Foreign Affairs Committee

John Bercow Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2017 Commons Chamber

Select Committee statement

[Mr Speaker]

We now come to the Select Committee statement. The Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat), will speak on his subject for up to 10 minutes, during which time no interventions may be taken. At the conclusion of his statement, I will call Members to put questions on the subject of the statement and I shall, of course, call the hon. Gentleman to respond to those questions in turn. Members can expect to be called only once. Interventions should be questions, and should be brief. Those on the Front Bench may take part in questioning.

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[Tom Tugendhat]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and I welcome her support on this. We looked at the UN action, and in welcoming the Annan commission we welcome that particular suggestion as well.

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman is deeply grateful to his hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) that, by the form of her reference to him, she promoted him to the status of a military general.

[Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee for the way in which he has chaired the Committee in his first few months in that position, and, indeed, the Minister for the candid way in which he presented the case of the UK Government when he gave evidence to the Committee.

Does my hon. Friend the Chair of the Committee agree that this again shows the bluntness of the UN, and shows that it does not have enough tools available to it to deal with these kinds of international crises?

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[Tom Tugendhat]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman has now been referred to as both a military general and a Privy Counsellor; his cup runneth over.

[Tom Tugendhat]

Today is indeed my lucky day—Christmas and Easter have come at once—but despite those promotions I will address my hon. Friend’s question, because it is extremely important. She is of course right to say that the refusal of citizenship to this population has been one of the great abuses. Although they were citizens, certainly in the 1950s and ’60s, their citizenship was effectively removed from them by the 1980s, and the Annan commission is very clear that citizenship must be restored. That is one of the reasons we were so clear—as my hon. Friend will remember from our discussions—in insisting that the Annan commission recommendations are implemented in full.

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[Tom Tugendhat]

I not only agree with the hon. Lady; I welcome the fact that the Government have already done so.

[Mr Speaker]

I think that I speak for the House in thanking the hon. Gentleman and his Committee very warmly for their ongoing work, for this report, for the hon. Gentleman’s statement to the House today and for his courteous and comprehensive responses to questions.