ISIL in Syria

Lord Garnier Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

On the 70,000, the advice I have is that the majority are made up of the Free Syrian Army, but of course the Free Syrian Army has different leadership in different parts of the country. The 70,000 excludes those in extremist groups like al-Nusra that we will not work with. As I have said very clearly, I am not arguing that the 70,000 are ideal partners; some of them do have views that we do not agree with. But the definition of the 70,000 is those people that we have been prepared to work with and continue to be prepared to work with. Let me make this point again: if we do not take action against Daesh now, the number of ground forces we can work with will get less and less and less. If we want to end up with a situation where there is the butcher Assad on one side and a stronger ISIL on the other side, not acting is one of the things that will bring that about.

[Sir Edward Garnier (Harborough) (Con)]

I know from my time in government how long, how hard and how anxiously the Prime Minister thinks about these questions, but will he ensure that we complete the military aspect of this campaign, if at all possible, so that we can then get on to the really important, but perhaps the most difficult aspect of the questions that he has posed—namely, the post-conflict stabilisation and the reconstruction of Syria, because without this early stage there will not be a Syria left to reconstruct?

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. and learned Friend, who himself always thought about these things very carefully, is right. That is the end goal, and we should not take our eyes off the prize, which is a reconstructed Syria with a Government that can represent all the people; which is a Syria at peace so that we do not have the migration crisis and we do not have the terrorism crisis. That is the goal.

Let me turn to the overall strategy. Again, I set this out in the House last week.

National Security and Defence

Lord Garnier Excerpts

Monday 23rd November 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Obviously, the £178 billion is to be invested in defence equipment, aircraft carriers, frigates, destroyers, the new Ajax vehicles for the Army and such like. As for removing mines, that is something on which we can use our aid budget, and we do. For instance, we fund the Halo Trust and other such organisations, but I accept that there may be opportunities to do more.

[Sir Edward Garnier (Harborough) (Con)]

May I, as others have done, warmly congratulate the Prime Minister and his Defence Ministers since 2010 on turning round the economy of the Ministry of Defence and its procurement regime, and thank him for committing to the 2% NATO expenditure target? Beyond that, I urge him to consider finding the additional two brigades not from existing troops with new insignia but by increasing the size of the Army from 82,000 to 102,000.

[The Prime Minister]

An ingenious idea was tucked away at the end of that question, but I think that we are capable of delivering these new strike brigades within the level of 82,000. As I said, we are seeing a small increase in the RAF and in the Navy. What is important is that we make sure we get everything out of the resources that we put in, and that is what this review is about.

Syria: Refugees and Counter-terrorism

Lord Garnier Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The British programme can get under way straightaway. We need to talk to UNHCR to make sure it can process the people out of the camps, but I think that 20,000 Syrian refugees is a generous and correct approach for Britain to take.

[Sir Edward Garnier (Harborough) (Con)]

For what it is worth, I think the military event in August was both lawful and right. The refugee and terrorism crisis the Prime Minister has described suggests we need not just a diplomatic and an aid solution but a defence solution. Will he please urge the strategic defence and security review to look carefully at increasing our defence budget over the next year or so, because we are surely going to need it?

Debate on the Address

Lord Garnier Excerpts

Wednesday 27th May 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Garnier (Harborough) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my east midlands colleague, the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen). Not for the first time, he has made a very thoughtful and interesting speech. I hope that those who did not have the opportunity to listen to it will read it in Hansard tomorrow. I dare say that the good people of Nottinghamshire will set it to music.

I agree with the general thrust of the hon. Gentleman’s point that to be a Member of Parliament on the Government Benches does not absolve us from holding the Government to account. It is important for all of us, from whichever part of the country and party we come, to remember that our job as a Member of Parliament is, first, to represent our constituents, but secondly, to hold the Government to account. During discussions on the Queen’s Speech, it is important to remember that constitutional point. Even though we have a largely unwritten constitution—it is written down in several different documents, not in one compendious constitutional document—the Executive sit in Parliament, but should not be allowed to sit on Parliament. That distinction tends to be forgotten by those of us who get more or less enthusiastic about ambition, promotion or whatever it may be. The hon. Gentleman’s speech was a timely reminder, at the start of this Parliament, that individual Members have a special role to perform.

I want briefly to complain about the yet further delay to the development of St Luke’s hospital in Market Harborough—I weave this in because the Queen’s Speech referred to the NHS—which means that this farce has continued into another year. The delay has now lasted for more or less the entire 23 years of my membership of the House. The waste of taxpayers’ money has been compounded year on year, under the coalition Government, under the Labour Governments prior to 2010 and under the Conservative Governments in the 1990s. It is a disgrace, and I hope that the Secretary of State for Health and his Ministers will get a grip of the throats of the management of the scheme and make sure that something is done.

On another quick point, unlike the hon. Member for Nottingham North, I regret the Fixed-term Parliaments Act and had rather hoped we would see measures to repeal it. I have not yet given up hope, but who knows? I simply put that down for later consideration.

I want to talk most about the provision in the Queen’s Speech where the Queen said:

“My Government will bring forward proposals for a British Bill of Rights”.

It seems to me that too many politicians have not read the law and do not understand the human rights regime in this jurisdiction, but it is equally fair to say that far too many lawyers do not understand the politics—I plead guilty as a lawyer. There is therefore a tension between the desire of a Government full of politicians to do something that is politically attractive and the desire among stuffy old lawyers to inhibit the political will of the Government, either because they are legally illiterate or just inconvenient.

If I am delighted about anything relating to human rights legislation that the Queen’s Speech deals with, it is that there appears to be a delay, or some proposal to allow the matter to be thought about. I refer hon. Members to pages 60 and 73 of the Conservative party manifesto, which I confess I only read the other day, some days after the general election. Page 73 states:

“We will scrap the Human Rights Act”,

and page 60 states:

“We will reform human rights law and our legal system”.

I will not amuse the House with the paragraphs underneath those two headlines. The proposals in the manifesto are confused, and because they are confused they are confusing, thereby fuelling the tension between the politicians in a hurry and the lawyers who do not like politics.

I have identified seven points that need to be thought about carefully as we consider what to do about the human rights story. There are seven political and legal difficulties to overcome if we are to replace the Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights. First, as discussed, there is the impact on Scottish devolution, and secondly there is the impact on the Good Friday agreement—in addition, there is the effect on the Welsh devolution settlement. Thirdly, there is the need to deal with Conservative supporters of the Human Rights Act and the European convention on human rights. That is a straightforward piece of political management that the Government will have to sort out. Fourthly, again on a matter of political management, they will have to think about what to do when an amendment to, or repeal of, the human rights regime gets to the other place. They do not have a majority there, so some acute minds—political, legal, intellectual and otherwise—will have to be deployed to get the matter through the House of Lords. Fifthly, we will have to work out which rights are to be protected, and sixthly, we will have to work out how those rights will be enforced and the legal form the Bill of Rights will take. Seventhly, and perhaps most importantly, somebody has to explain why any of this exercise is necessary in the first place.

It is a hugely complicated subject and not something that will be dealt with between now and Thursday week, when the final votes on the Queen’s Speech are taken, but there is the question that my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) frequently brings up and which formed the subject of his European Scrutiny Committee’s 43rd report, during the 2013-14 Session. I refer to the charter of fundamental rights—an EU instrument that broadly replicates the convention—which article 6 of the treaty on European Union appears to bring within British domestic law. If we repeal the Human Rights Act, we will not disengage ourselves from the convention. We can do what the hell we like with the Act—repeal it, turn it upside down, put it through a mincer—but it will not affect our international treaty obligations under the convention, of which we have been a member since the 1950s. Ministers and others who are keen to see the Act repealed need to think very carefully about what they are doing.

There are complaints that the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has become too political and been staffed by unqualified or inadequate judicial minds. That is for others to say. However, the lack of self-confidence that we have in our own institutions is not borne out by the evidence. Section 2 of the Human Rights Act does not state that the British courts have to kowtow to Strasbourg; it simply states that they have to take account of its judgments. Frequently our courts take account of its judgments and come to a different conclusion, and there is nothing wrong with that. I therefore urge the Government and Members of a different persuasion from me to read the documents and think carefully about the consequences of what they are doing, and not to tilt at the wrong windmill, because it will end in tears.

That said, in the last few seconds available to me, I want to assure my hon. Friend on the Treasury Bench that the rest of the Queen’s Speech is utterly wonderful.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Garnier Excerpts

Wednesday 26th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

First of all, we will go on growing the economy, creating jobs, and, crucially, cutting people’s taxes. Because the best way to help with this issue is to do what we have done, which is to lift 3 million of the lowest paid people out of poverty altogether and to cut taxes for 26 million more. The figures show that two thirds of the jobs we have created have been full-time jobs, not part-time jobs. The long-term economic plan is working.

[Sir Edward Garnier (Harborough) (Con)]

A few weeks ago a 92-bed hospital in Kerry Town in Sierra Leone was completed, at a cost of £2 million to the British taxpayer. That is a good thing. As of last night, it was looking after five patients. It is run by Save the Children. Will my right hon. Friend have a word with the Secretary of State for International Development and others in the Government to ensure that proper use is made of the hospital?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right. It is good that the hospital has been built, and roughly on time, but there is an issue with its operation. We are working intensively with Save the Children to ensure that it reaches its full capacity and full use. We are building other facilities across Sierra Leone, as well as community centres, of course, because we need all those facilities to bring Ebola under control.

G20

Lord Garnier Excerpts

Monday 17th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Again, on this issue of investor state dispute mechanisms, we have these in every single trade deal we have ever signed, and I think I am right in saying we have not lost a single case. Of course it is right that we debate all these issues but, as Members of Parliament we sometimes get a barrage of e-mails, that people have signed up to sometimes without fully understanding every part of what they are being asked to sign. People want to spread some fear about this thing, and I think we all have a role, as Members of Parliament, to try to explain properly why these things are good for our country.

[Sir Edward Garnier (Harborough) (Con)]

As so many other economies are either faltering or declining and thus affecting our potential exports, will my right hon. Friend and the Chancellor of the Exchequer do all they can further to reduce business taxes in this country?

[The Prime Minister]

What we have said is that we want to maintain our ambition to have the lowest rate of business tax of the advanced industrial economies. We have achieved that under this Government through getting corporation tax down to 20% and I think that is a very good calling card for Britain in the world to get people to come and invest here. We have a 20% tax rate, but we do believe that it is important that companies pay their tax, so I think it is both a good advert for Britain, but also in the long term a good way of protecting and raising our revenue.

European Council

Lord Garnier Excerpts

Monday 27th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Oh, dear. I will tell the hon. Gentleman what we have got: we have a Chancellor who has delivered the fastest rate of growth of any G7 country, and we have a Chancellor who has delivered the biggest fall in unemployment since records began. I would have thought that the Labour party would want to know about more people getting into work.

[Sir Edward Garnier (Harborough) (Con)]

Does the Prime Minister agree that this country has a proud record of assisting countries in difficulties? What this Government have sent to west Africa to help with Ebola is just the latest example of that. Will he accept that such programmes can be delivered only by individual people—men and women from this country—going out there to help, and placing themselves in great danger? Young men such as Dr Oliver Johnson, who is only 28 years old, along with many other colleagues who have trained and are working in this country, have gone there. We thank the Government for sending the money, but will the Prime Minister remember them?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. and learned Friend makes an incredibly important point. About 650 British health workers have volunteered to go to Sierra Leone to help in this way. They are people of huge courage, dedication and public service. What we must do is make sure that they have the logistical support, which is why we are sending over 750 troops and a warship equipped with helicopters. We will also establish a training centre to train over 850 local health workers every single week; that will soon be up and running. Crucially, if we want health workers to go to west Africa, we must have the medical evacuation capabilities to bring them home in the event of their becoming ill. We are putting that in place, and I believe that we are leading Europe on that issue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Garnier Excerpts

Tuesday 14th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney-General]

It is certainly worth considering whether we can do better in overcoming the gap in the law as it relates to finding those within the corporate world who are responsible for what are very serious crimes. The appropriate approach to politics is to take ideas from wherever they come and consider them carefully, which is exactly what the Government will do. When we are in a position to bring forward proposals, we will do so.

[Sir Edward Garnier (Harborough) (Con)]

One of the new weapons that prosecutors have at their disposal is the deferred prosecution agreement, which I hope will be made use of in the near future. Will my right hon. and learned Friend confirm that he and our hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General are determined to maintain the Serious Fraud Office as an independent investigating prosecutor and that it is under no danger of being subsumed into any other piece of the Government machine?

EU Council, Security and Middle East

Lord Garnier Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Garnier (Harborough) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for not urging upon us, despite provocations—no doubt from many—a slew of new legislation, and not taking up a desire to re-write old legislation as though it were new legislation, but targeting his thoughts on one or two specific areas. Will he make sure that the deliberations on the new legislation that he is suggesting are as wide as possible and that we take time to get it right rather than rush it through to achieve a quick result?

[The Prime Minister]

I heard my hon. and learned Friend’s calming tones on the radio this morning, which set the tone for my whole mood today. He is right. I do not believe in knee-jerk responses. We are a country under the law, we have very firm rules in this area and what are required are some changes at the margin to fill in the gaps that we have identified. We should not spend too long debating and discussing those gaps, because if there are gaps they need to be filled quite urgently.

European Council

Lord Garnier Excerpts

Monday 30th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I think the hon. Gentleman was a bit better when he was in the Oxford university Conservative association—he might then have said something I would agree with: I do not agree with any of that at all.

[Sir Edward Garnier (Harborough) (Con)]

In his statement my right hon. Friend said that the Council agreed that if we do not see concrete progress in Ukraine very soon, we will remain willing to impose further sanctions on Russia. Does my right hon. Friend, the President of the United States and the other leaders of Europe, and, equally importantly, the President of Russia, agree on the definition of concrete progress?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. and learned Friend is right to raise this. We set out in the Council conclusions a clear set of steps that need to be taken, including transferring border posts that have been taken by so-called rebels back to the Ukrainian Government and the release of hostages. President Poroshenko extended his ceasefire for a further 72 hours, which runs out this evening, and the European Union, working with the Americans—we have been hand in glove all the way—will have to see what changes have been made and whether additional sanctions need to be put in place. At the meeting in July we can look at the so-called tier 3 sanctions and potentially go much further, if further progress has not been made.