Bob Stewart
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Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
This morning one of my constituents, a lady called Kamila Avellaneda, emailed me. She is of Polish origin and she asked me to please go to the debate on Poland in Westminster Hall. I thought, “Why not?” My wife is half Polish. Her maiden name is Podbielski and she is now called Claire Podbielski-Stewart to keep the name alive. So I have a half-Polish wife.
I was an intelligence officer when Poland was a member of the Warsaw pact, and we considered Poland to be the least reliable Warsaw pact member. We thought, “If we have to go to war with the Warsaw pact, the bloody Poles would come on our side, Mr Ambassador.” That is what we thought and we considered that to be a real credit to Poland.
When I was the commander in Bosnia, I also had a Polish major as my interpreter. He was an extremely good interpreter and very good at drinking slivovitz.
We have already talked about the second world war, so I will try to avoid repetition. However, as an intelligence officer, may I reiterate the point about what happened south of Warsaw on 25 July in the Kabaty woods? I hope I pronounced that correctly. The Kabaty woods is where the Polish bombe—an ice-cream, but actually a machine—was handed over to the French and the British and was ultimately responsible for helping us to crack the Enigma code. The Poles did it. They started it. The French, the British, the Americans did not have it, but the Poles had it.
When Poland was invaded on 1 September 1939, followed by the Russians coming in from the east on the 17th, a Polish Government in exile was started. Mr Davies, how long do you want me to speak?
Bob Stewart
It will not be more. It will be five minutes, I promise.
The Polish Government in exile was outstanding. They built up the fourth-largest army in Europe after the United States, the British and the Soviet Union. The Polish army recreated branches of the forces not only on our side of the divide, but in the Soviet group of forces. Polish forces were part of the Soviet forces heading towards Berlin via the Vistula and across Ukraine, and of course through Poland, and they stayed there until the Nazi menace was defeated. It is extremely interesting that 6,339 Poles are considered to be Righteous Among the Nations, because a large number of Poles tried very hard to defend the Jews in their country. Let us remember that Auschwitz was set up for the Poles, not for the Jews initially.
We had magnificent fighters pilots: 303 Squadron with its 126 German kills has been mentioned, and there were many more squadrons. The army was outstanding. The Polish army, working with the British army, was outstanding at Tobruk. It went into Narvik with my uncle, who was an army commander. Mind you, my uncle did have problems later. He may have got a Military Cross, but he also got two years in Strangeways for bigamy. [Laughter.] I am afraid my family are pretty disreputable.
The Poles took the top of Monte Cassino. Has anyone looked at that mountain? Can you imagine what it was like to go up those broken sides with all that fire raining down on you? But the damn Poles did it, and they put the Polish flag on the top. God, they were great. The Poles dropped at Arnhem and we had Popski’s private army. I think he was Polish; I cannot remember, but I think he was part of the Special Forces.
I have 30 seconds left to say what I think of Poland. I think it is a damn good country. We are very lucky to have it as an ally. The Poles are really decent people. I visited it for the first time three months ago and—my God—I am going back there, and I am very grateful that we have such wonderful people as part of our NATO alliance.
Geraint Davies (in the Chair)
I call Gavin Robinson for another five minutes of fun.
Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart)—although I do not know how I am supposed to do it. It was a great contribution from a disreputable but great man.
Gavin Robinson
Guilty by association, Mr Davies, I think you will agree.
I want to thank and congratulate the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski). I have been in Parliament a year now, and I have had the opportunity to meet and know the hon. Gentleman and to work with him in the all-party group on Poland. He obviously has a strong personal connection to the country, but he has worked tirelessly for the UK Polish community and for the social integration of those who believe in this country. Aside from the difficulties and the negative comments between Opposition Members and the hon. Gentleman about Brexit, no one can challenge his devotion and commitment to the country or the results of that commitment.
As Lord Mayor of Belfast, I was pleased to host events such as independence day for Polish citizens in the city. We have a wonderful honorary consul in Northern Ireland, Jerome Mullen, who does great work, particularly at difficult times. We have had numerous incidents of race hate-filled attacks in my constituency and throughout Northern Ireland. The hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham knows that that is part of my motivation for being involved in the all-party group and trying to build the bonds to bring to an end such unnecessary hate in my city.
It was a huge privilege to welcome the ambassador to my constituency and to Titanic Belfast for the first ever Northern Ireland-Poland business conference, just over a month ago. It was encouraging to see how many businesses from across Northern Ireland have built up relationships and connections and are trading. They have the tenacity to ensure that when we leave the European Union, the connections, relationships and bonds will strengthen still, no matter what. We must be politically committed to achieving that.
In view of the negative press, if there is anything I can do in the next two and a half minutes, I think it is to challenge many of the myths that abound in Northern Ireland and, I am sure, in communities throughout the United Kingdom. There is a champion of Polish integration in Northern Ireland called Eva Grosman, who has committed herself to the Unite Against Hate campaign. She does remarkable work in Northern Ireland. She sent a tweet earlier in the week asking how many Northern Ireland MPs would attend the debate. I indicated that I hoped many would—and the hon. Member for Belfast South (Dr McDonnell) has attended. We received quite a lot of abuse, along with misconceptions and downright lies. Such things—along with the facts—are laid out in a document I want to draw on, by Professor Peter Shirlow and Dr Richard Montague, called “Challenging Racism: Ending Hate” and published by the Unite Against Hate campaign.
The social attitudes survey replicated in the study said that 70% of people in Northern Ireland believe that EU migrants and migrants generally are a drain on services—that they steal our houses and jobs. That is nothing new. We will all have heard similar things quoted. However, in Northern Ireland, not even 2.5% of the population—43,000 people—hails from the EU. The figure for migrants is 4.3% of the population, but they have only 4% of the jobs, so they cannot be stealing the jobs. They are not stealing the jobs. As for social housing, we have 89,000 such homes in east Belfast, yet Polish migrants occupy 337. Does not that put into perspective the bile put about in our community? EU nationals contributed £8.8 billion a year more to the UK economy than they cost to services. In Northern Ireland from 2004 to 2008, there was a £1.2 billion addition to the local economy through ingenuity, hard work, the determination to strive, and the belief in British principles and the ideals of this country. Coming to Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom; believing in our people but, more importantly, believing in themselves—that is the contribution that Poland makes to this great country.
Mr Jones
I thank the hon. Lady for that recommendation. With the summer coming up, that may well be a good read. I will come in a moment to a very important point about the very situation that she mentions, but first I would like to continue on the theme of the battle of Britain.
Bramcote Airbase, which was on the edge of my constituency, Nuneaton, is where the RAF was responsible for training all the bomber aircrew for Polish forces in 1940, with four Polish bomber squadrons formed there. In fact, there was an air crash around that time; in the cemetery at Nuneaton, there are Polish airmen buried along with German and British airmen. We still commemorate those losses every year, to make sure that we remember the contribution that the Polish made at that time.
Bob Stewart
The reason why the Royal Air Force had so many Polish pilots was that they were extremely well trained and had fought for us in the battle of France before the battle of Britain. They were very well trained and we were very grateful that they were with us.
Mr Jones
I defer to my hon. Friend’s superior knowledge. He knows far more about such matters than I do. What he said is borne out by the fact that the Polish squadron was the highest scoring RAF Hurricane squadron in the battle of Britain.
It was not just in the air that the Poles excelled in the second world war. Girls and women today would do well to look at the contribution of one of the Special Operations Executive’s most daring operatives, Christine Granville, otherwise known by her Polish name, Krystyna Skarbek. She proved that being brave and fighting for one’s beliefs is not just a male preserve. On the battlefields, the Polish army, under British High Command, was instrumental at the battle of Monte Cassino, which was mentioned by colleagues, and at the battle of Arnhem, among many others. Perhaps most importantly, as my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham and several other colleagues highlighted, we have Polish cryptographers to thank for cracking the early versions of the Enigma machine. That laid the foundations for subsequent British successes in deciphering German military signals, which proved a key factor in many allied successes during the war.
Poles were with us in our darkest hour, as they were with thousands of Polish Jews in theirs. More than 6,000 risked their lives to save Jews from the horrors of the holocaust. Poles constitute the largest national group within the “Righteous Among the Nations”, an honour bestowed on recipients by Yad Vashem, Israel’s official memorial to the victims of the holocaust. Considering the harsh punishment that threatened rescuers, it is an extremely impressive number.
To ensure that the murder of millions of Polish Jews is never forgotten, the Department for Communities and Local Government is working with From the Depths to preserve the memory of the holocaust and give a name to those who were murdered, particularly those, including many Poles, who were placed in unmarked graves. That will offer some level of closure to the remaining holocaust survivors—including in Polish communities in this country—who have never known their loved ones’ last resting place. There are an estimated 10,000 sites of mass murder in eastern Europe, with only around 30 commemorated in the past three years. The project we have undertaken will rectify that.
Along with many others in this House and throughout the country, I reacted in absolute horror to the spike in incidents of hate crime following the EU referendum. My colleagues Baroness Williams, the then communities Minister, and Lord Ahmad, the then Minister for Countering Extremism, saw at first hand the effects of such mindless acts when they visited the Polish Social and Cultural Association—POSK—which my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham mentioned earlier in the debate. They met the Polish ambassador, His Excellency Witold Sobków, who I am really pleased to see in the Public Gallery.
I want to make it absolutely clear that we will not tolerate those few individuals who target people because they are different. Our police forces are on alert and have encouraged people who have experienced hate crime to report it to the police. We have zero tolerance for all forms of hate crimes, whichever community they are perpetrated against. Just as Polish men and women stood by us during the second world war, we will stand by those who have come more recently and who have contributed to our national life.
Our communities must be open, tolerant and welcoming. I am pleased to say that my Department is working with Near Neighbours to fund projects that promote integration and support social action—projects like the one in Birmingham run by the Polish Expats Association, which is holding a series of events to promote Polish music and culture, along with that of other communities. The project will also hold fundraising events to help the homeless community in Birmingham. I am pleased that, in his capacity as chair of the all-party group on Poland, my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham will meet my departmental colleague, Lord Bourne, to discuss how we can continue to counter hate crime and promote integration in communities throughout the country.
Today, there are thousands upon thousands of Polish citizens and people of Polish origin making a difference to the UK. My hon. Friend and others have highlighted their vital contribution. That is nowhere more true than in the NHS, where, according to the figures we have from the Department of Health, more than 6,700 Poles work.