Ceasefire in Gaza

Debate between Angus Brendan MacNeil and Liam Fox

Wednesday 21st February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)]

Whatever anyone’s views are about the history or the politics of the middle east, no one can be in any doubt that since 7 October we have all witnessed a humanitarian tragedy. The attacks of the terrorist group Hamas, including the murder of young people attending a music festival and the taking of hostages, were bound to set in train a series of violence, which Hamas must have fully understood, including a full response by the Israeli Government.

In associating myself completely with the comments of my right hon. Friend the Minister on the Government’s amendment, particularly on the need for an immediate humanitarian pause and a permanent, sustainable ceasefire, including the release of hostages, I want to take up the point made by the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), who is no longer in his place, about the role that Britain can have in the more substantive issue around the conflict. As has been pointed out in the debate, we are not participants in the conflict, so we cannot have a direct effect on whether arms are laid down, but we can have an influence in the process that comes later. Sooner or later, this will have to return to a political process, and Britain should now be setting down the rules by which we want to see peace put in place.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Ind)]

Will the right hon. Member give way?

[Sir Liam Fox]

Not at the moment.

It is highly important that we understand what we mean by peace when the term is being used in this context. The hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) had the privilege of being at the Manama Dialogue, and feels strongly about that. We have constantly to make clear to both sides that the concept of peace is not just the absence of war or conflict but freedom from the fear of conflict, oppression or terror. Peace requires mutual respect, freedom from persecution and living without fear of destitution. It comes with self-determination and liberation from arbitrary justice. It needs hope, dignity and enforceable rights. Only when all the people of the region have access to all that could we talk about having achieved a peaceful solution to the conflict.

We need to look at the political process with two addenda. We must move to a two-state solution, because the country that does not want that is Iran, which does not want Israel to exist, and apparently Prime Minister Netanyahu does not want a Palestinian state to exist. We must recognise the will of the international community for a two-state solution in the end. For a political process to be able to exist, we need to deal with the wider security issues. There needs to be a guaranteed security for Israel, to protect it from the sort of attacks that it has seen. It is clear that the Israeli construct of security has failed—otherwise, the Hamas incursions would not have taken place. It is also clear that there has to be a proper guarantee of security for any emerging Palestinian state. Quite self-evidently, that cannot be done by the states on their own. Just as we looked for international security guarantees for Europe after world war two, so we will need international agreement on any security architecture within which a political solution can be found to the Israel-Palestinian issue.

I am sure that this House can unite around the need, as a country, to be concerned about the improved prosperity, hope and opportunity of all young people in the region. It has been my privilege to lead the UK Abraham Accords Group over the past two years, and I welcome the support that we have had across the House, but we must find mechanisms to improve the economic wellbeing of young people, particularly, on the Arab street. Otherwise, there will be no lasting basis for a political solution. People who have nothing to lose will gamble. People who have something to lose will be much more circumspect. That has been the lesson from peace being brought to disputes around the world.

I believe that the important issue of Rafah comes into this, because we are at something of a crossroads. We can move forward with the ideas of hope and prosperity, bridge building and rapprochement that the Abraham accords have brought. The Governments of Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Morocco have been far sighted in maintaining that process during the current conflict. If we do not take that path, we run the risk of going back to 1971 and a generation of radicalised young Arabs who will make a political solution impossible.

Much of this debate is quite nuanced in terms of when and how ceasefires should take place, but as a country, we need to set our sights and horizons further, on what happens when the political process does re-engage. Where does Britain play a role? I believe that we have a positive and constructive role to play, and we need to take our debate on to that wider, more important and far-sighted horizon.

Trade Bill

Debate between Angus Brendan MacNeil and Liam Fox

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 9th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP) [V]]

It is good to have this debate, although I am afraid it is a bit too short, as I think most Members would accept.

When it comes to trade deals, Parliament really needs to debate beforehand. One of the things we know from the little interaction we have had with negotiators is that it is much better for them to know what Parliament is thinking; it strengthens their hand in negotiations to understand what they might get through Parliament at the end of the day. That is hugely important. It is also important for them to hear the concerns of 650 people who represent the geographical area that the trade deal will be a huge, integral part of and will affect. I would caution that what happened before Christmas, with the rush of the European trade deal, is a lesson that Parliament should think and not rush.

There is, of course, within any Executive—any Government—a feeling that they do not want scrutiny, they do not want to discuss, and they do not want to pause, reflect and think again, but for the good of everyone concerned, they should do that. Parliament treats itself as a sausage factory; it gets things done and through, and that is the end of it. However, at the end of the day, as the shellfish exporters, the poultry exporters and many others in the UK know, once Parliament has washed its hands of it and walked away, other people have to deal with the text at hand. They cannot deal with that text very well if it has not been thought about, reflected upon or given due scrutiny.

In Parliament, we talk a lot about trade deals, but do we realise the GDP size we are talking about? That is something we can lay out beforehand. Leaving the European Union will cost the UK about 4.9% of GDP. The best of the upcoming trade deals that we are looking at will make only a fraction of that back—with New Zealand and Australia, probably about a fiftieth of it. Are people aware of that?

During the negotiations on the Japan trade deal, the International Trade Committee could not get access to the right level of negotiators. It was only at the end that we understood the pass we were sold on tariff rate quotas, where the UK accepted playing second fiddle to the European Union; after the European Union had dined with Japan, the UK could then perhaps go to the table for the crumbs. We were not aware of that at all during the negotiations. Parliament has to look a bit better. We have to trust our Select Committees, improve access, and have debate beforehand and afterwards. As for the point that Parliament has much power with the CRaG process, frankly, that is just not true.

The best the Government could do at this stage would be to adopt Lord Lansley’s amendment 1B. That would be a huge help from the point of view of the Select Committee and Parliament, and the Government should have the humility to do that.

[Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)]

I wish to make only three brief points. First, the House of Commons is the appropriate place to scrutinise the elected Government’s independent trade policy. That is why I am against Lords amendment 1B, because it actually gives powers away from the House of Commons. The amendment requires the House of Lords to give its permission for the elected Government to even have discussions on our future trade policy. I cannot believe that the Labour party’s position is to give the House of Lords a veto on what an elected Government in the House of Commons should or should not be able to do. I wonder sometimes whether this House is having some sort of collective democratic nervous breakdown, because it seems always to want to give its powers away to someone else.

As I said last time, I do not believe that the courts should have a say on the elected Government’s trade policy, either—whether prospectively or retrospectively—or on what we debate in Parliament. When it comes to the issue of genocide, what matters is what we do about credible accusations of genocide. We should not be waiting for judicial confirmation through the Trade Bill. We can assess evidence, assess intelligence and listen to eyewitnesses ourselves. Frankly, if we want to take action in response to the Chinese Communist party’s treatment of the Uyghur people, we should do so. We have given ourselves new powers. But the Trade Bill is not the appropriate place to deal with that issue.

On the impact, we are talking not about stopping trade with China or stopping companies doing trade deals with suppliers in China—the use of sloppy language that fails to differentiate between trade deals and free trade agreements, which are a different legal entity entirely, does not help the quality of the debate—but we do have a perfect right to take into account any state’s behaviour when it comes to a future free trade agreement, and our ability to do so is limited. I campaigned to leave the European Union because I wanted powers brought back from Brussels, but I wanted them brought back to this place, not given straight back to the Executive to exercise them on our behalf. When I was Secretary of State, I wanted to see Parliament given a vote on new trade agreements, as the previous Speaker would have attested. I still believe that that is most appropriate at the beginning, at the setting of the mandate, because if Parliament can agree then on the direction of travel, we are less likely to have the sort of misinformation that we had on the transatlantic trade and investment partnership and the ridiculous scare stories that we heard from the SNP spokesman today. If we do not have the ability to vote at the beginning of the mandate, it makes the CRaG process less credible.

The Government are making a rod for their own back. Today we have an opportunity to give power back to the House of Commons—not the House of Lords, not the courts, not the Executive. We should show a little bit of courage and faith in our own institution.