offensive, indecent, obscene or menacing, it may fall under section 127 of the Communications Act 2003, which makes it an offence to send such material over a public electronic communications network. Depending on the content, sending this material may also amount to an offence under the Malicious Communications Act 1988, provided that it is sent with the purpose of causing distress or anxiety to the recipient or to any person to whom the sender intends that it or its contents or nature should be communicated.
Depending on the circumstances, a civil action may also be available under the law of tort in respect of the misuse of private information. Remedies available include damages and an injunction to require removal of the material and/or to prevent repetition of the behaviour in question. Even if the content itself is not illegal, if its distribution is carried out as part of a “course of conduct” that alarms a person or causes distress, this could amount to a criminal offence under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.
Maria Miller
The Minister is eloquently outlining all the laws that could apply in these cases. If we are to assess the effectiveness of those laws, it would be useful to know how many convictions have been secured as a result of the police taking action. Does he have that information available for the House?
Mr Vara
My right hon. Friend asks a very good question. We do not have specific figures relating to revenge porn in cases that have been prosecuted under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. We have figures for prosecutions under certain sections of the Act—such as section 2 on pursuing a course of conduct that amounts to harassment and section 4 on causing someone to fear that violence will be used against them—but not for the specific offences covered by them. We do not, therefore, have the specific details for which my right hon. Friend asks.
Maria Miller
I thank the Minister for giving way: he is being very generous with his time. Will he consider gathering that specific data, because that would strengthen his case that the law is as it should be? I fear that many people who are affected by these crimes are not able to use the remedies he has suggested. I think there is a mismatch between the support people expect from the law and what the law is actually delivering.
Mr Vara
My right hon. Friend raises another very good issue. There are questions of logistics in terms of obtaining specific information, given the number of cases involved. For example, in 2013 the number of section 2 cases proceeded against was just under 6,000—5,970, to be precise—and the number of those found guilty was 4,459. The total number of section 4 cases proceeded against was 1,040 and 641 of them were found guilty. I very much take on board what my right hon. Friend asks in terms of specifics and I would be happy to look into that, but I hope she will recognise that when such large numbers are involved there can sometimes be a logistical issue.
Other laws in the area of cyber-crime may be breached if, for example, the images have been obtained via computer hacking. Section 1 of the Computer Misuse Act 1990 provides for a criminal offence of unauthorised access to any programme or data held in a computer, which is commonly known as hacking. This carries a sentence of up to two years on indictment.
As with all crime, although we need strong sanctions when offences are committed, the ideal, of course, is to prevent them from being carried out. That is why, across Government, we are carrying out work that touches on areas affected by the use of revenge porn. For example, in schools we are giving teachers stronger powers to tackle the scourge of cyber-bullying and we are helping to educate pupils about the dangers of the internet.
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that the internet is a force for good. It is a great resource for learning, entertainment and many other positive activities. It is also, of course, a great British invention. However, like many tools that are capable of doing immense good, in the wrong hands it can equally do immense harm. That is why we need to be alive to those possibilities and to take appropriate and proportionate measures to counter them.
Martin Horwood
I am afraid I am going to go a little further than the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Maria Miller) and say that nothing I have heard suggests that there are any laws that can be used in a situation when, for instance, the image has not been hacked, the person is an adult, the photos are not grossly offensive—because they were probably taken in a private context originally—and Google, or whichever search engine transmits them through links, does not intend to cause offence. There do not seem to be any legal remedies among the Acts the Minister has mentioned, so I think a more thorough review of which laws need to be passed or which amendments need to be made to imminent legislation is now called for.
Mr Vara
If my hon. Friend can be a little patient, he might find that I will be able to give him some food for thought later. There may be remedies in the Malicious Communications Act 1988 or the Communications Act 2003, where there is a fair amount of flexibility. I will come back to the issue he raises a little later.
When indecent images have been circulated via social networking sites or abusive behaviour has occurred on social media networks, the Government expect social media companies to have robust processes in place to respond promptly when abuse is reported. That includes acting quickly to assess a report, removing content that does not comply with existing acceptable use policies or terms and conditions and, where appropriate, suspending or terminating the accounts of those who breach the rules.
The Government are working through the UK Council for Child Internet Safety, as well as at EU level, to improve the transparency of reporting processes and the ways in which reports are handled. We will continue to work closely with social media companies to ensure that they have measures in place to protect their users.
Following consultation, in June 2013, the Director of Public Prosecutions published guidelines for prosecutors considering cases that involve communications sent via social media. The guidelines are designed to give clear advice to prosecutors who have been asked for a charging decision or to give early advice to the police, as well as in the review of cases charged by the police. The guidelines seek to draw the difficult balance between protecting freedom of speech and acting robustly against communications that cross the threshold into illegality.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke asked about the consultation currently being undertaken by the Crown Prosecution Service and specifically referred to online abuse. I am happy to look into whether the consultation covers the issue of online abuse, and I will write to her in due course.
The Government already have a strong framework of offences for dealing with, and projects in place to respond to, this deeply upsetting and, frankly, cowardly behaviour. However, I very much recognise that the internet is fast moving, and it is important for the law of the land to keep pace with it. This is a global issue. Countries such as the United States of America, which my right hon. Friend mentioned, and Australia and Israel have legislated on the issue, and other countries across the globe are looking at it further. Let me be clear that the Government take the concerns expressed by my right hon. Friend very seriously. I am happy to look again at this area and to assess the extent of the problem to see whether we need to legislate further to ensure that such behaviour is dealt with appropriately.
Maria Miller
My hon. Friend has not so far referred to my issue about police training. If he is saying that there is a suite of laws that can deal with the issues I have mentioned, is he happy that the police can use those laws in a way that gives proper support to the women and, indeed, men who are affected by these sorts of crimes?
Mr Vara
In the less than two minutes that I have left, let me briefly say that the police do an outstanding job, wherever possible, but there are difficulties, and there is always an ongoing process into how matters can be improved. I will certainly speak to my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims to make sure that he is aware of this issue, and to ensure that improvements are made where they can be.
I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke will agree that the need for further legislation must be properly examined, particularly as the subject has implications across a wide area of the criminal law and of Government policy. Moreover, any further sanctions on internet content need to be carefully assessed against the possible implications for freedom of expression and of the media. I again thank my right hon. Friend for bringing this important debate to the House, and I reiterate that I shall look very seriously into the matters she has raised today.
Question put and agreed to.