Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Tuesday 21st February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

I really must accuse the hon. Gentleman of failing to listen to the answer that I gave a few moments ago. I am not here to defend or explain what the American President said, but he made it very clear that there should be dialogue, and he also made it very clear that he thought that the illegal settlements should no longer continue. The solution is a deal between the two parties, and that is what everyone in the House believes and wants.

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

Today, once again, the ghastly prospect of famine stalks the world in four countries with which Britain has very close and long-standing historical connections: Yemen, north-east Nigeria, South Sudan and Somalia. Will the Foreign Secretary ensure, perhaps through the co-ordinating mechanism of the National Security Council, that every sinew of government is bent to address and combat this unconscionable situation?

[Boris Johnson]

Yes, I can certainly give my right hon. Friend that assurance. The whole House can be very proud of the work being done by the Department for International Development, and the huge contribution this country makes through UK aid to all four of the regions he identifies. He has recently been to Yemen, and he will know that this is a very difficult and intractable problem, but it is the UK who is trying to knock heads together and get a deal.

Aleppo/Syria: International Action

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Programme motion: House of Commons
Tuesday 13th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered international action to protect civilians in Aleppo and more widely across Syria.

The hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), with whom I co-chair the friends of Syria all-party group, joins me in thanking you, Mr Speaker, for granting this emergency debate. We are both concerned that on occasions, motions such as this can appear to be hand-wringing and to focus on the concept that something must be done. We are anxious today to encourage the Government to pursue all avenues and options, as I know they are extremely anxious to do.

The House will be particularly grateful to the Foreign Secretary for responding to the debate himself. On the earlier occasion when you granted an emergency debate on these matters, Mr Speaker, he returned to the House and made his first major speech from the Dispatch Box. I believe his presence signifies the concern of Foreign Office Ministers about the tragedy that is Aleppo today.

I wish to cover three points this afternoon. The first is the current situation in Aleppo. Secondly, I have some specific suggestions for the Government to consider together with our allies, and, thirdly, some observations on how this crisis could develop in 2017 and the action that the international community should take.

I start with the position on the ground today. We are able to monitor what is going through Twitter and other social media to some extent, but in particular, the reports of the United Nations and its agencies, and of the International Committee of the Red Cross, are likely to be extremely accurate. They have reported over lunchtime that there is clear evidence of civilians being executed—shot on the spot. There are dead bodies in the street that cannot be reached because of gunfire. In the last couple of hours, we have heard that probably more than 100 children who are unaccompanied or separated from their families are trapped in a building in east Aleppo and under heavy fire.

We learn from totally credible independent sources inside Aleppo that all the hospitals have been deliberately destroyed with barrel bombs and bunker-busting bombs, and that in case the people in those hospitals were not destroyed by those munitions, cluster munitions, which are anti-personnel munitions, have also been used. There are pop-up clinics in underground locations, which are suffering nightmare conditions, with people lying on the floor and pools of blood everywhere. Doctors and nurses are wearing boots because there is so much blood on the floor, and casualties are moved in and out as fast as they possibly can be because there are grave dangers to them from being in those locations. The ambulances of the White Helmets have been specifically targeted, and there is now no fuel available for them.

In the mid-afternoon yesterday, a 10 km by 10 km zone was the centre of the fighting in Aleppo. It is contracting, and at 10 o’clock this morning it was probably less than half that size. There are approximately 150,000 civilians crammed into that area, and very large numbers of them are children. Large numbers are stranded in the open and looking for shelter. The only food available is dates and bulgur wheat. Water has run out, and there is no electricity. Last night, people were flooding into that enclave. As I have said, there are credible reports of executions and the removal of groups of adult males.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

The right hon. Gentleman paints an absolutely grim picture of the current situation in Aleppo. Two years ago, I travelled to Srebrenica with the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart). We visited an exhibition in Sarajevo of pictures from Srebrenica and pictures from Syria, and they were indistinguishable. When we hear of summary executions, disappearances of men and boys, unmarked graves and the types of atrocities that the right hon. Gentleman is describing, does he not believe that we risk this being the Srebrenica of our generation?

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point, which I will come to directly.

The terrified civilians in Aleppo are of course sophisticated, educated people from what was one of the great cities of the world. With 2 million people, it is 6,000 years old and has treasured Islamic civilisation and artefacts within it. A senior Aleppo resident, terrified, said this morning:

“The human corridor needs to happen. If the British Government is serious about fighting terror, they can’t ignore state terror. Doing so creates so many more enemies and if they offer but empty words, nobody will ever believe them in future.”

Ten years ago, this country, along with the entire international community, embraced the responsibility to protect, a doctrine that said that nation states great and small would not allow Srebrenicas, Rwandas and other appalling events such as those in Darfur to take place again. That responsibility was signed up to with great fanfare and embraced by all the international community, great and small. Yet here we are today witnessing—complicit in—what is happening to tens of thousands of Syrians in Aleppo.

That is the situation today. I come to my second point, which is to put specific actions to the Government, which I know they will wish to consider. First, there is an urgent need for humanitarian teams to be deployed and given unfettered access to Aleppo once Government forces there are in control. That is essential if we are to avoid the same circumstances as Srebrenica—the precise point that the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) has just made. There is a very serious danger, from the position I have described, that such events are already taking place, so it is essential that those teams are deployed.

We need to get food, medicine, fuel and medical services into east Aleppo immediately. We also need to have independent humanitarian eyes and ears on the ground, not only to give confidence to terrified civilians—who, I remind the House, are caught out in the open in temperatures that are predicted to fall below minus 4° tonight—but to avoid possibly false allegations of war crimes and breaches of international humanitarian law by Government forces and their military associates. It is not easy to see why Russia and Syria would wish to resist that, unless they do not wish the world to know or see the actions that they are now taking in Aleppo.

The second action that I hope the Government will evaluate and support is organising the evacuation to comparative safety, in United Nations buses and lorries, under a white flag and in a permissive environment, of the people who are wounded or have been caught up in this terrible catastrophe. It is clear that the United Nations has the capacity, with available vehicles, to move north up to the Castello road and then west to Bab al-Hawa, near Reyhanli, on the border, which Clare Short, the distinguished former International Development Secretary, and I visited earlier this year. There are hospitals in Bab al-Hawa, and there are significant refugee facilities on the Syrian side of the border. They are easily resupplied via the Reyhanli crossing by international humanitarian actors, and that route out of the nightmare of eastern Aleppo should be made available as fast as possible.

Britain is in a pivotal position at the United Nations to try to convene an acceptance that that action should be taken. We are hugely respected on humanitarian matters at the UN. Matthew Rycroft, the permanent representative to the UN5 on the Security Council, is extremely effective in what he does. The current National Security Adviser, Mark Lyall Grant, a key United Nations operative for many years, has great convening power, and there are senior UK officials at the United Nations. The head of the Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Stephen O’Brien, who worked with me at the Department for International Development, plays a pivotal role. The British foreign service is respected and admired around the world, and, in supporting Staffan de Mistura and Jan Egeland, has an absolutely pivotal role to play in trying to convene the consensus that is now urgently required.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for making a powerful and important speech. Does he think the Syrian regime would allow those very necessary humanitarian interventions without counter-attack and disaster?

[Mr Mitchell]

Yes, I believe that if the Russians could be persuaded at this point that they have nothing to lose from allowing international humanitarian actors into Aleppo, the Syrians would agree. If they do not, the world must ask why they wish to hide from purely humanitarian action.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an incredibly important point about the importance of international pressure. He will have seen as we all did the grotesque story on the front of the Morning Star suggesting that what is happening is the “liberation of Aleppo”. While such scandalous propaganda on behalf of Russia is being put about within the UK, is it not all the more important that we have that international pressure so that we open the eyes of everyone in the world to what is happening?

[Mr Mitchell]

I confess to the hon. Gentleman that the Morning Star is not on my morning reading list. In view of what he has just said, I am most unlikely to add it.

Will the Foreign Secretary commit today to Britain’s using every sinew of the immensely impressive diplomatic machine I described to secure a consensus on those two actions in these last moments for Aleppo?

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

I am sorry I cannot stay for the whole debate—there is a concurrent meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee. I agree with my right hon. Friend about the efforts to relieve the situation in Aleppo, but a year ago 20 nations—the International Syria Support Group—sat around a table and produced an agreement on the future of Syria. Does he agree that our efforts must also return to the politics of getting the whole international community into the same place on the future of Syria?

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend is right that the support group has proved to be a cumbersome and not entirely effective mechanism, but his central point is absolutely correct.

I come to my third and final point, which is on the House looking to the future. What can we do as part of the international community to bring the catastrophe that has engulfed the Syrian people to an end? By an incredibly unfortunate sequence of events, the international community has so far been completely unable to help. The United Nations has been hobbled by Russian actions, using the veto, which it has the privilege to use on the Security Council, to shield itself from criticism and to stop international action on Syria.

The Kofi Annan plan originally put forward by the UN was, in my view, tragically and wrongly rejected by the American Government. The Russians in their turn have shredded a rules-based system, which will have cataclysmic effects on international law, international humanitarian law and international human rights. The Americans have been absent. Crucially, President Obama made it clear that, were chemical weapons to be used, it would cross a red line and America would take action. Chemical weapons were used and no action was taken by the Americans.

This House, in my view, was ill-advised to reject the former Prime Minister’s motion in August 2013 for British action. I hope the Government keep an open mind about putting another resolution before the House, as is necessary.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend for the powerful case he is making and the leadership he is demonstrating, but would he concede that the 2013 motion was not on a comprehensive plan to bring peace, and that if a motion is brought before the House, it should be on a comprehensive, UN-backed plan to deliver peace and not on such a narrow issue?

[Mr Mitchell]

I hope that, if there is a chance for Britain, with its pivotal role at the United Nations, to support a UN-backed force, if necessary with military action, Britain will very seriously consider it, and that such a proposition will be put before the House of Commons.

I was listing the unfortunate coincidence of events that has hobbled the international community, the fourth of which is that the Arab states in the region are irredeemably split on what should happen in Syria. Europe has become dysfunctional, facing inwards and not looking outwards, and focused on the symptoms of the problem—the refugees—and not on the causes. A resurgent Russia is pursuing its interests. The House should understand Russia’s interests and respect them, even as her actions are rightly condemned, and as we confront it when it breaches humanitarian law, as it has undoubtedly done in Aleppo.

There are only two ways in which this catastrophe will end. There will either be a military victory or there will be a negotiation. There will not be a military victory, so at some point there will be a negotiation and ceasefire to enable bitterly antagonistic foes to negotiate. When that time comes, Britain has the experience, the connections, the funds and the expertise to assist. The great powers must support that negotiation, however difficult it is, and put pressure on the regional powers to do the same. It is essential that we provide, through our position at the UN, the strongest possible diplomatic and strategic support to that process.

There will come a moment, too, when President-elect Trump and President Putin discuss these matters. As is widely recognised, there are indications that the two men can do business. I hope that the United States lifts its veto on Assad being part of any negotiations—Assad is part of the problem, and therefore by definition part of the solution—and that Russia uses its power to stop the conflict on the ground while both combine to defeat ISIL.

Finally, I ask the Foreign Secretary: will he intensify the efforts of his office to collect evidence, especially now, of breaches of international humanitarian law and war crimes, so that individuals as well as states, no matter how long it takes, can be held to account one day for what they have done?

--- Later in debate ---

[Boris Johnson]

I am afraid that I must now wind up.

I hope that Russia will see sense and join us to secure the transition away from Assad that is the only hope for a peaceful Syria. It is up to them—the Russians and Iran—and they have the future of Syria in their hands. This is one of the darkest hours in Aleppo’s four millennia of recorded history. One day, that city will rise again, and one day, Britain will be among the countries that help to restore Aleppo to the greatness it once had. That day might seem far off now, but it will come all the faster if the Russians and the Iranians do the right thing, abandon their puppet, and promote the peaceful and political solution that is the only way forward.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered international action to protect civilians in Aleppo and more widely across Syria.

[Mr Mitchell]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Following the emergency debate, may I seek your advice? There has clearly been a profound re-examination of some of the arguments that led to the result of the vote in August 2013, when Parliament was recalled during a recess. Will you advise me whether there may therefore be a case for the Government to come back to the House with a substantive motion to reflect the changed circumstances since that time?

Aleppo

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

The question I pose to this House, and to the right hon. Lady who is screaming from her seat, is that, unless this Parliament gives the Executive the support we need, our hands are tied in terms of what we can do. I therefore turn to the Labour Front-Bench team, who I think are of a different opinion to some behind them, and say that Britain wants to engage on this, but five resolutions have been vetoed at the UN Security Council by Russia, so we need to look at other opportunities. We can do that only if we have the full support of this Parliament. I hope we will get that so the Executive can lean into this challenge in the way Jo Cox would expect.

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

The whole House will welcome the Minister’s unequivocal statement on behalf of the Government that Russia is committing war crimes in Aleppo and in Syria. The position in Aleppo is unclear today, but there are two things we can surely say. Will the Government put in their undoubted diplomatic efforts and bend every sinew to secure unfettered access for UN and humanitarian support? Secondly, will they also bend every sinew to secure a ceasefire, so that negotiations under UN auspices, through Staffan de Mistura, can begin?

[Mr Ellwood]

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for engaging with this and doing his best to make sure that Parliament is up to date and involved in what is happening in Aleppo. He touches on the issue of war crimes. It is important to understand that it is unlikely that we will be able to hold the perpetrators to account today or tomorrow, but we will hold them to account in the months and years to come. We are keeping lists so as to understand who the military leaders are who are conducting the air attacks, no matter what country they come from, and all those participating in these crimes and supporting the Syrian regime must remember that their day in the international courts will come. We are collecting that evidence to make sure we can hold them to account.

On the important question of airdrops, the UN has tens of thousands of pieces of kit and material that it wishes to get into these areas, but it is being denied access by the Syrian regime. We cannot enter the regime’s airspace, or use its roads, without its permission. If we sought to do so without its permission, we would end up with exactly the situation we had on 19 September, when a UN-led convoy moved into Aleppo and was destroyed from the air by Russian aeroplanes.

Aleppo and Syria

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in Aleppo and more widely across Syria.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this emergency debate on the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in Aleppo and more widely across Syria. Although it was I who moved the motion applying for the debate under Standing Order No. 24, it has the strong support of the all-party parliamentary group for Friends of Syria, particularly my co-chairman, the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock), and my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart). I am most grateful to them for the work that they do in the all-party group.

I am particularly pleased to see that the Foreign Secretary is present. The whole House will be grateful for the importance that he attaches to the debate. He has written and spoken about Syria, and I know that it is a subject on which he feels strongly. We are very pleased that the House is to hear from him this afternoon on what I think will be his first debate as Foreign Secretary

Yesterday, Mr Speaker, you had a choice between a Standing Order No. 24 application for a debate on Brexit and another for a debate on Syria. Everyone in the House will know that you made the right decision, and you explained your reasons, but I now submit that the effects of the crisis in Syria on our children and our grandchildren will be every bit as great as the effects of Brexit. Today’s debate will be watched by many people: civil society across much of the world will take an interest in the tone and the view that the House of Commons adopts this afternoon, and that is a very good thing.

At about 10 o’clock this morning there was a series of further air raids on civilian areas in Aleppo, and there are already reports of yet further casualties, maimings and deaths. As we look back at the Syrian crisis over recent years, we see that, at every turn, progress towards a solution has, alas, eluded us. First, at a relatively early stage, there was the plan put forward by Kofi Annan, the former United Nations Secretary-General, who stated specifically that as Assad was part of the problem he would by definition be part of the solution. Kofi Annan believed that Assad should be part of the negotiations, but that was vetoed by the Americans, and indeed—alas—by the British Government. Now, many years later, we understand how important it is that Assad should at least be present at the initial negotiations. He is not going to be beaten militarily, in my view, and it is clearly right for him to be there for the early part of the negotiations, as the Syrian opposition accept. However, more time has been lost.

Secondly, there was Obama’s failure to stand by the red lines that he had clearly asserted on the use of chemical weapons. That was a disastrous decision, and one from which we will suffer in the future.

Thirdly, there was the failure to provide safe havens. Much of civil society believed in the importance of providing refuge for the—now—more than 5 million Syrian men, women and children who are on the move in Syria, having been driven out of their homes. Those safe havens could, with political will, have been set up in both Idlib, which is in the north of Syria, and Daraa, which is near the Jordanian border in the south. We could, as many people have advocated, have set up no-bombing zones, but we have not done so. Today, 5 million people in Syria and 6 million outside are on the move, often unprotected, unfed and unhoused. That is the reality: nearly half the country’s population of 22 million are on the move, either inside Syria or beyond its borders.

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

My right hon. Friend is making a powerful case. Does he agree that, militarily, there is no reason why we could not enforce a no-fly zone when so many people are being affected? The helicopters that are dropping barrel bombs could easily be brought down by rockets based in Turkey or Lebanon, or, indeed, by our own type 45s in the Mediterranean.

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend knows far more about such military matters than I do. That is my understanding of the position: that a no-fly zone—and I will say more about this later—is perfectly feasible. It is a question of whether the international community has the political will to face down the Russians and the Syrian helicopters by setting one up.

Fourthly, there was the failure to secure unfettered access for the United Nations. It is unprecedented in recent years for those bent solely on looking after their fellow citizens to be unable to gain unfettered access to very dangerous zones. This gives me an opportunity to pay tribute to the extraordinary bravery of those who work in the humanitarian world, doing nothing other than try to assist their fellow human beings and bring them sustenance, help, medicine and support.

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

What roles does the right hon. Gentleman envisage for Syria’s near neighbours and for the west, including Britain, in the protection of people in the safe havens to which he referred earlier?

[Mr Mitchell]

That is an extremely good point, and I shall come to it shortly.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Is not the tragedy of Syria that none of us can imagine a future Syrian Government who would have both the power to take charge and the wisdom to govern in a peaceful and unifying way?

[Mr Mitchell]

I shall come to that point as well, but let me say now that the whole purpose of the efforts of the International Syria Support Group—and those of other elements, under Staffan de Mistura—is to answer the question that my right hon. Friend has so eloquently posed.

The fifth failure lies in the surrounding countries, particularly Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. Although they have acted heroically in dealing with the extraordinary number of people who have fled across the borders, often under gunfire, there has been a lack of support from the international community for countries whose populations have ballooned, given that one in three of the people in Jordan and Lebanon has fled from Syria. Britain has undoubtedly done her stuff. I am pleased to see that the Secretary of State for International Development is present; she can be extremely proud of the Department that she has inherited for the outstanding work that Britain has done in helping refugees in the surrounding countries—more, I might add, than has been done by the whole of the rest of the European Union.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend may well be aware that, in a fairly short space of time, far more Syrian than Lebanese children will be being educated in Lebanese state schools. Does that not speak volumes for the hospitality of the Lebanese?

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend has made his point with great eloquence.

We are not using the opportunity—if I may put it in that way—to provide an education for the children in the camps, given that they at least constitute a captive audience. Every child in a camp in one of the surrounding countries should be receiving an education. There should be education and training, and, indeed, there should be opportunities for the countries that are receiving all the refugees to have free access to the European Union for their goods and services. That is not happening. Moreover, because some countries have failed to pay their dues to the United Nations in some of the camps, the children and adults there are receiving only half the rations that they should be receiving, and they are down to starvation rations at that.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I recently received a parliamentary answer from the Minister of State, Department for International Development, the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), on the subject of air drops. He stated:

“The use of air drops to deliver aid is high risk and should only be considered as a last resort when all other means have failed”.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it would seem that “all other means” have indeed failed?

[Mr Mitchell]

Not in respect of the camp. On the basis of my knowledge of these matters, I think that my hon. Friend the Minister of State was right to say that air drops should be used only as a last resort, but clearly they should be used if we reach that point.

The sixth and final barrier to progress has, of course, been the reception of refugees in Europe, where there has not been proper processing. Many of these people have cast themselves into the hands of the modern-day equivalent of the slave trader in the hope of reaching a more prosperous and safer shore. I think that Europe as a whole—which, admittedly, has its inward-facing problems—has failed to address this problem adequately, and to show proper solidarity with Greece and Italy as they tackle a very severe problem.

There are only two ways in which this can end: a military victory by one side or the other, or through negotiation. I submit that there is no way in which a military victory will be secured by any side in Syria. We must therefore hope that the fighting stops as soon as possible in order to create the space in which negotiations for the future can take place. We have all seen the heroic work that has been done by Staffan de Mistura, and the backing provided to him and the International Syria Support Group is essential. I will say more about that in a moment. To bring about a cessation in fighting we need the influence of the United Nations, of the great powers and of the countries in the region who have influence over some of the protagonists, in particular Iran and the Saudis. Where a country is able to exercise influence to stop the fighting and create the space for politicians to engage, in Geneva and elsewhere, it is absolutely essential that it should do so.

[Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)]

I commend my right hon. Friend for securing this debate. Does he agree that the Russian military has a deep history with the Syrian military, and that it is in Russia’s gift to deliver a peace process? When we visited Russia as part of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the Russian politicians kept reminding us they wanted to be taken seriously by the whole world and that they were a serious power. In order to be taken seriously, however, they really should be following the rule of law and international law. They should not be aiding and abetting war criminals such as Assad.

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point.

The extraordinary misfortune of timing that I mentioned is being exacerbated by international attention being elsewhere. In Europe, Brexit, the issues with the euro, Greece, the German banks and the focus on migration have all meant that the focus has been on the symptoms rather than the causes of this conflict. In the United States, politicians have turned in on themselves as the election approaches, and Obama has underwritten an isolationist approach. However, there are people such as Senator Lindsey Graham and Secretary Kerry who are seized of the importance of this moment in tackling what Russia is doing. Then of course there is Russia, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi) has alluded. It is behaving like a rogue elephant, shredding international humanitarian law and abusing its veto powers in the UN Security Council. It is using the veto to protect itself from its own war crimes.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The right hon. Gentleman is making an incredibly compelling case. The situation in Aleppo is beyond appalling. Does he agree that our own Government should follow the example of the French in supporting a referral of Russia to the International Criminal Court? Also, I completely understand the case that he is making for a no-fly zone, but does he recognise the risks involved in establishing such a zone? How would he best protect against the risk of an expansion of the mission if it were not initially successful?

[Mr Mitchell]

I shall come on to the hon. Lady’s second point in a moment. On her first point, I agree with her. The UN Secretary general called for such a referral only yesterday.

The attack on the convoy marked a new low, with 18 humanitarian workers killed, food and medicines destroyed and warehouses and medical facilities seriously damaged. We should be clear about what is happening in Aleppo. The Russians are not attacking military formations. They are not engaging with militias and fighters. They are attacking hospitals and a terrified population, which is now down from 2 million to under 250,000. People are hiding in the cellars and the rubble that is Aleppo today. Last week, the M10 underground hospital was attacked by bunker-busting bombs to break through its roof and by cluster bombs aimed specifically at harming and injuring individual people. The location of that hospital was known to every combatant. There is no doubt that attacking that hospital was an international war crime.

[Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making an incredibly strong case. When it comes to Russia, are we not living in some kind of parallel universe? On the one hand, we see the Russians dropping bunker bombs on hospitals. On the other, we are allowing them to come and trade in our country as though nothing was going on. Do we not need a general review of our relationship with Russia?

[Mr Mitchell]

The Russians are doing to the United Nations precisely what Italy and Germany did to the League of Nations in the 1930s, and they are doing to Aleppo precisely what the Nazis did to Guernica during the Spanish civil war.

[Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)]

I join my right hon. Friend in supporting no-bombing zones, as well as aid drops in memory of our former colleague and my Yorkshire neighbour, Jo Cox. On the issue of no-fly zones, I served in the Royal Air Force on the no-fly zone over northern Iraq. Does he agree that one message we could send out from this House today would be that, using our E-3 Sentry AWACS reconnaissance aircraft, any war crimes perpetrated by air forces would be identified and logged, and that the perpetrators would feel the full force of the law as a result?

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend is on to an extremely good point.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned Guernica. In the 1930s, there was united condemnation of what the Nazis and their air force were doing in Spain in support of the fascist regime. Is it not time that we had a united, unambiguous, explicit, direct condemnation of what Putin is doing in support of Assad in Aleppo at this moment, not just from the Government but from the Opposition Benches unanimously?

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Gentleman is on to an extremely good point. What is needed is a concerted effort by the international community uniting to make Russia feel the cost of its support of and participation in the barbaric bombardment of Aleppo.

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. His comparison with the actions of the Nazi regime and the League of Nations is very powerful. Is this not a warning to the United Nations that unless it fulfils its duties and faces up to the atrocities that Russia is perpetrating, it might well go the same way as the League of Nations did?

[Mr Mitchell]

That is the very point I was making.

We should single Russia out as a pariah. Like any bully, the Kremlin craves relevance, and it is winning as long as no one stands up to it. Russia must be confronted for its attacks on innocent civilians, both diplomatically and using hard power including sanctions and economic measures. We must seek to build support for multilateral military action to discharge our responsibility to protect. This is not about attacking Russia. It is about defending innocent civilians. It is about basic humanitarian decency and protection from the kind of barbarism and tyranny we hoped we had consigned to the last century.

[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

I completely concur with the right hon. Gentleman’s words about Russia and the atrocities that it is committing against the people of Syria, but should we not also look at this in the context of Russia’s previous actions in Ukraine and Crimea? Ought we not to remember that Russia as a state is increasingly out of control? It is not playing by the rules, and we absolutely have to confront its behaviour internationally.

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Lady makes an extremely powerful point. We cannot do this alone. We must use Britain’s outstanding connections, not least through our diplomatic reach, our membership of NATO, our relationship with America and our centrality in the European firmament—Brexit notwithstanding.

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

I am most grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, not only for securing this debate but for allowing so many interventions. Would it not be appropriate for the Government to bring forward a debate asking this House to put forward its views on Russia’s behaviour not only in Aleppo but in previous situations? We need the Government to lead on such a debate, so that the House can send out the very clear message that we are watching what Russia is doing and will not forget what it is doing, and that, when it comes to it, we will see those responsible answering for their war crimes.

[Mr Mitchell]

I think the hon. Gentleman would agree that, by having this three-hour debate today, we are moving some way in that direction.

I have a number of specific questions for the Foreign Secretary to address when he answers this debate. First, he has said that the UK is taking the lead on sanctions on Russia. Will he tell the House what steps the Foreign Office has taken towards increasing bilateral or EU sanctions on Russia itself? Secondly, there are plans for a new addition to the Nord Stream gas pipeline running from Russia to western Europe—Nord Stream 2—allowing Russia to bypass transit countries and, therefore, transit costs in eastern Europe. Will the Foreign Office be working with our east European allies to block the new pipeline?

[Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

I presume that we are talking about the gas pipeline that runs from Kurdistan through Turkey and the Black sea and bypasses Ukraine and the eastern provinces. The signing of that deal was agreed yesterday between Erdogan and Putin. A relationship seems to be building up between those two. Does the right hon. Gentleman have any view on that, because that movement of Turkey towards Russia is concerning?

[Mr Mitchell]

The Foreign Secretary has recently been in Turkey. I am sure that the House will be interested in his comments.

My third question for the Foreign Secretary is, what work has been done to catalogue and record human rights abuses—both individual and collective—in Syria? Will he update the House on the work of the Foreign Office, which was started and commissioned by the National Security Council in 2011, to collect evidence that can be used in the future to hold human rights abusers to account no matter how long it takes?

Fourthly, what steps has the Foreign Secretary taken with his colleagues in the Ministry of Defence to explore the feasibility of imposing and enforcing a no-fly zone over specific areas in Syria? Does he agree that, with the use of naval and air assets in the eastern Mediterranean, it is entirely possible both to monitor and enforce a no-fly zone with our allies? What steps will he take to make it clear to the international community that a no-fly zone is a matter of will and not of practicality?

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I have operated under a no-fly zone. It is practical and it can work, but it is quite difficult at a low level. That requires us to have seriously good surveillance over the target areas. If we have that, we can deal with it. We cannot have just a no-fly zone; we need good surveillance as well.

[Mr Mitchell]

I have no doubt that the Foreign Secretary will want to comment on those remarks, to which my hon. Friend brings his expert knowledge and understanding.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

As one of the four Opposition Members who did not oppose military action on that fateful day in August 2013, I fully support any measure to impose a no-fly zone. I assure the Government that, if they were to bring forward such a proposal, I will vote with them, and I guess quite a lot of my colleagues will do so as well.

[Mr Mitchell]

That is extremely welcome news both inside the House and outside.

I have one final point on the no-fly zone. Will my right hon. Friend make a specific point of meeting the former Prime Minister John Major to explore his experiences in imposing a no-fly zone and a safe haven in northern Iraq during the 1990s?

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way and I congratulate him on securing this debate. Given the discussion that there is over a no-fly zone, does he share my concern that Russia has moved very advanced surface-to-air missile systems into Syria when clearly Daesh or the al-Nusra front do not have a fast-jet capability. At whom might those missiles be targeted?

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, but those S-300 missiles do not affect the viability of imposing a no-fly zone.

My final question for the Foreign Secretary is, what steps are he and his Department taking to support and enhance the work of the International Syria Support Group? Staffan de Mistura has said that the suspension of bilateral negotiations between the two chairs, US and Russia, “should not and will not” affect the existence of the group. What steps is Britain taking to provide financial, diplomatic and political support to the International Syria Support Group? This group includes all of the five permanent members, Italy, Turkey, Japan, Iran, and the key Arab countries. It represents the UN, the EU and the Arab League. It needs to be greatly expanded. There should be an office, for example, working with and adjacent to the Geneva talks. It should carry out work on the key ingredients for a peace whenever that may come, and we should give very strong support to it.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

May I add a question to the ones that the right hon. Gentleman has posed to the Foreign Secretary? He has spoken very powerfully. Members of the House have described Russia as a pariah. He has compared it with the Nazi regime of the 1930s. Is it not utterly ludicrous that, in two years’ time, the greatest sporting spectacle on earth—the World cup—will be held in Russia, but not a single country is pulling out of it? If we are really serious about sending a message to Putin that is heard on the ground, should we not be questioning whether the World cup should take place in Russia?

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Gentleman makes an extremely good point. I hope that when he is considering sanctions, both economic and otherwise, the Foreign Secretary will have a view on that.

The international community faces a choice. Are we so cowed and so poleaxed by recent history in Iraq and Afghanistan that we are incapable now of taking action? Was all the international handwringing after Rwanda, Bosnia and Srebrenica when we said “never again” just hot air? Is all the work on the responsibility to protect—RtoP—which was unanimously adopted by the United Nations Security Council and agreed by the entire international community just so many words? Let us at least be clear here among ourselves. We have a choice: we can turn away from the misery and suffering of children and humanity in Aleppo; we can once again, on our watch, appease today’s international law breaker, Russia, and continue to find eloquent excuses for inaction; or we can be seen to take a lead to explore the situation energetically and with determination with our allies in NATO, Europe, America, and the United Nations and refuse to take no for an answer. We can look at every possible way of ending this barbarism and this tyranny, which is threatening the international rules-based system, destroying international order and engulfing the Syrian people.

Turkey

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

Well I have a job too, which I hope I am doing to the satisfaction of the House as the Foreign Secretary’s deputy. Turkey’s accession to the EU is clearly a long way off, and it is far too soon after events to start making long-term judgments about it. Some might think that it is less of a matter for the UK than it was before 23 June.

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend may know that 41 students from the Arthur Terry school in my constituency were caught up in the airport, together with seven members of staff. Thanks to the outstanding leadership of the headteacher, Neil Warner, and the senior member of staff on the team, Sue Bailey, who showed excellent and responsible leadership in extraordinarily difficult circumstances, all 48 were able to leave at 1 o’clock the following morning, and head to South Africa where their school is twinned with the Rondevlei school. Through my right hon. Friend, may I pay tribute to the outstanding service that the Foreign Office provided to my 48 constituents, and in particular to Matt Jordan, a Foreign Office official who was in the airport at the time and who rendered full Foreign Office and consular services to all my constituents in an outstanding way?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

My right hon. Friend is always fully on top of anything that affects his constituents in Solihull, and I know that on this matter he was closely in touch with them. I completely share his commendation of the initiative and leadership—

Report of the Iraq Inquiry

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Philip Hammond)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Report of the Iraq Inquiry.

I welcome the opportunity to open this first day of debate on the report of the Iraq inquiry. I suspect that, in the circumstances, the world’s eye will not be focused on our proceedings with quite the laser-like intensity that might have been expected when the debate was originally announced.

Let me start by paying tribute to the work of Sir John Chilcot and other members of the inquiry committee, including the late Sir Martin Gilbert, who sadly passed away during the writing of the report. For anyone who has read even just part of this report—I defy anyone to say that they have read the entire thing—it will be clear that the committee has discharged what is a Herculean task thoroughly, fairly, with great rigour and a degree of frankness that will reassure those who feared a whitewash and that ensures there can be no ambiguity about the lessons that need to be learned.

I also want to signal my understanding that the publication of the Chilcot report a week ago will have been a poignant and no doubt difficult moment for the families of those who lost loved ones in Iraq. It is important, even as we examine the detail of the report and conduct this debate, that they know that this House will never forget the sacrifice of the 179 British servicemen and women, as well as the 23 British civilians, who lost their lives during the conflict and its aftermath. We will also never forget the service and the sacrifice of the thousands more who suffered life-changing injuries, and we reaffirm to them today our determination that they will get the care they need for the rest of their lives. I hope that the survivors and the relatives of the fallen alike will have taken comfort from the assiduous and detailed examination of the war to be found in this report. The sacrifice of our service people demands nothing less.

More than 13 years since the invasion of Iraq began, 10 years since the Conservative party and others first called for it, and seven years since the then Prime Minister Gordon Brown finally commissioned it, the Iraq inquiry report sets out to try to answer the crucial questions that have dominated the debate about the war in Iraq and the events that preceded and followed it. Did the United Kingdom decide to go to war on a mistaken or false premise? Were all the decisions leading up to the war and subsequently properly taken and informed by proper consideration of legal advice? Was the operation to invade Iraq properly planned and executed? Did the Government of the day foresee and prepare adequately for the aftermath? Were our armed forces adequately funded and provided with the proper protection and equipment for their task?

Digesting fully the contents of this report will take weeks rather than days. In 13 volumes and 2.6 million words, Sir John and his committee take us in painstaking detail through the decision making in Government between 2001, when the possibility of military action first arose, and 2009, when British combat troops finally departed Iraq. They set out the conclusions that they have reached on some of the central issues that have proved so controversial, including the handling, use and presentation of secret intelligence, and they identify many lessons that should be learned and implemented for the future.

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

Does the Foreign Secretary accept that a number of us are a bit perplexed at the speed with which this admittedly two-day debate is taking place? As he said, there are 2.6 million words to be read, and for a full understanding it seems to me that today’s debate is a little premature and might have been better left until the autumn.

[Mr Hammond]

I suspect that right hon. and hon. Members would have been dismayed if they had not had an opportunity to put on record their reactions to the Chilcot report, albeit necessarily initial reactions. We will no doubt hear in the course of debate whether the concerns that my right hon. Friend expresses are widely shared.

The words of the very first paragraph of the executive summary of the report spell out the enormity of the undertaking and thus the gravity that should have attended all aspects of its preparation and execution:

“In 2003, for the first time since the Second World War, the United Kingdom took part in an opposed invasion and full-scale occupation of a sovereign State–Iraq.”

A reading of Sir John’s report, however, suggests that flaws, errors and omissions abounded. If the House will allow me, I will try to summarise the key findings that he makes.

First, on the question of why the United Kingdom went to war, the two issues central to the case that Tony Blair put forward were Saddam’s failure to comply with the obligations imposed by the UN Security Council between 1991 and 1999, and the message that the international community would send if those obligations were not enforced, and the threat to international peace and security from the weapons of mass destruction that, he argued, were at Saddam’s disposal.

The report identifies an

“ingrained belief of the Government and the intelligence community that Saddam Hussein’s regime retained chemical and biological warfare capabilities, was determined to preserve and if possible enhance its capabilities . . . and was pursuing an active and successful policy of deception and concealment.”

There were good reasons for this belief, given the past actions of Saddam’s regime. His past use of chemical weapons against Kurdish civilians and Iranian military forces, his refusal to comply with the demands of weapons inspectors, and his refusal to comply with UN Security Council resolutions all pointed in that direction. As Sir John set out:

“As late as 17 March, Mr Blair was being advised by the Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons, the means to deliver them and the capacity to produce them.”

However, as Sir John also says:

“It is now clear that policy on Iraq was made on the basis of flawed intelligence and assessments.”

He finds that

“At no stage was the proposition that Iraq might no longer have chemical, biological or nuclear weapons or programmes identified and examined”

by either the Joint Intelligence Committee or the wider intelligence community.

In the case that he set out to the House of Commons on 18 March 2003, Mr Blair also argued that there was a link between international terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, and that—I quote from the then Prime Minister’s statement—

“the two together constitute a fundamental assault on our way of life.”—[Official Report, 18 March 2003; Vol. 401, c. 767.]

Sir John finds that

“While it was reasonable for the Government to be concerned about the fusion of proliferation and terrorism, there was no basis in the JIC Assessments to suggest that Iraq itself represented such a threat.”

When it comes to the use and presentation of intelligence, in particular the Government’s dossier on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction published on the day of the Commons debate on 24 September 2002, Sir John finds that

“There is no evidence that intelligence was improperly included in the dossier or that No.10 improperly influenced the text”

and that

“The JIC accepted ownership of the dossier and agreed its content.”

However, he also finds that the judgments presented in Mr Blair’s statement to the House that day and in the dossier

“were presented with a certainty that was not justified.”

The Joint Intelligence Committee, he finds, should have made it clear to Mr Blair that the assessed intelligence had not established beyond doubt either that Iraq had continued to produce chemical or biological weapons, or that efforts to develop nuclear weapons continued.

On the much debated question of the legality of the war, the inquiry has not expressed a view on whether military action was legal. As Sir John says, that could

“only be resolved by a properly constituted and internationally recognised Court.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Emily Thornberry]

I appreciate that there is speculation about what may or may not happen to the former Prime Minister. That is not within my brief today, speaking as the shadow Foreign Secretary and attempting to draw the lessons from Chilcot. It is important that I address that this afternoon and leave it to others to take such legal action as they think appropriate. It will be for them to take that to the proper court, which will make a decision. We cannot, within the great traditions of our country, constitute ourselves as a court.

Last year, the Government asked this House to authorise military action in Syria. By contrast with Iraq in 2003, the deployment of ground troops was ruled out, which meant a reliance on local forces instead. I mentioned flawed intelligence; at that stage, we were told that there were 70,000 moderate rebels in Syria who would help defeat Daesh, which would force Assad to negotiate a peace agreement and step down. Many of us were sceptical about that 70,000 figure, and I was certainly one of them. That figure was produced by the Joint Intelligence Committee, and the Government declined to say which groups were included in that figure, where they were, what the definition of “moderate” was, how we could be sure that all these rebels were signed up to the coalition’s military strategy, or how they would get to the battlefield. All those questions mattered.

As the Government acknowledged, no military strategy could succeed without forces on the ground. Time will tell whether those 70,000 moderate Sunni rebels existed and whether they were in a position to fight the battles that it was claimed they would be able to. However, it seems to me that there is a parallel to be drawn between the intelligence that was relied on in relation to the 70,000 figure and the flawed intelligence that has been relied on in the past. It is therefore important for us to learn a lesson from Iraq 12 years earlier. Serious questions have been raised about the intelligence that underpins our decisions to take military action. Once again, Parliament was asked last year simply to take on trust what the Government said about intelligence.

There are further issues to consider, including a lack of ability for people to challenge things internally. Chilcot makes it clear that both civil servants and Cabinet Ministers lacked the opportunity, information and encouragement to challenge the case being made to them. The Prime Minister says that his National Security Council has fixed all that, but if so, why does the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy say that the NSC has so far proved itself to be

“a reactive body, rather than a strategic one, which seems to us to be a lost opportunity”?

That criticism is important, and we should not be complacent in the face of it.

The NSC certainly did not challenge the short-sighted and highly damaging cuts to our armed forces in the last Parliament, despite the huge and justifiable misgivings of senior military figures about the impact on our defence capabilities. Nor is there any evidence of the NSC doing anything to challenge the inadequate planning for the aftermath of the intervention in Libya, a subject that I will address shortly. Ultimately, while making progress in small ways, the NSC has failed to address the fundamental problem, which is a culture in Whitehall of overly optimistic group-think, which exposure to independent views could help us challenge. It is not good enough to say that it has been fixed, because it has not. [Interruption.] The Foreign Secretary asks how I know that. I am giving him the evidence of how I know that there is overly optimistic group-think. It is partly because of the results of decisions that have been taken, but there is more, which I will go into later in my speech.

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Lady is completely wrong in her analysis of how the NSC approached the strategic defence and security review in 2010. All the papers were put before members of the National Security Council—I was one of them—and we spent weeks reading the best possible advice. We made our decisions in the light of the very difficult economic situation that the country found itself in and the £38 billion black hole left in the defence budget by the Labour Government, but the idea that we lacked expertise before us at that time is completely wrong.

[Emily Thornberry]

I spent only six months in the area of defence, but although I spent a great deal of time immersing myself in it, I am not just relying on my own views in saying what a disaster the coalition’s first so-called strategic defence review was. It is not just me who thinks that. Senior military figures, not just in this country but among our allies, were very concerned about what cuts to the military budget were doing to our capability. It is my view that the second strategic defence review spent a great deal of time patching up the holes that had been created by the coalition’s first one.

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Lady is being generous in giving way. However, once again, she is wrong. The most senior military officials and soldiers in the country were at the table for the first security and defence review. They were part of the discussion; they were not locked out.

[Emily Thornberry]

The right hon. Gentleman has had his opportunity to put his views on the record, and I am sure that he will speak later. My view is that if things had been fixed in the way that the Foreign Secretary has stated, we would not be swinging backwards and forwards on our military budget. We make cuts and create holes in our defence capability, then the next time we try to patch them up.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to follow the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), whom I used to follow regularly when we were both on our respective parties’ Front Benches.

The aim of this debate on Chilcot should be to heal wounds and learn lessons, but I very much fear that it will be characterised by a discussion of whether Mr Blair is guilty or very guilty. Such a discussion would betray the interests of all those whose loved ones were placed in harm’s way and who paid the ultimate price in Iraq, as well as of the many thousands of Iraqis who lost their lives. It is the whole system of governance that we need to hold to account, not just the Prime Minister, if we are to achieve resolution and benefit.

In 2003, I sat over there on the Opposition Benches and heard what the Prime Minister said. I supported his judgment. That judgment could not have been reached and acted on by the Prime Minister without the active support, or at least the passive acquiescence, of the machinery of government. Before we come to the lessons for the future, however, let me observe that the central allegations boil down to two. The first is that the intelligence was wrong. The second is that a culture of sofa government—a lack of accountable structures for decision making—and inadequate procedures prevailed.

Having used the product of the three intelligence agencies while I was on the National Security Council and in Cabinet, I yield to no one in my admiration and respect for those who carry out what is often difficult and dangerous work. There are people working at GCHQ who could deploy their talents in the commercial world for 10 times what they are paid by the taxpayer, yet they choose to serve their country instead. We should honour and respect them for that. I have no hesitation in saying, from my own experience, that if those who work in the intelligence agencies were asked to do something improper by their political masters, they would simply refuse to do it. Intelligence is, by its very nature, difficult to hold to account. The normal rules of transparency and openness simply do not apply. The sourcing of intelligence is by definition complex and we cannot talk about it in any detail. In one instance, while I was Secretary of State for International Development, intelligence that we received on a particular situation in Africa turned out to be wrong, but the fault for the error did not lie with Britain or British intelligence.

On the issue of sofa government and informality, it is clear that there was a lack of Cabinet structure and accountability, as well as a quite extraordinary informality and, let us say, flexibility in the use of the Attorney General and his legal opinions. However, critical lessons have been learned and, crucially, they have resulted in the setting up of the National Security Council.

[Neil Gray]

My brother served in both Gulf wars. The right hon. Gentleman has talked about sofa government and the lessons to be learned from poor Government structures. Pages 121 and 122 of the executive summary give details of the delay in allowing the military to prepare and of the resulting lack of equipment and preparedness for our armed forces going into Iraq. Does he believe, as I and others do, that that unnecessarily cost some members of our armed forces their lives?

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Gentleman makes a point about the absolute importance of having proper accountable structures, not informal machineries of government, as I was saying.

Moving on to the Libya campaign, there was a proper process by which legal advice was given to the Cabinet. Britain’s humanitarian responsibilities in the conflict were made clear at the first Cabinet meeting that authorised military action. The National Security Council met on numerous occasions, as did an inner, sub-committee of the NSC on which I sat. In addition to the conduct of the campaign, we discussed the humanitarian situation and the preparations for stabilisation on a daily basis. There was of course no invasion as such, but the Defence Secretary took personal responsibility for targeting to ensure that collateral damage was minimised, and the loss of civilian life was mercifully extremely limited.

On discharging our humanitarian responsibility, lessons were carefully learned and, as the Foreign Secretary emphasised, Britain did a good job indeed. We organised the planes and ships that successfully transported thousands of migrant workers home or to places of safety as far afield as the Philippines and Baghdad to remove them from harm’s way. The evacuation of 5,000 migrants from the quayside at Misrata was a feat greatly assisted by Britain and for which the international community deserves the highest praise. When Tripoli was in danger of running out of water, it was DFID and the United Nations that successfully implemented our plan to prevent an emergency. The provision of food and medicines to conflict areas of Libya without either was also successfully accomplished.

My point is that specific lessons from the failures in Iraq were understood and implemented in respect of our humanitarian responsibilities. However, it is post-conflict stabilisation that attracts strong criticism regarding Iraq and Libya, where it is clear today that stabilisation is currently a failure. I want to make it clear that lessons were learned and that our focus on post-conflict stabilisation was absolute immediately after military action started. Britain set up an international stabilisation unit and worked closely with the UN, which was to have lead responsibility for stabilisation when the conflict ended. Britain supplied expertise, officials and funding, drawing on the lessons of Iraq. During the war, we gave technical support to the central bank and to such organs of the state that existed. Indeed, in contrast with Iraq, where the police and security services were simply abolished, we took specific significant steps to ensure that the police in Libya, who had not been engaged in human rights abuses, could be reassured by text message, for example, that they still had a job and should report for duty when the fighting diminished.

We prepared extensively, particularly through the support that we gave to UN institutions, to help stabilise Libya’s future, but we faced the simple problem that there was no peace to stabilise when the war was over and that in a country with limited structures outside the Gaddafi family the different factions were fractured and splintered. You can make all the plans you like for post-conflict stabilisation, but if there is no peace to stabilise, the international community’s non-military options are severely limited.

Lessons learned from Iraq and then applied in Libya have continued in respect of the British efforts in Syria. We have already made a huge funding commitment to stabilise the country when peace finally comes. We have played a more comprehensive role in humanitarian relief in and around Syria than the whole of the rest of the European Union put together. We were also the first country to put significant sums of taxpayers’ money into the Zaatari refugee camp in 2012, because we understood the approaching calamity.

The lessons we learn from the Chilcot report will shape our understanding of our place in the world. Will we continue to support the cause of liberal interventionism, as we successfully did in Sierra Leone and Kosovo, or will the House turn its back on discretionary intervention, even under UN auspices, and be prepared to stand idly by if—God forbid—another Rwandan genocide takes place? The post-Chilcot era will, I hope, see the right lessons learned and ensure that Britain remains a key international influence for good, willing to take military action, certainly as a last resort, when the situation requires it.

Europe, Human Rights and Keeping People Safe at Home and Abroad

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

It is an enormous pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore), who has entertained the House with a truly exceptional maiden speech. He spoke about his constituency with eloquence and about his predecessors with wit. Many of us remember his distinguished predecessor, Sir Raymond Powell. Indeed, I served in the Government Whips office opposite him and I can confirm to the hon. Gentleman that he was a distinguished butcher. The hon. Gentleman will discover, I hope, that his expectation of working with people across the House will be fulfilled. He will find that we on this side are the opposition and not the enemy, and I personally look forward to working with him. It is perfectly clear from his maiden speech that he will fulfil his expectations, just as his partner and his constituents would wish him to do.

The Queen’s Speech that we are discussing today is an authentic one nation speech. Social mobility is at its heart, and it makes clear the importance of capitalism working for everyone. It also puts some flesh on the bones of Prime Minister’s speech at last year’s party conference, which was one of the finest that he has made.

For the moment, Europe dominates our politics. Indeed, at midday on 11 June, Sutton Coldfield town hall will hold a debate between the noble Lords Heseltine and Ashdown on the one side and Nigel Farage and the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) on the other. I can tell the House that tickets for that great debate sold out faster than Glastonbury and all went within half an hour yesterday.

I want to make just a few brief points in the time available. I want a much greater focus in this parliamentary session on the importance of building new homes. It is virtually impossible for young people today to get on to the housing ladder in the way that my generation did, and dreams of a property-owning democracy are receding. However, homes must be built in the right places. Sutton Coldfield would suffer from the proposals of Birmingham’s Labour council to build no fewer than 6,000 new homes in the green belt. That is completely unacceptable, and we look to the Government to call that in at an early stage.

I propose three ideas for how we can make the house-building process easier. First, there must be more imaginative and considered inner-city developments, with more power for local communities and less for developers. Secondly, there must be more incentives to decontaminate land, which would have a huge effect on the availability of land for house building in Birmingham. Finally, I want a real effort to be made to bring to fruition the plans to build a garden city in the black country that could provide up to 45,000 homes, none of which would need to be built on the green belt.

This Queen’s Speech debate takes place against the background of an agonisingly difficult but ultimately catastrophic situation in the middle east. The four horsemen of the apocalypse continue to ride through what was Syria—a second-world country. I remind the House that in a country of just over 20 million, 11 million souls are now on the move—6 million within the country and 5 million outside. The hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Jo Cox) and I have produced a report under our joint chairmanship of the all-party political group on Friends of Syria, which benefits from considerable expert advice and input. Clare Short and I recently visited the Turkey-Syria border with some brilliant British Muslim charities, and I pay tribute to their bravery.

We must ensure that every child in a refugee camp and all those refugee children in Jordan and in Lebanon get an education, which should be paid for by rich European countries. Lebanon and Jordan are swamped by the number of refugees using their public services, and we must help out.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

On that point, it is perhaps worth reminding the House that if the UK took an equivalent percentage of people, 17 million people would be coming into the United Kingdom.

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right.

We must also keep refugees and migrants as close as possible to the areas from which they came. Few if any of these people want to recreate Syria in Europe; they want to return to the homes from which they were driven, often under gunfire.

The EU must cancel all tariffs on goods from Lebanon and Jordan. Industrial and agricultural goods are still subject to tariffs in some cases. No progress has been made on the EU’s 2011 proposal to have deep and comprehensive free trade agreements with those areas. We also need to encourage the international community to look ahead to the reconstruction of Syria. The Prime Minister has already made it clear that Britain will provide up to a billion pounds of support for reconstruction, which we must ensure happens as swiftly as possible. For how much longer will the international community tolerate the deliberate targeting of hospitals by Russian military aircraft, which have now hit more than 30 hospitals in Syria? Russia is a permanent member of the UN Security Council, but its shocking behaviour is an affront to international order and is almost certainly a war crime.

Finally, I want strongly to support what was said about human rights, and about the two key pieces of legislation in that respect in the Queen’s Speech, by the former Attorney General, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), and by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke). Let me just make it clear that ISIL will be relatively easily defeated militarily, but 90% of any defeat will be an ideological defeat, and that will be very much more difficult to achieve. We must show the same abhorrence of Islamophobia as we show of anti-Semitism.

Central and East Africa

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Phillips]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right; I agree with him. Perhaps when the Minister responds to this debate, he will tell us that that is a particular focus of the Government, which I think would be a useful thing for the Government to say.

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

It is important to clarify the situation in Burundi. Following the bilateral aid review in 2010, Britain ceased to have the very small programme it previously had in Burundi, partly because the costs of running the programme were so great, but secondly because France and Germany had a much bigger stake in the country. Britain—quite rightly, in my view—prioritised its interventions in many of the other countries that my hon. and learned Friend is addressing, in the interest of focusing on those we could most directly affect rather than those we could not affect.

[Stephen Phillips]

Having made those decisions, my right hon. Friend will know far more about them than anyone else. I do not say that they were bad decisions at the time, but in answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field), the UK has probably had something of a lesser voice in the counsels of Burundi than might otherwise have been the case. I have made a suggestion—the Minister may be aware of it—that given his ministerial responsibilities, he might like to encourage his counterparts in China, who do have a strong voice in Burundi, to discourage President Nkurunziza from going down the route that he appears to be attempting to go down.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, and I congratulate the hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips)—and the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), who could not be here this evening, which is a shame—on securing it and enabling us to discuss a wide range of topics.

As the hon. and learned Gentleman has pointed out, the title of the debate could encompass many countries, subjects and themes. I will focus on a few specific issues, on which I would be interested to hear the views of the Government and other Members. I wish to discuss Somaliland, which as many Members will know is of great interest to many of my constituents. Cardiff South and Penarth has a strong tradition of Somalilanders and of a Somaliland community. Secondly, I want to talk about the relationship between the security and development situation there and some of the other less satisfactory examples across central and eastern Africa, and the crucial role the UK can play in responding to them. Thirdly, I want to talk about the Welsh local community contribution to development across the region.

Many hon. Members will know that I have long been a supporter of recognition for Somaliland and Somaliland people. That is a long-stated objective of Somalilanders. There has been a referendum that made that very clear. This is a long, complex, historical situation, which has lasted ever since the 1960 decolonisation when Somaliland declared independence first from the UK—it was a British colony—and then the rest of Somalia took its independence and eventually they came together in one country. There has been a long history of tragic conflict between the different parts of the horn of Africa and particularly in that region, and we have come today to a situation where there is a de facto functioning independent Somaliland which has a strong record of development and growth and of looking after its citizens, and indeed of fostering democracy and a plural political system, which is sadly lacking in many other areas across the region and Africa. I pay tribute to the Government in Somaliland and the work they have done over many years, particularly recently, to foster that, and to the commitment of all Somalilanders, including many in the diaspora, who have made a contribution to that both financially, through political support and by getting engaged in the prospects of their home country.

There have been some very positive developments in recent months. Last year we saw a crucial Somaliland trade and investment conference, which was supported by the UK Government. We saw much interest from business and others in investing in Somaliland and taking part in fruitful trading relationships with it. Positive engagement in that region is where stability and growth and support for wider development is going to come from. That was welcome progress. We have also seen a welcome development here in the UK, with cities such Cardiff and Sheffield, and boroughs such Tower Hamlets in London, recognising Somaliland and that historical relationship between Somaliland and the UK, and fostering those links and taking them forward.

However, we also see the risks. We have obviously seen the insecure situation in the rest of the horn of Africa. We see threats from terror groups such as al-Shabaab. We see the instability caused by refugees fleeing the terrible situation in Yemen, for example, across the Red sea, and other such situations in the region, whether in Eritrea, Djibouti or elsewhere, threatening the stability of a region that does have one beacon of stability within it. It is important to recognise the crucial role the UK Government have played through support from the Royal Marines, through training security forces and preparing them to deal with threats to international security—piracy off the coast, for example—and by ensuring there are well-resourced and trained security forces there that can respond to threats not only to the stability and security of Somaliland citizens, but to the wider region.

There are two crucial issues that I would be interested in hearing the Minister’s comments on. First, elections in Somaliland have been postponed until next year. That is not unusual in Somaliland, but it is important that elections continue and that we continue on that democratic path and ensure the people of Somaliland can have a democratic choice about their future Government. I understand from contact with the Government in recent days that the crucial task of voter registration has started, but I would be interested to hear the Minister’s views on what the international community can do to ensure that registration continues and that we have a passage to important presidential and parliamentary elections, and on what we can do to observe and make sure those elections go forward.

[Mr Mitchell]

There have of course been elections in the past in Somaliland with very close results whereby just a few thousand votes separated the two candidates, and power has transferred peacefully and effectively, so I think the hon. Gentleman will want to make it clear that this present glitch does not besmirch a very considerable record in respect of elections in Somaliland.

[Stephen Doughty]

The right hon. Gentleman, who knows a lot about this issue, makes a crucial point, and all of us who care about Somaliland want to see that progress and stability continue. It has a vibrant political scene with active political parties. I have met representatives from a number of the different parties in recent weeks and they all want to see this go forward. We must play whatever role we can in ensuring both voter registration and elections go ahead.

Lastly on Somaliland, I want briefly to touch on the talks between Somalia and Somaliland being held under the auspices of the Turkish Government. There were some important high-level talks in Turkey between senior representatives of the Somalia federal Government and its Somaliland counterpart in 2014, and there were various contacts over a series of confidence-building measures and practical issues that could be addressed around aviation and telecommunications and so on. However, there has been a fall-back since those talks, and I would be interested to know the Government’s view on the status of the talks and whether they see them as having any value. If not, could other confidence-building activities take place between Somalia and Somaliland, in the light of their very different positions, to encourage contact between the two countries?

The hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham rightly highlighted the wider trends in security and development across eastern and central Africa, and I want briefly to mention a few countries that are of great concern to me and to other hon. Members. We had an excellent Adjournment debate here in the Chamber a couple of months ago on Eritrea, secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook). The debate rightly highlighted the grave situation in that country and the many human rights abuses that are occurring there. I know that the Government share those concerns, and I would be interested to hear from the Minister how he sees that situation developing. I am also deeply worried by the activities of Eritrean Government representatives pursuing Eritrean citizens here in the UK for payment of taxes, and for other reasons, in allegedly intimidating ways. We do not want to see those kinds of activities on these shores; they certainly do not contribute to the fostering of good relations between the Eritrean diaspora and the country itself.

Many concerns are also being expressed about the situation in the Central African Republic. The Minister for Africa—the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge), who sadly cannot be with us this evening—answered a question from me recently in which he made it clear that the security situation in the CAR was grave and that outside the capital, Bangui, violence, looting, hostage-taking and human rights abuses continued to occur with relative impunity. These countries do not always make the headlines here or globally, but these matters should be of concern to all of us here in the House as humanitarians and as proponents of development, democracy and good governance around the world. We cannot just pay attention to the countries that make the headlines. If we are concerned about these issues, we should be concerned about them wherever they occur. Similarly, great concern has been expressed about the situation in Chad, and we have also heard at length about the fears about the way in which the situation in Burundi might develop.

All those situations underline the fact that it is crucial that the UK Government continue to pursue a joined-up approach to development, diplomacy and defence and security issues in their relationships with this region. I was pleased to hear the announcement by the Secretary of State for International Development on further investment in fragile and conflict states. I know that the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) also pursued this matter while he was in office. Indeed, it was started under the last Labour Secretary of State for International Development, Douglas Alexander. I worked in the Department at that time, and we certainly felt that it was important to focus on that issue.

We need to be putting more resources into these situations in order to do preventive work, rather than simply responding to conflict. That could include supporting the development of democratic governance, the rights of women and girls, elections and electoral processes, low-level security measures and justice measures. All those things give confidence to populations and enable us to get on to the important issues such as health, education and the wider development that is absolutely crucial. Our development assistance plays a crucial role in that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Interests. I congratulate my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips) on securing this debate today and on his excellent speech, which he must have written in the small hours of the morning at Addis Ababa airport. He certainly launched this debate extremely effectively.

The debate gives us a chance to pay tribute to the outstanding officials and staff from the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development. The DFID officials, whom I had the privilege to lead for some two and a half years, are doing such outstanding work in the area that we are discussing. We should also pay tribute to the many non-governmental organisations and charities that do such dangerous and vital work in desperate parts of the world. We need only to think of the recent injuries and deaths that have afflicted Médecins Sans Frontières to understand why. Our hearts have to go out to all those who have been maimed or worse serving their fellow men and women in a very difficult part of Africa.

This debate is timely. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Nusrat Ghani) said so eloquently, the scale of the difficulties in this part of the world sometimes mask the scale of our development success. The very great difficulties hide the huge differences that international development can make. Let us be absolutely clear that international development works and that Britain is a key mover and shaker in the deployment of soft power.

British initiatives are being copied all around the world—in America, Australia, throughout Scandinavia, and among UN agencies. Even the European Union is beginning to make some progress in this regard. Let us also be clear that this progress from Britain has happened under both Labour and Conservative Prime Ministers.

Before I come directly to east and central Africa, let me say this: now is the time; we are the generation that can make a colossal difference to these huge discrepancies of opportunity and wealth that exist in our world today, and disfigure it so very greatly. Britain has done extraordinary humanitarian work around the poor and conflicted parts of the world. We think of Syria where Britain’s support for Syrian refugees is greater than all the rest of the European Union added together. We think of the way that Britain has managed to help to get children, particularly girls, into school. In 2000, there were 100 million children in our world who could not go to school, because they did not have a school to go to. Today, that number is heading down from 57 million. The Girls Education Challenge Fund was set up to get 1 million girls into school in parts of the world where there was no state structure in which to do it. It encouraged the private sector, humanitarian organisations, charities and philanthropic organisations to join in that project.

We have been leading the way in tackling disease through vaccination. In the previous Parliament, we vaccinated a child in the poor world every two seconds, and saved the life of a child every two minutes from diseases from which, thank goodness, our own children do not suffer. We are on the way to eradicating polio. Today’s announcement on malaria—the £500 million going forward to 2020—is an important continuation of a policy that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as he now is but then was not, announced in 2008 when he said that a Conservative Government would contribute £500 million until the disease was eradicated. He has now extended that promise so that it will last for 12 years.

Britain has taken leadership on family planning. If all countries stick to their promises, we will have, by 2020, reduced by half the number of women in the poor world who want access to contraception and who currently do not have it. There is also the extraordinary success, particularly in the Horn of Africa, in combating HIV/AIDS. With our 0.7% commitment enshrined in law, Britain is clearly continuing to lead the way and putting its money where its mouth is, but the 0.7% spending of taxpayers’ money is justifiable only if we show that it is delivering real results so that hard-pressed taxpayers can see that for every pound that they are contributing to the development budget, they are getting 100 pence of delivery on the ground.

All the way across sub-Saharan Africa and central and east Africa, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham made so clear, poverty and conflict are breeding instability. There is a belt of misery that is fuelling discontent and anger among very poor people. There is appalling suffering in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, particularly in the east. There are 25 or 28 bands of villains going around terrorising the population. It is a rich irony that some of the poorest people in the world live on top of some of the richest real estate.

In northern Nigeria, where DFID has done such good work, Boko Haram has been destroying the lives of ordinary people, although the position has got far more difficult for it under the new President of Nigeria. In Mali, we have seen the terror that has gripped local people. It is worth noting that Mali produces cotton, but, despite excellent attempts by Britain to try to ease trade distortions—particularly because of the American and EU subsidies— it cannot sell its cotton for a living wage, and that needs to be addressed by the international community.

In the Central African Republic, half of the population is now underfed. It is a real flashpoint, with warnings of Islamic fundamentalism from leading Muslims in the country. I wish to praise the work of Aegis that has done so much good work in Rwanda at combating genocide. I say to the Minister that Aegis may well have something beneficial to say about the disorder in the Central African Republic, although it is of course an area very much in the French zone, and we would be looking for the French and the European Union to use their international development spending to tackle those difficulties.

In Sudan, Britain, Norway and the US have done what they can to deal with the extraordinary number of displaced people, as in the south freedom fighters seek to morph themselves into a Government. In Eritrea, as has already been said in this debate, that migration is fuelling the migration that comes across into Europe. Despite international arbitration, the conflict with Ethiopia is still not yet resolved, which I hope the Minister will mention when he comes to contribute to the debate. I believe that Chris Mullin, when a Minister, and I, when a shadow spokesman, are the only two Members of Parliament to have visited Eritrea in living memory. That benighted country certainly needs to see the benefit of order and development.

In northern Uganda, the Lord’s Resistance Army has caused chaos with decades of war. There are huge numbers of jobless youngsters who do not have enough to eat. Voluntary Services Overseas, an outstanding British organisation, has made a significant contribution. We have seen the way in which terrorism, for example, in Kenya, but also in Tunisia and Egypt, destroys tourism, on which those countries rely. It is not an accident that the terrorists make those dispositions. We have heard about Burundi, where there is disorder and death, and hundreds of thousands of refugees. What a contrast to Rwanda next door, which is peaceful and stable, and an extraordinary development partner for Britain. It has lifted 1 million citizens out of poverty in the past four years, and seen great progress. It is a country where, from the top, corruption is stamped out. We know that it will do exactly what it says with the money that it receives from the international community.

Ten years ago, Rwanda could fund only 38% of its budget; today, it funds more than 60%, and it is an example of the progress that can be made. As I have said, it stands in stark contrast with what is happening next door in Burundi. There is more to do on political and media space, and it has not always been an easy relationship. I shall pass over the extraordinary and wholly wrong imprisonment of the Rwandan director of security under a European arrest warrant issued by Spain last year. We should not forget the essence of this relationship: following the genocide, Britain has been a powerful partner and influencer of the Rwandan Government, and the British people, in their relationship with the Rwandan people, have seen a tremendous growth in security, stability and, increasingly, in prosperity.

Finally, I visited Somalia four times as Secretary of State and saw the way in which Mogadishu—in the past, a beautiful city—had been reduced to rubble, with al-Shabaab rampant. That was a direct danger to the UK, and an example of how conflict not only mars and destroys the lives of the people of Somalia but threatens us on the streets of Britain. Not long ago, there were more British passport holders training in terror camps in Somalia than in Afghanistan or Pakistan. Those people were a direct danger to the UK, but now progress is slowly being made. The African Union Mission in Somalia is much better equipped, and the initiatives launched by the Prime Minister at the London conference in 2012, following the dreadful famine, have been very successful, and have made steady if disjointed progress.

In all those countries, climate change hits the poorest people first and hardest. One reason for the massacres in Darfur—the pastoralists versus the crop growers—was the effect of climate change on crops and the ability of animals to withstand the droughts that are increasing in frequency. Britain has made an important contribution in the area of conflict, which has rightly been described as development in reverse. The key aim of British policy is to stop conflicts starting or, once they have started, to stop them, and once they are over, reconcile people. Much closer relations between development, defence and diplomacy, to which Members have alluded, came about because the coalition Government set up the National Security Council. The decision in the strategic defence and security review in 2010 to spend 30% of the DFID budget on tackling conflict—now increased to 50%—was absolutely right although, as I mentioned to the House, it was pretty hard to find ways of spending 30%, and it may be quite difficult to spend 50%.

The third key limb of all of this is prosperity and boosting economic activity with the transformation of the Commonwealth Development Corporation, which has invested in some of the countries that we have discussed. The poorest people can lift themselves out of poverty if they have a job and are economically active. The fourth thing that Britain has championed is getting girls into school, which is the single most effective way of changing the world, because girls who are educated tend to be economically active. They educate their own children, they have children later, and they understand the opportunities for family planning. They have influence as a result of their education in their family, in their community and, increasingly, as we see in Afghanistan, in national government as well.

There is much to celebrate in the success and effectiveness of British development policy and the real contribution that it has made. Perhaps everyone in the House should do a little more to make that clear to our constituents who I think, in the medium term, can easily be won round to its importance.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wendy Morton]

When it comes to the region, the role of the African Union must be recognised, as should the strength that comes from countries working together. It is not only about Rwanda. To take the example of Burundi, its peacekeeping force has been doing worthy work in Somalia. This is about working with the region for the benefit of the region and way beyond it.

[Mr Mitchell]

It is worth adding to my hon. Friend’s point, in connection with the intervention by the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones), that when what George Bush described as genocide was taking place in Darfur, the first country to offer troops for an AU force was Rwanda, because those living there knew what had happened to them and they wanted to stop that happening to those living in Darfur.

[Wendy Morton]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, who always speaks with such knowledge on matters concerning Rwanda and, indeed, Africa. Conflict rarely stops at international borders—refugees do not stop at a border—so when there is instability and insecurity, the worry is that that will spill over into a much wider area.

Draft Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (Immunities and Privileges) Order 2015

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2015 General Committees

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to appear before you, Mr Gapes; I think that it is for the first time.

It is also, of course, a pleasure to welcome the Minister back to his place. While he has been away, I think a DFID Minister has been covering for him, and many of us would have expected this debate to have been conducted by a DFID Minister. It may well be that such is the synchronicity between the Foreign Office and DFID these days that he has been filling in for the Minister of State, Department for International Development, my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Mr Swayne), who I had expected to see here.

I will just make a couple of points, tempted and seduced as I have been by the hon. Member for Nottingham North, with whom I have sparred and indeed co-operated over the last 30 years, since we entered the House, although in my case I have broken service through an enforced sabbatical.

On the point made by the hon. Member for Harrow West, it is important to note that the appointment of Mr Jin Liqun, which many of us have welcomed, is an operating matter for the bank, and the role of Britain as a core and founder investor in the bank will be set out clearly in the shareholders’ agreement, as it is with the other development banks, in which, as the hon. Gentleman will know very well, Britain takes a leading part. That will be what determines whether or not Britain was consulted. However, the reasons why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor decided—rather bravely, I think—to be an early investor in the bank are absolutely the right ones, because this is clearly going to be a major feature on the development landscape. Britain has skills and advantages to bring to the table of what I hope will be one of the most successful of the international development banks.

It is no secret that in the developing world there was irritation when Jim Kim was appointed as head of the World Bank. That was not because there is anything wrong with Jim Kim—he is an excellent leader of the bank—but because it was not open to international meritorious competition. As has already been alluded to, it was part of the stitch-up that means that the Americans appoint the president of the World Bank and the Europeans appoint the president of the IMF. We need to move beyond that now. I cannot reveal the workings of Government over the appointment, but the hon. Member for Harrow West may be certain that there was considerable discussion about that appointment. There was an outstanding deputy head of the World Bank, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who was a candidate, and we need to move beyond that old deal and ensure that the next head of the World Bank is appointed by a full, meritorious trawl of everyone who is available, so that that particular concern is removed.

The Minister is absolutely right to express Britain’s strong support for this bank. It will be part of the architecture from which the poorest people in the world will increasingly benefit, as the work of all these development banks becomes more directly attuned to that core purpose. I very much hope that the Committee will welcome the decision by Britain to be part of this bank. It is part of Britain’s leadership on international development, and it is most welcome on that account.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Duddridge]

First, in summarising the debate, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield for his comments.

[Mr Mitchell]

Right hon.

[James Duddridge]

I am terribly sorry to have insulted my right hon. Friend so early in my speech. I apologise profusely. He suggested that I should be working closely with the Department for International Development, which I certainly am. Today I stand here as a Foreign Office Minister with responsibility for protocol. However, I would like to work much more closely across a number of subjects with my right hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps), who kindly deputised for me when I was ill for much of the last year.

I will try to deal with all the points that have been raised in this debate in broad themes. I will touch on individual points, mentioning individual Members, as and when. A number of Members brought up social and environmental issues, and the UK has been involved in discussions on those subjects from an early stage. The UK has encouraged the bank, and members of the bank, to consult widely, and Her Majesty’s Government have specifically had discussions with NGOs—those discussions will continue—on how the bank will operate and on the bank’s standards on social and environmental issues. There have not been specific discussions on the projects that the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley mentioned, but there are wide-ranging discussions encompassing all the issues, including human rights.

The hon. Member for Harrow West asked about the interim appointment. I confirm that Britain was consulted on that, and an election is expected for the full-time appointment. He probed me further on governance more generally, and I confirm that there will be 12 non- resident board members. How they will fit geographically, and the areas they will cover, are still being negotiated. Additionally, there will be a number of vice-presidents, but I remind him that a lot of these development banks have many members—in this case, there are already 57 members. However, Britain is well placed, given the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s early entry.

The policy lead will be through Her Majesty’s Treasury—this issue has been raised by a number of Members—and we will maintain a strong influence, but the exact positions both of the non-executive board and of the vice-presidents are still to be negotiated. However, I note that both in the time of the hon. Member for Harrow West and in current times we have strong experience of multilateral development, and we are well placed to assist the bank.

Civilians in Syria

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Jo Cox]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and I will come on to that subject later in the speech.

I shall now turn to the Conservative party’s record. For four years the Government have categorically failed on Syria, and it is not just the UK that should be judged so harshly. The failure to develop and then implement an effective strategy on Syria left this conflict free to create a horrendous European refugee crisis and provide a haven for the barbarism of ISIS to take root, allowed chemical weapons to be used unchallenged and even emboldened Russia. In particular, since the Prime Minister’s mishandling of the 2013 Syria vote, the Government have let this crisis fester on the “too difficult to deal with” pile. There has been no credible strategy, nor courage, nor leadership; instead we have had chaos and incoherence interspersed with the occasional gesture. Indeed, it has been a masterclass in how not to do foreign policy and a stark lesson on what happens when we ignore a crisis of this magnitude. Britain—with our proud tradition in international affairs, our seat on the UN Security Council and one of the best diplomatic, humanitarian and military services in the world—has been a political pygmy in this crisis.

None of us has a proud history in this affair. If we are to put this right, we must put that behind us; we must put party politics to one side and focus on what really matters—the protection of Syrian civilians.

Let me first turn to two of the arguments that do most disservice to a serious discussion of this crisis. First, please let us stop casting the humanitarian, diplomatic and military responses as mutually exclusive alternatives. They are not. If we are serious about addressing this crisis, we need to stop pretending that any one of them offers a panacea and instead weave these strands into a coherent strategy. Secondly, let us not be duped into believing that we need to make a choice between dealing with either Assad or ISIS. On the surface, this may seem appealing, but it is not an option. There is no choice.

We can, and must, address both Assad and ISIS for two principal reasons. First, a sole focus on ISIS will not end the conflict and the threats to our interests. The Assad regime ignited, and continues to drive, the violence in Syria. This year alone, it has killed seven times more civilians than ISIS, so a strategy that only focuses on ISIS will not end the fighting or the threat to regional stability. It will not stem the tide of desperate refugees pouring into Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan, or trying to get into Europe.

Secondly, and crucially, a myopic focus on ISIS will not lead to its defeat. It will not work. Assad is ISIS’s biggest recruiting sergeant, and as long as his tyranny continues, so too will ISIS’s terror. Indeed, a sole focus on ISIS while ignoring the regime’s ongoing bombardment of civilians risks inadvertently strengthening the jihadis’ narrative, which is fuelled by the idea that the west is colluding with Shi’a forces in Tehran and Damascus in a crusade to subjugate Sunni Arabs. That is why, to make good on our past failures, to protect our interests and to live up to our proudest traditions, we need urgently to develop a comprehensive and coherent strategy.

I believe that there are three core elements to such a strategy, none of which is easy and all of which are critical. First, I shall talk about the humanitarian aspect. Four years on from the start of the conflict, there are now 240,000 dead—some credible estimates put the figure at over 330,000—and more than 12 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance. The scale of the human disaster is breathtaking. One area in which the UK Government have shown considerable and commendable leadership is in the regional humanitarian response to the refugee crisis, where we have led the way with the US and our European partners. I now urge the Government to go further.

As the Minister will be aware, the vast majority of Syrian refugees are in the region and those countries are buckling under the strain. The G20 summit in Turkey in November should be marked by the launch of an ambitious plan to meet refugees’ urgent needs, to invest in their education and livelihoods and to support Syria’s neighbours in reconstruction and development. Equally important is the UK’s response to the refugee crisis, which has, to date, been woefully inadequate. Taking 20,000 refugees over five years is simply not good enough; it sends an awful message about how seriously we take civilian protection. Whether it is the response to the drownings in the Mediterranean or our offer to take Syrian refugees, the Prime Minister has been pushed into climbdown after climbdown, embarrassed into action by the humanity of the British public. It is time for him to lead, not follow.

But let us be clear that, no matter what our humanitarian response is to this crisis, it will never be enough. It cannot end the conflict. That is why we also need to invest far more in diplomatic efforts to find a political solution. There are clearly no easy answers, but we can at least be clear on the principles. First, this needs to be a much higher-level conversation. We saw some improvement in that respect at the UN General Assembly last month and in the reopening of the UK’s embassy in Tehran. However, the Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister need to make it clear that ending the conflict in Syria is their No.1 international priority, and to challenge other world leaders to match their commitment.

Secondly, we must not let the urgent need to find a political solution cloud our judgment about what a credible one looks like. If four years of continuous vicious conflict have taught us anything, it is that the current regime is no longer capable of bringing peace and stability to Syria. Whatever its exact complexion and character, and whatever the complex negotiations and compromises needed to get there, a credible political solution has to involve a transition to a new Government that represent all Syrians and that enjoy sufficient trust and legitimacy that all but the delusional fanatics of ISIS will be willing to lower their guns and work together to rebuild their country. Russia’s recent intervention makes the route to a political settlement more complicated but it does not change the necessity for one. A political solution is the only way to end the conflict between the regime and the opposition in Syria. Only when that conflict has ended can ISIS and the handful of other extremists allied to al-Qaeda be defeated.

The third element of the strategy has to be military. While I do not believe that there is a purely military solution to this conflict, I do believe that there will be a military component to any viable solution.

The threat from ISIS—to the region, to the west and to Syrian and Iraqi civilians—is real and growing. I do not believe it to be ethical to watch from the sidelines as Syrian villages are overrun by ISIS fighters who make sex slaves of children, terrorise minority groups and slaughter fellow Muslims. In addition, their call for individual sympathisers to attack westerners anywhere and anytime requires a robust response.

The estimated 20,000 foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq, many of whom hold western passports and can therefore travel freely in Europe, present a real and serious threat to us here in the UK. In addition, ISIS’s spread to new havens in Libya, the Sinai peninsula, Afghanistan, Yemen, Nigeria and elsewhere convinces me of the need for active UK involvement—but only if that is part of a comprehensive strategy to protect civilians and end the conflict.

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making a good and brave speech on this important point. Will she emphasise the point we set out in our joint article over the weekend, which is that the safe havens are not an intervention in the politics of Syria but are strictly a humanitarian measure to ensure safety for those who are fleeing their homes and communities, often under gunfire, and the extreme violence in Syria today? This is the sort of intervention that the United Nations was set up to co-ordinate, and we really must ask why more is not being done by the international community to promote this important initiative, which both of us supported at the weekend.

[Jo Cox]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that, and we do share common cause on the need for humanitarian protection for civilians in Syria.

Let me get back to my point about a myopic focus on ISIS being counterproductive. If selective air strikes against ISIS are the only action the west takes in Syria, we will never defeat ISIS—and we could even strengthen it. At least 75% of all civilian deaths in Syria are a result of action by Syrian Government forces; aerial bombardment by the regime is by far the biggest killer, taking around 200 lives every week. It is horrifically indiscriminate; 95% of the victims are civilians. For these reasons, and in the light of the fact that an ISIS-only approach will not protect us from the threat it poses, our objective must be to stop the indiscriminate aerial bombardment in Syria. Not only would that provide much-needed relief to Syria’s embattled population, who are still being bombarded by 50 to 60 barrel bombs a day, but it could help empower Syria’s remaining moderate opposition, who are essential not only to finding a political solution but to holding back and ultimately defeating ISIS.

Stopping the bombs would also take away a significant radicalising factor in the conflict and could breathe new life into the political process, changing Assad’s calculations and forcing him to the negotiating table. As we saw in 2013, the Syrian Government’s response to the credible threat of force was to make a political deal, not to risk escalation. As such, I believe it is time for the Government urgently to consider deterring the indiscriminate aerial bombardment of civilians in Syria through the willingness to consider the prudent and limited use of force.

A no-fly zone would be an enormous military undertaking, and would entail significant risks, particularly now that Russia has joined the regime in the Syrian skies. But what I call a no-bombing zone, enforced from maritime assets in the Mediterranean so as to avoid engaging Syrian air defences, would save lives, uphold international humanitarian law and breathe life into the political process.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Ellwood]

I will not give way. I have made it very clear that time is short and I am answering the hon. Member for Batley and Spen. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will hang on to his seat and I will be delighted to speak to him after the debate.

It is clear that Russia’s priority is not to defeat ISIL but to prop up Assad. Russia has violated Turkish airspace three times in the past week and the UK strongly condemns these provocative violations of NATO members’ sovereign airspace. It is important that allies show solidarity to ensure the inviolability of NATO airspace is respected, so we call on Russia to stop targeting civilians and opposition groups, which are part of the future of Syria. This is Russia’s biggest air deployment beyond its borders since the cold war, with fast jets, helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles, electronic warfare and air defence systems propping up an ailing Syrian regime whose military is exhausted, depleted and demoralised.

Russia’s entry, with all its propaganda, will no doubt delay a resolution and the political transition about which the hon. Member for Batley and Spen spoke rather than expediting them. It will also widen the extremism footprint for Russia, as significant numbers of foreign fighters supporting ISIL will no doubt react to Putin’s actions.

The hon. Lady mentioned safe zones, and I have taken a lot of time over the summer to consider the issue in detail. We will continue to look at all options along with our allies to protect civilians in Syria. There has been talk of safe or protected zones, no-fly zones and so on, but history tells us that implementing genuinely safe zones is difficult and must be accompanied by an international mandate that would provide the will, the authority and the full means to ensure that they have a chance of being effective. It would also involve significant military commitment. As we have seen, that can be hard to come by from the various Parliaments across the world.

We should also bear in mind the legal justification for intervention in another country has five means. One is a UN Security Council resolution—

[Mr Mitchell]

rose—

[Mr Ellwood]

I will not give way. The other legitimate means for engagement include article 51 of the UN Charter, or the right collectively to defend others, or intervention to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe, as we saw in Kosovo. The final such means is an invitation by the leader, which is what we saw in Iraq.

The hon. Member for Batley and Spen mentioned the humanitarian situation. The UK has been at the forefront of the humanitarian response to the conflict in Syria. I am pleased to say that we have pledged more than £1.1 billion in aid in response to the crisis in Syria and the region. I visited the Zaatari camp in north Jordan in the summer and my hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces, who is in her place, has just come back from Azraq. I am pleased to say that we are seeing how well British money is spent. It is clear that refugees want to stay in the region where they have family and cultural ties, and the cost of housing one refugee in the UK equates to supporting more than 20 refugees locally. Let me make it clear that the standard of that support is very different, but that just illustrates the difficult decisions people are having to make in every country about how much money we spend domestically and how much we spend in the region.

The Prime Minister also announced on 7 September the expansion of the Syrian vulnerable persons relocation scheme to resettle up to 20,000 Syrians in need of protection during this Parliament. Since the crisis began in 2011, the UK has granted asylum to nearly 5,000 Syrian nationals and their dependants.

In conclusion, we are well aware that Syria remains the greatest humanitarian tragedy of our time. We must support the desire of ordinary Syrians for a future free of the cruelty of Assad and the barbarity of ISIL. I end by apologising to Opposition Members for not being able to take interventions. As they can see from my notes, I have plenty more to say on the matter—