Gibraltar
Mike Gapes Excerpts(9 years, 4 months ago)
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Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
Let me begin where the right hon. Member for Croydon South (Sir Richard Ottaway) ended. We in this country have important relations with Spain in the context of a number of issues. As the Committee itself made clear, Spain is an important European Union and NATO partner, and co-operates with the United Kingdom on a number of our strategic priorities. Some of those are listed in the report, including counter-terrorism and the combating of drug smuggling. There is an economic agenda within the European Union, and a reform agenda. Migration policy is a complex issue, and there are wider international and trade matters. Both the United Kingdom and Spain have historic associations with both north and south America that date from the colonial period, and both countries have a strong interest in the current talks on the transatlantic trade and investment partnership. Beyond that, both countries, as democratic, pluralistic societies, are appalled by terrorism, whether it is carried out in Paris or in countries such as Iraq and Syria.
We have a common agenda in many respects, and for that reason it is really shocking that the present right-wing Spanish Government, run by the Partido Popular, have decided to tear up the co-operation developed from 2004 onwards by the previous Labour Government and the previous socialist Government—run by the Partido Socialista Obrero Español—as well as the Cordoba agreement to which the right hon. Member for Croydon South referred.
We began our Gibraltar inquiry following our decision to conduct an inquiry into United Kingdom consular work, and to visit the consular hub that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office had established in Malaga, in southern Spain. From Malaga, we went to Gibraltar. Our visit to Malaga and our conversations with British people living and working in Spain—about 1 million people live there happily—showed us that Spanish people are hospitable, kind, friendly and supportive. Many Spanish people in the local authority that we visited were assisting British citizens who were resident in Spain.
Meanwhile, in the past two or three years an increasing number of Spanish people—predominantly young people—have come to work in London and other parts of the United Kingdom, including cities, because of the economic difficulties in Spain. There is two-way traffic. There are families consisting of children born in one country and parents from the two countries. There is a mixture consisting of many people with connections between the United Kingdom and Spain, including some senior political figures in our Government.
Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that a huge number of Spanish people work in Gibraltar and get on very well with Gibraltarian people, and that we should respect that?
Mike Gapes
The hon. Gentleman pre-empts my next point.
It became apparent to me during the inquiry—the Committee Chairman touched on this—that there are 8,000 or 9,000 people who every day travel from Spain into Gibraltar to work, so a very large number of Spanish citizens depend on the Gibraltarian economy for their employment and prosperity. Why, then, are the Spanish Government behaving in such a stupid way by stopping those workers either travelling to work or coming home because they face queues and delays of two, three or four hours in getting across the border in their vehicles or, sometimes, on foot? This is an ideologically driven agenda designed by people in Madrid who clearly do not care about the livelihoods of the members of the trade unions I met here in the House of Commons who had come from the south of Spain to talk to British MPs about the difficulties they face. They were hosted by Unite, which has associations with workers both in Gibraltar and internationally in Spain.
A clue is provided by the politics of Andalucia and the south of Spain: they generally vote for the left, whereas the Government in Madrid are dominated by the right. Sadly, therefore, since the change in 2011 the Madrid Government have shown contempt for their own citizens and their economic interests by behaving in a vindictive way against Gibraltar and at the same time damaging the interests of Spanish people and workers.
The British Government should be doing more to highlight the situation, as should international organisations such as the International Labour Organisation and those that look at issues to do with human rights and free movement.
Why has this issue come up at this moment in time? In Spain—and, indeed, elsewhere—there has been a rise of populist opposition against the incumbent Government. The governing party might believe it can pander to those opponents by raising the nationalist card over Gibraltar and thereby diverting attention from the country’s internal economic problems. I do not think that is going to work in the long term, but we shall see, because Spain, like the UK, is supposed to have an election this year. I do not think the governing parties in either country will get the results they want, but I do not want to get diverted into domestic politics.
Our Government must be more robust on this matter internationally. We have seen in a number of international forums that when the British Government are determined, they can make a real difference, but we have not been strong enough or vocal enough on the issue of Gibraltar. There is clearly international support for the UK position in many countries, but we are not doing enough to build that support, whereas Spain is working very hard internationally in its own interests.
A resolution tabled in the US Congress last year referred to the rights of self-determination of the people of Gibraltar. It is clear from a letter that has only just become public that, from September, the Spanish ambassador to the United States lobbied extremely hard against it, using all kinds of implied threats about the consequences, to try to stop that bipartisan resolution being carried in the US House of Representatives.
Internationally, it is clear that the present Spanish Government, unlike their predecessors, are not interested in coming to a modus vivendi on these issues. The previous Spanish Government did not accept, and would never accept, that there was any question of British sovereignty of Gibraltar, but they accepted the reality that there was an agreement to differ and that they should therefore deal with the practical issues and leave the other issues to one side. That is how the improvements from 2004 onwards were achieved and sustained. The ideological approach of the current Spanish Government, however, seems to put a nationalist agenda before the interests of their own people, and ahead of co-operation with the UK and the interests of the people of Gibraltar.
Our report has highlighted an important issue. Apparently the situation has improved since we published it, with a reduction in the number and intensity of obstructions to people travelling into and out of Gibraltar, but that can be switched on or off at any time, as we saw when we visited. When we drove into Gibraltar, there was no queue. We went to our hotel and within an hour we had a call saying that suddenly there was a massive backlog at the border because the Spanish police were imposing restrictions and searching all vehicles. There was a big queue and the car park was full in the space of only about 40 minutes to an hour. This is politically motivated and it is being run by special paramilitary police from Madrid, not the local police. It is all part of a special, politically designed operation.
The truth needs to be told. We need to get this agenda out: there are people in Spain who have an agenda based on an ideological approach that damages the working of the EU—it damages the possibility of agreements within the EU being arrived at in a timely manner—as well as the interests of the Spanish people and the democratic, self-determination interests of the people of Gibraltar. I hope the Government will heed what is said in this debate and be more forceful and vocal on these matters in future.
Mr McFadden
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. A serious aspect of this issue is that when we question such principles, we may sometimes do so without thinking about how they are used by our own citizens who, in possession of a British passport, can move freely—and live and work freely—throughout the European Union, as many do.
Given the principle of free movement, the Government are absolutely within their rights to complain to the European Commission about what is happening on the Gibraltar-Spain border. They have done so before; may I ask the Minister whether they will do so again, stressing the issue of the recent delays and the impact that they are having on the economy and citizens of Gibraltar? Will the Government also call for Commission visits to be made with little or no notice? As we have heard during the debate, the inconveniences and delays can be turned on and off. Obviously, if lengthy notice is given of a visit, it will be easy to step down the pressure and ensure that the inspectors do not see things as they sometimes are. It matters how such visits are conducted, and when they are conducted.
Paragraph 84 of the report suggests that the Government should consider using article 259 of the Lisbon treaty to take Spain to the European Court. May I ask the Minister for his response to that suggestion, which was also mentioned today by the right hon. Member for Croydon South?
The report gives detailed information about the sharply increased number of transgressions of British- Gibraltan territorial waters, which sometimes occur as often as 50 or 60 times a month. Let us be clear about the fact that this is not about free passage; it is about state-owned vessels violating sovereignty, and trying to erode the status and integrity of Gibraltar's territorial waters.
The Committee drew attention to the Government’s delays in lodging protests against those transgressions, fearing that such delays lessened the impact of our complaints and gave the impression that we were merely going through the motions. In their response to the report, the Government said that practice had changed, and that there was now a weekly submission to the Spanish Government. That is to be welcomed on one level, but the fact that the submission must be weekly prompts another question: what further means of reducing the number of transgressions, and thus the need for weekly submissions, have the Government considered?
I am sure the whole House agrees that the Royal Navy’s Gibraltar Squadron and the Royal Gibraltar Police do a difficult and dangerous job, showing admirable restraint when faced with repeated and sometimes dangerous provocation on the seas. The report also welcomes the use of Gibraltar as a staging post for larger Royal Navy vessels.
May I ask the Minister to address the points made by the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), whose military experience is always valuable in these debates? Is it still Ministers’ view that the squadron there has the ships, equipment and manpower to carry out the tasks assigned to it, or is there a need to reassess this in the way that the hon. Gentleman suggested?
The international aspects of this issue have also been mentioned in this debate. I am sure that the Minister agrees that it is unacceptable to use issues like EU aviation policy or the single European sky policy to put further pressure on Gibraltar. Why should not the airport in Gibraltar and the people travelling there have the same freedom and rights as people elsewhere in the EU?
My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) mentioned the resolution in Congress recognising Gibraltar’s right to self-determination. I am sure that the attempts by the Spanish Government, in the letter from the ambassador to Congress, to link their support for the coalition against ISIS with the issue of Gibraltarian self-determination would be rejected by all of us. As democratic countries defending pluralism, there should be no linkage between the battle against the ideology and practices of ISIS and self-determination for the people of Gibraltar.
Mike Gapes
Is it not also significant that Spain, as in the Madrid bombings of more than a decade ago, has suffered appalling acts of internationally organised terrorism, and it is deplorable that the current Spanish Government have such a short memory of the solidarity that was expressed by the whole world when Spain was attacked?
Mr McFadden
My hon. Friend makes a strong point. We have seen a great deal of solidarity with the people of France in the last 24 hours against the appalling acts of yesterday. When these things happen, and when democracies are faced with the ideology of those who would kill and attack pluralism and free speech, we do not seek a chain of other issues to connect to them. We do it because we defend our own values, which are under attack from the ideology that led to the bombings in Madrid, which has led to action in this country and drove those responsible for the terrible events in Paris yesterday. On these international issues, will the Minister say what efforts the UK Government are making to make it clear to the international community that Gibraltar’s status must not be used in this way?
Ukraine (UK Relations with Russia)
Mike Gapes Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)
I am delighted to take part in this very important debate. I am surrounded by some of my closest political soul mates, but I suspect that my view is slightly different from theirs. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) on introducing the debate, but it is disappointing that a matter of such significance to the security of our country, and of Europe more widely, has not attracted the participation of more Members.
I agree with the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Sir Richard Ottaway), that we face a very serious situation. My excellent hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) and my—also excellent—hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) were right to have been inspirational in setting up the Coalition for Peace through Security. Its work during the cold war contributed to the understanding in the United Kingdom of the need to face up to the Russian threat. I agree with much of what my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East said about our not making threats that we cannot fulfil, and not offering NATO membership to countries that we are not prepared to send our children to defend and put their lives on the line for.
I agree with much of that, but my hon. Friends were instrumental in establishing the Coalition for Peace through Security, whereas we face a threat to our security and a threat to peace. I do not know whether anybody saw the BBC programmes on the “37 Days” leading up to the war. I normally fall asleep watching such things, but I was absolutely riveted during the programmes, because the language of the conversations 100 years ago was the same as the language we are using in this place and in the corridors of power today.
It worries me that we might be in real danger of sleepwalking into some sort of very substantial regional conflict. That is because our minds are on Syria, and on the Gulf and Iran. Not enough minds are on China, and on what it is doing in the South China sea, where it is building port facilities and runways on uninhabited atolls. We face a very turbulent world, which is the price we are paying for the fall of the Berlin wall: the balance of terror has been exchanged for a very unstable world.
It is important that we take very seriously what is going on in Ukraine at the moment, and that we look at the Russians’ intentions. We know their intentions without having to look in a crystal ball, because they have been there historically. I have already mentioned what the Russians did to Ukraine in the 1930s: they starved the people who were providing them with their food. As recently as 2008, we saw what President Putin did in Georgia: he successfully provoked the Georgians— Saakashvili probably should not have risen to the bait, but he did—and the result was that the Russians invaded South Ossetia and Abkhazia with complete impunity.
We have seen what I warned would happen—forgive me for saying that, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I could see what was going on in Crimea earlier this year. I understand what my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough says about Ukraine having been part of Russia, and about the need not to poke Russia in the eye. Yes, Sevastopol is as important to the spirit of the Russian navy as Portsmouth is to the spirit of the Royal Navy, but that does not justify walking into Crimea and annexing part of another sovereign country, in explicit contravention of the Budapest agreement which was signed in 1994 by Boris Yeltsin, John Major and Bill Clinton. I accept that that agreement did not provide an article 5 guarantee of Ukraine’s borders, but it was a deal with the Ukrainian people in which Ukraine gave up a massive arsenal of nuclear weapons that could have threatened us all, in exchange for recognition of its borders. What are we to make of a man, in the form of President Putin, who has so flagrantly breached an agreement to which his country was a solemn party? Should we regard that as an aberration or a one-off, or as what I believe it to be, which is a complete lack of care for how Russia is viewed, and complete disregard for international norms?
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman’s comments about the pattern of behaviour that has formed over recent years. We probably had illusions a few years ago about where Russia might go, but sadly we have been very disappointed. He referred to the Budapest agreement. Does the way that Russia has abrogated those undertakings underline the fact that Russia also appears to be abrogating arms control agreements? Certainly the agreement on conventional armed forces in Europe is in tatters, and the intermediate-range nuclear forces treaty is now being questioned. There is no progress on strategic arms reduction, but rather a big build-up in Russia’s nuclear programme.
Sir Gerald Howarth
The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point and it all militates in one simple direction: Mr Putin does not seem to care for international norms or that his country has in the past signed solemn and binding agreements. That is why we need to be on our guard.
We have the examples of Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, as well as Crimea. As I said in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon, I worry that Putin’s objective is to create a land link with Crimea—at the moment I believe there is a 5-mile gap across the Black sea. He has no intention of giving it up, so will he leave it as it is and reinforce it with air supplies or by sea? I believe there is a risk that he will go for Odessa, thereby denying the rest of Ukraine access to a port. If he moves further west he links up with Transnistria, leaving only a slight border between western Ukraine and Lviv, and around there with Poland, and the rest would be surrounded by Russia. He will then say to the EU, “There you are. You can have the rump of Ukraine,” and that will become isolated and perhaps not economically viable—I do not know. I do know, however, that we must be on our guard because Putin has acted with complete impunity—my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East made that point. But if you make threats and do not follow them up, what is your counterparty to suppose?
The question that I go on to ask myself is this. There is Kaliningrad, that small Russian enclave on the Baltic coast, which is separated from the Russian motherland by a narrow strip of land between Latvia and Lithuania. If Mr Putin can with impunity do what he has done so far, what is to stop him saying, “I need a land link with Kaliningrad”? Article 5 of course stands in his way, but when I ask my friends, “Would you be prepared for your son or daughter to be sent off to go and fight for the Lithuanians or Latvians in the event that Mr Putin decides to annexe their territory and create that land link with Kaliningrad?” I sense no appetite for that. The question is, “Where is the British national interest in that?” People do not understand the significance of article 5—even in this House, hon. Members have been far too flippant about considering offering NATO membership to other countries without considering the consequences.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South was absolutely right: the red line has to be the Baltic states. We must make that red line clear to Mr Putin. We must say, “Thus far and no further,” and it must be followed up. We saw what happened to President Obama when he drew a line in the sand that was promptly blown away by the wind.
Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)
I echo the congratulations to the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) on securing this debate. He talked about the EU association agreement, Euromaidan, the shooting down of flight MH17, the sanctions and the response. I am pleased that he also raised the potential influence of the John Smith fellowship programme on the current generation of Ukrainian politicians. I say that as a former trustee of the John Smith Trust. It is an organisation I have had an association with since its foundation.
During this debate, broadly speaking we have heard two views. We have heard the view represented by the hon. Members for Maldon and for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) that this has been an outrageous breach of territorial integrity that requires a strong response and which we cannot allow to stand. We have also heard the alternative view, put most forcefully by the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), that we should see this from the Russian point of view. Others perhaps fell somewhere between those two views.
I always hesitate to differ from the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), but I do not agree with this metaphor about poking the bear with a stick. The problem with the metaphor is that countries are not bears, but knowledgeable institutions; they know the rules and they know about borders and histories, but the bear does not. I do not think the analogy sticks, therefore, and so I do not think we can absolve Russia of its responsibilities by using that analogy.
There are few more urgent issues facing us than what has been unfolding in Ukraine over the past year. The hon. Member for Maldon reminded us in the most stark way that here on the continent of Europe, a state’s territorial integrity has been systematically undermined by the fomenting, arming and backing of Russian separatists. Crimea has been annexed and parts of eastern Ukraine are effectively beyond the reach of the Ukrainian state. This destabilisation has continued, despite the Minsk agreement reached a short time ago. All of that is taking place against a deepening economic crisis for Ukraine, with a newly elected Government struggling to grip these twin security and economic crises. Beyond Ukraine, as has been referenced several times in the debate, there have been a number of incidents, such as transgressions of airspace, that remind us of how things were in the past. Of course, this situation dominated the recent G20 summit.
What is happening in Ukraine poses major challenges for us relating to security, stability and values. We cannot simply hope that it goes away. The first challenge relates to foreign policy itself. No one wants further to inflame a conflict with Russia, yet its actions in Ukraine cannot go unanswered. That is why it is right that both the European Union and the United States have imposed sanctions. Unity on those sanctions is essential, and we had a debate about them at the beginning of their imposition. It is important that states set aside short-term economic interests in order to communicate to Russia that it cannot do what it would wish, which is to divide and rule and pick off one state after another. Unity is key, and we must resolve to maintain the sanctions and to increase them, if necessary. In his response, I hope the Minister will clarify what further options on sanctions are under consideration at EU level, and what talks have taken place with the United States about differences between the sanctions regimes agreed at EU level and those operated by the United States.
The unified European response has been important, and it serves as a reminder, if one were needed, that there is a security dimension to EU membership and that by standing together we can be stronger in the face of what Russia is doing in the Ukraine. Of course NATO serves as the main alliance for our defence, and recent statements from a number of leaders reiterating their support for article 5 are welcome. However, it is also the case that the EU as well as NATO can use its collective leverage and its adherence to democratic values to resist land grabs and aggression. If this dimension is not always clear in our domestic debates here in the United Kingdom, it is certainly clear to many former Warsaw Pact countries, which regard EU membership, at least in part, as important in protecting them.
Now we know that there are politicians in this country who admire Mr Putin and what he has done. The UKIP leader has said that Putin is the politician he most admires. He has attacked some for their stance on Ukraine, but not Mr Putin. In fact, he has accused the west of “playing war games” in Ukraine. He is not the only nationalist leader who has expressed admiration for Mr Putin. We have also had Mr Salmond saying he admires “certain aspects” of Mr Putin’s policies. The state-owned “Russia Today” channel has written of the hopes it has invested in Mr Farage and his desire to see Britain leave the EU. Let me quote:
“In such a scenario, there are possibilities for Russian-British rapprochement on many levels”.
It also said:
“A UK exit from the EU could mean a dilution of the famed Trans-Atlantic alliance between Washington and London.”
Perhaps it is incumbent on all of us, particularly those who desire such a scenario, to take account of who will be cheering if they get what they wish for.
Mike Gapes
That does not just apply to people in this country, does it? Marine Le Pen has been bankrolled by Putin’s supporters, and far-right and nationalist groups in Hungary—Fascist groups—have also been given support by Putin.
Mr McFadden
My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the recent £7 million loan to the French National Front party, and to return us to the question of who would cheer if the European Union were to fall apart at the hands of nationalist movements and parties. For the rest of us, such comments and actions are a reminder that we should not be cavalier in dismissing the importance of the security side of a strong and united European Union which believes in democracy and freedom, and stands opposed to Russian aggression. That is well understood by Angela Merkel, who, a few days ago, told Welt am Sonntag:
“Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine are three countries in our eastern neighbourhood that have taken sovereign decisions to sign an association agreement with the EU”.
She added:
“Russia is creating problems for all three of these countries”.
We cannot regard those countries’ actions as poking the bear with a stick. They have a right to sign such agreements if they wish.
Oral Answers to Questions
Mike Gapes Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Swire
Yes, I entirely agree. As a result of that conflict, we are still mine-clearing on the islands. I congratulate BACTEC, the company in my hon. Friend’s constituency that has just secured the contract to carry out the fourth phase of de-mining in the Falklands. The people of the Falkland Islands have spoken. I was there in February. There was a 92% turnout, and 99.8% voted yes. People in the region should respect their human rights and their rights to self-determination.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister will know that there is going to be an election in Argentina soon and that rhetoric against the Falkland Islands usually increases considerably in such periods. What representations are the Government making to other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, including some that are in receipt of British development assistance, to try to neutralise the rhetoric that will come out of Argentina?
Mr Swire
We do not seek to neutralise anything; we just seek to tell it as it is and we encourage the Falkland islanders, who are by far the best advocates, to travel around the region to tell others about their life. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: we anticipate an increase in rhetoric, threats and intimidation as we approach the election, but we are hopeful that after it we might be able to have a more mature and sophisticated relationship with whoever will be the President of Argentina.
Foreign Affairs Committee (Hong Kong Visit)
Mike Gapes Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
As always, it is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley) He will recall that I, as a newly elected Member of this House, joined him on the Foreign Affairs Committee in 1992. In my time as a member of the FAC, I made many visits to many different countries. We might have had some issues about who we were able to meet and the exact timings of visits, but we were never told—not even by Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan or China—that we were not welcome to come and that the authorities would stop us getting off aircraft. It is not, as some Members have said, a matter of visas; UK citizens do not need visas to go to Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Government determine their own internal arrangements, yet the people in Beijing and their diplomatic representatives in London have told us that we are not welcome in Hong Kong, which is, as the Chair of the Committee so ably put it, a breach of the undertakings given by the Chinese to the people of Hong Kong and to our representatives in the negotiations that led to the joint declaration.
Members have asked why China is doing this. I suspect—and this really surprises me—that they are afraid that the presence of a handful of British parliamentarians is somehow going to change the internal dynamics in Hong Kong and China. They must be very nervous and worried. What is happening in Hong Kong is not being broadcast in the Chinese media. We can see it covered in the rest of the world and we can see it in Taiwan, but the Chinese authorities have rigorously censored communications about events in Hong Kong. That also happens when the people of Hong Kong protest on the anniversary of the massacre in Tiananmen square—not a word of it is broadcast by the Chinese state authorities. This is an indication that the Chinese regime is prepared to use a ruthless power because it is afraid. That augurs badly for what might happen in Hong Kong in the coming weeks and months.
I do not want to spend too long talking about that, but I did want to talk about the issues about Parliament and the Committee’s inquiry. Let me go back to the previous time we visited China. In May 2006, the previous Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, which I had the great honour of chairing, went to Hong Kong and from there to Beijing. The group then split into two. One went to Tibet, to Lhasa, and the other, which I led, went to Shanghai. We then met up again in Hong Kong and went to Taiwan. One of the interesting episodes, to which the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling just referred, was the meeting we had with Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing. He was very pleasant to begin with and asked me how my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby South (Margaret Beckett), the then Foreign Secretary, was doing as he had had amicable discussions with her in the United Nations Security Council meetings. After 10 minutes, he switched completely to tell us, “I understand that you intend to go to our 19th province”—that is, Taiwan. “We have no objection to your going, but only after the reunification of our country.”
He then said, “You are all diplomats.” We said, “No, we are parliamentarians. You don’t understand. We are not here representing the British Government but doing an inquiry and our presence and visit will not in any way change the British Government’s policy. We are doing this because we need to investigate Taiwan and its relationship with China.” He said, “If you do this, there will be serious consequences.” We wondered what those serious consequences were. As the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling said, the visit continued and we went to Tibet and to Shanghai, went back to Hong Kong and then to Taiwan. There were no serious consequences for the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Later on in the previous Parliament, when the Committee was considering human rights issues globally, we decided as a Committee to receive the Dalai Lama for a public evidence session, which I chaired. At that point, I received a very long and vitriolic letter from the National People’s Congress in Beijing and a visit from the then Chinese ambassador, who subsequently became a deputy Foreign Minister, bringing lots of different materials including piles of books about the CIA’s role in Tibet and other documentation. The Chinese are obviously very sensitive, as they always have been, about issues to do with their status and the respect others have for China in the world. We can have a robust exchange about such issues, but there has never been a ban on parliamentarians from this House as a result of those differences. That tells me that there is something happening internally in China that is worrying.
In our report after the inquiry in the previous Parliament, we commented on the situation in Hong Kong. In one of our conclusions, we recommended that
“the Government urge the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to make significant, major steps towards representative democracy and to agree with Beijing a timetable by which direct election of the Chief Executive and LegCo by universal suffrage will be achieved.”
I hope that that is a position to which we all, including Members on the Government and Opposition Front Benches, could agree today. It is of course a matter for the people of Hong Kong and China to make proposals using the arrangements set out in the Basic Law, but the aspiration for representative democracy and universal suffrage should apply for all people as soon as possible, including in Hong Kong.
The Committee also commented on the internal situation in Hong Kong with civil liberties, humanitarian issues and the rule of law. Our conclusion in 2006 was that
“despite some concerns, overall Hong Kong remains a vibrant, dynamic, open and liberal society with a generally free press and an independent judiciary, subject to the rule of law.”
I hope that we can say the same about Hong Kong today. Obviously, our report will have to be published in due course when we have finished taking evidence, but I think that the behaviour of the Chinese authorities towards our Committee as well as other issues that have been raised with us so far in the evidence we have received prompt concern about whether those principles and values are under threat today.
Let me conclude with a more general point, which has been mentioned in passing. Some people believe that we should turn a blind eye to this and some people believe that the economic imperative should determine everything. Those of us who have been to Taiwan, however, or to other countries around the world with significant Chinese populations, know that there is nothing inherently authoritarian, Stalinist, Leninist or Maoist in the Chinese character. What is communist about China today? Only the name of the ruling party. It has a state capitalist economic system run by an elite that holds political power through a one-party system and suppresses and controls dissent. How sustainable is that in the future? I do not know. China’s economy is turning down and the rate of growth is slowing. China has a major demographic problem long term and its ability to meet the aspirations of its people, which it has done, taking hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in recent years, is not necessarily sustainable indefinitely under its current political model.
There are clearly big questions for the rest of the world about how we deal with a growing China. People have talked about China’s rise and Martin Jacques, an author who is very well informed although I do not agree with his rose-tinted conclusions, has written a book called, “When China Rules the World”. Frankly, if China were to become the most important country in the world politically that would raise serious questions about what kind of universal values it would have and what kind of rule of law and humanitarian law there would be.
It might be a small point for some people that a Committee of the House of Commons has been prevented from going to Hong Kong, but it raises fundamental questions.
Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the banning of the visit is symptomatic of China’s attitude to the rest of the world, particularly her near neighbours, considering the aggression over the Senkaku islands, the adventurism in the South China sea and the intransigence she has demonstrated in the Security Council?
Mike Gapes
I would be fairer to China, because it has played a positive role in some international matters, such as climate change, and certainly on international security, so I do not think that all its actions have been on the bad side. However, there are concerns about its attitude and, as the hon. Lady has highlighted, there are a number of territorial disputes around the coast and in east Asia, where a number of states are in contention for territories that have the potential for gas and oil exploration. I do not want to go down that track now and so will conclude by talking about democracy.
In our 2006 report, the Committee came to an important conclusion. We were commenting on the Chinese military build-up across the Taiwan straits and the possible threat to peace and stability in east Asia. Relations between Taiwan and China have since improved significantly: there are now far more direct flights, there is massive investment, and millions of mainland Chinese tourists visit Taiwan, as I saw last new year—the hotel I was staying in was full of mainland Chinese. Nevertheless, there is still great sensitivity in China about what is happening in Taiwan. The Taiwanese people, as they have shown in recent local elections, are very committed to democracy. They throw politicians out and reject incumbent parties and Governments regularly.
Our 2006 report—I think that this is still pertinent today—concluded:
“the growth and development of democracy in Taiwan is of the greatest importance, both for the island itself and for the population of greater China, since it demonstrates incontrovertibly that Chinese people can develop democratic institutions and thrive under them.”
That is also relevant to Hong Kong, which is why what is happening there matters and why our Committee is absolutely right to continue our inquiry and, in due course, produce a report. The Government will then have to respond to that report, hopefully before the next election, so that the House can have a further debate about developments in Hong Kong and China over the coming months.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the passionate and robust speech of the hon. Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell), which showed the concern among Members of all parties, and all Select Committees, about how the Foreign Affairs Committee has been treated. All but two members of that Committee have spoken in today’s debate, and I am sure that others will want to catch your eye, Mr Speaker. I wanted to speak after they had had the opportunity to express their views, and I am grateful to you for calling me.
I am also grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for granting this Standing Order No. 24 debate to allow the House to discuss this matter. I have been in the House for 27 years, and I know that the standard response of most occupants of the Chair when right hon. and hon. Members ask for such a debate is to say no. You said yes, which must have come as a surprise to the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee. It is the only time this year that an emergency debate has been granted, and although I had originally planned to come to the Chamber and speak on the Second Reading of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill, I can well understand your desire to allow the House to debate the Hong Kong issue, which is urgent and important and should take precedence over all other activities and debates in the House. Thank you for allowing the debate.
I pay tribute to the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, who is normally a quiet, modest individual. It is rare for him to use the House as a platform to prosecute a case on behalf of his Committee. The last time he did so, as I recall, was over the attempts to close the World Service. He led the debate on that and there was a successful outcome. I hope he will have similar success, having asked for the present debate. We wait with bated breath to see what the Chinese Government decide to do.
This is an important debate not just for the Foreign Affairs Committee, but for every Committee of the House. I hope the Foreign Office will take note of it. I do not think the House understands the huge amount of time and effort invested by the Clerks and the Chairs of Committees when we decide to travel abroad. I chair the Home Affairs Committee. By its nature it does not do much travelling, although we will be going as far as Calais on Friday; I hope very much that we will be allowed to enter Calais when we get there.
Keith Vaz
No, by Eurostar.
A huge amount of time is spent organising such travel by a Committee, involving everyone from the Clerk of the Committee and the operation manager in the Clerks Department to a more senior Clerk, and ending up with the most senior Clerk of all—some of the most senior Clerks sit in front of you, Mr Speaker. Then the bid comes back to the Chair because the cost is too high, and the bid has to be re-entered and we have to change all the arrangements. A huge amount of work must have gone into the bid by the Chair of the Select Committee and it must have taken months to put the arrangements together. To be knocked back at the end for no good reason is extremely depressing and distressing for members of the Committee.
I want to ensure that we set a precedent today and that we send out a strong and powerful message, not so much to the Chinese Government—I am not so arrogant as to believe that the entire Chinese Cabinet is sitting in Beijing watching the proceedings of the House today—but to the Foreign Office. That message was put powerfully from either side of the House, most recently by the hon. Member for Romford. When we arrange these visits, we always do so with the encouragement and support of the Foreign Office. We cannot, as Committees of this House, organise a visit to a place such as China, or even to Calais, without informing the posts abroad. In our case, in France, we have a first-class ambassador, Peter Ricketts, who has organised an incredible programme in the space of just 10 days.
I do not know our current ambassador to Beijing, but I am sure that embassy staff would have put as much effort into the proposed programme of the Foreign Affairs Committee. It is not enough for the Government to say, “Well, this is Parliament, and Parliament is separate from the Government, and you must do this on your own.” I am not sure, because I did not read the press release put out by the Foreign Office, if the word “regrettable” was used. That would probably be quite serious, in the context of the words used by the Foreign Office. It is so long since I have been there that I have forgotten the hierarchy of words and which term constitutes a condemnation from the British Foreign Office, but to the public it would not seem strong enough.
A Select Committee of this House wishes to visit a country that is a friendly country and that has been visited so many times by Ministers—I think more Ministers have visited China than any other country in the world, apart from India. The Prime Minister has been there recently, encouraging many, many Chinese students to come to this country. We have 80,000 Chinese students studying in the United Kingdom. The number of applications from China since the Prime Minister’s visit has shot up, whereas the number of applications from India has gone down. Chinese graduate students make up 25% of all graduates from overseas studying in our country.
We want a very clear response from the Foreign Office. I hope the Minister can use his best endeavours to try to persuade the Chinese Government to change their mind. After all, is the Committee going to interfere with the proper running of the Chinese Government? I have looked down the list of members of the Committee. I see no known troublemakers on the list. I see three distinguished knights of the realm among the 11 members. Even my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes), who might be considered a troublemaker, is actually a very reasonable man. He was trying to buy a slice of cake in the Tea Room earlier on. I persuaded him to take a banana so that he would not get diabetes and he readily agreed to do so. Members of the Committee are all Members who would want to make a positive contribution through their visit.
Select Committee visits are not about taking the flag and planting it in the middle of the biggest piazza in Hong Kong. That is not what they are about. The aim of such visits is fact-finding. The Committee is going to find out the facts about what is happening so that members can come back and write their report. That is what all Select Committees do when we travel. It is important that Select Committees travel, even though we are sometimes criticised by the press, and the number of visits and the amount of money spent are publicised. The best way to find out what is happening abroad is to go there, speak to people and ask them what is happening.
We were criticised because the Home Affairs Committee was conducting an inquiry into drugs and we decided to go to Colombia. One or two of the usual suspects in the Press Gallery wanted to know what the Home Affairs Committee was doing in Colombia. We were going to look at cocaine production and see what the Colombian Government were doing to try to stop cocaine entering Europe. Some 60% of all the cocaine that enters Europe comes into the United Kingdom. That is why we went, and our report was so much better for our doing so. That is all the Foreign Affairs Committee wants to do.
On behalf of my Committee and, I hope, other Committees and other Chairs, I can say that the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee and its members have our full support. Even at this late stage, I hope the Minister can persuade the Chinese Government, through the ambassador or by other means, to change their mind and allow the Committee to visit so that it can produce a good, fair and balanced report, as the Foreign Affairs Committee has always done.
Oral Answers to Questions
Mike Gapes Excerpts(9 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Lidington
Only last week we held one of our regular discussions with the Turkish authorities about counter-terrorism co-operation. The subjects discussed included better work to detect explosive traces in material going through airports and how we can better share information about airline passengers to guard against future terrorist attack.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister referred to Turkey’s role with regard to Syria. Does he agree that it is absolutely deplorable that the Turkish Government are not providing assistance to the besieged people of Kobane and the other Syrian Kurds facing an existential threat from ISIL? Turkey needs to get off the fence and to decide which side it is on. Is it with ISIL, or is it with the civilian population and the Kurds in Syria?
Mr Lidington
The Turkish Government have made it very clear that they are on the side of the coalition and against ISIL. They are now allowing Kurdish fighters to cross through Turkish territory to take part in the fighting around Kobane. It is also worth the hon. Gentleman bearing it in mind that Turkey is providing refuge to 1.5 million people who have fled the fighting in Iraq and Syria, and we ought to acknowledge that contribution too.
European Union (Referendum) Bill
Mike Gapes Excerpts(9 years, 6 months ago)
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Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Robert Neill
I will give way to my fellow West Ham supporter first, in a spirit of fraternal generosity.
Mike Gapes
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, and I look forward to both of us celebrating victory over Burnley tomorrow.
The hon. Gentleman referred to the question that would be put to the people. Will he explain why both this and last year’s Bill rejected the wording that was originally proposed by the Conservative party, and the wording that was agreed to and supported by the Electoral Commission, in favour of a different wording?
Robert Neill
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right on all matters concerning football, and—with respect—absolutely wrong about pretty much everything else. [Laughter.]
This is a straightforward and comprehensible question: should Britain be a member of the European Union? I noted what was said by the Electoral Commission. I had great respect for the commission when I was the local government Minister—it was kind enough then to give me some very useful advice, which I do not think I took, on the exact working of the council tax referendum—and it has a legitimate point of view, but the House passed the wording of my hon. Friend’s Bill overwhelmingly during the last Session. The wording is very clear, and, indeed, is remarkably similar to the wording of the Scottish referendum, which was very successful in terms of being clear and comprehensible and attracting a record turnout. I would suggest that the argument for that type of wording, and for a straight yes/no decision, has been strengthened rather than weakened by the events that have taken place since the last Session.
Mr Hammond
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw the analogy with Scotland. Settling the issue is good for business and it needs to be done by letting the British people have their say.
Mike Gapes
The right hon. Gentleman’s Government, not just the Conservative party, but also the Liberal Democrats, agreed to allow 16 and 17-year-olds to vote in the referendum in Scotland. Why does the Bill not give the same democratic right to 16 and 17-year-olds in an EU referendum?
Mr Hammond
It is very clear what the Bill provides. It will be the general election franchise that applies. That is the right franchise to use for a referendum of the whole of the United Kingdom.
There are some, on both sides of the House, who may want Britain to leave the European Union come what may. They are entitled to that view, but it is not one that I share. There are others, mainly on the Opposition Benches and the Liberal Democrat party, who want to stay in the EU come what may. They are entitled to their view, but it is also not one that I share. No change is not an option. The status quo in Europe is not in Britain’s interests, or in the interests of anyone in Europe. So what most of us want to see is a radically reformed Europe; a Europe where powers flow from Brussels back to the nations, not the other way round; a Europe of co-operating nations, not a European superstate; a Europe of open markets and free trade arrangements with the world beyond; a Europe that can out-compete the best in the world, without red tape and regulation weighing it down. But most of all we want to see a Europe on which the British people have had their say. Whether we think that the European Union is perfection beyond improvement, like Labour, or irredeemably flawed, like a few of my hon. Friends, or, indeed, capable of the substantive reform that most of us on the Conservative Benches seek, we should all be able to agree that, after all the reform and renegotiation, after everyone has had their say, the ultimate decision on whether to go or whether to stay should rest with the British people.
Mr Alexander
What honestly worries me about the Government’s approach to Europe is not that it is clever, wily and strategic, but that they are making it up as they go along. Many months after the Bloomberg speech we have absolutely no detail. I see the Europe Minister is in his place, so perhaps he would like to advise the incoming Foreign Secretary about those detailed proposals for reform. Would he like to set out repatriation proposals for us today? I would happily give way.
Mike Gapes
My right hon. Friend will be aware that in 2017 there is supposed to be a six-month British presidency of the European Union, which begins on 1 July until 31 December. Does he think it wise for the middle of that British presidency to be disrupted by a referendum, or will the referendum have to be held in the first six months of 2017, before July?
Mr Alexander
My hon. Friend makes an important point, but—let us be honest—this policy has been framed not in reference to European or foreign policy, but in terms of domestic politics. It is not because the Conservative party trusts the British public, but because the Back Benchers do not trust the Prime Minister. That is why they have given up any pretence of a credible reform agenda. We have had five principles and then many months of silence, and the Conservative party has given up any pretence that there is widespread support for the reform agenda it describes. The Foreign Secretary—his Back Benchers will have noted this—today failed to name a single country with which he has had discussions in recent months and which accepts that there will be a fundamental redesign of the European Union, by unanimity, by 2017.
We have a track record—we do not need to look in a crystal ball because we can look in the history books. This is the only British Prime Minister in history who lost in the European Council on a vote that he did not need to lose. Not only did he have support from the Liberal party and the Labour party, but there was significant support among other European countries. However, if someone spends their time driving and looking through the rear view mirror, they tend to crash the car. That is exactly what the Prime Minister is doing when he spends more time negotiating with his Back Benchers than with other European parties. That is disastrous for the Conservative party but bad for Britain as well, and it is about time we had a reform agenda that spoke to the country’s needs on immigration, institutional reform and UK scrutiny.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
I congratulate the promoter of the Bill, the hon. Member for Bromley, Chislehurst and the Boleyn Ground (Robert Neill)—I think that would be the correct designation. It is a great pleasure for me to speak, given the sense of groundhog day and coming back again a year on, so I decided to dust off my speeches and found them on the shelf, although I then decided not to repeat them because I wanted to say other things.
Today is a good news day in one respect, and it is a shame that the hon. Member for Clacton (Douglas Carswell) is not present to hear this—[Hon. Members: “He was!”] Yes, but where is he now? Perhaps he has gone to Rochester. There was an important development in the European Parliament yesterday: the Latvian member of the bizarre grouping that UKIP is part of has walked out. As a result, it is estimated that £1.5 million that was to be paid to UKIP—a party that is against the European Union—by the European Union will no longer be available to UKIP in the European Parliament. That is excellent news. I understand that the Conservatives and the European People’s Party were somehow behind that, and if that is the case I congratulate them on what they have done to reduce the amount of money going to UKIP.
We are debating a Bill that has exactly the same wording as the Bill promoted last year by the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton), whom I am pleased to see is in his place—[Interruption.] Not for long, I guess, but at least he is here now. I want to get back to the point that I made in an intervention. This Bill is not the same as the previous Bill once amended by the other place. The other place amended the hon. Gentleman’s Bill to insert wording that had been determined and recommended by the Electoral Commission, regarding the question to be voted on in any putative referendum.
Conservative Members have decided not to heed that warning, and instead they have resubmitted the Bill as originally presented to the House last year. They are doing that because they hope to invoke the Parliament Act and force through a Bill in the five or six months before the end of this Parliament, without giving us time properly to debate, consider and amend the legislation. They are hoping to get the Bill through today on Second Reading, rush it through Committee and its remaining stages, and then invoke the Parliament Act so that the other place cannot scrutinise it and bring forward sensible proposals for amendment, as it did last year. [Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) wishes to intervene, I am happy to give way.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
I was not meaning to intervene; I was “bobbing”—that is a pun—simply to say that the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) is not present. I know all Tories look alike, but he is not here.
Mike Gapes
In which case I must get a new pair of glasses. I apologise profusely.
The position put forward in the Bill has a number of serious flaws. There is a problem, which other hon. Members have already commented on, with regard to the date of the referendum. The hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) referred to the possibility that the referendum might be held not by the end of 2017 but somehow much earlier. Presumably, that is because he hopes and perhaps even expects the Prime Minister to be unable to have a successful negotiation and make an early decision, having tried his one last chance, to pull out of any negotiation to have an early referendum. If the hon. Member for Wellingborough wishes to intervene to clarify that, I am happy to give way.
Mike Gapes
That would be very interesting, when none of the 27 other EU countries seems to be on the same page at the British Conservatives. Nevertheless, we shall wait and see because that is, of course, hypothetical.
The UK presidency begins on 1 July 2017, so Ministers in any British Government in 2017 will have to attend and chair a series of meetings every week on various topics. In addition, there will have to be another Minister present to represent UK interests during the six-month period. Is it really sensible to envisage a referendum during that time when, instead of focusing on reform and progress in the EU, British Ministers, who are also Members of this House, will have to be involved in trying to deal with the politics of the referendum? [Interruption.] Yes, maybe they will not be here. That is an interesting point. It is foolish to consider holding the referendum during the six months of the British presidency of the EU. In those circumstances, it makes no sense whatever to talk about “by the end of 2017”. It would be better, if we are going to have a referendum, to have it in 2016 or before 1 July 2017, so that when British Ministers go to those meetings we can say whether we will be staying or leaving the EU, while we are chairing those meetings.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
That will affect the perception of Britain’s leadership. Having the presidency means that we are supposed to be holding the chair.
Mike Gapes
Absolutely. Can we imagine the circumstances where, in the middle of an important negotiation on proposals for the future, the British Government have to say, “Sorry, we are going to vacate the chair and leave the meeting, because we’ve all got to head back home to take part in the referendum campaign?” That is absolutely absurd. If the outcome, God forbid, was a vote to leave halfway through this process, it would cause enormous damage to our standing and respect among other people in Europe, not least in the form of the uncertainties it could cause for the exchange rate and to business confidence, to which my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) referred.
Seema Malhotra
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way again; he is being very generous. This afternoon I shall be speaking at the Rastriya Pravasi Bharatiya Divas conference with the Indian diaspora, which looks at how Britain and India support a mutual strategic relationship. A big part of that is investment in both nations. Does my hon. Friend agree that all the uncertainty will also affect the perception of Britain as a place to invest in, when what—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. The hon. Lady’s intervention should be short, especially as she has already made one. I am sure that the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) will not be repetitive in his answer.
Mike Gapes
I shall not be repetitive at all, Madam Deputy Speaker. I agree with my hon. Friend.
Many companies in Korea, China, the United States and elsewhere around the world wish to invest in Europe. They will be looking closely at whether to invest in this country when there is uncertainty over our staying in the single market. This is a vital issue, and it is time the Conservatives understood that their proposal poses a threat to inward investment, jobs and prosperity. Millions of people in this country work for foreign companies that have come here to invest and to gain access to the European single market. This country is outward looking and global; it has a stable society and the rule of law. It is also involved in the largest single market in the world, on a continent of 500 million people. Half our trade is with the European Union. The Bill represents a threat to that and to the jobs and prosperity of our people. That is a flaw in the Bill.
I have talked about the proposed date, and I will say more about that another time.
Mike Gapes
The hon. Lady will have to wait and see whether there is a vote. I am waiting to see what happens. She will not have long to wait.
There are many flaws in the Bill, and it needs to be significantly improved if it is to be in the interests of our people and our country. I have already mentioned the House of Lords vote earlier this year to change the wording of the question that will be asked in the referendum back to the original wording proposed by the Electoral Commission. I was going to mention the original Government proposal put forward by the Conservative party, but of course it was not a Government proposal; it was a Conservative proposal. I have to keep reminding myself that we are in the bizarre position of having a private Member’s Bill being used as a device for introducing what ought to be a Government Bill. I agree that it should be a Government Bill. We should not be abusing the private Members’ Bill procedure by doing things like this. Many Conservative MPs have been forced to come here today. They have been whipped to come here on a Friday morning and eat bacon butties when they should be out campaigning in Rochester and Strood. Instead, they have to be here because they have been whipped to come and vote on a private Member’s Bill. That is absurd.
Sheryll Murray
The hon. Gentleman might be interested to learn that I am here because I choose to be. I believe in giving my constituents a say, and I trust them to make this decision. Does he not trust his constituents to do that?
Mike Gapes
Yes, and I choose to be here today. I choose to speak in the debate, as I did last year. I am delighted to be speaking up for the European Union and for Britain’s membership of it. My constituents are quite content with the position I am taking on this, and I look forward to being resoundingly re-elected next year. I have to tell the hon. Lady that the Conservative party in my constituency has not even got round to choosing a candidate to stand against me yet. It must be really confident.
I shall return to the Bill. I apologise; I was sidetracked by the hon. Lady’s intervention.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
I do not think the hon. Gentleman will get sidetracked again. I am tempted to believe that he is coming to the end of his speech in order to allow another Member in.
Mike Gapes
I have a few more points to make, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I will be as brief as I can.
Unfortunately, the Bill does not take account of the resounding success in the turnout among young people in the Scottish referendum. It was an opportunity to build on the decision in Scotland to give 16 and 17-year-olds the right to vote. After the Bill gets its Second Reading, as it no doubt will today, I hope there will be the chance to table an amendment giving 16 and 17-year-olds a vote in the referendum, as happened in Scotland.
The Bill has huge implications for the 2 million British people living—working or retired—in other EU countries. If we leave the EU, their livelihoods, and possibly their residence and legal status, will be jeopardised. We might see a huge increase in demand on our NHS from elderly people coming back to this country. Why should they not have the right to vote, as British citizens, on a decision that could greatly affect their position?
Similarly, although Gibraltarians have been given the vote, there are other British citizens affected by the EU’s relationships with member states’ outer and overseas territories. For example, why are the Falkland Islanders not being given a vote? The relationship between the EU and the outlying and overseas territories of member states is important both economically and politically, but the Bill takes no account of that.
We need to consider the arrangements for the conduct of the poll. Should we have voting on more than one day to increase turnout? Should it be possible for people to vote electronically? We examined these kinds of issues in the last Bill, and I hope we can do the same with this Bill.
The local paper in my constituency, the Ilford Recorder, today reports that the Barking, Havering and Redbridge hospital trust has recruited nurses from Portugal to fill the gap in our local NHS and to end our reliance on agency staff. The recruitment is necessary because of the failings of the Government’s health policy, which we can discuss another day, and because EU migration is vital to the provision of health care for my constituents. If the Government get their way and cut off our relationship with the EU, the many immigrants providing vital services in our economy and health service will no longer be able to do that.
The nasty party is back. The Bill is another example of the Conservative party chasing the UKIP vote. UKIP is dragging the party way to the right, and it will cost it at the next election, as it is costing it now in political support. I urge my hon. Friends and others to stand firm against this nasty element coming into our society through the nasty party.
ISIL: Iraq and Syria
Mike Gapes Excerpts(9 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Hammond
I hear what my right hon. and learned Friend says about the distinction between Iraq and Syria. He is absolutely right that in military terms this is a single theatre of operations. The Government continue to review our position with regard to Syria. As we have said before, if we come to the conclusion that there is a military case for Britain taking part in air strikes in Syria, we will come back to the House of Commons and there will be a separate debate on that. What I would say to him is that my meetings in Washington last week left me with the clear understanding that there is no shortage of air power capability in Syria. The targets that are being identified are being prosecuted. What is needed is not more strike power; it is more intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance in order to generate targets. That does not require UK participation in strike operations.
I want also to respond to my right hon. and learned Friend’s comments on Kobane. Of course it would be a very negative development if Kobane were to fall, but he should be aware that the great majority of the inhabitants have already left that town, many of them crossing the border into Turkey. As we understand it, there is a very small number of civilians left in the town.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
The Foreign Secretary referred to the 170,000 people who have left Kobane, but the city has not fallen. It has not fallen because the brave Kurdish Syrian PYD fighters are resisting, but they are outgunned. When he says that we should be supporting the moderate Syrian opposition, is there any suggestion that that should include the Kurdish Syrian opposition, who are fighting hard to protect the civilian population in that part of Syria?
Mr Hammond
Yes. We would look to work with all opposition groups in Syria who are committed to a democratic future for Syria, but the hon. Gentleman will know, returning to the theme of the complexity of the historic conflicts in this area, that the Turkish Government regard PYD as a terrorist organisation and have said in terms that they regard it as on a par with ISIL. The Turkish Government see what is happening in Kobane as two terrorist organisations fighting each other.
Palestine and Israel
Mike Gapes Excerpts(9 years, 6 months ago)
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Mark Durkan
That may well be, and it may add to people’s frustrations. We will see whether it happens. We want to flush out a proper declaration, because there should be no obfuscation. There is a clear choice. One of the beauties of the motion tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) is that it is clear—for the purposes of providing absolute clarity, there is the amendment tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw)—and the issues have been well distilled in a very good debate.
A couple of attempts have been made to cloud some of the issues, including by the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley). He tried to suggest that the experience of the Northern Ireland peace process somehow means that we should not recognise the state of Palestine now, but leave everybody to sort everything out and then recognise it. The truth is that he and his party opposed the peace process throughout and did so shrilly. They said that the sky would fall in. They opposed American involvement. They opposed what the British and Irish Governments did to create the framework for a solution, and they opposed building a solution based on three sets of relationships—institutions in Northern Ireland, institutions in Ireland and institutions between Ireland and Britain.
The point is that people outside a conflict sometimes have to help to create some of the givens in a process. In the give and take that we expect in a negotiated process, particularly in a historic conflict, it is not in the parties’ gift to do all the giving; that is where responsible international input can create some givens and new realities.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for his role in the Northern Ireland process. Does he agree that the involvement of not only the United States but the European Union in the events of 1997, 1998 and 1999 was crucial in facilitating agreement?
Mark Durkan
Absolutely, and such involvement predated that period. People feared that it was just a gesture that might somehow lead to a dangerous outcome. In fact, the layers of understanding, initiative and input from the international community over several years helped to condition the context of the peace process and to give people a sense of reality about our problem and the absolute and unavoidable requirements of a solution. That was done in ways that made people comfortable with those requirements, because they did not have the burden of making concessions or compromises themselves, but could take them as things that were already givens in the process.
That is why the important step from the international community in doing more to recognise the state of Palestine is the creation of a sense that the process is more equal. Will recognition create a solution? No. Will detailed negotiations have to happen? Absolutely. People will have the huge task of trying to work out a solution, to work with the solution and to work with each other within the solution, but one thing the international community can do is to say, “We are not going to endorse anybody’s excesses by retailing their excuses.” That is why we should not endorse the violence of Israel by subscribing to its veto on the very process in the very basic question before the House tonight.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
A power struggle is going on not just in the whole Arab world but within Palestinian society, between those who believe in a democratic and secular way forward and those who believe in political Islam that will wipe out not just moderate, secular Arabs but the Christians and the other religious minorities in Palestine. This motion is about not just the question of recognition but what kind of Palestinian state will be created—whether it will be a state that is in the hands of Hamas or, even worse, al-Qaeda elements within Gaza. It is about whether we, at this time, as an international community, recognise the momentous challenges that are facing the whole region. It is not possible for us to go on as we have for the past 15 or 20 years. The programme “The Gatekeepers”, to which some Members have referred, was very clear. It talked about a series of missed opportunities, and only one Prime Minister who had the courage to take the necessary action, paying for it with his life. I am talking about Yitzhak Rabin. The fact is that the current Israeli Prime Minister and Israeli Government do not have that courage and are not doing that.
I speak as a long-standing friend of Israel. I have been denounced as some kind of Zionist child killer by certain people in e-mails and on Twitter. I was even attacked today when I said I was going to vote for the motion by somebody who thought, “No, he can’t possibly be.” The fact is that this is an historic moment because the Palestinian people need a way out of the despair they face. We as an international community—the United States must also heed this message—must help the moderate forces in Fatah by getting their strategy, which is to take the issue internationally, to provide the way forward. Otherwise, the people who believe in the rocket attacks, the suicide bombs, the destruction of civilian communities and the killing of children—not just Israeli children but their own children, who are used as human shields—will gain the ascendency.
This is not a position that Hamas wants brought to the UN, and Hamas opposed the previous attempts by the Palestinian Authority. The leader of my party was quite right when he said that Hamas is a vile terrorist organisation. We need to support Fatah and the democratic and secular voices in Palestinian society. This is the chance for us to do so and for that reason I will vote for the motion and support the amendment. I hope that all other friends of Israel in this country will understand that this is the right thing to do.
Government Strategy Against IS
Mike Gapes Excerpts(9 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Order. I appeal to hon. and right hon. Members to put pithy questions and I know that the Minister, subject to the detail and complexity of these matters, will seek to follow suit. Several people want to get in and I must have regard to that and to the priority of the continuation of the main debate.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister said that the Government welcome the statement made by President Obama. President Obama is very clear that the United States will engage in air strikes not just in Iraq but in Syria. It has been suggested that the reticence of and division between the Foreign Secretary and No. 10 relate to legal advice that military action and air strikes in Syria would be illegal. Can the Minister clarify? Is it the view that the military action proposed by the Obama Administration in Syria would be legal under international law? If that is the case, why should there not be any UK involvement in similar legal action against Isis in Syria and in Iraq?
Mr Lidington
The basic fact is that no decisions about UK military action have been taken or are being asked of us at the moment, so much of the hon. Gentleman’s line of questioning is somewhat academic. As both the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary have said in the House, there are differences—not least important logistical differences—between the situations in Iraq and Syria. The immediate challenge from ISIS to a legitimate democratically elected Government comes in Iraq. That is why, at the invitation of that Government, we and other allies are giving priority to that particular case.
Ukraine, Middle East, North Africa and Security
Mike Gapes Excerpts(9 years, 8 months ago)
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Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
I disagree with the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) about the idea of containing ISIS, because allowing a caliphate, however small or large, to establish itself would pose a great threat to the neighbouring Arab countries.
Mike Gapes
Perhaps we can talk about a different wording later.
When I was in Perth three weeks ago, I visited the Black Watch museum, and after that I visited Edinburgh, where I was struck by a very interesting exhibition on the role of Scottish troops and Scottish diaspora troops in the British imperial forces during the first world war. Is it not sad that an organisation is campaigning on an anti-British platform when, historically, the British imperial army was, and the British Army today is, very much rooted in the contribution of Scots to many of our country’s distinguished regiments? That is another aspect that those of us from England, Wales and Northern Ireland should remind our brothers and sisters in the rest of the United Kingdom about when they vote next week.
The end of the first world war, nearly 100 years ago, led to the treaty that resulted in the creation of a number of states. Turkey, which came out of the Ottoman empire, has already been mentioned, and others included countries on its borders, such as Syria, as well as Lebanon and Jordan, and countries further away, such as Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Later came the establishment of the state of Israel and the consequences that were touched on earlier.
The Kurds, who were scattered among up to three, four or five countries in the region, did not get a state at that time. Events in Iraq have led to the establishment of an embryonic state in the form of the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq, which has its own flag and defence forces—the very brave but poorly equipped peshmerga, who are fighting so hard and who are now, I am pleased to say, going to be armed by the United Kingdom, at last, as well as by other European partners.
There will be ramifications as a consequence of current events, because the PKK in Turkey and the PYD in Syria, which has been fighting against Assad, have been co-operating with the peshmerga to get the Yazidis and others off Mount Sinjar to safety. Yet we know that Turkey, Syria and Iran are very much against an independent Kurdish state, because of what the consequences would be. Therefore, a very complex development is going on.
Some people have said that the Sykes-Picot line, which was drawn on the map by French and British diplomats nearly 100 years ago, is dead. It is not yet dead, and we must be very careful. I believe that we may need a comprehensive international conference in the region at some point to redraw the boundaries.
Richard Graham
Does the hon. Gentleman not consider that in the current environment of having so much instability in the region, which he is describing very well, to give encouragement to any particular group—however strong their cause, however powerful their case—might simply be the trigger for a further round of instability? Would not the fact that all sorts of others might want to redraw the boundaries, however ineptly they were drawn 100 years ago, contribute to the instability that we want to contain?
Mike Gapes
The instability is already there. We have to face reality. Will Syria continue as a state, or will it disintegrate into three or four component parts? If we take on ISIL and defeat and destroy it, I suspect that we will do so in alliance with a coalition of forces. Some of those forces will be non-state actors: the actors will not just be the Governments of the region, but groups such as the PYD, which is currently in effect in control of parts of Syria.
Whether we are talking about creating loose confederations, which may well be the outcome of the political discussions in Baghdad and the internal dynamics in Iraq, or about the outcome of what is happening in Syria, we need a little bit of vision in our thinking about how we can create a longer-lasting international framework for dealing with the issues. I am not saying that this is something for today—the priority today is to build a coalition to defeat the people who want to take the world back 900 years to some mythical Islamist caliphate—but we ultimately need to be aware that some issues coming out of this situation will have to be resolved.
In relation to people who want to take things back to what they were—the role of the man who admires the Soviet Union and wishes to recreate parts of it has already been mentioned—Russia’s policy now is an attempt not just to turn the clock back a few years, but to recreate some form of Soviet Union-style Russia as it was in the past. The so-called Eurasian customs union is the Putin model to rival the successful European Union, which has acted as a magnet for all the countries of central and eastern Europe. At the same time, Putin is espousing the very dangerous doctrine that Russia has a right to intervene in the internal affairs of any country where there are people who speak Russian. Following that logic is a recipe for renewed conflict all across Europe and in other parts of the world, so we have to resist it and stop it.