Europe: Renegotiation

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

It is indeed complex and challenging sometimes to get an agreed negotiating position across 28 different countries and give the mandate to the Commission to negotiate collectively on our behalf, but the weight—the leverage—that derives from negotiating as a marketplace of 500 million people is very significant indeed. It makes other Governments, even of large countries, more willing to endure the political hassle that they themselves face with their own business interests in order to bring about free trade agreements which, I believe, are a win-win for both sides.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

Given that the Government have repeatedly rejected the principle of a double majority in the referendum, will the Minister accept the result if England votes narrowly to leave, but is outvoted by the rest of the UK voting to stay in? More importantly, will his Back Benchers, who have barely asked a single supportive question, accept that result?

[Mr Lidington]

It is the United Kingdom that is the member state of the European Union. I remind the hon. Gentleman that his party in May this year was against giving the people of Scotland or anywhere else in the United Kingdom the chance to vote on their future in Europe.

Human Rights (Eritrea)

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Monday 9th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

I am pleased that time has been found to debate this important and, sadly, overlooked issue and I thank the Minister for coming to the House to respond at the end of what I know has been a long day.

Until recently, like most of my constituents and most fellow Britons, I knew little of Eritrea, its people or its Government. Conditions in the country were brought to my attention a little over a year ago by one of my constituents, Habte Hagos, who owns and runs the award-winning Blue Nile restaurant in Woolwich, among other ventures. Like many Eritreans, Habte lost family members in the struggle for a free, democratic Eritrea and he has worked over many years to raise awareness about human rights violations in his homeland. I am delighted that Habte and others are in the Gallery this evening to watch the proceedings.

Desperate human beings are moving across our continent on a scale not seen since the second world war. As we know, a significant proportion are fleeing civil war and sectarian violence in Syria, but large numbers of Eritreans are also leaving the land of their birth in the horn of Africa. An estimated 5,000 people leave Eritrea every month and almost as many men, women and children left that country last year as fled from Syria. This human exodus is all the more staggering when we consider that it is from a country of just 6 million people that is not presently at war.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing such an important debate. I have a number of Eritrean constituents who will welcome the fact that it is taking place. I acknowledge that a Foreign Office Minister will be responding to it, but a number of my constituents are concerned about the country guidance that the Home Office uses to determine whether asylum should be granted. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that guidance should be updated to take into account the findings of the recent report from the United Nations commission of inquiry on human rights in Eritrea, rather than the discredited report from the Danish Government on the same subject?

[Matthew Pennycook]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. The methodology of the Danish Government’s report has been questioned. It remains the basis for the Danish Government’s guidance, but our Government should continue to review our own guidance to ensure that we are not refusing asylum to people who are genuinely being persecuted.

Most Eritreans who flee end up in neighbouring countries such as Sudan and Ethiopia, but many make the dangerous trek north towards the Maghreb and the Sinai peninsula in the hope of finding sanctuary in Europe. In doing so, each must evade: capture by their own security forces, who operate a shoot-to-kill policy against those leaving without permission; violence and extortion at the hands of desert gangs; death from dehydration in the Sahara; detention in Libya or Israel; and the lethal risks of crossing the Mediterranean. What dread leads so many, not just adults, but thousands of unaccompanied minors, to risk everything to leave their homeland behind? Words such as “tyranny”, “oppression” and “cruelty” are regularly used to describe conditions within all manner of distasteful regimes across the globe, to the point where sometimes they risk becoming stale with overuse. Yet if anything, those words fall short when applied to Eritrea under the rule of President Isaias Afwerki.

Isaias’s Eritrea is regularly described as “Africa’s North Korea”. That is a hackneyed phrase but in this instance the comparison is pardonable, because ruthless repression is the norm for those living under the rule of this isolated, hermetic and authoritarian regime. It is a far cry from what so many Eritreans fought for, heroically and for decades, and from the hopes of those who supported the struggle for liberation. Instead of democracy and the rule of law, Eritreans are ruled by a culture of fear and absolute obedience: fear that they or their classmates will be sent to carry out national service in a remote location for an unknown number of years; fear that a trusted co-worker who yesterday openly expressed an opinion may not turn up at work tomorrow; fear that a friend arrested arbitrarily will be incarcerated in a vastly overcrowded metal container or a simple hole dug in the desert ground, with little prospect of release; and fear that a disappeared family member might never be seen again.

There have been no elections since 1993, and no independent press since a Government clampdown in 2001. We have seen the pervasive and ongoing restriction of all freedoms—movement, expression and association. People have been subjected to arbitrary arrest, with no fair trials or no trials at all; indefinite compulsory military conscription; forced labour; and torture, including widespread sexual violence against women and girls. That is the situation in Eritrea today.

An extensive and detailed report published in June by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights describes, in horrifying detail, a siege state where control is absolute and where

“systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations”

are being committed. It says that these violations

“may constitute crimes against humanity”.

The crimes taking place today in Eritrea add themselves to old, but not forgotten, and still raw, abuses. Politicians, journalists, faith leaders and business owners who once proudly set out to build a prosperous post-independence future for their country instead find themselves languishing in one of the country’s numerous detention centres—or they have died there, suffering like thousands of ordinary citizens punished for refusing an order, being a member of the wrong religious domination or expressing sympathy with the wrong person.

Chagos Islands

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Wednesday 28th October 2015 Westminster Hall

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell; I know that you take an interest in these matters. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Dr Monaghan) on securing a debate on an issue to which he has long been committed and which is highly topical. I welcome the work of the all-party group and the various hon. Members who have spoken. I note that the honorary president of the APPG, the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn)—I do not know whether he is right honourable yet—is with us. I welcome him to his place; it is a very commendable show of support and solidarity.

In his maiden speech in the main Chamber, my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross highlighted both the cause of the Chagossian people and the historical experience of people in his own constituency who were affected by the highland clearances. In my constituency, the clearances are commemorated by, among other things, a plaque on the wall of the Lios Mor bar. The plaque names some of those most responsible for the forced removal of people and what it calls a form of ethnic cleansing. I will leave it to hon. Members to visit my constituency to determine exactly where in the bar the plaque is located, but it is in a place where it invites male visitors to pay those whom it names the respect it says they are due. Whether exactly the same attitude should be applied to those responsible for the forced removal of the Chagossians is not necessarily for me to say, but what is clear is that the situation is an injustice for which a resolution is long overdue.

[Bob Stewart]

Having had some experience of it, I would say that this looks like classic ethnic cleansing, and the human rights commissioner of the United Nations should take more interest in it.

[Patrick Grady]

That is a very fair point well made. We will perhaps have the Minister’s response to it.

The Scottish National party has for many years expressed its solidarity with the Chagossian people, and I want to take this opportunity to do so again today. At our spring conference in 2015, we agreed a resolution expressing frustration with the ongoing approach of the UK Government in relation to the Chagossian people and agreeing that the behaviour of the UK Government has consistently been contrary to well established laws on decolonisation and self-determination. These are, admittedly, complex areas of international law, but certainly the tradition in Scotland is that sovereignty should lie with the people, so irrespective of territorial claims by the United Kingdom, Mauritius or any other third party, the fundamental right to live and work on the Chagos islands should lie with the people who lived there until their forced removal at the hands of a UK Government.

We can welcome what slow progress there may have been, but the terms and conditions of the pilot resettlement proposal are minimalist to say the least. My hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross went into that in considerable detail and highlighted the views of the Chagossian community. I hope that if the Chagossians, supportive organisations or any other people come forward with alternative suggestions or proposals, the Minister will listen to those, and that what is in the current consultation will not simply be presented as a fait accompli. I know that the APPG has suggestions about possible sources of funding for resettlement and has questioned the cost of resettlement highlighted in the KPMG report. The highest cost that I can find is £267 million over six years. Although that is not a small amount, I imagine that it pales in comparison with the amounts spent on building, maintaining and running a US defence base—a defence base, of course, that the Government admitted was used for rendition of prisoners. That only compounds the injustice that has happened in that part of the world.

Time is extremely short, so I cannot go into all the detail that I wanted to. That shows that this matter deserves time on the Floor of the House, once the Government reach a decision—or, indeed, before then—so that the whole House can have its say. The debate raises a huge number of wider questions about the sovereignty of peoples and the role of current and former colonial powers—questions of geopolitical and military-industrial significance. If so-called developed countries can trample on the rights of small nations and communities out of military or political expediency, it makes it difficult for those countries to lecture so-called less developed countries or encourage them to smarten up their act on respect for human rights and the rule of international law. There are far too many historical—and current—examples of forced removal and migration of peoples, with the impact that that has on culture, economies, ways of life and the environment.

In the case of the Chagos archipelago, there are clear paths to restoration and the chance to right an historic wrong. If the Government can show some political will and make the kind of progress that has been called for, not only will some kind of justice be done to the Chagossian people, but there will be hope for other communities in similar situations elsewhere. If they cannot, the only conclusion that can be reached is that attitudes that should have set with the sun at the end of the British empire are, in fact, still stubbornly and unnecessarily at work at the heart of Government today.

China (Human Rights)

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Thursday 22nd October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Swire]

We certainly do not see this visit as presenting a binary choice between greater economic co-operation and human rights, as some would have us do. I reject that utterly. As I have said, there are individual cases that have been raised consistently. We are one of the few countries to have an annual human rights dialogue with China, and we are of the view that that gives us the right format and architecture within which to raise these specific individual cases. I believe that that is the right way to pursue these matters. As our relationship becomes ever closer, we are in a better position to discuss these very worrying cases with our Chinese counterparts.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

Will the Government use every opportunity, including those that arise this week, to make it clear to China that human rights and equality are a fundamental part of achieving greater and fairer economic growth? Given that the Chinese ambassador said at the weekend that no one would be put behind bars simply for criticising the Government, will the Minister join the United States Secretary of State John Kerry in calling for the release of Zhang Kai? If not, why not? More broadly, will he commit to speaking out, without fear or favour, against the use of the death penalty, even when it is used by strategic allies such as the United States, Saudi Arabia and China?

[Mr Swire]

We do speak out without fear or favour. The United States is responsible for making its own comments on various matters. I refer the hon. Gentleman to my earlier comment that we supported an EU statement on 15 July on the detentions in Zhejiang. We believe that that is the right place for us to do that, along with our bilateral discussions with the Chinese themselves.

Oral Answers to Questions

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I am happy to agree with the right hon. Gentleman that co-operation between states is the right answer. Unfortunately, however, that is not what happens when competences are ceded to the EU, which results in dictation to states by the European Union. That is a distinction that he would be well advised to study.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

2. If the Government will invite a Minister of the Scottish Government to join the UK delegation to the Paris climate change conference in December 2015.

[The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington)]

Yes, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change wrote to all three devolved Administrations last month to invite the relevant Ministers to join the UK delegation in Paris.

[Patrick Grady]

That is welcome news, as it will give the Scottish Government Minister a chance to speak about Scotland’s ambition to tackle climate change. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that that is particularly important, given the criticisms that the UK Government are facing today from the United Nations environment programme, which has stated that their cuts to renewables are completely at odds with the pledges being made by 150 other countries ahead of the Paris summit?

[Mr Lidington]

I obviously welcome the participation of Scottish and other devolved Ministers in the UK delegation, but I really think that the hon. Gentleman should do a bit of homework and remind himself that the UK is well on track to achieve its emissions reduction targets by 2020, en route to the 80% reduction by 2050. And I am sorry that he did not even mention the Prime Minister’s commitment of a further nearly £6 billion in additional climate finance to help the poorest countries to adapt to the challenge of climate change.

Child Suicide Bombers

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Westminster Hall

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans, for the first time, at least in Westminster Hall, but undoubtedly not the last. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Roger Mullin) on securing this very important and timely debate. I echo his remarks about our condolences to all those affected by the bombing in Turkey at the weekend and our outrage at such terrible events as well as those about the Minister’s experience and commitment to these issues; it is right that that should not be overlooked.

I am not totally certain about the protocol for these things, but I want to commend the House of Commons Library for the substantial briefing pack that it produced for the debate. It was extremely thorough, and I was struck in particular by the historical notes that it included on the role of children in conflict. It looked right back to the middle ages, when boys were used as pages; they would squire for knights and go into conflict. It went right through to the under-age boys and young men signing up surreptitiously to fight in world war two.

Just before the October recess, the Minister responded to a debate in this Chamber about the arms trade. My hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) spoke in that debate very powerfully about the role of child soldiers in conflict today. Some 250,000 children around the world have been conscripted into conflict against their human rights, as I will go on to say. My hon. Friend said that Governments around the world should be aiming

“to get children out of army uniforms and into school uniforms.”—[Official Report, 17 September 2015; Vol. 599, c. 396WH.]

The harm caused to children and the legacy for child soldiers during the rest of their lives is well known and horrific enough, but the use of children as suicide bombers takes the involvement of children to the extreme —an extremity that, sadly, seems to be becoming the norm. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) also spoke very powerfully about the complex and horrific circumstances and abuse that children experience, the conditioning that they experience, before they become a suicide bomber. That gives us all something to reflect on.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath said, the increasing use of suicide bombing generally and particularly that involving children perhaps reflects the changing nature of warfare today—the increasingly asymmetrical nature of warfare and conflicts around the world. It is important that we consider why that might be. We do not have an awful lot of time to do that today, but I would caution about what might often be seen as a willingness to rush into conflict rather than taking a diplomatic route. The use of indiscriminate and sometimes overwhelming military force, very blunt instruments in very complex situations, perhaps provokes equally blunt and horrific responses. None of that, of course, is an excuse for the use or involvement of children in conflict and particularly not as suicide bombers.

The rights of children are protected under the UN convention on the rights of the child, and over the past year we have marked 25 years since its signing and adoption. UNICEF has described the convention as

“the most rapidly and widely ratified international human rights treaty in history.”

As is often, sadly, the case, ratification and adoption are not necessarily the same as implementation, and there is still a duty on Governments around the world to reflect on how well they are implementing that convention—particularly article 38, which calls on Governments

“to respect and to ensure respect for rules of international humanitarian law applicable to them in armed conflicts which are relevant to the child…take all feasible measures to ensure that persons who have not attained the age of fifteen years do not take a direct part in hostilities…refrain from recruiting any person who has not attained the age of fifteen years into their armed forces”

and:

“In accordance with their obligations under international humanitarian law to protect the civilian population in armed conflicts,”

to

“take all feasible measures to ensure protection and care of children who are affected by an armed conflict.”

The recruitment of children as suicide bombers is in direct contravention of the rights afforded to children under the convention on the rights of the child. Indeed, the Rome statute of the International Criminal Court lists

“conscripting or enlisting children under the age of 15 and using them to participate actively in hostilities”

in international or non-international armed conflict as a war crime. Anyone recruiting or using a child as a suicide bomber is, de facto and de jure, a war criminal under the Rome statute of the ICC. That is reflected in the optional protocol to the convention on the rights of the child on the involvement of children in armed conflicts, and it brings home to us the gravity of the situation and the seriousness with which we should respond.

I want to reflect on two conflicts that are, perhaps, somewhat overlooked. First, I want to mention the situation in Nigeria, which my hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath touched on, and in particular the use of women and girls as suicide bombers in that conflict. It would be interesting to hear what representations the Government have made, or are prepared to make, to the new President of Nigeria to seek a peaceful end to that conflict and to secure the protection of children.

Secondly, I want to highlight the reports on the worsening conflict in Yemen, into which children are being drawn as soldiers or suicide bombers. The Minister may be aware of reports by Amnesty International of weapons made in Britain being sold to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen; it would be interesting to know how he plans to respond to those reports. He can expect some written questions from me on the matter.

I do not have much more to add to the profound and detailed contributions made by the two previous speakers, but I want to echo the call made by my hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath for information on how the Government plan to increase funding for research into the matter. What support can they provide for educational psychological services to counteract the indoctrination of children, and how will they assess risks posed to young people in the United Kingdom? How will the Government welcome and support unaccompanied refugee children into the UK? What comfort and security can those children expect when they attain adulthood? Will they be granted leave to remain in the UK, having spent their childhood here and grown up here after being taken in as refugees? Those are helpful examples of concrete steps that must be taken as part of a wider global effort to build peace and security, and above all to protect future generations from the horrors of war and conflict.

Arms Sales (Human Rights)

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Thursday 17th September 2015 Westminster Hall

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I am reminded of the early days of the Scottish Parliament, when it was chaired by Sir David Steel, who was also addressed as “Sir David”. If the House of Commons ever seeks a change, who knows, they might welcome that opportunity back up the road.

I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) for securing this very valuable and timely debate. I also pay tribute to her long-standing commitment to the issue of the arms trade and to the peace movement. She is joined in that by the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn). Sadly, he has not made it to Westminster Hall today, although I do not know what the conventions are. I also pay tribute to all the Members who have made extremely valuable speeches. I hope that the Minister will have time to respond to their points, particularly the specific points about countries of concern such as Israel, Yemen and Saudi Arabia, and some of the powerful points made by my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) on the issue of child soldiers.

When I was a student, I had the opportunity to visit New York and the United Nations, which is committed to the building of peace and stability around the world. I was struck by a display—nowadays, we would call it an infographic—that showed the proportion of arms sales to the cost of just about everything else that the UN is there to try to achieve: the cost of universal free education; the cost of ending hunger; and the cost of providing clean water and sanitation to everyone in the world who lives without that. The arms trade dwarfed all those other things. That image has stayed with me ever since. I saw it in the days before smartphones were ubiquitous, so I was not able to grab a photo of it, but I know that similar infographics and statistics are all too readily available nowadays.

Figures reported recently in The Independent showed that British companies secured export deals for weaponry that were worth £8.5 billion in the past year. By comparison, the departmental expenditure limit for the Department for International Development is only slightly more than that figure, at £11 billion.

The trade in arms is “the trade in death”, as it has been described by numerous thinkers and peace campaigners, not least various popes. Today is the anniversary of the speech to this Parliament by Pope Benedict XVI, in which he spoke about the arms trade and its insidious impact on stability and security around the world. The money that goes to waste on arms when it could be spent on much better and more important things is truly shocking, and one of the great scandals of the modern world.

The regulation around arms has also come up many times. Amnesty cites the interesting fact that there are more international laws regulating the trade in bananas than regulating the trade in weapons. Even with the arms trade treaty, which I will come back to, it seems that very little consideration is given to the end-use of a lot of weapons. The arms trade is seen simply as a valuable export market and a way of achieving economic growth, but economic growth should not come at any cost.

The UK Government’s dealings on this issue go way back. In 1966, Denis Healey set up the Defence Sales Organisation, which was located within the Ministry of Defence. Today, it goes by the name of the UK Trade and Investment Defence and Security Organisation. However, its essential purpose remains, which is to sell UK military equipment overseas.

As we have heard today, all too often such sales are made to regimes that have a terrible record on human rights. According to the Campaign Against Arms Trade, UKTI DSO is staffed by about 130 civil servants, to say nothing of the high-profile political and royal visits that work behind the scenes to promote the trade in arms. That support for military sales helps arms to account for less than 1.4% of UK exports. According to CAAT’s research, sectors covering the remaining 98.6% have 107 dedicated civil servants. That is completely out of proportion, given the things that we are trying to achieve.

As we have heard, in 2014 the UK approved arms export licences to 18 of the countries that the FCO lists as countries of concern. Despite the well-documented repression and human rights abuses, some of those countries have been priority markets for UK arms sales. Since the UK Government do so much to help companies to promote their sales, it is inconceivable when it comes to issuing export controls that licences will be refused. Regulation through export licensing is at risk of becoming little more than a bureaucratic exercise. As we have heard, it seems that the only time that arms export licences are revoked is when the Government are shamed or embarrassed by coverage in the media, for example, during the Arab uprising.

We live in a world in which there are structures and conventions that ought to prevent that. I mentioned the arms trade treaty, which is the subject of a hugely successful and long-running campaign by a large number of civil society organisations around the world. Article 13 requires annual reporting on the sales. I wonder whether the Minister can tell us today whether the annual report will include an assessment of the end-use and the end-users of UK-supplied equipment and arms. Article 10 requires regulation of brokering. Perhaps the Government can tell us when it will introduce a register of arms brokers in the UK.

Of course, the debate today is taking place in the context of the DSEI exhibition at the ExCeL centre in London. Amnesty has identified nine companies that have violated UK law at past DSEI events—at least one at each event between 2005 and 2013. What steps are the Government taking to enforce controls at their own arms fairs? Will they commit to prosecuting any company found in breach of the law?

At the end of the day, the arms trade is a choice; it is not a necessity or something that we should depend upon, celebrate or think is the only way of growing the UK economy. It is increasingly difficult to see how the trade, especially in its current forms, can be compatible with the human rights obligations to which this country has rightly chosen to commit, so I look forward to the Minister’s response.

European Union Referendum Bill

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Gethins]

I rise to speak to amendments 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 in my name and that of my hon. Friends. We want to see the gold standard of the independence referendum applied to the European referendum. I hope that Members of the Official Opposition will vote with us tonight. Earlier we voted together and defeated the Government. That is what can be achieved when we stretch across and vote together. I hope that we shall be doing that later tonight.

One area that might help us to achieve that gold standard is votes for 16 and 17- year-olds, which is proposed in amendment 8. I know that we have discussed this matter before and I am glad that we will be able to vote on it tonight. There are benefits to involving young people at an early stage in the political process. Let us not forget that when we have a European Union referendum, those aged 16 and 17 will have to live with the consequences of that decision for a whole lot longer than many Members of this House. Let us consider some of the comments made by Members about the positive aspects of including 16 and 17-year-olds in the vote.

We will also consider amendment 7. I was grateful to the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) for his excellent contribution on votes for EU nationals. He talked about how Cypriots and Maltese can vote but not those of other nationalities. I mentioned the position of Christian Allard, the Member of the Scottish Parliament, who will not be able to vote. We should also consider the big contributions that EU nationals have made to all our constituencies. I am talking about the people from Poland, Ireland, Italy and from elsewhere in Europe.

The independence referendum had a significant impact, and I pay tribute to the people who campaigned for a yes vote, as well as to those who campaigned for a no vote. The turnout of 85% was extraordinary, as was the democratic journey that we made. I hope that Members from across the Chamber will learn the lessons from the independence referendum when it comes to voting this evening.

I also wish to touch briefly on the issue of double majority. We have been told that we are in a partnership of equals in the United Kingdom. If we are, why should it be the case that Scotland—or indeed England, Wales or Northern Ireland—can be dragged out of the European Union against its will?

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is regrettable that our new clause 3 has not been selected, as there is a certain irony in a Government that want to introduce a double majority in this House on English votes for English laws but do not want that principle to apply to the much more fundamental question of our membership of the European Union?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman has concluded his speech. We are grateful to him.

[Patrick Grady]

I shall speak relatively briefly to the SNP amendments put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins). As he said, the rules, regulations and conduct of the Scottish independence referendum represent a gold standard for referendums and political engagement more generally.

When the EU referendum does reach the streets and town halls of the UK, Members in this Chamber might be in for a bit of a surprise about people’s willingness to engage in that debate. Key to that political engagement is the right of 16 and 17-year-olds not only to vote but to participate in the debate. They galvanised and energised the debate on the independence referendum. Their generation will have to live with the consequences of this vote for longer than any of us, so it is only right that they should be included. The Scottish Parliament has just enfranchised 16 and 17-year-olds with the vote. As a result, a 16-year-old in my constituency faces being able to vote in the Scottish Parliament elections in 2016 and in the local government elections in 2017 but being denied the right to vote in the EU referendum, which will fall at some point between or shortly after those elections.

That leads us to the question of timing, where the Government seem to have been scrambling to keep up with the demand for clarity. At the last stage they had to confirm that the referendum would not clash with the Scottish Parliament or Welsh Assembly elections, and now they are introducing amendments to say that it will not clash with local elections specifically planned for 4 May 2017. The SNP amendment asks for a clear three months on either side. There are good reasons for that, not least the amendment that has just been passed on purdah, because of course a purdah period will also apply to the Scottish Parliament elections. Perhaps the Minister can advise us on what will apply in advance of local government and London mayoral elections, but either way we are looking at having two purdah periods in a relatively short time, depending on the date the Government choose. That can be avoided by accepting the SNP amendment and giving ourselves those three months clear on either side before another election takes place.

There are additional benefits to having that clear run-up to the date of the referendum. I saw major benefits in holding the Scottish independence referendum in September, not least because it gave us a good long period of campaigning during the glorious summer for which Scotland is renowned and which it experiences every year but experienced particularly last year during the Commonwealth games. That led literally to engagement on the streets, with stalls, petitions and conversations that would not have happened if the referendum had come in May. But the precise month is less relevant to this than the length of time available; no matter the exact date, what was crucial was the good period of time available for a free and full debate.

Allowing three months on either side of the referendum gives it the respect and the place that it is due in our national discourse. I think some Members on the Labour Benches have been surprised to see so many people filing out town halls because of an election. Such a thing is no surprise to us in Scotland who have seen a democratic reawakening and an engagement with the political process that was brought about by our independence referendum. We have the opportunity now to do the same thing. It does not matter what we believe in or how we vote in the referendum. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond), I am pro-European to my fingertips, and I look forward to shedding light on the positive case for remaining in the European Union. No matter what side we support in the EU referendum, we should allow that space and time to be made available.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patrick Grady]

That is quite an interesting proposition and it is certainly worth considering. We were told that Scotland should be leading, not leaving, the UK. If we are to have a respect agenda and a family of nations, perhaps that is the kind of thing that we should be considering. As I said earlier, it is precisely the principle that this Government want to introduce in their proposals for English votes for English laws. Therefore, legislation, which can always be revisited and amended in different ways, will be subject to a double majority in this House, but a fundamental, decisive and long-term principled decision on our membership of the European Union will be denied that opportunity of a double majority when we are trying to decide the future of the United Kingdom and its role in the modern world.

Like much of what we have tried to do in this House since being elected, the SNP has tabled amendments on the basis of what we were told during the independence referendum. We heard that Scotland was a valued member of the family of nations and that we should be leading the UK, not leaving the UK. But we now face the prospect of Scotland’s 16 and 17-year-olds and European Union citizens being denied a vote on this matter of vital importance. The date of the referendum is being chosen on a whim to suit the political expediencies of the Government rather than to allow a free and fair debate. Worst of all, Scotland’s citizens will be forced to leave the European Union even if they vote to stay in. That does not suggest a respect agenda. It might be that some of us see that as the kind of material change that requires a fresh evaluation of Scotland’s place in the United Kingdom.

The SNP has tabled clear and sensible amendments that are consistent with the points that we have made throughout the passage of this Bill. If the EU referendum is to be seen as free and fair, the rules must be clear and based on consensus. We do not have to look far to see what the gold standard of a referendum process should be. I hope that the Government will listen, but I fear that, as on so many issues, they will not.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I wish to support my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) and his new clause 11, but the House will be relieved to hear that I shall do so rather more briefly. There is a quote by Sir Winston Churchill in the No Lobby, which says that he wanted to spend the first million years in heaven painting. As much as I love my hon. Friend, I fear that I might spend the first million years in purgatory listening to his speeches.

Human Rights (Saudi Arabia)

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Tuesday 21st July 2015 Westminster Hall

[Stewart McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered human rights in Saudi Arabia.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope. I want to make it clear at the outset that I am Stewart Malcolm McDonald; to my right is my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald), whose constituency and first name are entirely different. We are not to be confused.

At just 31 years old, Mr Raif Badawi is currently in a Saudi prison following a sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment, 1,000 lashes and a fine of over 1 million riyal. His “crime” is that he dared to speak out for secular liberalism and to question the authoritarian rule of his country. It is no crime at all. Raif Badawi’s case has captured the hearts and minds of people right across the world—not only because of the brutal and medieval sentence that has been bestowed on him, to which I will return, but because his writings represent the values of freedom and progress that inspire so many across the world.

Human progress takes great strides forward when our ability to think, write, argue and present our ideas in an open discourse is honoured. However, Mr Badawi is being made to fight that battle with his life. Throughout history, people have had to do the same—fight the forces that want to keep silent those of us who believe in liberal progress. Artists such as Salman Rushdie, who is a personal inspiration, thinkers such as Galileo, political leaders such as Aung San Suu Kyi, feminists such as Emmeline Pankhurst and gay rights activists such as Harvey Milk—all of them fought for liberal progress and free thinking in order to advance humankind. All of them did so in the face of severe hostility, the threat of imprisonment or sometimes even death.

Raif Badawi and his fearless writings on human rights will surely join those great names in our history books, but he cannot join them just yet: he is too young and still has too much to offer our world and the cause of progress. He also still has too much love to give to and receive from his family. Raif’s wife, Ensaf, and his three children, Terad, Najwa and Miriyam, do not deserve to be robbed of their husband and father. Each and every time I see the photograph of Raif and his three beautiful children, who are happily wrestling for their father’s love, I am haunted to my core. What must they think of their father? What must they think of their country—of the world they live in and their future place in it? I secured this debate not only to give Raif some hope that people in this country and across the world are working to ensure his freedom, but so that his children know that their daddy’s freedom matters to this House and to people across the world, and that we will not stop until they are reunited with him.

The sentence that has been delivered is deliberately evil. Not content with a prison sentence and a fine that he could never hope to pay, the wicked Saudi regime had to go one further: 1,000 lashes to the back. Although the lashes have now been stopped, I want to illustrate the suffering endured by those who receive a lashing. Dr Juliet Cohen, head of doctors at Freedom from Torture, has said:

“When the cane strikes, the blood is forced from the tissues beneath... Damage to the small blood vessels and individual cells causes leakage of blood and tissue fluid into the skin and underlying tissue, increasing the tension in these areas… The more blows are inflicted on top of one another, the more chance of open wounds being caused. This is important because they are likely to be more painful and at risk of infection, which will cause further pain over a prolonged period as infection delays the wounds’ healing”.

The Saudi regime literally wants to whip Mr Badawi into obedience, believing that to discipline his mind, it is necessary to discipline his body. Although the involvement of doctors has halted the lashes for now, just consider the position a doctor is put in when assessing Mr Badawi’s wounds. The most fundamental guiding principle for any medical professional is that they shall not inflict harm. If a doctor were to declare that his wounds had sufficiently healed, they would do so in the knowledge that they would be sentencing him to another round of the most wicked punishment that he could endure—except he cannot endure it. Make no mistake: Raif Badawi has been served the slowest and most barbaric of death sentences.

More widely, Saudi Arabia is not known for its sympathy towards human rights of any sort or for its balanced approach to criminal justice. It does not matter whether someone is a liberal blogger, a human rights activist, a woman, a gay man or woman, or from a religious or ethnic minority. Last year alone, Saudi Arabia beheaded 90 people; this year, that figure had already been matched by the end of May. It is almost as though the regime has been caught off guard by the new kids on the block, Daesh, and is trying to show them who is top dog in the region when it comes to tyranny.

I want to compare our response to Raif Badawi’s case with our response to the death cult Daesh, which is making the headlines today. We have rightly condemned Daesh for the barbaric way in which it has swept across the middle east and how it has lured young people from this country and others to fight a fanatic’s war, something that has even touched my constituency, but—let us not beat around the bush—everything that Daesh has learned, it has learned from the barbaric regime of Saudi Arabia. The difference is that one group of fanatics has a state and the other has yet to be so successful.

If Daesh had a state to govern, do the Government really think that its forms of punishment would be any different from those being used in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia today? Why do we show these people—these fanatics—such respect? Why do we lower our flags when their dictator dies? Why have we become so deferential, almost submissive, when it comes to publicly shaming them—something that the Government freely do with countries such as North Korea or Iran?

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

Does my hon. Friend think that the refusal to condemn the use of the death penalty might be something to do with the fact that, according to The Economist’s ranking, after China and Iran, only Iraq stands between Saudi Arabia in the United States in terms of executions?

[Stewart McDonald]

My hon. Friend makes my point for me. I was going to put it much more simply: the answer is money. While the Saudi Government value life so cheaply and lash their way to supreme authority over their people, our Government have no problem in doing serious amounts of commerce with them. Not only is Saudi Arabia our largest arms export market, bringing in billions of pounds to our Exchequer, but we co-operate on defence and—would you believe it, Mr Chope—on how it runs its prisons system. Is it any wonder that the Government suffer from such a lack of credibility on human rights in Saudi Arabia?

Iranian Nuclear Programme

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2015 Westminster Hall

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I congratulate the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) on securing this debate, which recognises the importance of the issue. This is the second time it has been debated in Westminster Hall in recent weeks.

I agree with a certain amount of what has been said. Of course we deplore the baiting of Israel by the Supreme Leader of Iran or any attempt to destabilise the region in whatever form, but I would strike a slightly less hawkish tone than we have heard so far. Developments, however small, are welcome. It is a live, ongoing negotiation process, and there is rhetoric on both sides while detailed negotiations go on. Some progress is probably better than no progress at all.

Diplomatic relations between Iran and the west have thawed in recent years, and this is a manifestation of it, starting most recently with the Lausanne agreement and the ongoing talks. We can see the election of President Rouhani, who spent considerable time in Glasgow, completing his doctorate there, as a demonstration of willingness to make at least some kind of progress. Iran has also indicated it might accept the additional protocol of the agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which again suggests a certain willingness to engage.

The issue has important consequences for the wider region. If a peaceful agreement can be achieved between Iran and the western powers, that could well represent a model for future agreements elsewhere in the region. If Iran is respected and demonstrates that it can be trusted, where appropriate, we might see more peaceful and democratic negotiations and transitions in the region. The negotiation process represents an important opportunity to get things right, and perhaps to help not just the region but the whole world make progress on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament—issues close to the heart of the Scottish National party.

We must consider the wider context of getting our own house in order when it comes to the messages that we send out from the United Kingdom with the decisions we make. The SNP is not ashamed to oppose the renewal of Trident and the existence of weapons of mass destruction on the Clyde or anywhere else in these islands. We are rightly opposed on moral and ethical grounds, because the destructive power of nuclear weapons and their ability to cause devastation and loss of life on an unimaginable scale is reason enough to scrap them wherever they exist. We are also opposed on the grounds of the cost and investment at this time of austerity. There is a consensus in Scotland that nuclear weapons should not be possessed by any country in the world: 57, not 56, of Scotland’s MPs agree. We will see where the shadow Secretary of State for Scotland goes when his party whips him on that.

There is also the question of nuclear power. Most people suggest that countries have a right to develop a peaceful civilian programme. Perhaps that is true—we would not have air conditioning today if it were not for a base-load provided by nuclear power stations—but the trend in this part of the world has been away from nuclear generation and towards renewables and so on. If we do not want other countries to develop civilian nuclear programmes, maybe we need to provide them with support for alternatives. Solar power is certainly not lacking in the parts of the world that we are debating. Perhaps that is a small example, but it goes to my wider point: as is so often the case, we must get our own house in order. The United Kingdom must lead by example. What right, moral or political, do we have to dictate terms to other countries if we are not prepared to apply the same standards to ourselves?

In welcoming the progress made diplomatically, I look forward to an update on where the negotiations are, and I encourage the Government to lead by example—not just in the negotiations as part of the western grouping, but in considering the impact of their domestic decisions in the areas of nuclear power and nuclear weapons.

[Ian Austin]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Patrick Grady]

No, I am just finishing. I encourage the Government to work ultimately towards a world that is both peaceful and nuclear-free.