Kashmir

Mark Field Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Asia and the Pacific (Mark Field)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for this opportunity to update the House on the current situation between India and Pakistan in Kashmir, as promised after the urgent question was tabled last Wednesday. On 14 February, a terrorist attack against a convoy near Pulwama in India-administered Kashmir killed more than 40 members of the Indian central reserve police force and injured many others. The individual who claimed responsibility for the attack associated himself with the group Jaish-e-Mohammed. This suicide attack drew international condemnation, including from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and increased tensions between India and Pakistan.

Exactly what happened after the attack remains contested, but it is our understanding that on 26 February Indian aircraft crossed the line of control between India-administered Kashmir and Pakistan-administered Kashmir and carried out airstrikes into Pakistani territory. The following day, Pakistan launched missile strikes into India-administered Kashmir and there was an aerial exchange between Indian and Pakistani fighter jets. An Indian air force plane was shot down by Pakistan and its pilot was captured. At this point there was a serious risk that a mishap could lead to a fully-fledged war between the two nations, with both regional and international implications.

On 28 February, the Pakistani Prime Minister, Imran Khan, announced that he would hand over the captured Indian pilot. The next day, Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman returned to India. This, together with public and private indications that Pakistan was prepared to tackle the terrorist groups that threaten India, has seen a welcome pause in the escalating tensions between the two countries. Nevertheless, the UK Government remain deeply concerned by the raised tensions between the two countries and the underlying issues that have led to this situation.

We welcome the fact that India and Pakistan have both stated publicly that they do not want to escalate tensions further. The situation remains fragile, however, and both militaries remain on heightened alert. There accordingly remains a high risk of some further incident, and the situation could move quickly back into crisis. Just this morning, media reports have come in of a deadly grenade attack in Jammu.

India and Pakistan are close and long-standing friends of the United Kingdom. Our bilateral ties with both countries are long and deep, and they are bolstered by the UK’s large Indian and Pakistani diaspora communities, which are also deeply concerned by the situation. We encourage both countries, and our friends on these shores, to find diplomatic solutions to the underlying causes of conflict.

Members should be assured that the UK has worked and continues to work tirelessly through all diplomatic channels to encourage further de-escalation and to ensure long-term regional stability. We do this alongside our international partners and with a wide range of counterparts in India and Pakistan. I visited India last weekend, between 1 and 3 March, and I was able to reiterate to those whom I met that the UK unequivocally condemns all forms of terrorism, including the appalling terrorist attack in Pulwama that sparked the current crisis. In New Delhi, I discussed with Foreign Secretary Gokhale steps to decrease tension and improve regional stability, including vital efforts to tackle terrorism.

Since I last updated the House, the Indian wing commander has been reunited with his family. We saw that as an important and welcome step by Pakistan to reduce tensions. Our Prime Minister spoke to Prime Minister Imran Khan of Pakistan on 3 March, and they discussed the need to address the causes of this conflict. Our Prime Minister emphasised the importance of Pakistan’s taking action against all terrorist groups, in support of global efforts to counter terrorism.

We remain firmly committed to working closely with Pakistan to combat the terrorist threat and the extremism that sustains it. We recognise the steps that Pakistan has already taken against groups such as the Pakistani Taliban, but we continue to highlight the importance of effective and demonstrable action against all terrorist groups in Pakistan. That is something that Pakistan has committed to undertaking. We have been clear that that action needs to be urgent, sustained, credible and transparent. Alongside others in the international community, we encourage Pakistan to meet the requirements of its Financial Action Task Force action plan, which includes taking specific action to address terrorist financing.

For our part, we ensure that UK aid to Pakistan continues to address the conditions that could allow radicalisation and violent extremism to grow. A more prosperous and stable Pakistan is vital for regional and global security, and it is very much in the UK’s national interest. Our programmes on the ground aim to reduce overall poverty, promote inclusion, increase economic opportunities and meet basic needs, including girls’ education.

The UK and India also have a close working relationship on counter-terrorism, which includes regular dialogue. During Prime Minister Modi’s visit to the United Kingdom last April, the two Prime Ministers agreed to strengthen co-operation to take decisive and concerted action against globally proscribed terrorists and terror entities to protect our citizens. They agreed that terrorist and extremist organisations must be denied space to radicalise, recruit and conduct attacks on innocent people. We will continue to work closely with and support India, but the matter goes well beyond the bilateral India-UK relationship.

We believe that all countries need to work closely together to disrupt global terrorist networks, their financing and the movement of terrorists, including foreign terrorist fighters. As part of international efforts to tackle terrorism, the UK continues actively to support the listing of JEM leader Masood Azhar at the UN. The JEM is already listed by the UN and has been proscribed in the UK since 2001, and in Pakistan since 2002.

In parallel to the important fight against terrorism, we expect India and Pakistan to focus on securing longer-term regional stability and security. Dialogue is an important confidence-building mechanism, even though we recognise the complexities. We strongly encourage both countries to engage in that way. The UK will follow developments closely, and we stand ready to support should India and Pakistan both deem that to be constructive.

As hon. Members will be aware from our conversations both at the all-party parliamentary Kashmir group and in this House only eight days ago, our long-standing position is that it is for India and Pakistan to find a lasting political resolution, taking into account the wishes of the Kashmiri people. It is not for the UK to prescribe a solution or act as a mediator. In the meantime, I confirm to the House that we continue to monitor the situation closely. Naturally, we keep our travel advice under constant review.

I close by reiterating the Government’s wholehearted support for those who fight terrorism, and restating our sustained commitment to working with India and Pakistan to further de-escalate the current situation. Many Members of the House—a lot of them are here today—agree that a calming of these tensions is in our collective interests. I think we have an important part to play. When I went to New Delhi and Mumbai last weekend, I was struck by how many of my counterparts had watched last week’s urgent question. The message goes out loud and clear from this House that here there are many friends of India and Pakistan who wish to see a better future for all who live in Kashmir. I commend this statement to the House.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister of State for advance sight of his statement.

There is great concern across this House, and in many of our constituencies, about what is happening in Kashmir and the tension that that is creating between India and Pakistan—the biggest military confrontation between the two countries for 20 years. I applaud the Foreign Office team for keeping the House updated and for the sober and constructive tone of the statement.

It is important at the outset to go back to the immediate cause of this crisis, namely the vicious terror attack on a convoy of Indian troops travelling through Pulwama on 14 February, leaving more than 40 of them dead. India has been absolutely right to take action against the terror group responsible, known as the JEM, and to demand that Pakistan take action as well.

We welcome the fact that Pakistan has started to take the necessary action, with the detention of several members of the JEM and other proscribed organisations earlier this week. As the Indian Government have done, however, we urge Pakistan to go further by, first, prosecuting those individuals if there is evidence of their links to terror offences; and, secondly, arresting and prosecuting the head of the JEM, Masood Azhar. We welcome the latest moves to ensure that Masood Azhar is finally designated as a global terrorist by the UN Security Council. May I ask the Minister of State whether there are signs of movement on that issue by China, given its previous veto of such action?

Finally on the Pulwama attack, will the Minister join me in urging the Indian authorities, at national and regional levels, to follow the welcome instructions of the Indian Supreme Court to ensure the protection and safety of the innocent civilians of Kashmiri origin—men and women, from suited businesspeople to street traders—who have faced violent reprisals across India following the attack?

I turn to the recent military escalation around the line of control. In this age of doctored images and social media misinformation, it has been genuinely bewildering trying to work out what has actually happened, as opposed to what has been claimed. I think we can all say one thing with clarity: both sides have a responsibility to dial down the rhetoric, de-escalate the tension and avoid taking any further military action—in the air or on the ground—that could inflame the situation further and risk a descent into open conflict.

As the shadow Foreign Secretary said on this subject last week, the danger of this claim and counter-claim—the tit-for-tat attacks and what we are repeatedly told are airstrikes designed to send a message—is that amid the fog of war, mistakes will be made, and even without either side intending it, a major incident will occur from which there will be no going back. I know the Minister of State will agree that instead we urgently require the resumption of immediate talks between India and Pakistan, to de-escalate the crisis and avoid any further military action.

I would go further than that and say this should be the catalyst for the resumption of proper negotiations and a substantive dialogue between India and Pakistan on the future of Kashmir. The blueprint is there in the sadly short-lived plan worked out between the Singh and Musharraf Governments in the early 2000s. If such dialogue was possible back then, and if a workable, mutually agreed plan for Kashmir was possible back then, it can be possible today or, at the very least, after the Indian elections this spring.

What we must remember about the Singh-Musharraf plan is that it had at its heart not just military disengagement on both sides but a genuine regard for the political and economic rights of the Kashmiri people that, along with their human rights and humanitarian needs, have been so tragically overlooked for the past 70 years.

Let me repeat what my right hon. Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary said last week: our thoughts must first and foremost be with the innocent people of Kashmir, over whom this battle is being fought. Their human rights have been serially abused, their humanitarian needs have been neglected and their wishes for their own future have been treated as unimportant.

Generation after generation of Kashmiri children face growing up trapped in the same cycle of instability, violence and fear. It is time to break that cycle. Only peaceful dialogue and a negotiated settlement can achieve that, and I hope the Minister of State will continue urging both sides not just to de-escalate the current tensions, and not just to take effective action against the terror groups that helped create that tension, but to commit to resuming constructive dialogue to eliminate those tensions for good and finally bring peace and stability to the people of Kashmir.

[Mark Field]

I thank the hon. Lady for her thoughtful and wise words. She is absolutely right in many ways about one of the depressing things for all of us as parliamentarians in recent months. Despite all the attention on the battles being fought on Brexit, a huge amount of work is going on on this issue. We all feel strongly about this, and I have spent a lot of time, either on the phone, in video conferences or in person, with our excellent ambassadors, Sir Dominic Asquith in New Delhi and Tom Drew in Pakistan. I realise just how much work has gone on behind the scenes as we try to play our part in bringing about the dialogue to which the hon. Lady refers. Where I entirely agree with her, and I think the whole House would agree, is that it is time to break the cycle, which can happen only through dialogue. She is quite right to recognise that, after the desperately tragic events of 14 February, making substantive steps forward in the next five or six weeks, during the Indian elections, is not entirely realistic. However, once the dust has settled on those elections—obviously in Imran Khan we have a relatively new Pakistani Prime Minister, too—one hopes that sense will prevail and there can be ongoing dialogue. Obviously, the UK stands ready to keep lines of communication open, as we have over the difficult past fortnight or so. We will play our part in that regard.

The hon. Lady asked some specific questions, one of which was about the hoped-for movement by China. Clearly a lot of discussions are taking place at the UN Security Council, and we hope that any veto on proscribing and listing Masood Azhar will not come about. The situation is clearly fluid. As soon as I am in a position to say more, I will naturally do so.

The hon. Lady is right to say that the Indian Supreme Court has made judgments to which we should all pay close attention in relation to the duties and responsibilities of the Kashmiri public.

The hon. Lady referenced the idea that what has happened is still open to some dispute, and I read a rather perceptive piece in The Guardian yesterday that said, rather skilfully, that both sides have an interest in keeping the narrative malleable. That gives both India and Pakistan room to claim victory but also, more importantly, to refrain from further strikes. There is a sense of each side perhaps being able to get the last word because there is that sense of ambiguity, and such ambiguity can at times assist de-escalatory sentiment. It is therefore all the more important for us to maintain elements of that ambiguity, rather than trying to ramp up the pressure.

I thank the hon. Lady for her kind words, which add so much to our diplomacy. There will always be differences of nuance, and perhaps even more fundamental differences, on Foreign Office-related affairs, but it adds so much more to our voice in diplomatic quarters if we are, at times, able to speak as one, particularly during such a tragic era.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for updating the House, and I thank him and the shadow Minister for their tone in trying to de-escalate the current crisis between India and Pakistan. I read with interest the read-out from the conversation between our Prime Minister and Prime Minister Imran Khan, in which our Prime Minister made it clear that the responsibility for Pakistan is to remove and dismantle the terrorist camps and to make sure that terrorism is not encouraged in Pakistan. What is not clear is the response from Prime Minister Imran Khan to actually make that happen. If it happens, it could lead to dialogue and could prevent terrorism.

Will my right hon. Friend the Minister update the House on what the reaction has been from the Pakistani Government to achieve the peace and stability we all want to see?

[Mark Field]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. An even-handed assessment is that effective, visible and verifiable action against terrorist groups in the vicinity of Kashmir is an urgent necessity, so I welcome the reports of Pakistan’s intent in that regard. Obviously we recognise that verifying and sustaining those efforts will be vital.

It is also worth pointing out that much of the commentary in the immediate aftermath of 14 February was pessimistic, and both Prime Minister Modi of India and Prime Minister Imran Khan of Pakistan have shown statesmanlike qualities that were perhaps not expected by many commentators. It is still early days, and one recognises that the potentially escalatory events in Jammu earlier today mean we cannot be complacent, but the international community can be relieved that some of the very worst predictions of only two or three weeks ago have not come to pass. I very much hope that the two Premiers will show statesmanlike behaviour in trying to ensure a verifiable change of heart on the ground.

[Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)]

I thank the Minister for early sight of his statement. I also thank him for his work and particularly for the work of Foreign and Commonwealth Office officials, which is often overlooked. I join colleagues on both sides of the House in our unequivocal condemnation of terror attacks.

We are dealing with two nuclear-armed states, which concerns us all and means this is a global problem, not just a regional problem. De-escalation is critical, and obviously we welcome the return of the Indian pilot. I welcome the Minister’s work on that de-escalation. There is a concern about the role of non-state actors that could not care less about the nuclear element—that concerns us, and obviously it concerns the Minister, too. It would be interesting to get his further thoughts on that.

India and Pakistan have good friends the length and breadth of the United Kingdom, and I welcome the Minister’s remarks about the UK’s readiness to support the peace process should India and Pakistan require and want that support. This role should not begin and end with the FCO. If we are looking at a long-term solution, we must look to our engagement with diaspora communities and to the fantastic ongoing work that some tremendous non-governmental organisations—many of them funded by the FCO—and others are doing. I highlight the groundbreaking work of some of the Scottish NGOs in providing a space in Scotland for peacebuilding activities, and I know the Minister has taken that on board, too.

[Mark Field]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. He is right to say that there is a role to be played by bodies other than the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He will appreciate that a lot of work goes on, particularly in Pakistan, where the biggest Department for International Development budget goes. Some of that work is too sensitive to bring up on the Floor of the House, as he will understand. In addition, the Department for International Trade plays a role, and technology is becoming increasingly important to both India and Pakistan. I am well aware from my own speeches to diaspora communities from both the Pakistani and Indian side that the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has an important role to play. Indeed, when I was in Mumbai, on a pre-arranged visit that ended up being at a fortuitous time in diplomatic terms, I had conversations about FinTech initiatives that take place between India and the UK. It is also worth pointing out that there is a fledgling but important technology industry in Pakistan, and we have tried to encourage our Pakistani diaspora to play an important role in that.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

I particularly welcome the proactive way in which the Minister has brought this statement to the House. I do so for two reasons, the first of which is that I thought I detected a slight evolution in the Government’s position and perhaps willingness to react to a demand from India and Pakistan to get involved. I do not particularly wish to press him on it, in case it proves to be a will-o’-the-wisp, but if I did correctly sense an evolution in the position, I am extremely grateful for that. The second reason is the one highlighted by the Opposition Front Bencher, which is that Kashmiri people in the UK and doubtless across the world have long felt neglected. They have felt that the international community has not paid attention to their human rights. If this is not the moment to escalate this issue in the minds of the international community, when will we ever do it? I welcome this statement but I ask the Minister to make sure the international community pays attention.

[Mark Field]

I thank my hon. Friend for that. I am well aware of the work he does with a significant Kashmiri population in his constituency, and I have had a chance to meet some of the main community leaders there. I would not wish him to think there has been too much of an evolution of the Government policy, but what I have seen, having spoken at great length to our high commissioners in Islamabad and New Delhi, is a recognition that one area where we can and will assist, as we have done, is through the breadth of our diplomatic knowledge on the ground. We are able to have lines of communication open with diplomats, politicians and the military on both sides, which we hope will enable us to assist, but it would be wrong to assume that we are in any way going to try to put our own template or mediate there. I would not want the House to be in any doubt about the huge amount of work that goes on in our diplomatic community, which will continue.

I know that my hon. Friend takes the Kashmiri issue very seriously and he is right to say that this is perhaps an important international wake-up call, when progress can be made. We are perhaps reluctant to make a comparison with what happened in Northern Ireland, but the single worst attack on civilians there, in Omagh, in 1998, finally became the moment when many, not only in Northern Ireland but in surrounding countries, thought that something fundamentally had to change. That was the path towards the Good Friday agreement.

[Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)]

I value the Minister coming here to give us this statement and I thank him for that. However, I am struggling with the fact that although we rightly hear about terrorism and how Pakistan needs to get rid of all the terrorism, I do not hear—and I want to hear—about the Kashmiri people. We do not hear about the fact that we have illegally occupied territory, and people who have been persecuted for years and years. There is no end in sight for those people at the heart of all of this. We are not talking about that. We are not talking about the Indian armed forces doing what they are doing, and blinding people. We are not talking about the resurgence of all the terrors put upon these people. What really alarms me is that while we are talking about Pakistan playing its role, we have seen a Prime Minister in India who is using the conflict to electioneer and for his election purposes. What have our Government done? Have we made any representations to the Prime Minister of India about not using this conflict for electioneering purposes?

[Mark Field]

I thank the hon. Lady for that. She will appreciate, and we have very much noted, the concerns across Kashmir raised in the report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in June 2018. It made firm recommendations for both India and Pakistan to consider. Even eight days ago, I was not quite aware of just how much work goes on. I alluded in my statement to the work on child education. When I was in Pakistan at the end of 2017, I went to Mardan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which at that stage was the stronghold of Imran Khan’s party. I saw the terrific amount of work that was going on in trying to develop trust-based policing, similar to what we have here in the UK, rather than the police being a police “force”. There was also a real commitment to education, particularly girls’ education. These things go on throughout Pakistan. Some of them are quite sensitive and I cannot go into great detail here.

One very much hopes there will be an ongoing de-escalation and calming of passions, but later in the year we will have a leadership week at the Foreign Office, when our high commissioners in India and Pakistan will both be here, so it might be useful to have the all-party group on Kashmir come in. I hope that people will recognise that some of what will be said will be a little sensitive, so I cannot go into deep detail on this on the Floor of the House, but that might be a useful exercise for the all-party group and friends of India from both sides of the House—I am well aware that the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) speaks in that regard. That might be useful, as it would give all Members a little more idea of just how much work goes on in Kashmir, some of which it is difficult at this stage to avow.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

I very much welcome the tone of the Minister’s statement, and that of what was said by the shadow Minister and by the Scottish National party spokesperson. The sight of two nuclear-armed nations firing on each other was clearly frightening, and the de-escalation that has happened since is welcome. Can the Minister reassure me about the work that will be done to maintain the communication, particularly between the two militaries that sit both sides of the line of control? In London, at the Royal College of Defence Studies, we can see members of both those nations’ armed forces working and participating together, and building up friendships and relationships. This should not be impossible and it is certainly something we could help to facilitate.

[Mark Field]

I thank my hon. Friend for what he has said, because he is right: our defence capability here involves a significant number of leading figures in both the Pakistani and Indian military having come out of Sandhurst and having been trained here. That is one aspect of UK soft power, as having these sorts of institutions allows alumni to maintain contact in the future. We will do all we can to keep as many lines of communication open as possible. One does not perhaps recognise until such incidents occur just how important developing the soft power of those connections is, both for the UK’s purpose and for countries caught in the sort of problems faced in Kashmir.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Ind)]

I welcome the tone and content of the Minister’s statement and of the remarks made by the Labour Front Bencher. That is very important at this time, when, as the Minister said, there has today been a terrorist attack on a bus stand in Jammu with a grenade. I understand that it has killed at least one person and left three more in a serious condition—apparently, 28 people were injured. This is the third attack on a bus stand in Jammu in the past year. Clearly, there are people in the region who wish to create tension, conflict and all-out war between India and Pakistan for their own reasons. This is a time for all voices in this country—in this Parliament and in diaspora communities—to come together to tone down the rhetoric and work for long-term, difficult political solutions.

[Mark Field]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for what he said. He is absolutely right that it is incumbent on us all, as responsible Members of Parliament, to do all that we can to try to tone down the rhetoric, which was at a very high level at some points. He asked me last week about the Kargil war. I very much hope he will take up my offer and come to the Foreign Office. It would be useful to learn a little more because, as I say, one thing one learns quickly in Foreign Office and diplomatic affairs is that very few problems are entirely novel and we can always learn from perspectives on the past. The hon. Gentleman had an important role to play in the Foreign Affairs Committee at the beginning of the new Labour time, when Robin Cook was the Foreign Secretary.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Minister for coming back to the House to update us on this situation. He will recall that in his comments to me last Wednesday he made a pledge to the people of Walthamstow and, indeed, to the people of this country, that in his conversations with both the Pakistani and Indian representatives he would raise explicitly the question of UN investigations into human rights in Kashmir. Will he update us on the conversations he has had on human rights and whether he has been able to use Britain’s influence to persuade them to co-operate with those investigations so that the people of Kashmir can finally have some justice?

[Mark Field]

We are working together on this. There have been a lot of other priorities, but I very much took on board the concerns expressed. As I mentioned earlier in answer to a previous question, we obviously feel that, given the pretty robust report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, with its own recommendations, we want both India and Pakistan to ensure that they adapt their domestic laws in line with the international standards. It is clear that a lot of work will continue at the UN; I do not think there is any sense of complacency or of thinking we are by any means out of the woods in respect of these tensions.

The current mandate of the UN military observer group in India and Pakistan authorises it to observe developments relating to the observance of the 1971 ceasefire and to report to the Secretary-General. Obviously, any allegations of human rights abuses or violations are therefore a matter of deep concern under that mandate. We expect all countries to comply with the international obligations. We will continue to do a lot more on this issue at the UN. We are well aware, as the hon. Lady will be, that several countries, including Germany and Indonesia, that have strong interests in this issue, either for regional reasons or because of their trade and diaspora connections, are on the UN Security Council this year, and we will be working together with all those countries. It will take a little time. I am sorry that I do not have too much more to report from the past eight days, but a lot more will be going on in the months to come.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

The Minister has been most assiduous and thorough in his replies to questions, but—

[Mark Field]

I think I know where this is going.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

The Minister knows what is coming next. We have a lot of business to get through today, so I think the House would now appreciate rather shorter answers.

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

I join the unanimous condemnation of these callous terrorist attacks and underline, as I think the Minister would, that the matter of Kashmir will be resolved only when India and Pakistan put the interests of Kashmiris centre stage.

I was hoping the Minister would clarify one point in relation to his statement. He referred to the fact that Pakistan’s actions need to be

“urgent, sustained, credible and transparent”,

but it is not clear to me whether he believes that to be the case, so will he confirm that? Will he also confirm what further action the UK Government may be able to take with Pakistan in future on tackling terrorism?

[Mark Field]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his comments. There is a clear intent from the Pakistani authorities to ensure that things are going to be verifiable and transparent, as I have pointed out. That will obviously be tested in time, but we have felt that Prime Minister Imran Khan has taken a positive stance, recognising our concerns about terrorist-related organisations on the ground in Pakistan. Again, we stand ready to work with the international community to try to ensure that any terrorist organisations on either side of the divide that would do harm to Kashmir’s interests and to Kashmiri people are kept at bay.

[Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

I thank the Government for the steps they have taken to de-escalate the tension between Pakistan and India. The world cannot afford for these two nuclear countries to go to war. We all want to ensure the safety and human rights of the people of Kashmir. It is disappointing that the Minister did not say a single word on human rights in his three-page statement. Does he agree that there is a role for the United Nations and the other independent parties to monitor and report on alleged human rights abuses? The Indian Government have locked up hundreds of Kashmiri leaders. Does the Minister agree that India must remove restrictions on the Hurriyat leadership and accept that Kashmiris are the third party in this conflict?

[Mark Field]

The hon. Gentleman knows that I cannot go as far as to satisfy him on what he said about the idea of Kashmir being a third party. We do not recognise the notional government of Kashmir, for the obvious reasons we have pointed out. On human rights, I referred in my response to the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) to what we are doing at the UN level. It is important to recognise that we will continue to make representations, as we have in the past, to try to ensure that there is a proper, verifiable process for concerns about human rights, wherever they come from, and I accept that they come predominantly from the Pakistani side about what is happening in Indian-administered Kashmir. We will continue to make strong representations in that regard.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

Many of us were appalled by the despicable terrorist attack in Pulwama, but it was also awful to see reprisals against entirely innocent Kashmiri people in India. Along with my Slough constituents, I was heartened to see various Sikh groups in the neighbouring Punjab and human rights organisations elsewhere stand up for and protect Kashmiris living in their neighbourhoods. Will the Minister continually make it clear to his Indian counterparts that although we understand their anger, they must ensure that innocent people are not harmed in response?

[Mark Field]

I can confirm that in my conversation with Foreign Secretary Gokhale in New Delhi last week I brought up that very point, and we shall continue to do so.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

I join other Members in our unanimous condemnation of terrorism in all its forms. I welcome the Minister’s efforts to de-escalate this very dangerous situation. I also welcome the efforts of all people on all sides who continue to voice with reason the message of de-escalation, peace and stability in the region. In particular, I note the Pakistani Government and Imran Khan’s real gesture of peace in the release of the captured Indian pilot.

At the heart of this issue continue to be the sons and daughters of Kashmir. Tragically, I did not hear anywhere in the Minister’s statement the outright condemnation of the continued human rights violations. Just this morning, constituents have given me reports of ceasefire violations in the Bhimber, Kotli and Samahni districts that have left people injured and many others running and fleeing. I urge the Minister to demand an urgent end to the violations of the ceasefire and to urge the Indian Government, as Pakistan has done, to allow the international community to come together and act as mediators to allow an end to the human rights violations, and to allow self-determination.

[Mark Field]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point. I am doing my best to de-escalate some of the passions and tensions even on the Floor of the House. As I said last week, I very much admire the hon. Gentleman’s real sense of passion. He should not think that we do not express the concerns about human rights. There are of course concerns on both sides of the divide, and it would be wrong to think of it as a one-way thing. Of course we do not support human rights violations, but one concern is that using the word “condemn” is not enough; we want to try to do something more constructive. Condemning is simply words; I hope the hon. Gentleman recognises that a lot of action is also taking place in both Islamabad and New Delhi, and we shall continue to do that work.

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

I, too, welcome the tone of these exchanges on what can be a tense subject matter and what has been a very tense situation. One problem that causes terrorism all around the world, and certainly in this area, is information and misinformation. Many Members have called for monitoring by an honest broker, the UN, in Kashmir. It could not only help to find out what human rights violations are going on and seek to offer aid, support and condemnation, but help with some of the efforts to stop terrorism through misinformation and propaganda. Should not the UK Government constantly be pushing for UN investigators and monitors in Kashmir to protect Kashmiri people?

[Mark Field]

The issue of disinformation, which the hon. Lady rightly mentions, is a global phenomenon, due in part to the nature of social media. It is something that we will try to address. At the very least, we will try to corral the international community with a conference on press freedom in July, in which this will be one of the issues that will emerge.

The trust that has been built up over the years within our diplomatic network genuinely assisted in keeping open the lines of communication between Indian and Pakistani counterparts during the fraught weeks since 14 February. We can be very proud that, at a time when so much of our energy and attention is on Brexit disputes, we have in the Foreign Office individuals who are working hard to do their best to ensure that, when there are flashpoints such as those that have happened in Kashmir, we can utilise as much of our diplomatic network’s muscle as possible to bring sides together. We can all be proud of that, but equally, we are not complacent and we will continue to work very hard to ensure that that de-escalation and the sense of calm that has come into place over the past couple of weeks are maintained.

Jammu and Kashmir

Mark Field Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the security and humanitarian situation in Kashmir, in the light of the escalating tensions between India and Pakistan.

[The Minister for Asia and the Pacific (Mark Field)]

I understand that the Prime Minister referred to this during Prime Minister’s Question Time. The UK is deeply concerned about rising tensions between India and Pakistan. Understandably, there has been huge interest in this rapidly developing situation. The House will understand that it would not be appropriate for me to comment in detail on reportage at this time, as the situation evolves.

We understand that on 14 February, at least 40 paramilitary Indian police officers were killed in a suicide attack in India-administered Kashmir. The Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed claimed responsibility for that attack. India-Pakistan tensions, which were already at a high level, rose significantly following the attack, and both countries publicly exchanged heated rhetoric. On Tuesday 26 February, Indian and Pakistani news reported that Indian jets had crossed the line of control between India-administered and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. There have been reports of further ceasefire violations across the line of control overnight, and the situation remains unclear but fast developing.

The Foreign Secretary spoke to his Indian and Pakistani counterparts on Monday to discuss the situation, and we are in regular contact with both countries at senior levels to encourage restraint and to avoid escalating tensions further. We are monitoring developments closely and considering the implications for British nationals. I will be speaking to both the Indian and Pakistani high commissioners this afternoon and will continue to press for the importance of restraint. We urge both sides to engage in dialogue and find diplomatic solutions to ensure regional stability. We are working closely with international partners, including through the United Nations Security Council, to de-escalate tensions.

India and Pakistan are both long-standing and important friends of the United Kingdom. We have many and significant links to both countries through sizeable diaspora communities. As a consequence, we enjoy strong bilateral relations with both nations. The UK Government’s position on Kashmir remains that it is and must be for India and Pakistan to find a lasting political resolution to this situation, taking into account the wishes of the Kashmiri people. It is not for the UK to prescribe, intervene or interfere with a solution or to act as mediator.

I know that the House has previously raised concerns about the humanitarian and human rights situation in both India-administered Kashmir and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. We continue to monitor the situation, and we encourage all states to ensure that their domestic standards are in line with international standards.

[Debbie Abrahams]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question. I am grateful to the Minister for his response, but this has been an ongoing situation since independence in 1947, and successive Governments have failed, in dealing with the issues associated with Kashmir, to help facilitate peace alongside our international allies.

As the Minister has said, he is aware of the recent aerial attacks from India and then from Pakistan, following on from the militant attack in the Pulwama district of Jammu and Kashmir and the death of the 40 Indian troops. This is a proscribed group in Pakistan. I understand that it is said to be apparently based there, but as I say, it has been proscribed by Pakistan. I am grateful to the Minister for reporting on the action he has already taken and the dialogue he has already had with counterparts in the high commissions for both India and Pakistan, and I would be grateful if he reported back once he has had meetings on this, because it is a very fast-moving situation.

The Minister mentioned the UN Security Council. What specific action has been decided on there? India has said that airstrikes in Balakot in north-western Pakistan yesterday were in response to the militants’ attack and killed a large number of militants, but Pakistan has said there were no casualties. Will the Minister clarify these reports? Today, Pakistan claims to have shot down two Indian jets when they entered Pakistani airspace, and the Indian news agency Asian News International has reported that a Pakistani jet has also been shot down on the Pakistan side of the line of control. Again, if the Minister could expand on some of this information, that would be very helpful.

In the light of the escalation in military action, will the Foreign Secretary be altering his travel advice to UK citizens? The Minister knows there is large Kashmiri diaspora in the UK, many of whom have families still based there, and their safety is a real concern for them. As I say, the escalating tensions have had a profound effect on our communities. What assurance can he give them that the UK Government are doing all they can not just to de-escalate tensions now, but to work towards a sustainable peace in the region?

Both India and Pakistan are nuclear powers. This is not just an issue for the region; it is an issue for the whole world. As the chair of the all-party group on Kashmir, I have repeatedly reiterated our commitment to supporting a process of peace and reconciliation in the region, but the UK Government need to step up and help to facilitate this, alongside our international partners. We have a vital role to play, as I say, not just in de-escalation, but in terms of a sustainable peace, and I urge the Minister to do all that he can to do this.

[Mark Field]

I thank the hon. Lady for her calm and wise words. May I say that I appreciate she has a busy day today already, with huge amounts going on near her own constituency following the large-scale fires? We are very grateful for her work, and we all recognise as Members of Parliament that we are sometimes torn between important international issues that are close to our hearts and dealing with those that may seem very parochial. None the less, I am very grateful for her words—her words of calm.

On the UN specifically, the hon. Lady is right that this is a UN issue of some urgency, simply because obviously both Pakistan and India are nuclear nations. It is therefore all the more important that we try to tone or dial down some of the rhetoric and, dare I say it, some of the actions we have seen in recent days. I think there are many friends of India and of Pakistan—and of Kashmir—not just here in the UK but across the world who are doing their best to try to calm this down.

The hon. Lady will I hope appreciate, in relation to the clarification she has requested on some of the reports—she made reference to reports of Indian planes having been shot down over the last 24 hours—that I do not want, and I hope she will understand why, to be drawn into comment on this because it is a fluid situation and many of these reports are unconfirmed. I therefore think that the most important thing, as I say, is to try to produce a slightly calmer approach.

On the issue of travel advice that the hon. Lady requested, we are very closely monitoring the situation, and we shall keep our travel advice under constant review and update it regularly—not just in Kashmir, but obviously in other countries. I should say to the hon. Lady that, as it happens, I am going to be in the region on a long-prearranged trip—provided we get out of this place, anyway, with Brexit votes later on. I am hoping to go to India tomorrow morning for three days. This is obviously a fast-moving issue, and I will speak not just with our high commissioner out in New Delhi, but obviously with counterparts both there and in Mumbai.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) on securing this urgent question about this very tense situation, and I thank the Minister for his solid answers thus far. Clearly, the escalating tension emanates from the terrorist suicide attack by Jaish-e-Mohammed on 14 February. This group is based in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and in Pakistan, so clearly the answer to this is that Pakistan has to take action to dismantle the terrorist camps and organise so that the terrorists are brought to justice. Will my right hon. Friend tell the Pakistani high commission to own up to its responsibilities and make sure that the terrorists face justice?

[Mark Field]

I have a lot of respect for my hon. Friend, who takes a great interest in these issues. However, I think he is making some categorical statements that are not entirely supportable at this point. As I say, I think it is important for all of us as Members of Parliament with significant diasporas—I know that there is a predominantly Indian diaspora in his own Harrow East constituency—to try to calm feelings and to de-escalate some of the concerns, not least as this is a fast-moving situation.

It is fair to say, however, that Jaish-e-Mohammed has claimed responsibility for the 14 February attack. The UK will continue to support a listing of that organisation and indeed of its leader, Masood Azhar, under UN Security Council resolution 1267. The organisation itself has been listed by the UN since 2001, and Masood Azhar is the head of that organisation. However, I think it is very premature to start making categorical statements about any involvement by Pakistan in this issue. We will obviously keep this under review, and as I say, I will endeavour to speak with both the Indian and Pakistani high commissioners this afternoon to ask them for any updates on the situation.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question. I want to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) for securing it, and my hon. Friends the Members for Bradford West (Naz Shah) and for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi), who I know also sought an urgent question today.

At the outset, let me make it quite clear that we condemn the despicable terror attack carried out in Pulwama on 14 February, and I believe that we speak on behalf of the whole House when we do so. India has been absolutely right to take action against the terrorist group responsible and to urge Pakistan to follow suit. It is also high time that China lifted its veto so that the UN can designate the head of JeM as a global terrorist.

Will the Minister join me in urging the Indian authorities, at national and regional level, to protect those innocent civilians of Kashmiri origin who have faced reprisals across India following the Pulwama attack? On the airstrikes and dogfights of the last two days, will the Minister of State join me in calling for immediate talks between India and Pakistan to de-escalate that crisis, but also in urging them to put an immediate stop to any military activity that risks escalating it further? We have heard both sides claim that their actions have simply been designed to send a message, but it is all too easy in those situations for messages to be misinterpreted and for grave and fatal mistakes to be made.

Finally, will the Minister of State join me in asking both India and Pakistan to think first and foremost of the innocent people of Kashmir, who are literally caught in the middle of this crossfire and have been so for 70 years? Their human rights have been serially abused, their humanitarian needs have been neglected, and their own wishes about their own future have been treated as unimportant. No one in India, Pakistan or this country wants yet another generation of Kashmiri children growing up facing the same cycle of instability, violence and fear that has afflicted their parents and grandparents for decades. Only peaceful dialogue can break that cycle. All parties must commit to engaging in that dialogue.

[Mark Field]

The right hon. Lady is absolutely right that we want a broad-based dialogue, and that the whole House condemned the original attack that took place on 14 February. I have to say that the concern about China’s veto is unfortunately not isolated to issues around Kashmir. There are other areas, not least in relation to the Rohingya population from Burma, on which, as she knows, the prospect of a veto and of a lack of co-operation does not make life easy within the UN Security Council. There are other organisations, such as the European Union and the UN Human Rights Council, through which we will try to utilise as much muscle as we can, again in collaboration in with other countries, to try to bring about the peaceable progress to which she refers.

The right hon. Lady also raised the humanitarian situation. We recognise that there are and have been long-standing human rights concerns in both Indian-administered and Pakistani-administered Kashmir. We believe that any allegation of human rights abuses is of great concern and has to be investigated thoroughly, promptly and transparently. I reassure the House, as I did the Members here who were at the meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on 23 January, that we will continue to raise issues relating to Kashmir, including human rights, at all opportunities with the Governments of both India and Pakistan.

I reiterate the right hon. Lady’s words. It is important for us, given the importance of the diaspora that we have here, to make it clear, as she rightly says, that the worst of all worlds would be many more decades of deprivation and humanitarian problems in Kashmir. To intervene or interfere, or to try to mediate in a broader way, is not necessarily the role for the United Kingdom. Our role, not least because of that diaspora, is to at least try to present that there must be a better future for future generations of Kashmiris than the last 70 years. We need to focus more attention on the future, rather than past. I very much hope that one way in which our diaspora here can make a contribution is to try to help to build up industry, to provide some prosperity for future generations of Kashmiris.

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

I am grateful that my right hon. Friend the Minister is in the Chamber to respond to this important urgent question from the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams). I am very concerned, as many of us are, about the issues that have led to such violence in Kashmir over the past two weeks.

I understand that my right hon. Friend will not play a part as a negotiator or mediator, but will he at least do his best to get around the UN General Assembly and other members of the Security Council and encourage those who are friends of both countries to help them to get together and talk, at least in the margins and the quiet corridors, so that when they get to the actual talks, there is a conversation to be had? Will he also ensure that those members of the UK population with connections to Kashmir are able to support their families and those who may have been cut off or in any way harmed by the economic shocks affecting the region at the moment?

[Mark Field]

We shall do our level best. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that active conversations will take place within the UN corridors of both New York and Geneva. I should perhaps say that this goes beyond simply friends of Pakistan and India. The realisation is that this is an extremely serious situation involving two nuclear powers in that part of the world, and that it is therefore in everyone’s interest to see a de-escalation, but with an eye towards trying to solve some of the underlying problems for the longer-term future.

Unfortunately for the man to my right, my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson), it is the fate of Government Whips that they do not have a chance to say very much—[Interruption.] I am sure that you look forward for that reason to the day I am elevated—or maybe demoted; whichever way one looks at it—to the Whips Office, Mr Speaker. On a serious note, I am well aware that my hon. Friend does a huge amount of work on this, not least because one of the main towns in his constituency, Nelson, has a significant Kashmiri population. I know that that applies to many Members on both sides of the House.

[Douglas Chapman (Dunfermline and West Fife) (SNP)]

I thank the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) for raising this important urgent question. I also thank the Minister for his measured response to the situation to date. However, the House will be concerned about the rise in conflict in that region, especially when the nations involved have access to nuclear weapons. Will the Minister ensure that the serious concerns raised in the House are relayed directly to the Governments of Pakistan and India at the highest level, and that the Foreign Office strains every sinew to make sure that both parties act with responsibility and restraint, and that it insists that escalation is not an option?

Many Members have mentioned positive and meaningful talks taking place. In order to protect the civilian populations on both sides of the border, and indeed within Kashmir, we need to ensure that these populations are not put at any further risk. I know that the Government are focused on other matters at the moment, but I hope that the Minister, or the Foreign Secretary, will be able to keep us up to date with developments on a regular basis.

[Mark Field]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his constructive words. He is right that this requires a nimble diplomatic approach. I have to say that I have encountered over the last two mornings a blizzard of diplomatic telegrams from Islamabad, New Delhi and, of course, New York recognising the huge amount of work going in from our diplomatic service in trying to keep open lines of communication and trying to speak to individuals in the military and at the political level. We will do our level best as this situation evolves and we are able to say more, and with more certainty, to ensure that the House is kept fully informed.

[Mr Speaker]

The right hon. Member for Broadland (Mr Simpson) just entered the Chamber carrying, as per usual, a book. I note in passing something of which the right hon. Gentleman will be well aware. In his party, which used to be my party, it was frequently said that to be seen carrying a book was dangerous, but to be seen reading it was fatal.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

I absolutely condemn the perpetrators of the initial act of violence, but I also condemn airstrikes in retaliation for what really could have been a crime, rather than an act of war. Thousands of my constituents will be alarmed about the prospect of escalation because they have families on not only one but both sides of the line of control. Will the Minister join me in saying to the evil people who perpetrate acts of violence for political causes that they defeat their own ends by the revulsion and horror that they cause?

[Mark Field]

I know full well that my hon. Friend has a significant Kashmiri population in his constituency, not least because I have had the chance to meet some of them in recent weeks. He is absolutely right: it is entirely self-defeating. In many ways, we all want to see some sort of normalcy within the Kashmir area, whether under Pakistani or Indian administration. Above all, the clearest way for that to happen is if there is stability in that region, which would allow for economic prosperity. One only has to look close at hand to our situation in Northern Ireland. It was when the worst of the troubles of the 1970s and ’80s were behind us that we were able to see some progress and international investors could comfortable about being able to build businesses in that country. That is the great prize if we can de-escalate some of these long-standing issues within Kashmir.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

Until his election, Prime Minister Modi was banned from entering the United Kingdom for his part in the Gujarat massacre, which resulted in more than 2,000 Muslim deaths. As Prime Minister, he has pursued a divisive, right-wing, Hindu nationalist agenda that has inflamed tensions in both India and occupied Jammu and Kashmir. Instead of pointing fingers at Pakistan for the Pulwama attack, when will Prime Minister Modi look at his own record of persistent state violence and gross human right abuses, as highlighted by both the UN and all-party parliamentary Kashmir group reports, which caused the rise of the home-grown insurgency in Kashmir?

[Mark Field]

I understand the hon. Lady’s heartfelt passion, but let me just say this: that is not relevant to the present situation. We all know we are in a pre-election period in India, and that is one of the factors of concern. We want to see a de-escalation at the earliest possible opportunity to avoid the sorts of issues to which she refers. She will appreciate that from the perspective of the Foreign Office we want to remain strong friends on all sides. To start condemning, in the way she proposes, would only undermine our position of trying to bring both sides together.

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

May I ask that the Government recognise the severity of the terrorist threat faced by India in relation to Kashmir, and that our Government offer support where the Indian Government take measures they feel are necessary to protect the security of their citizens?

[Mark Field]

We will offer support to all Governments who look to protect their civilian populations, but we will do so in a way that is managed, manageable and not focused on an overreaction to what has happened. I appreciate that, as my right hon. Friend rightly says, the attack on 14 February was one of the very worst single episodes for some decades, but equally we would like to see restraint on both sides, recognising the importance of having a secure region to ensure that civilian populations are properly protected.

[Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)]

Just last week, I returned from leading a delegation of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association to Pakistan, during which I met the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister assured the delegation of his commitment, reiterating that he wants a peaceful resolution through diplomacy. I am sure the Minister is aware that the central issue in this crisis is Kashmir. While the people of Kashmir are not given their right to self-determination they will not be free, nor can we truly expect to see long-term peace between India and Pakistan. Does the Minister agree that now is the time to change our policy position on Kashmir and play a central role in helping to resolve the issue that we played a part in creating when leaving the region as a colonial power? Will he consider making an application to the United Nations Security Council on this matter?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Field]

I must say—the hon. Lady will recognise this—that I do not agree with her prescription that we should try to intervene. The reality of the situation, as I am sure she is well aware, is that if the UK Government were to offer to mediate or feel that it is our place to interfere, we would simply lose credibility, particularly with the Indian Government. We would therefore end up not being able to play the role we do in trying to ensure a de-escalation of tensions. Our long-standing position is, and must continue to be, for India and Pakistan to find a political resolution to the situation in Kashmir through their own efforts, taking into account the wishes, as she rightly says, of Kashmiri people. If we were to intervene, interfere, prescribe a solution or purport that we can somehow be a mediator, I think that would very much undermine our position on all sides.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Shailesh Vara (North West Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

The Minister is taking a very fine line, trying to sit on the fence, effectively, mindful that there are diasporas from both Pakistan and India living in this country. He is treading a very fine line in his answers. However, where it is abundantly clear that the terrorists are living in one particular country, will he give an undertaking to this House that the British Government will make it absolutely clear to that host country that it should not be tolerating terrorists who are engaging in activity in another country and that they must face the full force of law?

[Mark Field]

My hon. Friend will recognise that, as a diplomat or a Foreign Office Minister, sometimes the most effective way to make an argument to our counterparts is not through megaphone diplomacy. There are robust private conversations that will take place. I do not want to go into detail as to what they will say, but let me just say this. We do understand that there is a need and a desire for any country to act proportionately to secure its borders, people and military, but the idea that the UK should be seen to be robustly on one side of this battle rather than another would be entirely self-defeating. I think it is in the interests of us all to take a calm approach. Of course, we will not in any way do anything other than criticise terrorist organisations. That is one reason why the organisation Jaish-e-Mohammed has been subject to a UN listing for almost 20 years and has been proscribed in the UK for that period of time.

[Mr Speaker]

My profuse apologies to the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker), on whose every word, as he knows, I ordinarily hang. My attention was momentarily distracted, and I apologise to him.

[Faisal Rashid (Warrington South) (Lab)]

I must express my grave concern and alarm at the ongoing escalation of the conflict between India and Pakistan in disputed Kashmir. War will benefit no one, least of all the people of Kashmir. As of yet, however, there are no signs of a serious—I emphasise that word—international attempt to put an end to this crisis. Does the Minister agree that the international community must do more and act now to put an end to these senseless acts of military violence? If so, what steps will his Government be taking to achieve that outcome?

[Mark Field]

I thank the hon. Gentleman. As I mentioned earlier, we are working as rapidly as we can within all international organisations. If I may touch on a point I did not address earlier about the UN, we are working within the UN. This is a major issue, not least because of the fact that these are two nuclear powers. I suspect there will be a move to de-escalate and negotiate as far as possible. I know from discussions with our US counterparts that they are also expressing concerns. Ultimately, I believe it must be for the Kashmiri people to find a way forward. I appreciate that there is a lot of history. The worry is that a lot of things can be said and done now that could be very difficult to forget. The prize for the future is to try to achieve a more peaceable solution. Ultimately, that must come from the hearts of those who are in Kashmir, whether of Pakistani or Indian origin.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker), I have many thousands of constituents who are very worried about family members in Kashmir. I was heartened by what the Minister of State had to say about his robust conversations on human rights with both sides. Does he agree that there is perhaps more we can do as a nation to help investigate human rights abuses and ensure that truth is brought to the forefront, rather than the great deal of misinformation we are hearing at the moment?

[Mark Field]

Yes, I very much agree with my hon. Friend. She will be aware that any allegations of human rights abuses are concerning and need to be investigated thoroughly, promptly and transparently. She will also be aware that our single biggest Department for International Development budget is in Pakistan. Human rights concerns are part and parcel of the money that is spent out there, trying to build up capacity and capability to ensure that such human rights issues are properly dealt with.

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

The whole House will support the Government and the United Nations in their efforts to get India and Pakistan to draw back from further conflict, but does the Minister agree that it is the people of Kashmir who are both the victims and spectators of their own future because of the failure of those two countries to reach an agreement on what will happen? Above all else, the people of Kashmir want the chance to live in peace and security, and to have the right to determine their own future, as they were promised over 70 years ago when it was suggested that a referendum might be held. That, of course, has never taken place.

[Mark Field]

I am not sure I would recommend a referendum to anyone in the current circumstances—certainly, it would not be wise for the UK—but the right hon. Gentleman makes a very serious, fair point. We continue to raise human rights issues and to look at this in a humanitarian sense. To add my responses to one or two other contributions, we noted the findings of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights reports and are particularly concerned about allegations of human rights abuses and violations in both India and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. I make it clear that we will continue to raise these issues with the Government in New Delhi.

[Andrew Griffiths (Burton) (Con)]

I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests; as the former chairman of the all-party Kashmir group, I visited the region. Many thousands of constituents are concerned for family, friends and loved ones in the region and have contacted me to raise their concerns. Does the Minister agree that this situation is worrying on two levels—first, because we have two nuclear powers squaring off against each other, and secondly, because the people on the ground in Kashmir are the ones who are suffering? Given that we have heard about the documented evidence of human rights abuses, does he not agree that the right course of action might be for us to send observers, perhaps with our EU colleagues, to make sure that there are no human rights abuses on the ground in Kashmir?

[Mark Field]

I know that my hon. Friend is also a former officer of the all-party beer group—I wondered whether he was going to express that interest today. Again, he makes a serious point about having observers, whether at an EU or UN level. We will do our level best, particularly as this situation develops, to ensure that the international community has a chance to see what is going on on the ground in order to de-escalate the tensions.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

Further to the answer that the Minister has just given, he set out his fears of somehow being seen to take sides. Let me tell him that the community in Walthamstow, who are desperately concerned about the situation in Kashmir, want him to stay on the side of human rights. He spoke about the importance of the work that the UN can do in investigating these cases. He has also told us that he is going to have phone calls this afternoon with both the Pakistani and Indian representatives. Will he commit now to raising directly the importance of them allowing the UN to go to the region and investigate, so that finally, when we talk about allegations, we can show the truth and the people of Kashmir can have justice?

[Mark Field]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question, and I will be only too happy to commit to making that pledge, as it were, in the telephone calls that I will have later this afternoon. I talk about not taking sides, but the side we take is obviously with the people of Kashmir to try to ensure that lives that have been so blighted can thrive. The danger with being seen to take a side on this issue is that we will lose any leverage or credibility with one or other of the Governments concerned. We are well aware that there is a large diaspora in this country, but this is not simply about there being a diaspora here; it is about doing the right thing as well, and these human rights issues are clearly of grave concern. As I said, I will commit in my conversations not just today, but in the days to come, to ensure that the voice that she puts across—

[Several hon. Members rose—]

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[Mark Field]

I am amazed I am so popular—it is great to see. I will ensure that that voice is properly heard.

[Mr Speaker]

Opposition Members’ concern, I say to the Minister, is for the knee muscles of Government Back Benchers buoying up and down in eager expectation of their opportunity to be called.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

Apart from being the chair of the all-party group on Pakistan, I was born in Kashmir, and in the 2005 earthquake, I lost 25 relatives, including my grandfather. Muzaffarabad is very near the line of control. The people of Kashmir want peace, prosperity, human dignity and to be masters of their own destiny. As the Minister says, our long-standing position is in line with the 1948 United Nations resolutions 47 and 39, which the United Kingdom signed up to, saying that we will support the people of Kashmir’s right to self-determination. That being the case, will the Minister please push for that at the United Nations and, as other colleagues have said, for a United Nations human rights fact-finding mission? Whatever it says and whoever it finds against—the Indian or Pakistani sides—we will all accept it.

[Mark Field]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. As I said, we note the findings of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights reports, which are deeply concerning. We will make sure that these are brought up in international committee, both in New York and in Geneva.

[Mr Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Ind)]

The attack in Srinagar was absolutely atrocious, and the prospect of descending into a tit-for-tat exchange is immensely depressing. As the Minister knows, this is an incredibly serious issue. I speak as the former chair of the all-party Kashmir group. Last year, we published our report on our inquiry into the human rights situation, as the Minister knows, because he heard a recent presentation on that. I hear what he says about Government policy, but we have a responsibility to help to support confidence-building measures. We have a legacy responsibility in that region of the world, and the UK has an obligation to lead and show the way forward for human rights and peace in this area.

[Mark Field]

I take on board what the hon. Gentleman says and support the idea that there is a leadership role, not least within the UN Security Council, where clearly, long-standing connections between the UK and both India and Pakistan will be brought to bear. We will continue to be in the closest possible contact at senior level in both India and Pakistan to try to avoid escalation and ensure regional stability. Part of that is obviously about the capacity building to which he refers. I think he will understand that quite a lot of work goes on both in India and Pakistan to try to ensure that this is brought to bear and hopefully make lives better for all concerned.

[Mr Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend referred to the discussions and channels that are being used through diplomatic routes both with the UN and directly, and it is very fortuitous that he happens to be visiting the region in the next few days. Before he goes, will he also engage with the Ministry of Defence to encourage senior military leaders and Ministers to engage with their counterparts both in India and Pakistan to make sure that there are senior-level military-to-military back channels between the two armed forces, so that they can help to avoid the accidental escalation of conflict?

[Mark Field]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his comments. He, of course, was a Defence Minister and will understand that those back channels exist. Clearly they are not always entirely avowed, but the UK has back-channels with both the Indian military and the Pakistani military, and I am well aware that conversations have already taken place and will no doubt continue at pace.

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

This is the latest chapter in a horrendous story for the people of Kashmir, as I am sure the whole House agrees. What efforts is the Minister making to ensure that day-to-day communication with the diaspora community is ongoing so that they know what is happening to their friends and family in Kashmir?

[Mark Field]

I very much understand the hon. Lady’s concerns. The picture is very confused at the moment, and I wish we could confirm more what is happening on the ground. Part of the reason that I have not been able to be as expansive as I would like is simply that there are conflicting reports of what is happening. Obviously, we will do our level best to ensure that as many of the diaspora, who must be increasingly worried about the wellbeing of their relatives close at hand, are kept as informed as possible in the circumstances. When I am in the region, I will make sure that we express that.

[Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) for securing this urgent question. Like many hon. Members, I have a significant community of Kashmiris in my constituency, who are extremely concerned. I am also the senior vice-chair of the all-party Kashmir group. Does the Minister agree that we must condemn the use of violence and the abuse of human rights wherever it occurs and by all parties in Kashmir?

[Mark Field]

I agree entirely. We do, and will continue to do so.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

Those of us of south Asian ancestry were overjoyed recently at the opening of the Indo-Pak border—an historic and commendable decision by both Governments—so that Sikhs and others could pay homage at the final resting place of the founder of the Sikh faith. We had hoped that there would be further border openings, but simultaneously we expressed concern that terrorist attacks or abuse of human rights would once again sow the seeds of hatred and division. Does the Minister agree that we need to impress upon both nations the need to urgently de-escalate tensions, and that we need to work with them to find lasting, sustainable peace for the long-suffering but wonderful Kashmiri people?

[Mark Field]

I thank the hon. Gentleman, who always speaks with such calmness about such matters. I have had strong dealings with him on a number of issues, at both ministerial and constituency levels. I entirely endorse what he said. I think we all want to see a regularisation of the situation, with as much access as possible for those who are currently living in India, or currently in Pakistan to be able to go to homelands that their forefathers lived in.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

I declare an interest as a friend, admirer and former relative of the new Prime Minister of Pakistan. Does my right hon. Friend share my view that everything we have seen so far from the new Prime Minister demonstrates an absolute commitment to tackling extremism and terrorism? Does he agree with the new Prime Minister’s words, shortly after he was elected, that the surest route to peace between India and Pakistan in the long term is to increase and expand the trade movements between the two countries?

[Mark Field]

I could not agree more. I had a chance to meet Imran Khan, at a time when he was regarded as a potential kingmaker, when I visited KP—Khyber Pakhtunkhwa—the region where his party was the strongest, back in 2017. Obviously, he has arrived at a pivotal time in India-Pakistan relations, with an imminent Indian election, and with all the financial issues concerning Pakistan, which have inevitably taken up quite a lot of his time in his first few months as Prime Minister. Yes, his rhetoric has always been in favour of peace, but he has also shown recognition that having the broadest range of friends across the world is the surest way of seeing prosperity and normalcy in all parts of Pakistan.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

Perhaps there is a point on which we can have agreement across the House while, as we sit here today, the drums of war beat once more between two nuclear powers. Surely we must now, in this House, realise our ethical, moral and historical duty to help to provide peace and stability in that region. The central issue, as hon. Members have said, is Kashmir; and the voice that has gone unheard for over 70 years is that of the sons and daughters of Kashmir, who, in the face of oppression, violence and persecution, continue to look towards this House for justice. So, Minister, now is the time to move away from gesture politics and towards finding a concrete resolution, fulfilling our international obligations to actively support the birthright of the sons and daughters of Kashmir, which is self-determination.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Could I just very gently say, and I say it in a convivial spirit to the hon. Gentleman, that the erudition of his inquiry was equalled only by its length, and that has been emblematic of the exchanges on this urgent question—nodding assent to which is provided by the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne). It would be a pity if we took an hour on an urgent question with only about 30 quizzers, because that really should not happen.

[Mark Field]

I think he is suggesting that I am at least 50% to blame for that as well.

I respect deeply the passion of the hon. Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain). I hope he does not feel that gesture politics is involved here. We shall do our level best to bring parties together. While I have always said that there is a set policy that we will not have an official mediation, please be assured that we are doing our level best to bring people together. The one message I would give to the hon. Gentleman is that we need to try to de-escalate and calm some of the passions that we shall see within our own country in the weeks and months ahead. It is in the interests not just of all Kashmiris, but of stability within the UK as well.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

Over decades, people have been subjected to violence, oppression and human rights abuses in Kashmir. The events of recent weeks will only compound the challenges and divide people more, rather than bringing a solution in Kashmir. Will my right hon. Friend and the Government do all that they can to use UK influence to bring dialogue between India and Pakistan, to try to prevent the escalation of these issues and the terrorism that is going on, so that we can start again to focus more on dealing with the issue of how Kashmir determines itself?

[Mark Field]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. He is aware that we are trying to do our level best, precisely along the lines that he has suggested. May I just say this to the House? Interestingly, when I speak to many of my Indian, and indeed Pakistani, constituents, they often marvel at the fact that, on my very first visit to India back in 2003, I had the chance to go to both Srinagar and Jammu. The tragedy, in many ways, is that it is a beautiful part of the world and would offer tremendous opportunities not just for tourism; it would be an amazing place for many, many people with Kashmir in their hearts to visit. That is the great prize—to ensure that things are normalised. We know that a painstaking diplomatic approach will be required to bring about that normalisation, so that the beauty of that part of the world may become obvious to many, many people.

[Julie Cooper (Burnley) (Lab)]

The Minister’s focus on the human rights of the people of Kashmir is genuinely welcome, but the fact remains that the humanitarian crisis has been raging in Kashmir for decades, largely ignored by this country and the rest of the world. Hon. Members throughout the House, from all parties, have repeatedly asked for us to take a leading role and to bring diplomatic peace talks to the forefront. Does he agree that it is a terrible shame that it takes an escalation of violence between two nuclear powers to achieve what, hopefully, will be a wake-up call for the British Government?

[Mark Field]

I am sorry that the hon. Lady thinks this is a wake-up call. This is something that is close to all our hearts, not least because there are significant numbers of diaspora and their many Members of Parliament raise these issues, whether in parliamentary questions or in urgent questions such as today’s, and indeed with the all-party parliamentary group, which I know she attended only a few weeks ago.

Let us be candid. What is particularly serious here, as one or two hon. Members have said, is that we are now dealing with two nuclear powers. The issues of Kashmir were not in a nuclear-to-nuclear state until Pakistan acquired nuclear capability, 25 to 30 years ago. That is why the matter is of particular seriousness. That is not to say that a huge amount of work has not been going on behind the scenes for many years. Obviously, it becomes a lot more high-profile with all that is happening now.

[Robert Courts (Witney) (Con)]

I know that the Minister will not want to comment on the claim and counterclaim around aircraft being shot down and around the specifics of pilots having been captured, but would he perhaps agree that the chances of a calm dialogue between the parties will be much increased if treatment of each other’s personnel is seen to be humane?

[Mark Field]

I entirely agree. I cannot speculate other than on reports that have come through and I will not go into any great detail on those, but I very much hope that, if there are military captured on either or both sides, they will be dealt with and treated within the Geneva convention and in a humane way.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

I do not think any fair-minded person would expect the Government to take the side of Pakistan or India, but we are absolutely expecting the Government to step up and give a voice to the people in Kashmir. In the pursuit of power by aggression, it is always everyday people who pay the ultimate price, and too many people have had their lives on hold for generations. This matters to people in Oldham West and Royton, with a large heritage in that country; when this happens, it happens to their parents, their sons, their daughters, their brothers and sisters. They are just reaching out to the UK Government to say, “Give us a hand. Bring people together, convene and use that role in a positive way.”

[Mark Field]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. We will do all that we can, along the lines that I have suggested. This is a very fluid situation, and obviously the most important thing is to de-escalate the tensions because they are at a very worrying level. He is right to point out, however, that there are underlying issues that also need to be dealt with.

[Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op)]

We have all been appalled by this terrorist attack. As has been said, communities like ours across the country are deeply concerned. Many of my constituents have families and friends in the region, and a member of my staff is currently trying to get there to attend a family wedding. Does the Minister agree that any reprisals against entirely innocent Kashmiri civilians elsewhere in India must stop, and will he make it clear to his Indian counterparts that, while we understand their anger, they must ensure that innocent people are not harmed when responding to this horrific attack?

[Mark Field]

I shall be happy to express those direct concerns when I speak to the Indian high commissioner later today.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

May I echo the comments of colleagues? Because of our history in the region, and because of our influence and close relationships with both India and Pakistan, Kashmiri families in my constituency look to the United Kingdom to take a leading role both in the immediate and dangerous conflict that we see before us now, and in bringing long-term peace, justice and freedom to Kashmir.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Field]

I am sorry, but as the hon. Lady will appreciate, we are just covering the same old ground. I well understand that each and every Member here wants to have his or her say for a range of reasons—often because of the diaspora, but often as well because they feel passionate about the relations between India and Pakistan. I suspect that there is little new that I can add, but I thank her for her words.

[Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

We all condemn all forms of terrorism, and I think we all understand that war is not an option. Many of us have raised this matter multiple times in the House, but have received the same response from the Government time and again. This is an issue between India and Pakistan, but recent events reveal that it is not just an issue between those countries: it desperately requires international attention. The British Government need to facilitate talks and to play a greater role in de-escalating the dangerous level of tension between the two countries. I should like them to do more at a human level to ensure that there is an international investigation of what has happened, and to move towards the core issue, which is the issue of Kashmir.

[Mark Field]

The hon. Gentleman always adopts a measured tone, which I think is important for all our constituents. He should be assured that a great deal of work has already been done by the United Nations in the last fortnight since the latest phase of escalation. Obviously, the events of the last couple of days have been a great worry and there is concern about what may come to pass, but a huge amount of work is going on behind the scenes diplomatically. The UK has an important, although by no means exclusive, part to play at the United Nations, and we shall continue to bring that to bear.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

My constituent Madni Ahmed Tahir is one of my many constituents with Kashmiri roots, and has family in Kashmir. Can the Minister explain in a bit more detail what travel advice will be offered to my constituents, and what consideration his colleagues in the Home Office will give to visa applications that are currently in progress?

[Mark Field]

As the hon. Lady will recognise, those applications are a matter directly for the Home Office, but there will clearly be liaison between the two Departments. We are closely monitoring the situation relating to travel advice, on an hour-by-hour basis, as we become aware of confirmation of what is happening on the ground. We will keep that advice under constant review, and will update it on the website regularly.

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

Let me say, at the risk of repeating what has been said by other Members, that we constantly hear of human rights violations in occupied Kashmir, and we cannot be bystanders. What efforts is the Minister making to ensure that a thorough, transparent inquiry into these crimes is commissioned?

[Mark Field]

The hon. Lady will be aware that the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights produced a report recently. She will forgive me if I do not try to say any more now on the Floor of the House. I will try to write to her, if I may, providing a list of the actions that have been taken over the past 12 months and an account of what we propose to do in the months to come.

[Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)]

I must say that I am very disappointed with the Minister’s response so far. His Government are failing to take the necessary responsibility. This issue is far more serious than he and the Government are suggesting. Tensions are high, and two nuclear countries are on the verge of another conflict. Kashmiris have been dying since 1947. Will the Government take some real action and show some responsibility? Will they put both India and Pakistan at the table, so that they can resolve their issues through dialogue?

[Mark Field]

I refer the hon. Gentleman to my earlier answers on this matter. Successive Governments have clearly tried to work on it on a bilateral basis, which I think has been more helpful. A huge amount of work goes on. Our high commissions in both New Delhi and Islamabad, and other staff, work closely together in trying to do what can be done on the ground in Kashmir but, as I said at the outset, it is not our role to bring both parties to the table in the way that the hon. Gentleman suggests, and I think that trying to do so would be entirely counterproductive.

[Mr Speaker]

Eloquence and brevity combined? Mike Gapes.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Ind)]

While we should not exaggerate the influence that the British Government could have at this time, is it not nevertheless important for us, as a nuclear-weapon state, to do what Jack Straw did in 1999 during the Kargil crisis, when the role of the British Foreign Office was central to ensuring that it did not escalate into an all-out nuclear war?

[Mark Field]

The hon. Gentleman is right: the issue of being a nuclear state makes the situation particularly serious at the moment, and it is one of the reasons why I think the international community will want to have a part to play. He clearly has some knowledge of and interest in the foreign affairs of 20 years ago, and if he feels that there are important lessons to be learnt from what happened at that time that we could bring to bear on this crisis, I should be happy to speak to him about them.

[Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab)]

I declare my interest as the recently appointed co-chair of Labour Friends of India.

The Minister has spoken today about the direct involvement of the Government with embassies and through the United Nations Security Council, but what work should the Commonwealth be doing to bring about stability in the region?

[Mark Field]

I think that one of the most important things the Commonwealth can do—I am sure its Secretary General will have it very much in her mind—is bring people together and keep lines of communication open. The hon. Gentleman will be well aware that leading figures in the Commonwealth, in both India and Pakistan, have a political or an NGO-related background. We want to have as much dialogue as is possible in these very trying circumstances.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Minister for his deep interest in this matter. As chair of the all-party group for the Pakistani minorities, I visited Pakistan in September last year as part of a cross-party delegation to inquire into human rights and the persecution of Christians and religious minorities. We met the regional president of the Pakistan-Kashmir province, who made us aware of attacks on and killings of Pakistan Kashmiris, including the sexual abuse and rape of women. The president told us that the United Nations had a key role to play. What discussions has the Minister had with the UN to bring about a peace process?

[Mark Field]

Discussions about the current issue have taken place at the UN with our head of mission. If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, rather than giving a glib and quick answer here, I will write to him in detail about precisely what has happened in recent months.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

Members of the Kashmir diaspora make an extraordinary contribution across our communities, nowhere more so than in Nottingham. They will understand, as I do, the Minister’s reluctance to pick a side, as he puts it, but will he be absolutely clear with the House and make a solemn commitment that when it comes to working through international organisations—especially the UN —when it comes to human rights and when it comes to humanitarian aid, the British Government will not be found wanting?

[Mark Field]

I hope the hon. Gentleman will feel reassured that that is very much the British Government’s approach. It is important that we work together on this, not just in the context of the urgent question but in the context of APPGs. I hope that we can work across Parliament, because we will have an even stronger voice if we speak as one. There will of course be disagreements at the margins, but if we can speak as one for Kashmir and Kashmiri people, our voice will be all the more effective in dealing with our Indian and Pakistani counterparts.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I heard what the Minister said about not wishing to be seen to take a side and that he does not believe it is the UK’s role to bring together the Indian and Pakistan sides to form a compromise, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) pointed out, what the Kashmiri community both here and in Kashmir are looking for is a friend and ally who will speak up for them in the international forums, so may I ask the Minister what specific actions he will take inside the UN to make sure it fulfils its responsibility to speak up for that minority community?

[Mark Field]

I would not wish the hon. Gentleman to misunderstand the situation: we are a friend for all Kashmiris, and we are a friend of that region and indeed a strong friend for India and Pakistan internationally on this and related issues. It is a fluid situation and therefore I cannot go into specifics regarding the UN other than to say that feverish conversations are taking place there, albeit while trying to instil a sense of calm. I am sure this matter will be formally dealt with at the UN General Assembly, as well as at the Security Council in the days to come.

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

The prime minister of Kashmir was in Glasgow last weekend discussing with a cross-party group of political representatives there the situation in Kashmir. The prime minister of Kashmir is in London today—he cannot return home because of closed airspace. Will the Minister meet him today—he will be in Parliament from 4 o’clock onwards, I understand—to hear directly from the direct representative of the Kashmiri people?

[Mark Field]

The hon. Gentleman refers to the prime minister of Kashmir. The Foreign Office deals only with those whom we formally recognise. I am not sure of all the facts of this situation, but if he is not an individual we formally recognise, this is not a matter that I can pursue. No doubt, the hon. Gentleman will fill me in on the details in due course. I already have phone calls lined up with the high commissioners for Pakistan and for India during the course of this afternoon and will have other conversations as well.

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

There have been worrying reports emerging in the last few minutes that the Indian and Pakistani armies are now engaged in heavy artillery exchanges at several locations on the line of control in western Kashmir, so the situation appears to be escalating rapidly. The Minister has undertaken to communicate with both sides in the conflict and understand the situation; will he commit to the FCO updating this House within the next 24 hours on the latest position and the actions the FCO will be taking to de-escalate it, in particular addressing the UN Security Council on this issue?

[Mark Field]

We have the mechanism of urgent questions to deal with such matters, and if there is an update we will want to make the House aware of it at the earliest possible opportunity. I hope to be in the region in the next 24 hours, so that might not be done in quite the timeframe the hon. Gentleman has in mind, but we will do our best once facts are established to inform the House of what is going on.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

Because of the conflict global markets are now trading lower, with Asian investors seeking sanctuary in either the yen or the Swiss franc. Can the Minister give UK investors assurances about their investments within the region? I do not have a huge Indian or Pakistani diaspora, but one UK-born citizen from Dumbarton, Jagtar Singh Johal, is in an Indian jail, held arbitrarily without trial for over 500 days by the Indian republic. Through the fog of impending war, can the Minister, to whom I am grateful for going to India, remind the Indian state of its duty to uphold the rule of international law in border affairs and in human rights for UK nationals in its jails?

[Mark Field]

The Johal case has been raised on the Floor of the House, and as the hon. Gentleman is well aware, we have met on two or three occasions in the Foreign Office on this matter. I pledge to bring it up in my discussions in New Delhi that I hope to undertake on Friday.

It would be unwise to say anything about the international markets. Suffice it to say that I very much hope that businesses, particularly those where the diaspora is engaged in Kashmir and the region, will feel confident in the longer term that they are doing the right thing by engaging as fully as they are.

This urgent question has taken a long time—well over an hour—and I am struck by how passionate many Members are about this issue, and not just those with significant diaspora communities. This is obviously a fast-moving, fluid situation and I am sure we will come back to the House at some point to discuss it further. The one big message for all of us is to do all we can in our communities to de-escalate and calm the understandable passions that have been raised.

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Mark Field Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2019 Ministerial Corrections

[Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)]

The Minister is right to point out outside organisations. Will he, like me, pay due credit to the brave non-governmental organisations that do fantastic work and enhance our soft power in some of the most difficult conflict environments in the world, not least Yemen? Today, the United Nations is appealing for £3.2 billion to help organisations such as Saferworld and International Rescue Committee. Should that not be our focus, rather than the £4.6 billion we spent on arms?

[Mark Field]

We have announced only today, in the aftermath of the Sharm el-Sheikh negotiations, that we will be putting a further £200 million into Yemen. It is important to recognise the tremendous contribution made by so many British citizens and British NGOs across the globe. That is one aspect of soft power that will enhance our standing in the years to come. It is in this sort of area where I hope we will continue.

[Official Report, 26 February 2019, Vol. 655, c. 146-47.]

Letter from the Minister for Asia and the Pacific, the right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field).

An error has been identified in the response I gave to the hon. Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins).

The correct response should have been:

[Mark Field]

We announced on Sunday, in the aftermath of the Sharm el-Sheikh negotiations, that we will be putting a further £200 million into Yemen. It is important to recognise the tremendous contribution made by so many British citizens and British NGOs across the globe. That is one aspect of soft power that will enhance our standing in the years to come. It is in this sort of area where I hope we will continue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Field Excerpts

Tuesday 26th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

23. What steps he is taking to enhance UK soft power overseas.

[The Minister for Asia and the Pacific (Mark Field)]

We should be proud of the UK’s soft power and the contribution that independent institutions such as the BBC and the British Council make to it. That is why the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has trebled its investment in Chevening scholarships since 2015, helped to fund the biggest expansion of the BBC World Service in 70 years and provided additional funding for the British Council’s work in developed countries. It is also why my Department is developing a cross-Government soft power strategy to further project our values and advance our interests overseas.

[Peter Heaton-Jones]

The Minister rightly mentioned the BBC World Service. Will he join me in celebrating the excellent work that that organisation does, given how important it is for expressing the UK’s soft power overseas, and in calling on the BBC to expand and enhance its reach?

[Mark Field]

I am delighted to join my hon. Friend in recognising the excellent work of the BBC World Service, which brings the UK and its values to the world at large. Since 2016, Her Majesty’s Government have been funding the World 2020 programme, which has seen the World Service undergo its biggest single expansion in the past 70 years, with 12 new language services opened in 2017-18, and I have been very proud to watch some of that excellent work in India.

[James Morris]

The plays of Shakespeare have been translated into many languages and performed in many countries around the world, including China, so does the Minister agree that Britain has amazing cultural and linguistic assets that we can use to project our soft power around the world and to support democratic values, freedom of speech and creativity, as we build a new relationship with the world?

[Mark Field]

I do indeed agree with my hon. Friend. For example, in 2016, the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death was marked by an HMG-funded cultural programme called Shakespeare Lives, which was jointly delivered by the British Council, the GREAT campaign and the FCO, involving the BBC and the Royal Shakespeare Company.

[Sir Nicholas Soames]

I congratulate my hon. Friend and his colleagues on their excellent work to co-ordinate better our soft power effort, but does he agree that it is very important that there is a proper plan to follow up on some of the very successful royal visits overseas with a very well co-ordinated effort, particularly in soft power?

[Mark Field]

I thank my right hon. Friend. We have already had questions today on Shakespeare and the BBC, but he is absolutely right that our royal family is one of our greatest soft power assets, and we will do our level best, through the GREAT campaign and elsewhere, to ensure that strength continues.

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

An important part of our soft power is our commitment to tackling global poverty and to international development. Will the Minister therefore take this opportunity to reaffirm the Government’s commitment to 0.7% spending on overseas aid and to the Department for International Development as a stand-alone Department, independent of the Foreign Office?

[Mark Field]

I am hearing a lot of chuntering from my left, as I have two DFID Ministers beside me—

[The Minister for Europe and the Americas (Sir Alan Duncan)]

And a former one.

[Mark Field]

And a former DFID Minister, too.

I agree with the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), and this is a matter not just of soft power, but of hard power. There is little doubt that the 0.7% commitment has an important part to play. I see it in all parts of Asia, not least in Pakistan and Bangladesh, which have the two single biggest DFID budgets. It is important for aid and development and, indeed, for the prosperity fund, which will allow British companies to prosper in the years to come.

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

Over the past three years, this Government’s chaotic approach to Brexit has shredded our international credibility and diminished our soft power. Whether Brexit goes ahead or not, there is an important job to be done to repair our international standing in the world and build alliances, so will the Minister have a word with the Defence Secretary and ask him to cut out the foolish rhetoric, which has real consequences?

[Mark Field]

I obviously represent Asia and the Pacific abroad, and whenever I go to that part of the world, I always come back much more uplifted about the UK’s brand. We find that many countries in that part of the world—indeed, this applies globally—have had strong dealings with the UK for decades, if not centuries, and they recognise that we will have strong connections in the years to come. They know that there is obviously a small amount of uncertainty with the Brexit arrangements that are taking place now, but the positivity of the UK’s brand, our reliability as a partner and the sense that we project international values are important.

[Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)]

The Minister is right to point out outside organisations. Will he, like me, pay due credit to the brave non-governmental organisations that do fantastic work and enhance our soft power in some of the most difficult conflict environments in the world, not least Yemen? Today, the United Nations is appealing for £3.2 billion to help organisations such as Saferworld and International Rescue Committee. Should that not be our focus, rather than the £4.6 billion we spent on arms?

[Mark Field]

We have announced only today, in the aftermath of the Sharm el-Sheikh negotiations, that we will be putting a further £200 million into Yemen. It is important to recognise the tremendous contribution made by so many British citizens and British NGOs across the globe. That is one aspect of soft power that will enhance our standing in the years to come. It is in this sort of area where I hope we will continue.[Official Report, 27 February 2019, Vol. 655, c. 2MC.]

[Stephen Gethins]

I welcome the Minister’s commitment, but that is outstripped by our arms sales. The UK could be a serious player for peace in the region. Will we move away from arming combatants and move towards finances that will help to prevent poverty and migration, because that prevents conflict—not arms sales?

[Mark Field]

We have made agreements—not least the negotiations that have taken place in recent months in Stockholm—to try to work together to ensure that the worst offenders do not have arms sales. It is not the case that we do not have an eye on the ethics and the moral values that are close to the heart of many of our constituents across the country. We will continue to work closely and utilise as much soft power as we can in the years to come.

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

May I urge the Government to use their soft power and diplomatic network to enthusiastically support the efforts of Cypriots to deliver a negotiated settlement for a free and united Cyprus?

[Mark Field]

I am happy to answer that in short order: yes. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe and the Americas has worked tirelessly in that regard and we will continue to do so. I think that those in the diaspora in the UK, both Turkish and Greek Cypriots, recognise that it is important that we put 45 years of great difficulty behind us. I think that the UK has had an important part to play in helping to bring those sides together.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

We are discussing soft power. I want to ask the Minister about an issue where the exercising of that power is growing long overdue. When we gather for the next Foreign Office questions on 2 April, it will be six months to the day since Jamal Khashoggi was murdered in Istanbul. Will the Minister ask his boss, the Foreign Secretary, to guarantee to the House that before we reach that sad milestone, he will present the Government’s findings on who, ultimately, is responsible for that murder and what actions the Government are taking in response?

[Mark Field]

My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary will be going to Saudi Arabia this week, and I hope that there will be progress in relation to the very serious issues the right hon. Lady raises. She will be aware that we will be hosting a conference in this country in July—again, a very important part of British global soft power—that will look at the dangers journalists face across the world. I think that the fact we are doing that will reflect well, and I hope that she and the Labour party will want to play an important part in that role. We need freedom for journalists to be able to go about their everyday business. The situation with Khashoggi is the worst and most glaring example, but some 80 journalists were murdered going about their business last year and many hundreds have been locked up. Internationally, we need to come together to stand up for those values.

[Emily Thornberry]

I thank the Minister for that answer. While a conference is important, it is hardly an answer to the question of the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. There are no official answers and there are no official actions. Worse than that, the Foreign Secretary went to Berlin last week and told one of the few Governments willing to act on the Khashoggi murder, by banning arms sales to Yemen, that they are wrong to do so. May I ask the Minister to once more ask his boss the Foreign Secretary—it is a simple request—whether he will, by the time of the next Foreign Office questions, six months on from the Khashoggi murder, be telling us all the people he believes are responsible and what action they are going to take in response?

[Mark Field]

As I said, my right hon. Friend will be in Saudi Arabia and clearly, this issue will be discussed. I hope that he will be in a position to update the House on 2 April or, indeed, prior to that time. The right hon. Lady raised the issue of the arms trade. We are proud to build on the contribution made by Robin Cook when he was Foreign Secretary that means that arms sales regulations here in the UK are among the strictest across the western world, and they will continue in that vein.

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

3. What recent assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of Iran’s ballistic missile programme.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Asia and the Pacific (Mark Field)]

The hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) will be pleased to know that the UK is wholeheartedly committed to the promotion and protection of human rights worldwide. As a result, we continue to support the work of the UN Human Rights Council and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. The UK is one of the longest-standing members of the UNHRC, and we are keen to maintain that record at next year’s elections.

[Catherine West]

Child soldiers represent a major human rights concern. What more can be done to condemn and improve the situation of child soldiers in Yemen, both those on the Houthi side and, crucially, the Sudanese children being exploited by the Saudi forces?

[Mark Field]

The hon. Lady is right to point out that the situation is absolutely heartbreaking. I am the father of an 11-year-old son, and boys of roughly that age are fighting in parts of the world such as Yemen. I reassure her that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary will raise the matter when he is in Saudi Arabia in the days ahead.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Human rights defenders around the world are under attack. They are censored, imprisoned and sometimes even murdered for speaking out, and women who speak out in countries such as Saudi Arabia are particularly vulnerable. Does the Minister agree that we need to do more to support the women around the world who are brave enough to stand up for what they believe in?

[Mark Field]

The hon. Lady is right that that is a major issue. My right hon. Friend the Minister for the Middle East raised the matter when he was in the region last week and will continue to do so.

[Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con)]

When I was chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, we tried on a couple of occasions to raise human rights violations against LGBT citizens around the world, but our attempts were regularly blocked by Uganda, China, Russia and several other countries. Will the Minister use his influence, particularly in the Commonwealth, to try to raise such issues so that we can give hope to millions of people living in those countries?

[Mark Field]

My hon. Friend is right that the issue is still contested. We will continue to make the case for LGBT rights, and all Foreign Office Ministers and other Ministers with broader foreign affairs responsibilities will make it clear when abroad that we need to stand up for these important rights.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

On 5 April, Professor Zaffaroni, a justice of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, will present to His Holiness the Pope a report on the consequences of the criminalisation of same-sex relations in the Caribbean. The Government will be invited to be represented at the presentation, so will the Minister ensure that they are?

[Mark Field]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. These are important issues, and clearly we will be represented at the most senior level possible. It may be difficult for a Minister to be present, but we will ensure that our ambassadors and other leading figures in the Foreign Office are there to make the case to which he refers.

[Mr Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) (Lab)]

Was the Minister as appalled as I was last week that it took an order from the European Court of Human Rights to force the Orbán Government in Hungary to provide food to the starving asylum seekers being held at the border? Further, has the Foreign Office protested to the Orbán Government about this disgraceful episode?

[Mark Field]

Clearly this is something that causes great concern. The shadow Minister will be aware that it is not an issue for which I have direct responsibility, but I know my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe and the Americas will ensure that our embassy in Budapest is in a position to make the case in the way he has expressed it. Obviously we will try to return to the House at some point with more information, or do so in writing.

[Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Ranil Jayawardena (North East Hampshire) (Con)]

T4.   I welcome the work of the Foreign Office last year in hosting a major international conference on tackling the illegal wildlife trade, but what assessment has the Foreign Office made of the recent decisions made by Japan and Iceland to resume whaling? What steps will the Government take to encourage our friends to change their mind?

[The Minister for Asia and the Pacific (Mark Field)]

The UK is disappointed that Japan has announced that it will withdraw from the International Whaling Commission in order to resume commercial whaling, and we urge it to rethink its decision. The Prime Minister raised this with Prime Minister Abe on 10 January, confirming that the UK is and remains strongly opposed to commercial whaling.

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

T3. More than 1 million Venezuelan refugees who have been forced to flee Maduro’s humanitarian catastrophe are now in Colombia. I have a large, vibrant Colombian community in Southwark who are very worried about the knock-on impact of that crisis on their country, and on family and friends. What support and resource are the Government giving to the Colombian Government to manage this situation?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall) (Lab)]

EU observers saw that

“violence has marred the election day, and significant obstacles to a level playing field remained in place throughout the…electoral campaign”.

What steps are the Government taking to ensure that the rights of minorities during election time in Bangladesh?

[Mark Field]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his heartfelt question. We were clearly concerned by the outcome of the elections in Bangladesh, and we are waiting for the Electoral Commission to come up with its full report. One aspect of it clearly has to do with various minorities in the Bangladeshi state. I shall be visiting Bangladesh in the course of the next six weeks and hope to be able to write to the hon. Gentleman in due course to answer his question in full.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend will have been as shocked as I was to see the appalling scenes of Venezuelan troops using violence and intimidation to prevent vital aid from entering their country, which has been ravaged by socialism for decades. Will my right hon. Friend join me in calling on all parties around the world, and in particular the Labour leadership in this House, to condemn utterly Maduro’s actions and his illegitimate regime in Venezuela?

--- Later in debate ---

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

The recent terrorist attack by the group Jaish-e-Mohammad in Pulwama, where 49 Indian servicemen and women lost their lives, has been widely condemned. Will my right hon. Friend utter a clear and unreserved condemnation of this suicidal attack and call on Pakistan to stop funding these terrorist groups?

[Mark Field]

The UK Government unequivocally condemn the appalling terror attack in Pulwama on 14 February. We are actively encouraging the Governments of both India and Pakistan to find diplomatic solutions and to refrain from actions that could jeopardise regional stability. We are also working in the UN Security Council to ensure that the perpetrators are brought to justice.

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

I have a wonderful Chagossian community in Wythenshawe. In the light of yesterday’s International Court of Justice decision, what does the Minister have to say to that community?

Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty

Mark Field Excerpts

Monday 4th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East) (Lab) (Urgent Question)]

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs to make a statement on the intermediate-range nuclear forces treaty.

[The Minister for Asia and the Pacific (Mark Field)]

As if to prove that lightning does sometimes strike twice, even in this unnatural world of politics, I am here to address this issue again, as I was on 25 October, deputising for my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe and the Americas, who is once more gallivanting globally. This time he is in Ottawa, where, I am delighted to inform the House, he is in the grip of an even colder spell than we are here—it is minus 7° centigrade, for the record, or so he assured me earlier today.

When I last had the opportunity to respond on this issue in the House last October, President Trump had just announced that it was the intention of the United States to end the intermediate-range nuclear forces treaty unless Russia returned to full compliance. Let me once again set out the context. The INF treaty was a 1987 agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union that eliminated nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with a range of between 500 km and 5,500 km. For over three decades now, the INF treaty has played an important role in supporting Euro-Atlantic security, initially removing an entire class of US and Russian weapons, thus making a significant contribution to strategic stability.

While the UK is not a party to this bilateral treaty, we have always made it clear over the years that we ideally wish to see the treaty continue. However, for that to happen, the parties need to comply with its obligations. Sadly, this has not been the case. Despite numerous objections raised by a range of NATO allies going back over five years, Russia has developed new missiles, in direct contravention of the treaty. This includes the covert missile testing, producing and fielding of the 9M729 ground-launch cruise missile system. As NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has said:

“These…missiles are hard to detect. They are mobile. They are nuclear capable. They can reach European cities”.

The US, under both the Obama and Trump Administrations, has made extensive efforts to encourage Russia to return to full and verifiable compliance. It was indeed the Obama Administration who, in 2014, first strongly called out Russia’s non-compliance with this treaty. It is important to acknowledge that, while doing so, the US has continued to meet its obligations under the treaty. However, the US, with the full support of its NATO allies, has been very clear that a situation where the US fully abided by the treaty and Russia did not was not sustainable. On 4 December last year, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the US would suspend its participation in the INF treaty within 60 days—that is, by 2 February 2019— unless Russia returned to compliance.

This constituted an opportunity for Russia to address our shared concerns and to take steps to preserve the treaty. Allies took the opportunity to reiterate this point last month to the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergei Ryabkov, during the NATO-Russia Council meeting. I have to inform the House that Russia has not taken that opportunity. It has offered no credible response, only obfuscation and contradictions designed to mislead. This of course fits a wider pattern of behaviour from Russia aimed at undermining our collective security. We and all NATO allies therefore support the US decision to suspend its participation in the treaty and to trigger the formal withdrawal process. NATO is unified on this process.

It is Russia’s fault alone that we have arrived at this point. President Putin’s statements in the last few days announcing that Russia, too, will suspend its obligations was unsurprising given the fact that it has violated the treaty over the years. Nevertheless, even at this late stage, we urge Russia to change course. The treaty’s six-month withdrawal process offers Russia a final opportunity to return to compliance through the full and verifiable destruction of all its 9M729 systems. That is the best—indeed, the only—way to preserve the treaty.

We remain committed, as do the US and other NATO allies, to preserving effective arms control agreements, but we are also clear that for arms control to be effective, all signatories must respect their obligations. In the meantime, we are working closely with all our NATO allies on the implications for European security. We remain committed to ensuring that NATO has a robust defence posture to deter all threats. As NATO allies said on 2 February:

“NATO continues to closely review the security implications of Russian intermediate-range missiles and will continue to take steps necessary to ensure the credibility and effectiveness of the Alliance’s overall deterrence and defence posture. We will continue to consult each other regularly with a view to ensuring our collective security.”

If this treaty falls, we and other NATO allies will hold Russia alone responsible. We urge Russia now to take a different course and to return to full and verifiable compliance.

[Fabian Hamilton]

Thank you for granting this urgent question, Mr Speaker, and I thank the Minister for his statement.

During the weekend, one of the main pillars of nuclear weapons treaties was suspended when first the United States and then Russia withdrew from the intermediate-range nuclear forces treaty. As the Minister said, it was only in October last year that I stood here asking an urgent question on this matter. Back then, the United States was only expressing its initial intentions to withdraw from the INF treaty, citing Russian non-compliance. Regrettably, it has now fulfilled that action. Since then, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has decided to maintain its so-called doomsday clock at two minutes to midnight. In a statement after the US Administration’s decision, the Bulletin noted that we are living in

“a state as worrisome as the most dangerous times of the Cold War”—

a sentiment with which I sadly agree.

What we see in these actions by the United States and Russia is the erosion of the system of multilateralism and the rules-based international order which underpins global peace and security. Leaving the INF treaty is a dangerous unravelling of part of the architecture of trust and understanding that has prevented nuclear conflict—an architecture that was begun 50 years ago with the signing of the non-proliferation treaty, which I strongly support. Indeed, this comes only weeks before the 2019 NPT preparatory committee meeting in New York at the end of April.

Along with climate change, nuclear conflict and the devastating environmental impact that it could unleash are two of the most pressing threats to our lives and the future of every living creature on this planet. The suspension of the INF treaty is a sure sign of a dangerous breakdown of trust between the two nations with the vast majority of the world’s nuclear warheads. This has serious implications for future negotiations, including those on extending the new strategic arms reduction treaty, or New START, which is due to expire in 2021. What we see may be the beginning of a new arms race, even more dangerous and unpredictable than the one we saw during the cold war. We now live in a multipolar world in which the US and Russia no longer have a monopoly on the weapons proscribed in the INF treaty, even if they have the majority of warheads.

What assurances has the Minister received from our American allies that suspension of the INF treaty will not begin a new arms race between the United States and Russia involving weapons once again being based on European soil? What contact has he made with other countries that have developed INF-proscribed weapons, including China, so that a future multilateral framework may be developed that could supersede and replace the INF treaty?

[Mark Field]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. I will touch on two aspects of what he said. The first is what losing the INF treaty means for extending New START, which is a bilateral treaty between the US and Russia that expires in 2021. We were pleased to see both sides meet the New START limits by the deadlines, by the end of last year. We believe that that treaty contributes to international stability. All allies support continued implementation and early and active dialogue on ways to improve strategic stability. It is, of course, for the US and Russia to take forward discussions about extending that treaty.

The hon. Gentleman also raised perfectly legitimate concerns, which I think we all share, about the broader range of challenges for the multilateral system. We will continue to work closely with the US across a wide range of multilateral organisations and issues. He touched on climate change, for which I have Foreign Office responsibility and on which we work closely—if not necessarily as closely as we would like with the federal Administration—with a number of important state governors and others.

May I just say that we, like the US, believe that a number of multinational institutions are in need of reform? On the matter at hand, a situation in which the US is respecting the INF treaty and Russia persistently and consistently is not is simply not sustainable. The UK and all other NATO allies have made clear our support for the US position.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

In his memoirs, Mr Gorbachev makes it absolutely clear that the reason he signed the treaty was that NATO deployed cruise and, especially, Pershing II missiles, which he greatly feared. Given that this was the most successful example in history of multinational disarmament, as opposed to one-sided gestures, it would be a shame to lose the treaty if there were any chance of saving it. Will the Minister use his best endeavours to persuade the Americans to take to an international forum, such as the United Nations, the evidence they have for Russian non-compliance so that the world as a whole can be convinced, if the treaty is being broken, that the Russians are responsible for doing it?

[Mark Field]

I thank my right hon. Friend, who has great knowledge of and great interest in these matters. He is absolutely right that there needs to be an evidence-based approach. I have to say that we are confident, and I think all NATO allies have been confident in the discussions that have taken place with our American allies, on this matter. I should also point out, as I did in my initial comments, that the announcement on Saturday 2 February actually triggers a six-month withdrawal process, so there is a chance for Russia to come back to the table and, indeed, as he points out, for all of us to work internationally to try to salvage aspects of this treaty.

Ultimately, to return to the point I made earlier, I would say to my right hon. Friend—as I say, he has a great passion for denuclearisation and for such treaties—that these treaties can only work if they are complied with on all sides. There has been a persistent and consistent sense from Russia, going back many years, that it has not been willing to do so, and that makes such a treaty unsustainable.

[Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)]

Nuclear weapons are a dangerous and expensive folly. As well as taking away valuable resources from public services, they are not fit for purpose in meeting the security challenges of the 21st century. That is something SNP Members believe, and I know that there are even some Labour party Members who still believe that.

There is a need for full compliance, but there could also be dangerous repercussions for a security treaty that has guaranteed European security, so does the Minister agree that any US withdrawal could do more harm than good? How can we work towards getting rid of these weapons for good and—the Chair of the Defence Committee, the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), made a very good point here—will the Minister inform the House what work he is doing with international agencies? We want to see the back of nuclear weapons forever.

[Mark Field]

I think there is little doubt that all of us feel it would have been better had nuclear weapons never been invented, but the fact that the capability is there does make it difficult in such a world simply to disinvent them.

Let me just say that we, along with allies, have monitored Russia’s programmes very carefully. The hon. Gentleman will understand that I cannot go into great detail about matters of intelligence, but we do agree with the US that Russia has been in violation for some considerable time. That is a judgment on which other allies have come to a similar conclusion, and it is therefore our collective position on this issue.

The hon. Gentleman touched on the broader implications for UK-European security of not having such a treaty. I take the view that a situation in which Russia is illegally developing new missiles that could target Europe simply is not acceptable. I think that is part of Russia’s broader pattern of behaviour, which is intended to weaken the overall Euro-Atlantic security architecture. It does undermine Russia’s claim that it is a responsible international partner upholding the rules-based system.

We will obviously have to take whatever action is necessary, but one thing about which I would reassure the House and the hon. Gentleman is that there is absolute unanimity among NATO members on the steps that have been taken. As I said earlier, it is not simply an issue of the Trump Administration; this was brought to the fore back in 2014 under former President Obama.

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

On the subject of disarmament, I am reminded of Belloc, who wrote:

“Pale Ebenezer thought it wrong to fight,

But Roaring Bill, who killed him, thought it right.”

I just wonder whether, when we look at the treaty, which was signed in 1987, we remember that President Reagan managed to convince Gorbachev to sign it by matching him with a worthy strategic deterrent and capability. What would the Minister offer today in terms of persuasion to stop Mr Putin from similarly breaching the agreement and using these nuclear weapons at least to threaten, as he is doing today?

[Mark Field]

I think I speak for everyone in the House when I say that no one wants to see a return to an arms race. It is also worth pointing out that broader Russian interests extend well beyond the nuclear; they go into cyber-attacks, disinformation and influence peddling more generally. I think that is the bigger concern that many have in mind—I am slightly quoting the formidable Edward Lucas, who had an interesting article this morning in The Times on that issue and who knows Russian affairs to a great extent.

In terms of the bigger concern, yes, it is not in anyone’s interest to see an escalation of an arms race on European or other soil. Equally, it is very undesirable to see the moves that have been made by Russia consistently, as I say, over half a decade or more. The allies had very little choice other than to trigger this withdrawal, as we have done today. As I say, there is still time for Russia to come back to the table, and I very much hope it will do so.

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

Russia is in violation of the INF treaty, it seems, but when someone breaks the law, the answer is not to repeal the law and, in the case of the UK Government, to support another country in walking away from that process, but to look at the well-established methods for bringing an offending nation back into compliance—in this case, through the Special Verification Commission mechanisms. Will the UK Government be doing that, and will they make it clear to the US that if it is now suspending its obligations under the INF treaty, it should not assume that it is going to start putting cruise missiles back in the UK?

[Mark Field]

It does not “seem” that Russia has breached its commitments; there is absolutely no doubt, and there is absolute evidence, of that—evidence that is understood and supported by each and every NATO member. We will continue to work with partners across the international community to try to prevent the proliferation that, understandably, the hon. Lady is very concerned about and to continue to make significant progress, as we have, in the UN and elsewhere on multilateral nuclear disarmament. However, that can happen only when we are in a position to build confidence and trust between nuclear and non-nuclear weapons states and to take tangible steps towards a safer and more stable world. That trust, I am afraid, is at a very low ebb with the Russians, not just for this reason, but, as she will be aware, in other areas. However, we are determined to try to discuss these matters, and we will continue to do so in whatever forum we can.

[Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

I served in the British Army during the cold war, and I was present in this House at the time of the deployment of the INF weapons and the subsequent treaties, so I know the value of them. I entirely support our American allies on this issue, as well as the statement of the Secretary-General of NATO. If we are to move into an era of a lack of arms control agreements, thus leading to a continuing and most dangerous erosion of trust, would the Minister consider encouraging NATO to really press on with its fundamental review of nuclear deterrence—as I suggested, incidentally, to the Secretary of State for Defence only a week ago—to diminish the risk of misunderstanding and misinterpretation and to avoid returning to the worst days of the cold war?

[Mark Field]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his wise words. I do not think there is much that I can add to what he said, other than to say that I wholeheartedly agree with it and that it is something we should take up, as he rightly says, with the Secretary of State for Defence, the Foreign Office and others.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

As the Minister said, the Russians are in clear breach of the INF treaty. The development of the 9M729 missile is a clear breach, and there is evidence for it. In addition, the Russians are developing things such as the Kalibr sea-based cruise missile and other technologies. Russia is clearly taking an aggressive stance. Taking up the point that the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) made, would sharing this information and intelligence in an international setting—I accept that some of it is highly classified—help to persuade those who somehow want to give the Russians the benefit of the doubt?

[Mark Field]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his thoughts on this matter. He will be aware that we have to deal with security and intelligence-rated issues carefully, but I am confident that discussions have been taking place within NATO for many months, if not years. We will do all we can. I do not think anyone wishes to see the treaty ripped up. We would like Russia to come back to the negotiating table. We clearly need the sort of international-level discussions he refers to and to which my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East referred earlier. That is certainly the message we will put to our representative at the UK mission in New York.

[Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)]

I represent Greenham Common. I saw in the 1980s how Russia responds to strength and how it will not respond to weakness. Even in the darkest hour of the cold war, the finest minds across the alliance and particularly among our American allies, were devoted to strategic arms limitation efforts. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that that is still the case now? We really need to understand that we can be strong with Russia, but we also need to reassure and negotiate with it to try to get a safer world and a safer future.

[Mark Field]

My right hon. Friend puts it very well. I should perhaps say that decisions on US nuclear weapons policy are obviously fundamentally a matter for the US Government. However, the US “Nuclear Posture Review” published last year represents a continuation of previous years’ nuclear policy and indicates a measured and proportionate approach to nuclear deterrence, which I think the whole House would welcome.

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

It is alarming to see how, piece by piece, the security architecture that was assembled to keep us all safe after the cold war is being dismantled. Looking ahead to the NPT—the treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons—review conference next year, how can the UK help to foster a shared understanding among all major powers in the new world order that rules and restrictions on nuclear weapons are of mutual benefit?

[Mark Field]

I think we all recognise that these are dangerous times. The questioning of the rules-based international system from all sorts of quarters should give rise to very grave concerns. Specifically on nuclear proliferation, I have spoken at the UN Security Council on a couple of occasions. Not least with what is happening in North Korea, this issue is of great importance. I think we all recognise that any further proliferation in nuclear weapons is incredibly undesirable, particularly in this relatively uncertain world. We will continue to make strong representations, working within the international community. I would try to reassure the hon. Lady that many members of the UN Security Council, both permanent and non-permanent, feel very similarly. I suspect that this issue will be quite high profile in the months to come.

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)]

My father was a leading expert in nuclear non-proliferation in the 1960s. It is depressing to see a lot of his work, which led to Gorbachev’s decision to work with Thatcher and Reagan, being reversed by Putin. We are one of the closest partners of the US and the leading military European country in NATO. Can the Minister reassure the House that the Government will do everything they can to ensure that the USA is not dragged into a dangerous arms race again?

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Lady’s father was clearly an extremely clever bloke.

[Mark Field]

I think it is hereditary, Mr Speaker. Others can perhaps judge that. I thank my hon. Friend for her comments. I hope she does not feel that her father’s work was in vain. My late father was also in the armed services. In many ways these problems and issues do not entirely go away, but the patient use of diplomacy, even within the military, can make a real difference over a period of time.

My hon. Friend asked about the issue of an arms race and the concern about whether the United States would be held back by allies and, in particular, the UK. It is worth stating again that any situation where the US is respecting its treaty obligations and Russia is not is simply not sustainable. NATO has been, and will continue to be, consistent in calling out Russia and making clear the importance of this issue for broader European security. In many ways, other nations closer to the Russian border feel that more acutely than we do, but the US has made clear its continued commitment to effective and enforceable arms control.

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

The essence of successful arms control is trust and verification. Will the Minister confirm that there has been no trust of the Russians because, as the Obama Administration were saying for several years, there was no effective way of verifying that, and Putin has lied and cheated on the obligations that the Soviet Union and then Russia signed up to under the intermediate-range nuclear forces treaty?

[Mark Field]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question—I know he takes these matters very seriously. Yes, trust has clearly broken down. It is difficult to try to restore trust. It is worth remembering, as he mentions, that the Obama Administration had a clear goal from the moment they came into office at the beginning of 2009 to re-cast their relationship with Russia. Even within that context, they concluded, during the course of their time, that Russia could not be trusted on these matters because simply, as the hon. Gentleman rightly said, there was no evidence of verification. I am afraid that that situation has not improved over the past two and a half years.

[Mr Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

Tension over nuclear forces is clearly highly dangerous. NATO experts argue that the Russian Federation seeks overmatch in four areas: political warfare, conventional forces over its neighbours, European theatre conventional missiles and European theatre intermediate nuclear missiles. What is being done to reassess the balance of power in eastern Europe and the level of forces needed to deter Russia? Will the Minister endeavour to keep the House informed? I get the sensation that not enough is being done or talked about on this extremely dangerous issue.

[Mark Field]

I reassure my hon. Friend that Ministers will keep the House up to date, not just on this issue—and obviously, it affects other Departments, including particularly the Ministry of Defence. My last overseas visit, only 10 days ago, was to Warsaw. I spent two days in Poland and we discussed some of these issues, which are clearly far closer to the hearts of our Polish counterparts, as well as those within Baltic and Nordic states, who are very concerned about the proliferation and potential threat of Russia in this regard. My hon. Friend also rightly made the point that in many ways, as I mentioned earlier, Russia’s nefarious work extends well beyond the nuclear sphere. The campaigns of disinformation and the use of cyber-attacks in a very aggressive way are all very modern ways—well beyond the nuclear—in which there are major threats. Obviously, those are issues that the whole of Government have responsibility for, and we shall do our best to keep the House informed about them.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Woodcock]

We have both changed our views since then.

Is there not a responsibility on everyone in the House not to hand Putin another PR coup by suggesting that the breakdown of this treaty is in some way the fault of America and the west, or even that there is some sort of false sense of equivalence between the two parties? Must we not put the blame firmly on Russia and do whatever is necessary to re-strengthen NATO to ensure that we can get to non-proliferation, and ultimately disarmament, through the strength of our allies, not their weakness, which Putin will exploit?

[Mark Field]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his brave words, and I agree entirely, but that makes it all the more important that we continue to work with the international community. The UN is the obvious vehicle for doing that, but we recognise that the Russians would veto a Security Council resolution, so we are working to build a coalition of interests among many UN members, both those directly impacted and others who, if we do not deal with this now, could be impacted in the decades to come.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Everyone agrees that we should get Russia back within the provisions of the INF treaty. Intermediate range means up to 5,500 metres. Will the Minister confirm that the INF treaty does not include sea or air-launched missiles, which would be sad if it did?

[Mark Field]

I believe that is correct. If I am incorrect, I will correct it in writing to my hon. Friend, but I believe he is correct.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

What assessment have the Government made of the impact of this breakdown on other nuclear powers, such as Pakistan, India, China and North Korea, and what can the Government do to get international diplomacy back on track in relation to the importance of the framework of inspections, which, without a treaty, could get lost?

[Mark Field]

The hon. Lady will be aware that this is a specific treaty within Europe between the US and Russia signed some 32 years ago, but she makes a valid point that these issues are not entirely isolated, and obviously therefore rogue states—for want of a better phrase—such as North Korea and states such as Pakistan that have nuclear capability will be watching from afar and making their own decisions. That is one reason I support the idea, before we rush headlong into lifting sanctions on North Korea, that we see verifiable evidence of denuclearisation, which, I am afraid, we have not had to date. That said, we are working closely with our partners in the region, and clearly the US is doing its best to make progress in that regard.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

Appeasing non-compliance would increase the probability of our being vaporised in a nanosecond, would it not?

[Mark Field]

By my right hon. Friend’s standards, that was rather a long question, but let me keep the answer short. He is correct.

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

The Minister is right that the world would be better without nuclear weapons—they kill innocent people indiscriminately; they are weapons of mass destruction. If he is sincere about not wanting to return to an arms race, is it not time that the UK stopped building new ones, cancelled the Trident programme, saved a couple of hundred billion pounds the UK cannot afford and set the lead internationally?

[Mark Field]

The issue is about deterrence. As I said, if these weapons had never been invented, or if they could be mysteriously or mystically dis-invented, we would all be grateful, but that is not the case. In the practical reality of the world in which we live, we need that deterrence, so I absolutely support the Government’s policy, which has been the policy of all British Governments since 1945.

[Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon) (Con)]

The Russian economy is doing very poorly, partly as a result of falling oil prices and partly as a result of crushing economic sanctions, and one wonders why they want to engage in another arms race in such a state. Could it not be a sign of weakness on the part of Russia—the dying gasp of a bankrupt regime?

[Mark Field]

I thank my hon. Friend for his arguably slightly optimistic view on these matters. I will not speculate about the state of the Russian regime, but I am not convinced that this will necessarily lead to an arms race. For the reasons I have pointed out, my concern is with what one might call the 21st-century aspects—the disinformation war, cyber-attacks and the like—on which the Russians’ main efforts will be focused in the future. As he rightly points out, however, the state of Russia’s economy is grisly—to put it mildly—and it might well be, as he says, that it is behaving in this way out of weakness rather than strength.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

I must say that I was somewhat surprised by the Minister’s statement that the United Kingdom seems to be unequivocally supporting the United States rather than trying to pursue more legal and trade measures first. Russia’s actions are of course very worrying, and they must be to blame in large part—[Hon. Members: “But.”] Wait a second. But Russia has pledged that it will not place INF material in Europe unless the United States does so first. Will the Minister reassure me that we will not permit the US to place such armaments in the UK and will discourage it from placing them in Asia, which could spark, inadvertently, an arms race with China?

[Mark Field]

I am not going to become involved in speculation about arms races in other parts of the world, and, as the hon. Gentleman will appreciate, issues concerning the location of weapons are a matter for the Ministry of Defence. However, an escalation of these matters would be in none of our interests. I think that, in one sense, the treaty has worked well for 30 years—at least it has led to some peace on European soil—but trust and verification are required, and I am afraid that those have been lacking for some years. In many ways it is the Trump Administration who have grasped the nettle, with the support of all NATO allies.

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

I clearly remember the treaty being signed when I was 11 years old. That pretty much inspired me to take this career course, and it is with great honour and pride that I am now a member of the NATO parliamentary assembly and international vice-chairman of the Conservative party.

International relationships are very important, and today it is with a real sense of tragedy that we see where the treaty has ended up. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this shows the absolute importance of counterbalances? May I remind people who say that Russia promised that it would not put anything into Europe that it is a country which, less than 12 months ago, launched a chemical weapon attack on this country, and showed what its means were and what it was willing to do? Tragic as today is, does my right hon. Friend agree that we must continue our full support for NATO, our full support for our allies, and our engagement on the international stage with all countries to ensure our safer future?

[Mark Field]

I thank my hon. Friend for his youthful engagement in these matters. I am not sure that even at 23—which was my age in 1987—I realised quite what was going on when the INF treaty was signed. Levity aside, however, my hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that we need to work on this continuously. We should remind ourselves, as he has reminded the House, of events in Salisbury during the past year following the use of chemical weapons by a Russian state source on UK citizens, with fatal results.

I think that all Members who have expressed concern will agree that we need to keep lines of engagement open as far as possible. While trust has broken down and while we want to see verification, we need to talk. One of the criticisms made of international diplomacy is that it is notionally a talking shop. [Interruption.] As several of my right hon. Friends are saying from a sedentary position, we need to talk from strength, but, equally, we need to keep those lines of engagement as open as possible when it comes to these very important matters.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

If, ultimately, there is a request from the United States Administration to relocate US nuclear weapons on UK soil, what will be the response of the British Government?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Field]

As the hon. Gentleman will recognise, I am not going to speculate on too many hypotheticals for the future. This issue will obviously be discussed at very senior levels, and I think that it would be wrong for me to say any more at this stage.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

The Minister’s response to the urgent question today has been clearer and more assertive than his response to the same urgent question in October, and I welcome that. There is no point in being a signatory to an international arms treaty if the other side is not going to stick to the rules. The problem seems to be what I think the Minister described as the 9M729 missiles that the Russians have been developing. Can he tell the House how long they have been developing that capability, how many weapons we think they have, and what their capability is?

[Mark Field]

I fear that I will disappoint my hon. Friend by not going into great detail on these matters, as they are issues of secure intelligence. I confess that when I was at the Dispatch Box 102 days ago I was pretty robust. Perhaps he is getting harder in his old age, or perhaps it is the other way round. These are important issues, and we are full square behind our US allies on this matter. I am glad to say that, overwhelmingly, as far as I can see, although the House thinks it is regrettable that the treaty has been suspended, it recognises where blame rightly lies.

[Mr Speaker]

Perhaps parliamentary pressure has produced a force field. I call Dr David Drew.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

John Bolton has referred to the INF treaty as a cold war relic, and in its place he says that he intends to negotiate directly on behalf of the US with the Russians and Chinese. If that is the case, what is the role of the UK?

[Mark Field]

We are, and remain, a very active member of the United Nations in the Security Council. We are a committed member of NATO, and will continue to be such a member. Our role is important, but this is a bilateral agreement between Russia and the US that was signed three decades and more ago. Obviously, we have interests as a fully engaged NATO member, and will continue to do so.

The idea that we have no say on this matter could not be further from the truth. This issue has been festering, as I pointed out, for five or six years, right from the early stages of the Obama Administration, and it has finally come to a head. As I say, there is one message that will trickle out loud and clear to the Russian authorities. They have a chance to come back to the negotiating table. The US Administration have triggered a withdrawal, but that takes effect over a six-month period. I hope that before 2 August Russia will come back and recognise the importance of the treaty, but it can do so only if it shows the international community that it can be trusted and is willing on the verification of the outcomes.

Human Rights: Xinjiang

Mark Field Excerpts

Tuesday 29th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Asia and the Pacific (Mark Field)]

I commend the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) for securing this important debate. Mischievously, perhaps, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) put it to us that Orkney and Shetland may be the happiest constituency in the country; on a day like today that may have something to do with its proximity to Norway, but I will not make too much of that point. There used to be a quiz question asked about the right hon. Gentleman and me because my constituency is the nearest to Westminster, while his is the furthest away.

As a last bit of levity in this important, serious and high-profile debate, may I say that it is great to hear from the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse)? She knows that I have a German mother; we used to tease my mother about her malapropisms. If the hon. Lady’s only problem is that she has difficulty in saying the word “reciprocity”, I am sure that very few of us could answer that we know much about Gegenseitigkeit. I thank the hon. Lady and all hon. Members present for the high quality of their contributions today; this is a serious debate and I do not wish to use any more levity.

If I may, I will update the House on the current situation in Xinjiang and the action that the Government propose. I do not have anything like the depth of knowledge of my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), but I have visited the region, not as a Minister, but on my very visit to China some 16 years ago. I was struck even then by the atmosphere of tension. There was clearly a very large Muslim population in many of the towns and cities of the autonomous region close to the Mongolian border, but there was also a sense—this was only a couple of years after 9/11—that human rights issues were beginning to crowd in. We have seen that happen with much more serious effect in recent years.

The ethnic and religious minorities in Xinjiang have faced a variety of restrictions on their freedom of religion and belief, freedom of speech and freedom of association over several years—indeed, for decades past. Xinjiang’s energy reserves and geopolitical significance are likely to be key factors in the Chinese Government’s close involvement in the region: Xinjiang is home to China’s largest gas fields, half of its coal deposits and an estimated 20% of its oil reserves.

The Strike Hard campaign was initiated following an outbreak of violence, including bombings and knife attacks, in 2009. As many hon. Members have said, it has developed into the intensive crackdown that we are seeing today. The situation has deteriorated rapidly over the past two or three years, particularly—as the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) rightly pointed out—since the appointment of a new regional party secretary, Chen Quanguo. He had previously held the same position in Tibet, where he obviously earned his spurs as far as the Chinese authorities were concerned.

Mr Chen has introduced many of the techniques that he used in Tibet to monitor residents in Xinjiang. In fact, he has developed them further and fused them with a system of “political re-education camps”. However, we should also be clear that although Mr Chen has been a leading architect of the crackdown on the Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities, culpability for the worsening situation does not lie with him alone. His actions have been supported at the highest levels by the Chinese leadership.

Many hon. Members have already said that there are credible and important reports by non-governmental organisations describing the restrictive and oppressive measures being employed by the Chinese authorities, and quoted those reports. Our own diplomats visited Xinjiang as recently as December last year and their report painted a similarly bleak picture of the oppression being suffered by over a million Uyghurs and other minorities.

Let me speak for a moment about the specific measures that the authorities are using in Xinjiang. Among other things, traditional and unexceptional expressions of religious observance are now banned, from giving children religious names to having an “abnormal” beard or wearing a veil; I think the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) went into some detail about some of the oppressive practices that are being imposed on the local community.

As part of an apparent attempt to redefine Islam and to sinicise the Uyghur culture, extensive cultural restrictions have also been introduced, including the restriction on the use of the traditional Uyghur language. Contravention of the rules is likely to lead to detention and other punishments.

Uyghurs and members of other minorities with overseas connections, whether they have family members living abroad or a history of travel themselves, are deemed to be particularly suspicious and are highly likely to be detained. Families are monitored closely, including by Han Chinese officials, who they are obliged to host in their homes for several days at a time. Outside the home, Uyghurs and other minorities are reportedly watched closely through extensive use of sophisticated technologies, as has been pointed out already, which is supported by a heavy police presence. However, as has also been mentioned during the debate, what most concerns many of us is that over 1 million Uyghur Muslims—more than 10% of the Uyghur population—and other ethnic minorities have at one time or another been held in extra-judicial camps, as my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) pointed out.

It is not known just how long each individual is detained, what chance they have of being released or what the mechanism for release might be, or whether they can appeal their detention. However, what is clear is that these detentions have split up families, left many children effectively orphaned, as the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) pointed out, and created an overbearing culture of fear.

Much of this activity was considered by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in its report last August. It issued very detailed recommendations, including that China should

“Halt the practice of detaining individuals who have not been lawfully charged, tried and convicted for a criminal offence in any extra-legal detention facilities”.

In addition to the extra-judicial camps, and according to Chinese Government data, criminal arrests in Xinjiang accounted for an alarming 21% of the total number of arrests in China in 2017, when the population in Xinjiang makes up only 1.5% of China’s total population.

As a number of Members have pointed out, China’s response to the increasing expressions of international concern was initially simply to deny the existence of these camps. Later, it sought to brand them as education and training facilities, and it justified them on the basis of counter-terrorism. As I think all of us know, there have been incidents in the past, but this is a wholly unprecedented and unwarranted over-reaction to that matter.

China claims that the camps are a necessary part of the policy to prevent extremism and that other countries have no right to interfere in its internal affairs. The Chinese authorities naturally have the right to address genuine security concerns in Xinjiang. However, all the evidence to hand suggests that their action is disproportionate and indiscriminate, and it is a response that, as a number of Members have pointed out, will be counterproductive in the long term, because it will exacerbate a whole range of ethnic tensions.

In this way, I believe that China is causing untold suffering to millions of its own citizens. It is also contravening its own constitutional provisions on freedom of religion and indeed its obligations under the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The UK is, of course, deeply concerned about the situation in Xinjiang. We believe strongly that everyone everywhere should enjoy equal rights and protections under the law. That is why we are promoting and defending human rights, including the right to freedom of religion or belief, as a fundamental part of our own foreign policy.

It was right that the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green pointed out that in areas such as climate change, anti-money laundering and increasingly in combating modern-day slavery, we are making some progress alongside the Chinese authorities. Despite that co-operation, and notwithstanding our deep and strong relationship with China, we must and will have no hesitation about raising these issues of concern. Realistically, doing that at the UN Security Council will not have a great impact. Therefore, doing it in Geneva and through the European Union, as the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland rightly pointed out, is the more productive way forward.

The situation in Xinjiang is one of the most serious areas of human rights concerns in relation to our relationship with China.

[Fiona Bruce]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mark Field]

Forgive me; I will not give way because I am running out of time and I want to touch on all the issues.

Our lobbying of China takes place both bilaterally and in multilateral forums. I myself raised the issue of Xinjiang during my visit to five cities in China last July, as did my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary during his visit to Beijing later that month.

In the UK’s “item 4” statement at the UN Human Rights Council in September, we raised several of our concerns about Xinjiang. And during China’s universal periodic review at the UN on 6 November, we pressed China on when it would implement the recommendations of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. In our formal statement during the review itself, we urged China to

“Immediately implement the Committee’s recommendations on Xinjiang and allow the UN to monitor their implementation.”

Additionally, we have applied such pressure both in private and in public, working strategically with likeminded international partners, in particular, of course, with EU member states and others, to raise awareness of our concerns.

I will touch on one or two of the specific concerns that were expressed in the debate. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland asked about the moratorium on returns of failed asylum seekers. As has been pointed out, that is a Home Office competency and responsibility. However, I understand that the Home Office has recently updated its guidance notes for asylum caseworkers, which I think reflects the latest situation in Xinjiang, and those guidance notes will be kept under constant review.

The hon. Member for Bolton South East called for an independent inquiry. The UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, has said that her office is seeking access to Xinjiang as a matter of urgency, to verify what she regards as very worrying reports about the “re-education camps”. We support her call for access and we continue to urge the Chinese Government to grant unrestricted access to the UN, so that it can take care of this matter.

The hon. Member for Lincoln (Karen Lee) talked about Hikvision CCTV, which is a very specific case. We are obviously aware of the reports of Hikvision’s specific role in providing facial recognition cameras for use in Xinjiang. I will be happy to write to the hon. Lady with more details about that, and indeed I will be happy to write to other Members to deal with the one or two other matters that came up during the debate that I am not able to discuss now.

To conclude, the Government watch with very deep concern the Chinese authorities’ crackdown on Uyghurs and other minorities in Xinjiang, and in particular the huge numbers of people in detention, apparently without recourse to due process of law. In the interests of the people of Xinjiang and for the long-term stability of that region, and indeed in the interests of China’s own international reputation, it is vital that China implements the recommendations of the UN Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and honours its own human rights commitments. We shall continue to urge the Chinese Government to change their course and to meet those commitments.

[Phil Wilson (in the Chair)]

I call Mr Carmichael to wind up the debate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Field Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

21. What steps his Department is taking to promote and support human rights internationally.

[The Minister for Asia and the Pacific (Mark Field)]

The UK is committed to the promotion and protection of human rights worldwide and supports the work of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, the High Commission for Human Rights and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. The UK is one of the longest-standing members of the Human Rights Council, as the right hon. Gentleman will be aware. Regrettably, human rights defenders face unprecedented attack in many parts of the world. In 2018 alone, more than 300 such defenders were killed, and thousands more were imprisoned, attacked or tortured around the world.

[Stephen Timms]

I am grateful to the Minister for that answer. There has been a surge of attacks against and repression of human rights defenders around the world. In Saudi Arabia, for example, women’s rights activists, including Samar Badawi, have been detained since last May, and there have been reports that some have been tortured. I welcome Lord Ahmad’s announcement last month that the Department will publish the guidelines for embassies about support for human rights defenders, to aid clarity and consistency. When does the Minister envisage that publication taking place?

[Mark Field]

I do not want to put my ministerial colleague under undue pressure, but this is clearly something that we consider a major priority. Obviously, as Ministers we raise human rights issues with all our overseas counterparts, in both public and private forums. In December, as part of the UK’s commitment to freedom of religious belief, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, who is sitting to my right, announced an independent global review of the persecution of Christians, which will contain recommendations on practical steps in respect of that persecution. Of course, that applies to religious beliefs of all sorts.

[Lilian Greenwood]

An estimated 1 million Uighur Muslims are being held in detention camps in Xinjiang by the Chinese Government. In the very week that we commit to relearning the lessons of the holocaust, does the Minister share my concern that such human rights abuses and persecution cannot go unchallenged? It is quite disgraceful conduct from a permanent member of the Security Council. What is the Minister doing to protest to the Chinese Government about these issues?

[Mark Field]

May I address this issue up front? I suspect that many Members from all parties have grave concerns about it. We are concerned about what is happening in Xinjiang province, including the detention of, as the hon. Lady says, more than 1 million people without trial in political re-education camps. Not only did British diplomats on the ground visit Xinjiang in December 2018 but we are raising and will continue to raise this issue bilaterally with the Chinese. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary did so most recently in Beijing in the autumn.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Human rights defenders face particular challenges in the Gaza strip, which is controlled by Hamas. Journalists are oppressed, demonstrations are violently put down and public executions take place. What are we doing to support human rights defenders in the Gaza strip?

[Mark Field]

I reassure my hon. Friend that Ministers, particularly my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Middle East, do make clear our concerns about the rights of human rights defenders and the importance of their work in every part of the world.

[Nick Herbert (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

Brave human rights defenders are alerting us to a terrible new wave of persecution of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people in Chechnya. What steps will the Government take to remind the Russian authorities of their responsibilities, including publishing an independent inquiry into this issue? They are signatories to the European convention on human rights and these abuses cannot be allowed to continue.

[Mark Field]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. We are and remain deeply concerned by the recent reports of the renewed wave of persecution of LGBT folk in Chechnya. Both the Foreign Secretary and my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe and the Americas have in the past week made it clear to their Russian counterparts that we must stop such persecution and hold those responsible to account.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

What discussions about the human rights situation have Ministers had with the Government of Colombia, either directly or through the embassies, following the bombing of the police academy in that country?

[Mark Field]

There are obviously great concerns. As the hon. Gentleman is aware, a number of cadets were killed taking important action as human rights defenders. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe and the Americas has raised this issue at a bilateral level, and we will monitor the situation carefully.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

Will the report to which my right hon. Friend has referred focus on the plight of Christian Churches in China?

[Mark Field]

It will indeed. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) speaks avidly, repeatedly, and, if I may say, persistently on this matter—and indeed extremely effectively. My right hon. Friend can be assured that we will address that along with other issues about Christian persecution across the world.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

One of the most chilling aspects of the violence in Zimbabwe in recent days was the statement of the President’s spokesman that this was

“just a foretaste of things to come”.

In the light of that, does the Minister agree that it is time for the UN to revive the Security Council resolution on Zimbabwe that it failed to pass in 2008, and will the UK seek to initiate that discussion?

[Mark Field]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. This is deeply disappointing to all of us in this House. We all celebrated the demise of the Mugabe regime, feeling and hoping that a new chapter of Zimbabwe history was commencing. We are very concerned about the disproportionate response of the security forces to the recent protests. May I reassure the House that my hon. Friend the Minister for Africa summoned Zimbabwe’s ambassador on 17 January to urge the Government there to show restraint and fully investigate any cases of alleged human rights abuses? Obviously, we will take this up in multilateral forums such as the UN. I do not want to make a firm commitment to what the hon. Lady has said, but she will know that, in this fluid situation, we will keep all our options open.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

2. What recent discussions he has had with his Iraqi counterpart.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

18. What recent assessment he has made of the political and security situation in Afghanistan.

[The Minister for Asia and the Pacific (Mark Field)]

The UK remains committed to ensuring that the Afghan national defence and security forces improve their capability to protect all ethnic and religious groups in Afghanistan. British embassy officials regularly meet Hazara representatives to hear their specific concerns at first hand. As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, there have been positive recent developments in Afghanistan’s political and security situation, but the ongoing conflict means that significant challenges remain.

[Mr Bailey]

I thank the Minister for his reply. The Hazara community in Afghanistan is increasingly being targeted by not only the Taliban in Afghanistan, but Daesh infiltrating from Pakistan. What steps are the Government taking to talk to the Governments of both Pakistan and Afghanistan about stopping at source the violent approach from ISIS and other military groups?

[Mark Field]

I very much accept what the hon. Gentleman says. We work closely with our counterparts in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Peace efforts must focus on supporting attempts to start a credible process. To that end, we will work closely with partners—in particular, US Special Representative Khalilzad—to ensure that international forces that are a factor in the conflict properly address the issue.

[Jessica Morden]

In view of the ongoing security situation, will Ministers do more with Defence and Home Office Ministers to ensure that Afghan interpreters who came here alone under the redundancy scheme can be reunited here with their wives and families, as they clearly face great danger in Afghanistan?

[Mark Field]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. She is right; local staff, including interpreters, continue to play a vital role in supporting the objectives of the UK and our partners in Afghanistan. As well as paying generous redundancy packages in recognition of service, we will do our level best for those who have made such sacrifices on our behalf, and I will write to my counterparts in the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence to ensure that we do so.

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

I pay tribute to the work of the Foreign Office in Pakistan and particularly our high commissioner, Tom Drew. Will the Foreign Secretary lend all his support to the work that Tom is doing alongside Khalilzad on peace negotiations in Afghanistan, particularly to protect the Hazara population but also to stop foreign actors playing silly and dangerous games in Afghanistan, which we have seen for far too long?

[Mark Field]

I thank my hon. Friend for his wise words. He knows this issue well. We are lucky to have such a high-calibre high commissioner in Pakistan in Tom Drew, who is coming to the end of his time there, and in Sir Nicholas Kay and Giles Lever, the chargé d’affaires in Kabul. We have the highest calibre of trusted diplomats, who make a tremendous contribution not only to UK interests but to the interests of civilians in both countries.

[Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)]

What discussions has the Minister had with his American counterpart about US plans to reduce by half the number of troops in Afghanistan? Does he share my concern that that announcement might encourage the Taliban to play for time, rather than engage in meaningful peace talks with the Afghan Government?

[Mark Field]

That is always an issue. After the White House statement on 28 December that the President had not decided to draw down the US military presence in Afghanistan, we want to try to nail this issue down. Our collective long-term commitment to the objective remains unchanged. We have a long-term intention that NATO and its partners should not reduce their military presence unless conditions on the ground change.

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

6. What recent discussions he has had with his US counterpart on lifting US trade restrictions on Cuba.

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[David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

13. What recent assessment he has made on the progress of international co-operation on climate change.

[The Minister for Asia and the Pacific (Mark Field)]

Lucky 13 for the right hon. Gentleman! The agreement of the rulebook for the Paris agreement at the 24th conference of the parties in Katowice in Poland last month, which I attended, was a crucial step forward, but all our assessments conclude that the current level of global ambition is not enough to meet the Paris goals of just over three years ago. We need unprecedented and rapid action to reduce emissions and build resilience.

[David Hanson]

I concur with the Minister. For all those reasons, will he ensure that, if the President of the United States visits this country in July, climate change will be central so that we can put it on the agenda of America, which is the power best able to influence world opinion on this issue?

[Mark Field]

I very much hope so. I was at the climate change summit in San Francisco in September, and interestingly it is not just the state of California but other US states that take this very seriously. There is, then, a lot of pressure from within the US, but obviously we will keep up that pressure in every way we can, both bilaterally and in multilateral forums.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jo Swinson]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Does the Minister agree that climate change is a strategic threat to our prosperity and security? If so, why is it no longer mentioned in the 28 objectives in his departmental plan?

[Mark Field]

It is very much an important part of my own plan. As the hon. Lady will appreciate, I attended last year’s meeting of the Pacific Islands Forum in Nauru and will attend the next one in Tuvalu—these issues are existential for many of those Pacific islands. I am sorry she feels that we are not giving this enough attention. I am proud of the work the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is doing with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, which lead on this issue; we work very closely together in a range of different forums and will continue to do so.

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

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[Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)]

T2. Further to the question from the right hon. Member for Enfield North (Joan Ryan), at a time when relations are improving greatly between Israel and many countries around the world, particularly its Gulf neighbours, will my right hon. Friend stress that not allowing Israeli swimmers to participate in the Paralympic qualifiers would be a retrograde step?

[The Minister for Asia and the Pacific (Mark Field)]

We also have strong relations with the Malaysian Government, and I am very disappointed that they have made what I feel is a fundamentally wrong decision. As my hon. Friend has rightly pointed out, those Israeli Paralympic athletes should not be banned from competing. I shall be seeing the Malaysian Education Minister this afternoon—with, I think, a senior representative of the high commission—and I promise to ask for an assurance that this will be dealt with properly, as a matter of urgency.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

T4. I thank the Foreign Secretary for travelling to Stockholm for the peace talks, and for resolution 2452. Yesterday, however, five aid workers were killed in Yemen as they tried to de-mine parts of the country. Will the Foreign Secretary ensure that the safety of aid workers is a priority during the talks? [R]

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[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

T7. My constituent Mr Niranjan Rasalingam is currently shackled in a prison in Myanmar, serving a 13-year sentence after being forced to sign a confession in Burmese, a language that he does not understand. Regardless of his guilt or innocence, he is a British citizen being mistreated. I have raised his case in this place before, but I understand that the Foreign Secretary did not make representations on his behalf during a recent trip to the country. May I ask him again please to give more support, and to advocate on behalf of my constituent?

[Mark Field]

I shall be happy to deal with this matter in my role as Minister of State. I hope to go to Burma, or Myanmar, within the next few months, but I will obviously try to deal with it from London at an earlier stage.

[Mr Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

T5. What assessment did my right hon. Friend make of the future economic, trade and diplomatic relations with Singapore and Malaysia?

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[Bim Afolami (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

T10. Will the Foreign Secretary update the House on his assessment of our relationship with China, particularly in respect of financial services in the City of London?

[Mark Field]

The City of London’s connections with China form an essential part of our overall bilateral relationship, and we look forward to proceeding with an ambitious commercial agenda during 2019. As my hon. Friend will know, the City is already the world’s leading offshore trading centre for the renminbi. It engages in more than 40% of global trading, even more than Hong Kong.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Yanto Awerkion, Sem Asso and Edo Dogopia were among six members of the West Papua National Committee who were arrested in December, when the police and the military took over the group’s secretariat in Timika. The three men were detained on 5 January and later charged with treason, which carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment in Indonesia. Amnesty International has called for the unconditional release of the activists, because they have only expressed their political views. Will the Minister press his counterpart in Indonesia to release them?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I very gently advise Members that, in future, if they have a substantive question that is not reached, they must ask a truncated version of it during topical questions? That is the way it is.

[Mark Field]

Sadly, Mr Speaker, the hon. Gentleman has asked a rather different question, so I cannot just refer to the briefing I have here. May I, however, reassure the hon. Gentleman that the officials at our embassy in Jakarta, including the ambassador, visit Papua and West Papua regularly? We will do our very best in future visits to bring up the specific cases to which the hon. Gentleman refers.

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[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

What representations are the Government making to the Government of Nepal in relation to the recent case of the death of a woman and her two children who were suffocated while being confined in a poorly ventilated so-called period hut?

[Mark Field]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. I must confess that I do not have direct knowledge of this case, but I will get in touch with Kathmandu to make sure we make representations on her behalf.

[Stephen Kerr (Stirling) (Con)]

When can we expect the report the Foreign Secretary has commissioned on UK support for persecuted Christians to be published, and will he make a statement at that time?

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[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

There is widespread concern among the Muslim, Hindu, Tamil and Christian communities in Sri Lanka about the appointment of alleged war criminals to very senior positions. What representations has my right hon. Friend made to the Sri Lankan Government to prevent this from happening?

[Mark Field]

We welcome the progress that has been made towards a peaceful resolution of the destabilising situation in Sri Lanka that took place from late October onwards. Just last week, I welcomed the Speaker of the Sri Lankan Parliament to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and commended him for his central role in bringing that about. Clearly the situation in Sri Lanka is very fluid, and I would be happy to take specific representations from my hon. Friend about the particular concern that he has just raised.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

On Friday, the skirl of the bagpipes will be heard and haggis, neeps and tatties will be consumed in large quantities all over the world. Have the Government instructed their network of high commissions, embassies and consulates to facilitate the celebration of our Scottish national bard’s work and life all over the world?

Journalists: International Protection

Mark Field Excerpts

Wednesday 9th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Asia and the Pacific (Mark Field)]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) for securing parliamentary time to debate this very important issue. His passionate commitment to the strategic issues around global media is of long standing. Let me take this opportunity to personally pay tribute to his previous outstanding work in this important and increasingly high-profile field, both as Secretary of State and as a two-term Chair of the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport.

We were also delighted to hear contributions and interventions from a range of other hon. Members, and I will try to respond to the points that were raised, but first, I will share some of what the UK Government are already doing to try to improve the climate for media freedom and our plans to do more over the coming year.

There can be no doubt that media freedom is under increasing attack across the world. The figures speak for themselves: 80 journalists were killed in 2018, 348 are languishing in prison and 60 are being held hostage. It is appalling that these numbers represent a steady increase on those of previous years. Countries are increasingly using restrictive laws to stifle freedom of expression and to prevent the functioning of an independent media. The climate is worsening fast.

Naturally, for many people—even those in public life—it is uncomfortable to find oneself in the glare of the media spotlight, but I hope that all of us, as publicly elected representatives, believe and appreciate that such scrutiny is an essential part of a vibrant and healthy democracy, and that it is of huge benefit to society as a whole. It is no coincidence that countries with the freest media are also generally the most transparent and the least corrupt. Needless to say, the same applies in reverse. Powerful people may think twice about abusing their position if there is a good chance that their behaviour will be exposed in the media; conversely, an absence of scrutiny can lead to the very worst abuses of power and corruption.

Here in the UK, we have long had a culture of supporting freedom of expression. We are rightly proud of our tradition of an independent media, which underpins the fundamental values of our democracy. As a consequence, we collectively tolerate the excesses and, at times, the low journalistic standards of our tabloid press. That is a price we have to pay. However, in recent days in the vicinity of the House, the Sky News journalist Kay Burley and my right hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) were subjected to unacceptable levels of harassment.

The wealth of media expertise and innovation in this country not only strengthens our own media sector, but supports the development of a strong and independent media in many countries overseas.

Regarding UK action, I was very taken by the comments made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel). Let me reassure her that posts overseas routinely lobby Governments, often on a bilateral basis, wherever and whenever serious violations occur. My fellow Foreign Office Ministers and I also raise these issues routinely with our counterparts, and we will continue to do so, while also taking up individual cases personally—a point mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), as well.

We promote freedom of expression and media freedom all over the world, and we routinely raise concerns about serious violations with foreign Governments. One such case was highlighted during my trip last week to Vietnam, where I raised with ministerial counterparts concerns about the plan for a new cyber-security law in that country. I know that such discussions go on in visits that Ministers undertake across the globe. We also support media freedom through our Magna Carta Fund in some of the countries where human rights and democracy are most at threat.

In the multilateral sphere, we will continue to use our influence to support media freedom, the safety of journalists and freedom of expression at the United Nations Human Rights Council. A current example of this is seen in Mexico—a country that has been named by Reporters Without Borders as among the world’s five most deadly countries not at war. In November, we raised concerns about limitations to freedom of expression and violence against journalists and human rights defenders during the United Nation’s universal periodic review of Mexico. We raise these issues as important international principles in their own right, but in the past 12 months we have also raised concerns in all the specific countries mentioned in the debate.

We shall also utilise our active and ongoing membership of the Council of Europe and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe. We will continue to use those important vehicles to highlight our concerns, galvanise consensus and effect change, and we are looking actively for ways to use them to greater and more meaningful effect.

[Martin Whitfield (East Lothian) (Lab)]

Tribute should be paid to our own Baron Foulkes of Cumnock, who is the general rapporteur in the Council of Europe for media freedom and the protection of journalists.

[Mark Field]

That tribute has indeed been paid. I also take on board the proposal that we support a UN representative or convention on the protection of journalists. I know that is something that is actively being pursued.

In the coming year and beyond, we will strengthen our efforts yet further. My right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon referred to the work being done by the new Foreign Secretary, who is very focused on this issue. We shall continue to work through those important multilateral bodies to galvanise consensus and effect change, and we are looking actively for ways of building on their work. We will also use our membership of like-minded groupings, such as the Freedom Online Coalition and the Community of Democracies, to step up our efforts specifically to promote media freedom and the safety of journalists. We shall continue to work closely with civil society and media organisations to ensure that we use the influencing power of Government to good effect, to complement and build on their own efforts. However, it is also important that we ramp up the bilateral response with countries with which we have strong connections, whether through the Department for International Development or in a range of other areas. We will continue to work together in that regard.

We must also recognise that we cannot do all this work alone. That is why, later this year, we will host in London an international conference on media freedom. Our aim is to bring the issue to global attention, promote the value and benefits of a free media—indeed, a free internet—to a wider audience, and mobilise an international consensus behind the protection of journalists, as the obvious guardians of those freedoms.

A robust, free, vibrant and varied media landscape is also one of the best antidotes to hostile state disinformation. Like restrictions on the media, disinformation also requires a concerted response. Here, too, we feel that the UK is at the forefront of a growing international consensus on the need for action. At home, we are drawing, among other things, on the experience of our Nordic and Baltic partners, which means taking a whole-of-society approach to this matter. That involves working towards three key objectives in relation to disinformation: first, deterring the use of disinformation by exposing and disrupting the perpetrators; secondly, increasing transparency and accountability online to make it more difficult and less rewarding to spread disinformation; and thirdly, making people more resilient through education and empowerment. We are investing £100 million in that effort around the world, which includes, at the moment, £8.5 million in eastern Europe and central Asia alone.

To respond to some specific points raised by Members, my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) talked about Iran. The reports of BBC staff in Iran being harassed and subjected to asset freezes and similar forms of mistreatment are deeply worrying. The Foreign Secretary specifically raised our concerns about the harassment of BBC Persia staff and their families in Iran when he was there during his visit on 9 and 10 December. Officials at the British embassy in Tehran have also twice raised concerns with leading figures in the Iranian Government. Members should be made aware that in December 2018, we once again co-sponsored the UN General Assembly’s resolution on the human rights situation in Iran, specifically highlighting the poor record on freedom of expression.

The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) asked about the case of Mr Huseynov in Azerbaijan. We regularly express our concerns about the rights of political prisoners with the Azeri authorities. Over the past two years, we have attended a number of Mr Huseynov’s court hearings, and we met with his lawyer most recently on 3 January this year. The UK will continue to follow the case closely and is considering next steps with our international partners.

I will conclude with this thought. A free press is the lifeblood of a healthy democracy, because it holds the powerful to account, helps to expose corruption and lack of integrity, and is one of the best antidotes to disinformation. That is why we must take action to stop the intimidation, harassment and persecution of journalists across the world, and why this year we will place as many resources as we can from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office—not only financial, but time —behind a campaign to reverse the worrying trends outlined in this debate.

Rohingya Refugee Crisis

Mark Field Excerpts

Thursday 20th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), who is a member of the International Development Committee and has had the benefit of visiting Cox’s Bazar and therefore gave an informed speech based on first-hand experience. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali), the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) and my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), Chair of the Committee, all of whom made powerful and substantial contributions. In particular I thank all three Members for continuing to keep this important issue alive, and continuing to make sure that it is brought back before the House at every opportunity. That should, however, be the role of the Government.

[The Minister for Asia and the Pacific (Mark Field)]

We have tried to get a statement on this issue over the last two or three weeks, but were aware that there was great interest in this Backbench Business Committee debate. Obviously, I would have much preferred it to have taken place on a different day when more Members would have been present, but we have been aware of this and would have had a Government statement other than for the fact that there was a real passion on the subject from many Members including the hon. Gentleman.

[Imran Hussain]

I thank the Minister, but he still has the opportunity to make a statement in the new year, because this is an ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing. I hope he will make such a statement, and at a time when more Members are present and can take part in this important debate. I was actually, however, referring to the last year, but I will come on to that shortly.

This is an extremely important debate, as I have said, but sadly the issue of the persecution of the Rohingya is not a new one; it has taken place for hundreds of years in that region, with violence flaring up on countless occasions. However, this persecution reached new heights last August, with some of the most brutal violence ever seen.

I want to reflect for a few moments on that violence, because the pictures and reports of violence against the Rohingya do not do justice to what they faced; they do not even begin to properly depict the horrors that innocent, men, women and children were subjected to. They faced murder, and their friends and relatives cut down by gunfire, knives, machetes and whatever else soldiers and thugs could lay their hands on. They faced pillage, their homes ransacked, their belongings plundered, and valuables seized. And they faced rape: women and girls—daughters, sisters, and wives—tied to trees and subjected to the most brutal treatment as relatives were forced to watch. Once they had finished inflicting their carnage, the soldiers moved on. Without remorse or reconsideration, they headed to the next village, but not before burning down the one they had just devastated. Homes that had stood for years, built by hand by those who lived in them, were reduced to nothing more than ash. These fires became the face of the violence carried out against the Rohingya, the pictures adorning the pages of the media as journalists were allowed no closer —Burma blocked off to them by a hostile Government fearful of outside independent reporting.

--- Later in debate ---

[Imran Hussain]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I was referring to the Government, of course, because I know that the Foreign Affairs Committee has done a great deal of work on this. However, let me be absolutely clear that I do not accept what he says, because I stood up in the House soon after the atrocities last August and asked the Minister simply to condemn the brutal actions, to condemn the ethnic cleansing, and to condemn the genocide, but there was no condemnation at that time—the hon. Gentleman might like to look in Hansard if he has any doubt. The reality is that even today I cannot think of one occasion when the Government have openly and forcefully condemned those atrocities in the House. If the Minister wishes to correct me on that, I am more than happy to give way.

[Mark Field]

I understand that the hon. Gentleman is very passionate about this issue and has raised it several times, but the Government have repeatedly, on the Floor of the House, talked about ethnic cleansing. We stand by the ICC report, which we want to push through the UN Security Council, and I will say more about that later. We have condemned the actions of senior figures in the Burmese military and played a leading role in ensuring that they are sanctioned at international level, through the European Union rather than through the UN. It is all very well to condemn, but we also have a range of other actions, both humanitarian and political, which I will talk about more in my speech. Although we have condemned, condemnation is never enough; we need a practical plan of action, both for what happened over the past 15 months and hopefully for the months and years to come.

[Imran Hussain]

I partly accept what the Minister says. Of course condemnation alone does not go the length, but it is absolutely a starting point. Regrettably, the Minister did not condemn at that point—he knows that he did not use the word “condemnation”—and did not strongly condemn the Burmese Government for their actions at that point, perhaps because he wanted to pursue more diplomatic channels. There are times for diplomatic channels, but perhaps condemnation is more appropriate when genocide and ethnic cleansing is happening.

Those on the fact-finding missions to Burma saw for themselves the horrors that have led to the creation of one of the biggest refugee crises ever seen. So great was the crisis, and so brutal the violence, that the weekly outflow of refugees fleeing Burma rose to a level unseen since Rwanda in the 1990s, as many Members have mentioned. Yet although the refugees, having fled across difficult and even hostile terrain that saw many die on the journey, have escaped the boot of the Burmese military, they are not safe in Bangladesh. The conditions in the camps in which they reside are on the edge of inhumane.

Many hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow, have described graphically the conditions in the camps. I will not repeat what has been said, but I want to highlight the really important point made by the hon. Member for St Albans about the children born in Cox’s Bazar. What is their future? What are the thoughts of the young people living day to day in those squalid conditions? Let us all reflect on that.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Asia and the Pacific (Mark Field)]

I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for allowing this debate, and to Members for their heartfelt and emotional contributions. One difficulty of standing at this Dispatch Box is that although I have heard the poetry, there may now be a little more prose as I try to give a realistic assessment of what is achievable. As we know, politics is to an extent the art of the possible, but it is also the art of aspiration, and I hope to touch on a few issues that have been raised. I shall try to respond to all the points raised, but I hope hon. Members will forgive me if I revert to writing to a number of specific points. The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) will accept that it is better I do it that way, rather than try to give a glib answer that then begins to unravel.

I take this opportunity to condemn on the record the political violence that we have seen in Bangladesh in recent days, which has, and will have, a big bearing on these matters. Whenever I visit Bangladesh, I am struck—as I am sure other hon. Members are—by the absolute determination of its people to get on and prosper, and we all know that political instability and violence will not help them to do either of those things. Much can be said, of course, for many in the British-Bangladeshi diaspora

I am concerned by reports that some civil society organisations in Bangladesh are being prevented from observing the election. Independent domestic and international observers have a crucial role in helping to support a free and transparent process for the elections in 10 days’ time. We urge all in Bangladesh to refrain from further violence, to deliver a democratic election, to give Bangladeshis a properly representative Parliament that can propel their country to greater economic prosperity, and—to reflect the words of the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg)—to reflect on their ongoing responsibilities for the situation in and around Cox’s Bazar.

I now turn directly to the subject of this impassioned debate. The plight of the Rohingya people rightly concerns many hon. Members—many more, perhaps, than are in the Chamber today. Like me, several colleagues have made the journey to camps in Bangladesh to meet refugees and heard their distressing testimony for themselves. When I travelled to Cox’s Bazar in June, I could see the immense scale of the suffering. The refugee situation is heartbreaking, notwithstanding the immense generosity being shown to them by the Government of Bangladesh, who have given shelter to nearly 1 million people. Those whom I spoke to said that they wanted, in time, to return to their homes in Burma, but only if they could be certain that they would no longer be persecuted and discriminated against.

I very much agree with the sentiments of the hon. Members for West Ham (Lyn Brown), for Bishop Auckland and for Bradford East (Imran Hussain): the citizenship issue is critical. If we do not get that right, it will be pointless for the refugees to return. But the situation is difficult: we cannot impose that but must work with the international community to make the case to the Burmese authorities. The UK Government will continue to work with international partners to press for the creation of conditions in Rakhine allowing for a voluntary, safe and dignified return of refugees. However, there is clearly no appetite for such a return at the moment.

[Paul Scully]

As the Minister says, at the moment there is no appetite for going back. There is also a sense of hardening opinions. Whereas a year ago refugees wanted to go back if it was safe, the refugees I spoke to six months ago felt that hope was being lost.

[Mark Field]

I agree with my hon. Friend, who has been to the camps on several occasions and has probably seen the degradation of process in that regard. I say again that, for the reasons set out by the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali), we absolutely oppose plans for moving any Rohingya to Bhasan Char, the island in the bay of Bengal. We do not feel that that would be a safe or feasible place, for the reasons that she set out. Any location or relocation of refugees has to be safe, dignified and in accordance with international humanitarian principles, standards and laws.

As colleagues will know, the Governments of Bangladesh and Burma were preparing to start a refugee repatriation on 15 November. I spoke as a matter of urgency by telephone with Bangladesh’s Foreign Minister and I spoke with both the Bangladeshi State Minister of Foreign Affairs and Burma’s Minister for International Co-operation in advance of that day. I was absolutely clear with each of them that the UK Government shared the assessment of the UN Refugee Agency: that insufficient progress had been made to enable safe returns to northern Rakhine.

Our concerns were also borne out by the fact, brought up by many hon. Members today, that no Rohingya refugees volunteered to return. I believe that international pressure at that point was a key factor in halting any involuntary repatriations. I welcome the Bangladeshi Government’s subsequent reaffirmation of their commitment to exclusively voluntary returns, but we all know in the international community that we will have to remain vigilant about that point.

I can reassure Members that the UK will continue to play a full part in supporting Rohingya refugees as a leading donor to the international humanitarian response, to which we have so far donated £129 million.

[Dr Allin-Khan]

It is great to hear the Minister affirming that we do not want any forced repatriations and acknowledging that Rohingya refugees want to return only if that is safe. On my most recent visit just two months ago, the word coming out from the refugees was that they wanted justice. Does the Minister agree that the issue is about not just safe repatriation but bringing about justice for all the atrocities that those people have had to live through?

[Mark Field]

I do understand that. What justice amounts to is obviously something that will develop in time, as and when, one hopes, people are able to return to traditional homelands. That is something I am sure we will discuss.

[Mrs Main]

Just before the Minister moves on from his point about Bhasan Char island, I met the new Bangladesh high commissioner to the UK this week. This is a narrative I have heard before. They do not regard Bhasan Char island as a bad place to go. Indeed, they say that they are encouraging their own people—Bangladeshis—to apply to Bhasan Char island and that it will not just be an outpost for Rohingya. My concern, however, particularly with the monsoon and so on, is that it is a very secretive environment, so we need to stress that we do not consider Bhasan Char island in that way. I know that this is a point of dispute. I would like to put it on record that the Bangladesh Government do not see Bhasan Char island as a bad place to be.

[Mark Field]

We have made it clear that we do not feel it is an appropriate place, for the reasons my hon. Friend rightly sets out. Out of sight is out of mind. There is a sense of it being almost like an Alcatraz or near enough some sort of holding pen, rather than a viable place for the longer term.

On my hon. Friend’s previous point about the joint response plan, which goes to the issue of the overall humanitarian response, I am afraid to say that at the moment, as the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby will know, it is only partially funded. The current figure is 68.9%, which is $654 million out of a $950 million expectation. The UK is, mainly through the international community in Geneva rather than New York, actively encouraging others to step up to do their share in fully funding the plan, including through DFID’s relationships with other donors and donor agencies.

Ultimately, we all know that the solution to the Rohingya crisis lies in Rakhine and in Burma more widely. The UN fact-finding mission—we are supportive of it and its evidence—uncovered evidence of a series of horrendous crimes. Its report makes for chilling reading. However, as I have said previously in this House, the Government believe that any judgment on whether genocide has occurred is not a political judgment but a matter for judicial decision. It is therefore critical that we work to ensure that a credible judicial process is put in place. The Burmese authorities want to demonstrate that there is no need for an international justice mechanism. They must show that their commission of inquiry will lead to an effective judicial process. I share many of the concerns expressed on the Opposition Benches about that process. What I would say is that the commission of inquiry does have high-ranking international observers. We therefore continue to maintain some hope, but it can work only if it properly holds to account those responsible for crimes, whether they are civilian or in the military.

[Rushanara Ali]

I have a great deal of time for the Minister, but I find it utterly shocking that, after everything he has heard and all that he knows—he knows a lot more than many others, because he is the Minister—he believes we should be even recognising the internal commission of inquiry. The Burmese military uses commission after commission to distract the international community. In the past, when his predecessors in government used similar lines, we would subsequently look away and thousands of people would have been killed and hundreds of thousands forced out of their country. The same mistake is happening again. He should not have any hope for that internal inquiry. He should answer the question in the motion about the ICC and what we will do.

[Mark Field]

I think the hon. Lady has slightly misinterpreted what I said. I have very little faith in the commission of inquiry, other than the fact that within it there are international individuals who will hopefully be able to keep some lines of communication open. She is absolutely right that the Burmese authorities have given very little evidence in the past year to suggest that this will be anything more than a whitewash. As I say, there are individuals involved who I hope can keep lines of communication open. [Interruption.] In fairness, the Annan report was commissioned in part by the Burmese military. It provides a fantastic template, if only it were properly enforced.

[Rushanara Ali]

The Minister is right. We recognise the contribution of the late Kofi Annan, and we recognise that the commission’s recommendations would be significant if only they were implemented. The Burmese military’s answer to those recommendations was the 2017 attacks that brought about this crisis, with thousands of people killed and 700,000 forced out. That is their answer to people like Kofi Annan and others—independent- minded figures engaging and trying to help the Burmese Government. Their answer is further slaughter and genocide.

[Mark Field]

I very much respect what the hon. Lady has said, and, as she will know, I share her concerns. We will do all that we can.

If I may, in the time allotted to me, I will say a little more about what else we are doing in the international community. The Foreign Secretary is the Minister who visited Burma most recently, back in September. He made our expectations very clear to Aung San Suu Kyi, and repeated that message in a letter written jointly with the French Foreign Minister. He made it clear that if the commission of inquiry was to have any credibility, it must be transparent and independent, and must take full account of the international evidence brought to it. If it is not and does not, the Burmese authorities and their supporters at the United Nations will, in our view, have no grounds whatsoever for rejecting moves towards an international mechanism to secure that accountability.

Let me now say something about the UK’s international action. We are, in the meantime, building on our success at the September session of the Human Rights Council, where we secured a regulation mandating the creation of a “collect and preserve” mechanism. That will support the preparation of case files for use in future prosecutions. I fear that some of the leading lights of the Burmese military will be there for some time to come, but that unique mechanism will enable evidence to be in place for those future prosecutions.

We have been clear with fellow members that the Security Council should take further action, and we have tried to build consensus on what that might be. I know that many Members would like the Security Council to refer the situation in Burma to the International Criminal Court, but a referral would be extremely difficult to achieve, because veto-wielding members of the Security Council would vote against it. I must say to the hon. Members for Tooting and for Bradford East and others that there is a risk that a vetoed resolution would be counterproductive to our aims, because it would reduce pressure on the Burmese military, and would also undermine the very credibility of the United Nations.

I know that some look back at China’s decision to abstain rather than vetoing the UN Security Resolution in 2005 referring the Darfur situation to the International Criminal Court. I believe that we should test what China is prepared to accept in this situation, but I also think we need to recognise that the way in which that nation behaved in 2005 in relation to a crisis in Africa may not be the way in which a China that is rather more assertive on the international stage behaves in relation to a crisis in its own neighbourhood.

[Mike Gapes]

The Minister says that China’s interests in that part of Africa were not necessarily what its interests are in Myanmar. Is it not a fact that the Chinese Government see this region as essential to its belt and road strategy and its overall expansion of its investments, and therefore regards neighbouring countries as a strategic asset? Is it not very likely that the Chinese will continue to prove very difficult in the United Nations on this matter?

[Mark Field]

I fear that they will. There are the strategic and economic issues to which the hon. Gentleman has referred, and there is also—this was mentioned by the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland—the sense of a non-interference strategy. To be fair, they believe that across the board in the context of sovereignty, but obviously there are issues closer at hand in regard to which there has been public criticism, and that will, I suspect, increase in the months and years to come.

I would like to think that we will continue to try to work within the UN, and that we should try to table a resolution if the opportunity arises, but I am trying to be as open as possible with the House about some of the fundamental strategic difficulties that we face in trying to table a resolution. Although I understand that there is a real sense of outrage, and a feeling that we need to be on the front foot, it might well undermine what we are trying to achieve in the short to medium term in building some sort of consensus among like-minded international states.

[Imran Hussain]

The point the Minister makes about the Chinese veto somehow emboldening the Burmese military further is lost on me, because the Burmese military at the moment are acting as judge, jury and executioner; anybody who thinks there is an ounce of real democracy in Burma is kidding themselves. The military have all the key seats, including, as the Minister knows, the Home, Foreign and Security Offices. If we do nothing, that will surely embolden the Burmese military further.

[Mark Field]

The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point, and he will appreciate that these are very sensitive decisions that we are making on the international stage. I know that this debate will be read not just in Burma, but in the UN as well, where our group there will try to make some headway on the issue.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mark Field]

I am taking rather longer than I intended, but this is an important debate and I wanted to take some interventions. However, I want now to come back to my speech.

Let me also say this very specifically about China’s actions at the moment: China’s forcing of a procedural vote as recently as October to try to prevent the fact-finding mission from even briefing the UN Security Council highlights, I fear, the level of opposition we are currently up against. But we shall continue to try to engage China on the need for accountability for this horrendous set of crimes, and our strategy of course is not constrained to the UN Security Council; we secured agreement as recently as 10 December at the Foreign Affairs Council to expand the EU’s Burma sanctions listing. Seven senior military and border guard police officers were sanctioned by the EU in June for their roles in human rights violations in Rakhine in August and September 2017. We shall be adding more names to that list and expect to announce details early in the new year. These measures and their signal that the international community will take further steps to increase the pressure are noticed and are not welcomed by the Burmese military or indeed the State Counsellor.

Of course human rights violations continue to occur elsewhere in Burma, as has been mentioned by a number of Members. In the last few weeks three Kachin activists were convicted of defamation and sentenced to six months in prison for organising protests in which they were alleged to have criticised the Burmese military. Our ambassador had met them only a few days earlier, and both he and I have publicly protested at that sentencing.

The fact-finding mission report also highlighted that atrocities had been committed against both Kachin and Shan state minorities, and I heard some of the horrifying evidence for myself.

[Dr Allin-Khan]

I am sorry for intervening as I appreciate that the Minister has a limited amount of time in which to speak. However, I feel that I cannot sit here in silence while listening to the continuation of the debate without saying that the Minister has so eloquently spoken of the atrocities against a number of other minority groups unfolding as we sit here ready to go on our Christmas recess. I am proud to be British and proud to be in this Parliament, and we have a duty to call out all that is wrong globally. We sit here talking about this knowing full well that atrocities are continuing. When are we going to stand up, be counted and not be fearful of what the countries around Burma are going to be saying to us?

[Mark Field]

We are standing up in New York and in Geneva on a daily basis and being counted on this very issue—trying to take a lead. The Kachin and Shan issue is not an isolated example. This goes back to the issue of our being penholders, and one can look back through history to 1824 or 1945, but one of the desperate things is that those minorities fought on our side during the war while the Burmese Buddhist majority sided with the Japanese, and that is one of the reasons why we have an historical moral and ethical imperative. A number of those minorities have been considered as beyond the pale and not as citizens partly as a result of that episode; essentially that was seen as somehow being against the moves for Burma to have independence from the United Kingdom.

With the House’s indulgence, I will touch on two more points. I will write to Members on some of the specifics, because I would rather not say anything inaccurate. With regard to family reunion for refugees, I believe that the Home Office has written to the hon. Member for Bradford East, stating that the UK Government strongly support family unity, and that the Home Office has a comprehensive framework in place for refugees and their families. He made a good point that the refugees in Cox’s Bazar clearly cannot go to Dhaka anytime soon to exercise those rights. He made the point on the Floor of the House, and I will do my best and will write to the Home Office to make clear his concerns.

[Imran Hussain]

I am grateful to the Minister for allowing me at least to put this on the record. For months now I have been seeking to meet the Home Office in order to deliver hundreds of applications or information sheets that I have received from constituents who have relatives in Cox’s Bazar, first so that the Home Office has that valuable information, and secondly to see whether anything could be done. However, the Home Office is refusing to meet me.

[Mark Field]

I am sure that was a rather mischievous intervention from the hon. Gentleman, but because it is Christmas we will let him get away with it. But he makes a serious point.

Let me touch on the issue of sexual violence, which was raised by a number of Members. The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland asked about the legal status of children in camps. I will write to her, because I need to consult the FCO’s legal advisers to be absolutely clear about the precise nature of that. As many Members will know, we have worked very closely and played a leading role with our advisers on sexual violence in Bangladesh. We have a team of experts trying to map and document human rights violations, partly for the longer-term development of evidence, but obviously also to try to train up Bangladeshi expertise in this regard. Clearly that is an important part of our ongoing work in the camps.

DFID is very much leading the way in supporting a range of organisations that provide specialised help to survivors of sexual violence in Bangladesh, including 19 women’s centres offering a safe space, psychosocial support and activity for women and girls. At the last count, 53,510 women have been provided with midwifery care and advice. We also support projects in Burma as part of the preventing sexual violence initiative, including publishing guidance on support for survivors in a formal legal process.

In conclusion, we all know that the Rohingya people have a right to live in their home country in safety and with dignity—something we take for granted at this time of the year. For that to happen, those responsible for their persecution must be held accountable, and the Burmese state must show that it is serious about bringing an end to prejudice and discrimination against ethnic minorities who have suffered for so long. Burma will also continue to need the support of the international community if we are to see democracy, human rights and the rule of law embedded in that country for the longer term.

As things stand, we must prepare ourselves for what I fear will be a very long journey. We must remember that the Burmese people will have to endure every step of that journey, given the Government they have. That is why I will repeat today what I have said before: for their sake, the UK will stay the course so that one day the people of Burma can live together in peace, justice and prosperity.

I thank all hon. Members for their contributions to the debate. I repeat the offer that my door will remain open on the issue. One of the frustrations in the 18 months or so that I have been a Foreign Office Minister is that there are certain matters—I was going to say “easy wins”, but nothing is easy in diplomacy—that land on my desk and in relation to which I can achieve something in very quick order. I have spent a huge amount of time working on this issue, as a number of Members have been kind enough to point out. Perhaps I do not share the passion or anger shown by some Opposition Members, but I share their concerns and wish that I could achieve more. I wish that I could say that we had been able to achieve a huge amount in the international community. Sometimes, as I have said on the Floor of the House before, one of the frustrations and challenges of being in the Foreign Office is that we take two or three steps forward and then take a couple of steps back. We have made progress and a lot of work is going on, not only among my team in the Foreign Office but in New York and Geneva, and particularly in Dhaka, Rangoon and Naypyidaw, where we have our high commissions and embassies.

The truth of the matter is that this issue is very tough. It is one of those issues that is not open to a rapid solution. I wish it were. It breaks my heart: I am a father of two children and, not least at this time of the year, one recognises the conditions in which many Rohingya live, and not just for the past 18 months, because many of them have been living in those conditions for decades. We have to be in it for the long haul. The UK Government and, more importantly still, in many ways, the UK Parliament is in it for the long haul.

I thank everyone for what they have done. As I say, my door remains open and I will try to ensure that as the situation develops we speak to as many Members with strong concerns about this matter as we can. Work is in progress, and although there is not a great dawn ahead in 2019, I feel that we are taking a number of tracks, and hopefully we will not only have accountability and improve the humanitarian opportunities for those living in Cox’s Bazar, but work with international partners to try to look properly to the longer term. As many people say, the issue in that part of the world is not just about the Rohingya today; it is about the precedent that is being set. Although we can never say never again, and they always seem like such hollow words, that is the real prize here. If we can do something and bring together an accountability process that is a precedent for the future, a lot of the very hard work on this matter that goes on, not only in the UK Foreign Office but in several other countries, will not be in vain.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Field Excerpts

Tuesday 4th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Asia and the Pacific (Mark Field)]

The rule of law and the independence of the judiciary are the foundations of Hong Kong’s continued success and prosperity. The UK remains absolutely committed to the joint declaration and to upholding “one country, two systems.” I raised the concerns about the erosion of the rule of law when I visited Hong Kong only last month, and we will continue to monitor that situation closely, as detailed in the Foreign Secretary’s six-monthly reports to Parliament.

[Steve Double]

I thank the Minister for that answer. Recent events in Hong Kong have seen the movement restricted of those critical of the Hong Kong Government, including political opponents and journalists. What steps are the UK Government taking to protect British interests in Hong Kong and the rights of British national (overseas) passport holders?

[Mark Field]

I reassure my hon. Friend that we take very seriously our long-standing and ongoing duty to uphold the joint declaration. We have raised publicly our concerns about the decision, for example, not to renew the visa of Victor Mallet, of the Financial Times, and the subsequent denial of his re-entry into Hong Kong, as well as other developments. These call into question Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy. We have also made it clear in private to the Chinese and Hong Kong Governments that it is vital that Hong Kong’s rights, freedoms and high degree of autonomy, which are set out in the joint declaration, are fully respected.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

What will the Foreign Office do if the Government in China continue not to allow the likes of Victor Mallet, Benedict Rogers and others to have access to Hong Kong, as is correct and proper in a country with which the UK has such a long-standing relationship?

[Mark Field]

I agree with the hon. Lady that it is right and proper that such individuals are entitled to be there. We are concerned by the specific decision not to renew the visa of the Financial Times journalist Victor Mallet. As I said in Hong Kong the day I was there, that incident on 9 November undermines Hong Kong’s freedom of speech and, indeed, freedom of the press, which are guaranteed under the Basic Law. This, in turn, risks undermining Hong Kong’s economic success in the longer term. We will continue to raise those concerns.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

Does the Minister share concerns about the trial that began on 19 November of nine leaders of the pro-democracy Hong Kong umbrella movement on such vague charges as “incitement to incite” public nuisance, and about the implications of such charges for freedom of speech and the rule of law in Hong Kong? Will Ministers raise such concerns with the Government there at the earliest opportunity?

[Mark Field]

I thank my hon. Friend for her tenacious work in this regard. The trials are a matter for the Hong Kong courts. I met Roberto Ribeiro, the deputy chief justice, and the head of the Hong Kong Bar Association when I was there in November. I have every confidence in the continued independence of the Hong Kong judiciary, which remains in high international esteem. But I hope that the incidents to which she refers will not discourage either lawful protests or the young from engaging in politics in Hong Kong.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

The banning of a pro-independence party in September marks a disturbing new phase in the erosion of democratic rights and freedoms by China. It is a clear breach of the spirit of the 1984 declaration, yet the Government are so desperate for a post-Brexit trade deal that they have done nothing. Is Chris Patten right to describe the Government’s policy as “craven”?

[Mark Field]

May I reassure the hon. Lady that we have done rather a lot? We do not support Hong Kong independence as we feel that would be a clear breach of “one country, two systems”. Nevertheless, as she rightly says, the right to stand for election, and the rights to free speech and to freedom of association are absolutely enshrined in the Basic Law. We are also concerned that, if not the letter, then certainly the spirit of “one country, two systems” is being breached by this matter. We have issued a statement and we will continue to apply pressure through diplomatic means; we will do so on an ongoing basis. I share many of her concerns, but she should not believe that there is not a lot of work going on, both from our consulate general there and from London on this matter.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

4. What recent discussions he has had with the incoming Administration of the new Brazilian President.

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[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

5. What diplomatic steps he is taking to protect the Hazara population in Afghanistan.

[The Minister for Asia and the Pacific (Mark Field)]

We have consistently urged the Afghan Government to protect the rights of all ethnic and religious groups, including the Hazaras, in line with the Afghan constitution. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is deeply concerned by recent reports of security incidents affecting the Hazara community, particularly in Ghazni and Uruzgan. We will continue to call on all parties to the conflict to protect the civilian population.

[Graham Stringer]

Recently, Hazaras lobbied me and other hon. Members, saying that they are now in deep fear of an ISIS attack. This comes after they have suffered massacres at the hands of the Taliban, and they have a history of being the subject of genocidal attacks by other ethnic groups in Afghanistan. Given the amount of money we have put into Afghanistan, can the Minister not do more?

[Mark Field]

We fully understand the deep concerns about civilian casualties and displacement and, as the hon. Gentleman rightly says, the threat from not only the Taliban but potentially ISIS, too. Only last week, staff from the British embassy in Kabul met Hazara representatives for Ghazni from the Afghan Government, to hear those concerns at first hand. The Afghan national defence and security forces are working to stabilise the security situation, and of course they do that in tandem with UK forces.

[Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)]

In the light of the recent Taliban offensive and the atrocities that occurred as a result, and bearing in mind the deep insecurity currently felt by the Hazara community, what additional support is NATO’s Resolute Support Mission contributing to the Hazaras’ safety?

[Mark Field]

We are obviously working together with many of our allies, particularly at NATO level. NATO’s Resolute Support Mission is helping Afghans to build their own self-standing capability and capacity. We very much hope to see the fruits of that in the years to come with the Afghan national defence and security forces. That work is happening in several parts of Afghanistan. The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that we are obviously concerned about the humanitarian side, particularly when we see civilian populations under threat. This is going to be a long haul. The hon. Gentleman will recognise that, working together with allies and the US in particular, we are no longer governed by an electoral timetable. We want to leave the country in a better place, which means working to build up that capacity.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

6. What recent steps he has taken through the UN and other international organisations to tackle refugee crises.

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[Rosie Cooper (West Lancashire) (Lab)]

10. What steps he is taking to protect (a) human rights and (b) freedom of religion or belief throughout the world.

[The Minister for Asia and the Pacific (Mark Field)]

The FCO’s 2017 human rights and democracy report demonstrates the breadth of the issues we work on and how we mobilise our diplomatic network to champion universal rights. This of course includes freedom of religion or belief. As a testament to that commitment, on 4 July the Prime Minister appointed my FCO colleague, Lord Ahmed, to the role of special envoy on FORB—an end to which I can assure this House he works tirelessly.

[Rosie Cooper]

The biggest recipient of UK aid, Pakistan, has received £2.8 billion over the past 20 years—that is nearly £400,000 a day. Should we not suspend aid until Pakistan promotes freedom of religion and belief for its minorities and allows an innocent woman, Asia Bibi, falsely imprisoned for nine years, to leave Pakistan, and should we not be offering her asylum in the United Kingdom?

[Mark Field]

I know that a number of Members have concerns about this question. As the Prime Minister has stated, our primary concern is the safety and security of Asia Bibi and her family. We want to see a swift and positive resolution to the legal aspect of this case in Pakistan. I should perhaps say that one allied nation has, for some years, been in detailed discussions about providing a safe destination for Asia Bibi and her family once the current legal process is complete. The House will appreciate that going into detail on these discussions would compromise that safety.

[Dame Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)]

Having recently returned from the Holy Land with a cross-party delegation of women MPs—and, indeed, your Chaplain, Mr Speaker—I am very concerned about the human rights abuses that I saw. Does the Minister agree that there is a renewed urgency to find a solution to the conflict in this area?

[Mark Field]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her question. I could not agree more. We will continue to work as closely as we can with all parties. As I have pointed out, we do a lot of work underneath the radar. The Foreign Secretary and my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Middle East work very closely in relation to these issues and will continue to do so, looking after the rights of religious minorities across the world.

[Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)]

19. My constitu- ents brought me this message from their friend in Cameroon about Kumbo:“It has become a dead town. The crises are intensifying…and road blocks have also been intensified. Everyone has gone to villages. Villagers are hosting refugees from Kumbo… The Gendarmes have started shooting civilians carelessly. Pray for us in Kumbo. No way to supply essential goods from Bamenda.”What is the Secretary of State doing to protect human rights in Cameroon, particularly in the Anglophone areas?

[Mark Field]

I know that my hon. Friend the Minister for Africa has recently been in Cameroon and speaks regularly with counterparts. We are extremely concerned about the issues in the Anglophone area. As the hon. Lady will be aware, a considerable amount of work goes on with Boko Haram on the porous border between Cameroon and Nigeria. We will continue to do all we can to protect the interests, particularly in the Anglophone area

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

Cambridge PhD student Peter Biar Ajak was detained without charge by the authorities in South Sudan in July for doing nothing more than speaking out on the human rights of his fellow citizens. The Government said at the time that that was of great concern. Can the Minister tell us what action has been taken since then to secure Peter’s release?

[Mark Field]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. We remain appalled by the conflict and deteriorating humanitarian situation in South Sudan. We welcome the regionally led peace agreement signed on 12 September. We believe that that is the only real chance and opportunity for the people of South Sudan, who have suffered for so long. There are positive steps, but I accept, as the hon. Lady points out, that progress is very slow and inconsistent. We welcome reductions in violence, and we work with our mission there to try to move towards ceasefire violations coming to an end.

[Peter Heaton-Jones (North Devon) (Con)]

11. What steps he is taking to protect the rights and freedoms of journalists throughout the world.

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[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

T4. Does the Minister recognise that after the illegal salvage of HMS Exeter from the Java sea, we need a wrecks at risk register to ensure that our lost Royal Navy ships—those war graves around the world—are not forgotten and are properly protected? Will he meet me to discuss how we can work internationally to create that register?

[The Minister for Asia and the Pacific (Mark Field)]

A nice easy one. Perhaps I should say that I am the last British Minister to visit Malé, the capital of the Maldives, and I would not recommend it for more than a weekend, though the islands around might be more fun. I think that that is why my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary suggests that you should go there, Mr Speaker.

I will keep my answer to the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) simple: yes, of course, I am happy to meet him at any point.

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[Alan Mak (Havant) (Con)]

T3. The Chevening awards help Britain to engage young people from across the world. What support has my right hon. Friend given to British embassies and missions in the greater China region to promote those important awards?

[Mark Field]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the soft power access of the Chevening scholarship programme, which creates lasting, positive relationships with future leaders, influencers and decision makers from 145 countries around the world. We now have some 50,000 Chevening alumni since the project was set up in 1983. Last year, with 75 scholars, China was the single largest part of our Chevening ambition.

[Mr Stephen Hepburn (Jarrow) (Lab)]

T6. Is the Minister aware of any Foreign Office warnings to tourists going to Malta about what is apparently a dodgy legal system? Would he be good enough to meet me to discuss a particular injustice to a family in my constituency to see whether he is able to help?

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

T8. Mr Rajapaksa playing any role in the Sri Lankan Government will terrify many communities in Sri Lanka, particularly the Tamil community. Will the Minister set out the UK Government’s position on Mr Rajapaksa’s re-emergence into Sri Lankan politics?

[Mark Field]

We are very concerned about the current chaotic political situation in Sri Lanka to which the right hon. Gentleman refers. It is causing great damage to that country both politically and economically. I made statements on 26 October, 29 October, 9 November and, as he knows, earlier this week at the meeting of the all-party group for Tamils. We will continue actively to co-ordinate our response with the international community in Colombo and in the UN.

[Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)]

T9. Further to that question, my right hon. Friend is aware that all parties are in court today again in Colombo. What conversations has he had with fellow Commonwealth Ministers? As chair of the Commonwealth, what conversations have we had with the secretary-general of the Commonwealth? What message can he give to the judges in Colombo to ensure that they uphold the constitution of Sri Lanka?

[Mark Field]

First and foremost, we want this to be resolved by Sri Lanka in line with its own constitution and laws. We welcome the statement made on 5 November by the Commonwealth secretary-general, who I understand will be meeting the Foreign Secretary to discuss a range of matters. Obviously, Sri Lanka will very much be at the forefront of that conversation. We want to encourage ongoing dialogue and to offer the support of the Commonwealth, if required, to the Government and the people of Sri Lanka. We are in an ongoing dialogue with the Commonwealth and other partners to ensure a co-ordinated international response.

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

I am sure I speak for all members of the Foreign Affairs Committee when I say how much we are looking forward to scrutinising the work of our new embassy in the Maldives.

What assessment have the Government made of the human rights of Palestinians living under the brutal dictatorship of Hamas, which routinely imprisons people without trial, tortures them, executes people and is reported today to have sentenced six people to death? Does that not show, along with the indiscriminate attacks on Israel, why Hamas is the main barrier to the peace process that we all want to see?

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[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

The 3.9 million Christians in Pakistan are among the most persecuted in the world. Will Ministers assure the House that they are working with colleagues in the Department for International Trade to make sure that any future trade deals are not made at the expense of those people?

[Mark Field]

I assure the hon. Lady—I know the Foreign Secretary feels the same way—that clearly this is a major concern. As she rightly points out, we want trade deals with that country and we want to normalise relations, but we are particularly concerned about the freedom of religious belief, which applies not just to Christians but to many other religious minorities in that country.

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

On a recent visit to Sweden, I was rather disturbed to see a leaflet being delivered to every household entitled, “Om krisen eller kriget kommer”, which translates as “If crisis or war comes”. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that we are doing all that we can to stand by and support our closest allies not just in Sweden, but across Scandinavia and the Baltic, who see themselves on the frontline of this new cold war?