Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chris Law and Alan Duncan

Tuesday 25th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I am afraid the right hon. Lady appears not to have read the 20 June Court judgment, which acknowledged “rigorous”—her very word—“robust” and “multi-layered” processes

“‘carried out by numerous expert government and military personnel’, upon which the Secretary of State could rely”.

As the right hon. Lady appreciates, my responsibilities do not cover Saudi Arabia, but we speak directly to our Saudi counterparts on all such matters, including arms and human rights.

[Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)]

Does the Secretary of State, who we hope will get to his feet for once on this question, not agree that the selling of weapons to a regime that murders journalists and civilians and repeatedly breaks international humanitarian law entirely undermines the United Kingdom’s role as a proponent of the rules-based international order?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I hope that for the time being at least I am an adequate substitute for the Foreign Secretary in answering these questions; it is a perfectly reasonable allocation of a question to a broad thematic policy area for which I am responsible. Within that broad theme, I assure the House that we endeavour to maintain the highest standards, not only within the rules-based international system but when it comes to the export of arms.

[Chris Law]

I welcome the Minister’s response, most notably his reference to this House, because earlier this year it was our own House of Lords Select Committee that reported that UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia were “unconscionable” and that the UK Government are “on the wrong side” of the law. Last week, the Court of Appeal ruled that arms sales to Saudi Arabia are unlawful. The Government’s actions have been denounced by the upper House of the legislature and ruled unlawful by the judiciary, so on what grounds does the Secretary of State, or, indeed, the Minister, still insist on selling weapons to the regime?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

The Court judgment did not say that our arms sales are unlawful. It criticised an aspect of process that we are studying very closely and will address. It is incorrect to say that our arms sales to Saudi Arabia are wholesale unlawful.

Hurricane Irma: Government Response

Debate between Chris Law and Alan Duncan

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

As he is a former Foreign Office Minister, I totally respect the thinking and comments of my hon. Friend. We do not directly govern the overseas territories; they govern themselves. It is perhaps questionable whether it is appropriate, looking at the geography, to have a permanent base at any of them. However, we do rotate our naval assets so as best to cover the danger of hurricanes and to be able to respond to them. I think that in this case that has been shown to be very effective. The trouble is that if we have permanent assets, people or machinery pre-positioned, they can often get hit by the very hurricane that we are trying to respond to a few days later.

[Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)]

First and foremost, our thoughts are once again with those who are affected by the impact of the devastating Hurricane Irma. The SNP echoes the widespread calls for the UK Government to step up their efforts to ensure that those who are in need of urgent assistance receive it as swiftly and safely as possible. We welcome the fact that more than 700 British troops and 50 police officers have been sent to the British Virgin Islands after they were battered by the most powerful storm recorded in the Atlantic ocean. In addition, 20 tonnes of aid and £32 million is a start, but there must be more and we must ask the Minister to provide details of additional help to come. This is too little and too late.

There is real concern about the lack of preparedness by the UK Government in responding to the hurricane. The severity of Hurricane Irma had been predicted and there was time to prepare, but the UK Government did not do so. It is clear that in comparison to other territories’ and Governments’ responses, the UK Government have been lagging behind in their support and strategy. To give just one example to put this beyond any doubt, the French Government deployed their military before the storm, but the one ship sent by the UK Government arrived only on Thursday. Of course, if the UK Government had a proper shipbuilding strategy and this was implemented, they might be able to act sooner. Will the Secretary of State for International Development learn from the example of other Governments with reconstruction efforts and emergency funds? Once the International Development Committee is reconvened in Parliament, an inquiry into the UK Government’s slow response must be made an immediate priority to ensure that the UK is as prepared as it can be in dealing with such disasters.

Why have the UK Government lagged behind other countries in their support and strategy in responding adequately to Hurricane Irma? As I said last week—we have not heard a word about it so far from the Government Benches—it is clear that climate change plays a clear part in the ever-increasing 100-to-500-year storms that we have seen last week, as echoed by Gaston Browne, the Prime Minister of Barbuda. I therefore ask again what further pressures the UK Government are putting on Donald Trump to change his stance on the Paris climate change agreement.

[Sir Alan Duncan]

Again, I am rather dismayed by the hon. Gentleman’s sweeping criticisms of the efforts that have been made, because they are unsupported by the facts. For instance, the French do not deploy in advance specifically for hurricanes; they have troops permanently based there because the nature of French overseas territories government is different from ours. Our overseas territories are self-governing; the French govern directly, and therefore they have soldiers there all the time. But if they are there, depending on where the hurricane goes, they may not necessarily be in the right place, and some of their assets which they hoped would help may have been destroyed. Our flexible naval deployment is the best way of helping people in response to a hurricane when we know pretty well only at the last minute exactly where the force of the hurricane is going to hit.

On a shipbuilding strategy, I do not know where the hon. Gentleman has been over the past few weeks, but we have just announced one. Perhaps he might have the good grace to admit that we have announced a shipbuilding strategy and that instead of criticising us, he ought to be standing there saying, “Thank you very much.”

I reiterate the point—perhaps I chose my language imperfectly—that we are not so much evacuating people, because that is not always the right thing to do, particularly for those who want to live there and stay near their homes, as helping them to depart in a way that I would argue, and I think we can prove, is very efficient and is the right way done to the highest standards.

Hurricane Irma

Debate between Chris Law and Alan Duncan

Thursday 7th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

First, let me say that we are endeavouring to contact everybody, although this is difficult in some cases. There is always a distinction between DFID funding that is Official Development Assistance-eligible and that which is not, but we will make all the assessments we possibly can, in order to give the help that we would like to give wherever we find that the need is severe. We will, as my hon. Friend requests, focus on all the help, and we have dealt with many hurricanes and typhoons in the region before. Indeed, four years ago, as the Minister, I gave some assistance to St Lucia and St Vincent, which had had all their bridges swept away. It was because we had the professionalism required to assess the damage that we knew how best to respond to it. Our response is flexible, which again reflects DFID’s professional competence.

[Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)]

I, too, am grateful for advance sight of today’s statement. There is no doubt that the devastation across the Caribbean is both grave and a tragedy. Naturally, our thoughts and wishes go out to all those waiting to find out whether or not they are in the path of Hurricane Irma—those in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, the Bahamas and Florida; and to those who have already been hit in the Virgin Islands, Anguilla, Puerto Rico and St Martin, which we hear is “almost destroyed” and in Barbuda, whose Prime Minister says that the island is “totally demolished” and “nearly uninhabitable”. We encourage the Minister to send as much urgent aid as possible to them.

The upgrading to hurricanes of storms Jose and Katia, making it three in the Caribbean basin, is terrifying. The prospect of Jose hitting locales we have already seen hit, amid the devastation, is unthinkable. The world is witnessing the increased prevalence of hurricanes. In the past three years alone, Texas has had three 100-year to 500-year events, leading to warnings that this is the “new normal”. We are seeing the major impact of climate change, and we must step up actions on this at the highest priority. Gaston Browne, the Prime Minister of Barbuda and the larger, neighbouring island of Antigua, told the BBC’s “Today” programme:

“The science is clear. Climate change is real, in the Caribbean we are living with the consequences of climate change. It is unfortunate that there are some who see it differently.”

Will the Government express our solidarity and sympathies with the communities affected, especially those on the devastated island of Barbuda, through communication with their Prime Minister? What efforts have the Government made to note how many UK nationals have been caught up in the path of this devastating hurricane?

Finally, as part of the UK’s much-vaunted “special relationship” with the United States, what pressure are the UK Government putting on Donald Trump to change his stance on the Paris climate change agreement, and to be part of the solution and not the problem?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I of course hear what the hon. Gentleman says about climate change. There is no doubt that many parts of the world are facing a greater incidence of severe weather, but I hope he will allow me to confine myself to the urgent nature of our response to people in desperate need, rather than engage today in a debate on the broader issues. Our priority is primarily the overseas territories, but it is not confined to them. Thus, we will be focusing in the first instance on the British Virgin Islands, Anguilla and, by the look of it, the Turks and Caicos Islands. That is why the crisis centres in the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development are working joined at the hip to ensure that our response is as effective and as rapid as possible.