Israel-Hamas War: Diplomacy

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Monday 11th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

Discussions with Qatari go on all the time. Indeed, my noble Friend Lord Ahmad, the Foreign Office Minister with responsibility for the middle east, has been in Qatar recently.

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

The Minister will have seen pictures of the horrific loss of life in Gaza, which started up again over the weekend, and of half-naked men being paraded through the streets. The Geneva convention prohibits turning prisoners of war into objects of “public curiosity”. He will also know of the grave concerns about reports of the use of rape by Hamas fighters on 7 October. All of this shows that we will need a very clear mechanism for the investigation of allegations of war crimes and for accountability, if war crimes are found to have happened. Will the Minister set out what the UK Government, who have said that international law must be upheld, believe that mechanism should be?

[Mr Mitchell]

I have a great deal of sympathy with the points that the hon. Lady makes. The British Government have made it clear that all parties in this terrible conflict must abide by international humanitarian law. We continue to identify and look for mechanisms for ensuring that there can be no impunity in that respect, and that there will be transparency over the actions that the forces take.

Israel and Hamas: Humanitarian Pause

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

As the hon. Lady will know, Israel has an absolute right to self-defence. It has been made clear around the world that that is the right position, but it must abide by international humanitarian law.

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

Nobody can help but be moved by the sight of hostages being released. This weekend, the Minister for Immigration, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), on a public platform, said that the UK Government

“will not rest until each and every one of them is back in the loving embrace of their families,”

It is now more than a month since anybody at all from the UK Government has had any contact at all with the UK citizens who have family members as hostages—not a single phone call. The Minister will know that I have come to this place and pleaded with him to help arrange just five minutes of Lord Cameron’s time with the hostage families to tell them what the Government are actually doing to help get their family members released. It has been other Governments who have helped to identify that their family members are alive. Please, finally, can the Minister listen to those UK citizens asking their Government, “What are you doing to help get my family released?” and arrange that meeting as an urgent matter?

[Mr Mitchell]

My understanding is not the same as the hon. Lady’s in respect of the British hostages. She will know that over 200 British nationals and their dependants have so far left Gaza, and we are working around the clock to get the rest of those out who want to leave. In terms of the hostages, my understanding is not the same as she has said.

Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Tuesday 14th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

I thank the hon. Member for his comments. Discussions are going on with Jordan and Egypt on that very point, and I will go tonight to Egypt to try to further those discussions.

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

In setting out what a humanitarian pause would involve, the Secretary of State is setting out the challenge at the heart of this. Those of us who believe that we should be working alongside our international colleagues for an urgent ceasefire as the best way to end the Palestinian bloodshed and the horrors we are seeing in Gaza know that any ceasefire that does not involve the immediate return of hostages and the dismantling of Hamas is unlikely to be sustainable. The Minister talked about the conversations the new Foreign Secretary has had with the Secretary of State in America. The Foreign Secretary cannot be in front of us so that I can ask him this myself, so will the Minister urgently arrange a meeting with the Foreign Secretary for my constituent whose father is being held by Hamas, so that she may understand what this Government are doing for UK citizens who have hostage families?

[Mr Mitchell]

I assume that the hon. Member has spoken to the crisis centre about that particular example. If she has not, I hope she will, and of course, we will afford all support we can to her constituent.

Occupied Palestinian Territories: Humanitarian Situation

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Wednesday 8th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

The head of UNICEF, who made those comments, is right to focus on what is happening in Gaza and to express her abhorrence of what is taking place. On the hon. Lady’s citation of the brilliant work that Save the Children does, I have been intimately connected with Save the Children for the last 20 years and we honour both its work and the success it so often achieves.

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

Everybody wants the bloodshed to stop; the question is how to secure that ambition in a lasting way, not whether we should seek it. For my constituents, that matters not just as a policy for the UK Government, but for the people on the ground, who are our neighbours and directly affected. May I have a few precious moments of the Minister’s time to help to offer them just a crumb of comfort? For 30 days they have not heard anything. Both Oded and Ibrahim are at direct risk of harm due to Hamas and the Israeli missiles. Oded, the father of one of my constituents, was kidnapped by Hamas, and the Prime Minister made a personal pledge to assist him. Ibrahim is at risk because we do not yet know why he and his family have not been able to cross the border at Rafah. May I seek an urgent meeting with the Minister to look specifically at those two cases and to find those rays of light we all desperately want for my constituents?

[Mr Mitchell]

In response to the hon. Lady’s request for a meeting, she will know that the crisis centre in the Foreign Office, which is full of both willing volunteers and experts in these consular matters, will be the right place to take this issue. However, I will certainly meet her immediately after this statement.

Gaza: Al-Ahli Arab Hospital Explosion

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

The hon. Lady speaks with great passion, which I know is genuine. When I was first appointed to the then Foreign and Commonwealth Office in February 2020, I was the Minister for the Middle East and North Africa, and I can assure her that I have been personally focused on trying to find a resolution to this long-standing and painful issue the entire time I have been a Minister in the foreign service. I can assure her that the Government remain focused on that long-term peaceful resolution to this terrible situation. I can also assure her that we want to see the money that we have allocated actually turned into humanitarian support for the Palestinian people. That of course means having humanitarian access, but that is not happening at the moment. We will continue to use all our diplomatic effort to try to unlock those humanitarian access routes.

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

Residents in Walthamstow are mourning the loss of all civilian lives in this conflict. It is very personal to them. Rania and Sharone are two Walthamstow residents. Sharone is here at the moment meeting the Prime Minister about her parents who have been kidnapped by Hamas. Rania and seven members of her family are stuck in Gaza trying desperately to get out. I want to put on record our thanks to the Foreign Secretary and his officers for what they have done so far, but Sharone desperately needs help to get more information, from whatever parties or third-party agencies, about her parents and the medical welfare, and Rania is desperate to get her family back home to us in Walthamstow, but there is misinformation on the ground as well. Has the Foreign Secretary also considered whether the Kerem Shalom border could be looked at as one way to get humanitarian aid into Gaza to help those affected by this crisis and to bring our people home?

[James Cleverly]

I want to commend the work of our consular team that is dealing with families who are suffering loss, who are grieving and who are deeply fearful for the welfare of their families and loved ones overseas. I know that the hon. Lady and other hon. and right hon. Members will have constituents who are deeply fearful about what is going on. I would urge them all to use the consular contact details that have been provided, and I am more than happy to make sure that they are circulated to anyone who does not have them. We maintain contact with all those families who have got in contact with us and we try to maintain contact with those British nationals who are currently stuck in Gaza. I can give the hon. Lady and the House an absolute assurance that we will not rest and we will not step back from our duty to support British nationals overseas.

UK’s Exit from the European Union

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Monday 24th April 2023 Westminster Hall

[Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe.

When 65% of the people in my constituency of Gravesham voted in the 2016 referendum, they cast their votes in favour of leaving the EU. They did so in the expectation that their views would be respected and in the hope that the Government would have the guts to make a success of it. In those ambitions, my constituents have not been well served. Their clear instructions to us here in Parliament were not respected. For years the Government, with the collusion of the civil service, treated Brexit as a gigantic, strategic mistake by the people of the United Kingdom, and they saw their role as one of damage limitation. But in 2019 the electorate had the chance to speak again, returning my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) with a huge majority, and he respected that mandate and was finally able to deliver Brexit.

It is faintly depressing to be here again ostensibly debating whether the benefits of Brexit have been delivered and whether there should be a public inquiry. In reality, we are arguing today about whether we should have voted to leave the EU or whether we should rejoin. For me, the single most important benefit of Brexit has been realised, leaving aside some slightly unhappy compromises in the Windsor framework, because our sovereignty has been repatriated. Many remainers seem to view our desire to govern ourselves as at best an outmoded and abstract concept, and at worst a front for baser impulses.

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

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Adam Holloway]

I will not. I came in here earlier, took one look at all the articulate advocates of remain or rejoin, and I thought that in the interests of my blood pressure, which I tested this morning, I would not give way—[Interruption.] I am sure the hon. Lady can address that in her speech: we have heard a lot from her on the subject already.

It is easy to undervalue sovereignty if the areas in which it was surrendered to the EU do not actually impact one’s life. It is easy to disdain patriotism if someone is economically and socially mobile and derives their self-worth from a well-paid job, or if their life is made easier by cheap labour as a result of free movement. In my constituency, EU membership has brought social problems, pressures on housing in the social and private sectors, enormous stress on public services and a sense of disenfranchisement. My constituents are not crazed nationalists. They are hard-working people who voted to take back control over the laws that directly affect their quality of life, and to have the right to vote out politicians who make laws that do not work for them. That power is important to them, and it is important to me that we deliver on that promise.

On the economic benefits of Brexit, we should have the courage of our convictions and stop being so cautious. It was encouraging to hear the Chancellor of the Exchequer, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt), unveil his post-Brexit reform of financial services, which aims to give us a regulatory framework that meets the needs of our financial services industry and can respond effectively to emerging trends. With the freedom to diverge from EU law, we can now make substantial changes in many areas—for example, in the regulation of insurance firms. The risk margin, the capital buffer that insurance companies must hold, will be cut by 65% for life insurers and 30% for general insurers. The eligibility of assets that life insurers can use to match their liabilities will therefore be broadened. That will free up capital for investment in the UK economy and improve the competitiveness of the important financial services industry, bringing benefits to consumers.

The Government must stick to their promise to make substantial legislative progress in this area during 2023. Reform of the financial services regulations is just one area where we now have the freedom to extricate ourselves from a regime that was not designed with our best interests in mind.

There are a host of opportunities we must now seize. We must make progress with the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill, and we must take advantage of our freedom from EU control of state aid. We must make sure that our immigration system works for the people of this country. It is a difficult task to disentangle ourselves from a heap of legislation that we did not choose, but it is a vital job. We should be bold and move quickly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Farry]

I agree. We will soon discover that in many respects, by design the UK will have to be a rule taker. It is in the fundamental interest of the UK economy to follow rules that are essentially set at the European level, but we will not have the important say that we had previously.

Like the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) and many other colleagues in today’s debate, including the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), I sit on the UK Trade and Business Commission. Almost every week we hear evidence from a range of experts and other stakeholders who set out huge concerns about the impact of Brexit on their sectors. It is accurate to say that the UK economy has seen seriously constrained growth as a consequence of Brexit. Of course, there are other issues, but Brexit is by far the major stand-out factor that differentiates the UK from its main competitor nations in the developed world.

The trade deals that are happening around the world will never compensate for the increased trade barriers that we have erected with our closest and biggest external trading partner. It is one thing to say that the European Union is not growing at the same rate in terms of international trade; having a trading partner that represents 30% to 40% of our international market compared with a partner that grows from 0.1% to 0.2%, while maybe a radical change in the level of trade on the surface, does not amount to the same impact on UK business. Also, we have discovered that freedom of movement applies in two directions. Who knew? Constraints on the ability of others to come here applies to UK citizens seeking to move overseas.

I want to focus on the impact on Northern Ireland. In some ways, I feel slightly humbled in this respect because we have had, at the very least, the benefit of the Windsor framework. I put on the record again my appreciation for those who were involved in reaching that agreement, both on the UK side and in the European Commission. At best, the Windsor framework is a soft landing for Northern Ireland, but Northern Ireland will still suffer many of the same problems that the UK as a whole is facing from Brexit, as well as some further particular challenges that are unique to our own geographical situation on the island of Ireland.

Perhaps the most apparent consequence is seen in our governance. I have no doubt that my colleague, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), will express a different view on this when he speaks, but for me our governance worked based on sharing and interdependence. It relied upon the joint membership of the UK and Ireland within the single market and customs union, and that in turn allowed us to have those interlocking relationships, within Northern Ireland, on the island of Ireland and within the UK, allowing a balance of different identities to be expressed without that much encumbrance. Brexit—particularly a hard Brexit—will threaten some people’s sense of identity and create some degree of economic friction. The Windsor framework has gone a long way to mitigate some of that, but it only applies to goods and not to the other fundamental freedoms around services, capital and the freedom of movement.

[Stella Creasy]

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful point about how important the Windsor agreement is. Does he therefore agree that one of the egregious things about Brexit is pushing things such as the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill, which, in and of itself, fundamentally undermines the Windsor agreement by removing all those alignments of laws around goods and indeed services on which the Windsor agreement is based? It just reflects how Brexit has blinded people to what is in the best interests of people, whether in Northern Ireland or the rest of the United Kingdom.

[Stephen Farry]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for those comments. I had hoped that wisdom would eventually prevail in relation to that piece of legislation. It is not just pointless but needlessly self-destructive, and it will pose particular problems to Northern Ireland, given that we do currently do not have a functioning Assembly, and if the current sunset clause—at the end of this year—still applies, we do not actually have the space to put in place successor pieces of regulation to cover for all the gaps that may or may not emerge. There is also a very particular challenge to the fundamental freedoms that are set out in the Good Friday agreement, and transposed in terms of article 2 of the protocol, which has now itself become the Windsor framework.

It is important to recognise that we are making these comments today in the context of the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement, which happened earlier this month. Last week, there was a major conference at Queen’s University in Belfast. We had the Prime Minister over there, pledging his ongoing support for the agreement and praising all those who have got us to this particular point, without at the same time recognising that some of the policies that the Government are pursuing in relation to Brexit, including retained EU law, pose a major threat to people’s rights in Northern Ireland.

Beyond the issue around the movement of goods, there are issues in terms of access to labour and skills, which are particularly problematic in our economy. Like everywhere else in the UK, services are by far the largest aspect of our economy. The contrast on the island of Ireland is now becoming incredibly stark. Northern Ireland is going through major difficulties, not least due to our lack of a functioning Assembly and Executive. We are also facing into a budget crisis and we have very sluggish economic indicators. By contrast, our friends on the other part of the island are actually expecting a massive surplus, potentially as much as €20 billion, over the next couple of financial years. They have much higher growth than Northern Ireland; their productivity levels are much higher. And that is creating a major tension for an economy that competes in that all-Ireland context as well as in a pan-UK context.

I want to put another point on the record, Mr McCabe. I have no doubt that other Members will wish to pick up the loss of European Union funding, which was so crucial for some of the more marginalised parts of the UK. I appreciate it is a particular factor in Wales, but also in places such as Merseyside and Cornwall. What has replaced it through the shared prosperity fund simply cannot compensate for what has been lost. It is undoing what the Government are notionally trying to do in terms of levelling up because the money simply is not there.

The same applies to research funding. The UK is internationally renowned for the quality of our research and development, our universities and how we innovate. Again, through not being part of Horizon Europe, we are losing opportunities. It is a matter not simply of funding, as important as funding is, but of the international collaboration and the networks. Speak to any scientist—they will say that all this has to happen at scale, and we have to be part of those networks. The UK is going through a process of needlessly marginalising itself. I very much welcome this petition and would embrace an inquiry. It is only through proper discussion of these issues and having an honest conversation that we can begin to undo the damage that has been done over the past few years. I look forward to a mature reflection on what needs to happen to restore the UK’s place in the world.

--- Later in debate ---

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

It is a pleasure to have you join us to chair this afternoon’s debate, Mr Dowd. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Gravesham (Adam Holloway) is no longer in his place, because in his contribution he embodied the challenge that we face in this debate. Indeed, it might be argued that in what he said, he reflected Oscar Wilde’s very famous statement that “patriotism is the virtue of the vicious”.

In the absence of the hon. Member, let us correct the record on what he said about insurance and use that as an example of why we need better information in this debate. He said that leaving the European Union would somehow mean that we could deal with the level of risk that insurance companies have to account for. Actually, the European Commission is already looking at and reforming those rules, so we could have done that work with it. As ever with the idea that the benefits of Brexit will appear, the benefit that he talked about with the matching adjustment is something that those in the financial sector have expressed caution about. Although it may benefit the shareholders of insurance companies and lead to higher fees, those policyholders and pensioners who are dependent on insurance policies may well face higher charges. That in itself embodies the difficulties that we face in this debate—the messy reality of what Brexit is doing.

I have no desire to rerun 2016, when the damage in 2023 is so apparent. The hon. Member for Gravesham talked about parliamentary sovereignty and mentioned the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) will be pleased to hear that I absolutely agree with him about the reality of what will happen to the laws, but I’ll be damned if I will take lectures about who is more patriotic! Who is better at standing up for parliamentary sovereignty than those of us who are fighting a piece of legislation that will lead to 5,000 areas of law being transferred not back to this Parliament to make decisions on them, but to the Executive behind closed doors in No. 10?

The truth is that we know what damage Brexit is doing to our country, and we have seen it for years. Members have already talked about many of the impacts, including the shortages of people working in our hospitality industry and in health and social care; the blunt economic damage; the thousands of small businesses in constituencies across this country that have just given up trading—one of the truisms here is that people can fight many battles in life, but they cannot fight geography—because being able to trade just as easily with 500 million consumers on our doorstep does make a difference; the supply chains that have been severed by our leaving the European Union; the wealth of paperwork that so many people now face; and the impact that it has had on the cost of living.

That is the second truth in this debate. The public know when they are being gaslighted. They can see that other countries have experienced the impact of Vladimir Putin but are not facing the same challenges as we are. We have higher food costs because, oddly enough, there are longer queues at the border to get things here. There are problems with production lines, as the hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) articulated so well. People can see that their kids are sitting in coaches at the border for hours on end and they know that that is not going to stop any time soon.

The London School of Economics estimates that leaving the European Union added £210 to household food bills, costing UK consumers a total of £5.8 billion pounds, so we cannot be a world-beating international leader if we are only doing it in our own backyard. We cannot do competitive trade deals when we are a smaller nation—not part of a bigger conglomerate—negotiating with others. That is why the Americans are not going to put us first in the queue. Every single industry, whether insurance or manufacturing, is facing a choice between following UK regulations or European regulations if it wants to be able to trade with the bigger market.

The damage is clear. People can see the disruption. They can see the disruption in Northern Ireland. That is why I am not surprised that fewer than one in 10 among the British public claim to see a personal benefit to Brexit. When asked what that benefit is, only a third felt they could actually name something. It is the same for the national interest. We know that this is not going well, and we cannot see how it will get any better. We also know that time is of the essence and that the damage being done grows every day. Jobs that were here are going overseas. Businesses are relocating. They are retraining people in Belgium, Germany and France so that they can continue trading.

Why, then, am I frankly ambivalent about this petition and the idea of a public inquiry? First, there is no formal mechanism for following up on an inquiry. We have seen the track record of this Government when it comes to public inquiries and listening and learning, and it is not great. As of last November, there are 14 open statutory public inquires, covering everything from covid to Grenfell to the Edinburgh tram system. The inquiry into undercover policing has gone on for eight years and cost £60 million, and we still have no idea when it will make recommendations. For me, politics has always been about priorities. I cannot ask the people in my community, who are struggling with the cost of living rises that have been fuelled by Brexit and can see opportunities slipping from their hands, to wait any longer to see the benefits of Brexit.

I am a patriot. I love my country, and that is why I will fight for its future, for those jobs and for those industries. That means being ruthless about what we spend our time and effort on now, and it means absolutely holding this Government to account for their failure to recognise that Brexit cannot work; it is just a series of problems to be sorted. The sooner they are sorted, the sooner we will stand a chance of offering our kids a future.

How do we do that? We must work out how to get direct access to the single market. We must work out how we deal with the paperwork. Whether as part of the pan-Euro-Mediterranean convention or a bespoke customs union, we have got to get on and start talking to the Europeans about it rather than questioning whether they are friends or foes.

We must get on with getting the visa system sorted out, so that the creative and touring industries and our healthcare and hospitality sectors do not fall apart and so that young people do not lose opportunities. Those who work for businesses are being told, “Look, do you have a European passport? If you don’t, forget about it; we’ll go to someone else in the business.”

I will now turn to the importance of the freedom to work to our economy. Brexit will already reduce long-run productivity by 4%, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility. The truth is that this country was struggling before Brexit, but Brexit is like going on holiday and setting fire to the hotel room because you realised on the first day that there is no pool in the complex. It is making things fundamentally worse. The honest truth—for those of us who care about the truth and who care about this country—is that we should not let the Government get away with spending hours talking about whether the last seven years have been any good. We have to be focused on what can happen in the next seven years.

I will hold every Government to account for what they are doing to sort out access to those jobs and to that trade, and to help the small businesses that are looking at the pile of paperwork and thinking, “I just cannot cope with it any more.” It is too important not to. We can have a public inquiry—we can go down that alley—but, frankly, I would much rather solve the problems that Brexit has created. The people in this country—those of us who are real patriots—need and deserve nothing less.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Leo Docherty)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day) for presenting this debate, and to all right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions. It has been an interesting and thought-provoking debate, and I will seek to cover the main points raised.

The UK and the EU are still hugely important allies. We are trading partners and old friends. We have left the European Union but not Europe. We want our friends to thrive, and I know—from my personal visits and many ministerial visits—that they wish the same for us. We must respect the democratic decision of our own people. The UK’s departure from the EU was a result, as has been described today, of a democratic choice by people across the nation to restore our sovereignty; and I pay tribute to the eloquent speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Adam Holloway).

In 2015 the Government were elected with a mandate to hold a referendum. In that referendum, the British public voted to leave the EU. We must remember that the Government have since been re-elected twice with a clear mandate to pass the necessary legislation to leave the EU and negotiate a trade agreement. The resounding endorsement of that proposition in 2019, with a significant majority, is a case in point.

Parliament approved the withdrawal agreement—the terms for the UK’s withdrawal from the EU—in January 2020 and the trade and co-operation agreement in December of the same year. The Government’s policies on our new relationship with the EU are therefore subject to robust parliamentary scrutiny. We have agreed arrangements with the European Scrutiny Committee, the European Affairs Committee and the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland Sub-Committee. We have regular and extensive correspondence with those Committees, with which I am personally familiar. Under the terms of the arrangement, Ministers must regularly appear before them. Indeed, I appeared before the European Affairs Committee on 7 March, and the Foreign Secretary will appear before the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland Sub-Committee on 10 May.

Of course, we are grateful to those Committees for their ongoing scrutiny. Both the European Scrutiny Committee and the European Affairs Committee are holding inquiries into the new UK-EU relationship, to which the Government have provided evidence that can be read online. The inquiries will be published in due course. For all those reasons, the Government do not believe that it would be appropriate to hold an inquiry into the impact of Brexit.

Let me dwell on the theme of seizing the opportunities of Brexit, which has been raised this afternoon. Restoring our sovereignty was just the start of what the British public voted for in the referendum. Britain left the EU to do things differently and make our own laws, but this was not just political theory: our laws and tax framework and the way we spend our money all make a real difference to people’s lives. The Government are committed to capitalising on the opportunities of Brexit, which is why we intend to end retained EU law as a legal category by December 2023, which will ensure that the UK’s rules and regulations best serve the interests of our country as a whole and support workers and businesses to build a thriving economy.

[Stella Creasy]

The Minister talks very passionately about parliamentary sovereignty and raises the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill. Whatever the whys and wherefores of how we thought the European Union listened to the UK public through its democratic processes, can the Minister explain how transferring direct power over 5,000 areas of legislation not to this place but to Ministers through the use of statutory instruments—or Henry VIII powers, as we might call them—is taking back control? I see the opposition to those measures from those who supported Brexit in the other place or this place. It does not look to me like this did what it said on the side of the bus.

[Leo Docherty]

The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill will be yet another expression of our renewed democratic sovereignty. The hon. Lady’s constituents should be reassured by that, because colleagues in this House will decide which laws stand, which are absorbed and which are repealed. The hon. Lady should be reassured by this more direct expression of our democratic sovereignty.

A range of major reforms are therefore already under way, including to data protection, artificial intelligence and life sciences regimes. We are capitalising on our new-found freedoms outside the EU to attract investment, drive innovation and boost growth and recently announced the Edinburgh reforms to drive growth and competitiveness in the financial services sector. However, laws will not be abolished for the sake of it. We will not jeopardise our strong record on workers’ rights, for example, which is among the best in the world, nor will we roll back maternity rights or threaten the high environmental standards we maintain.

Turning to trade, it is worth remembering that the trade and co-operation agreement agreed in 2020 is the world’s largest zero-tariff, zero-quota deal. It is the first time the EU has ever agreed access like this in a free trade agreement. The TCA also guards the rights of both the EU and the UK to determine their own policies while not regressing in ways that affect trade between the two sides. The UK remains committed to being a global leader in those areas.

As the Office for National Statistics has previously noted, there are a number of factors beyond Brexit that have influenced global trading patterns, including the war in Ukraine, most recently, global economic forces and continued strain on supply chains. Despite this, we must remember that the UK remains an attractive place to invest and grow a business as a low-tax, high-skilled economy.

Iran

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[David Rutley]

I completely understand why my hon. Friend has added his voice to those with concerns about the IRGC’s activities. We are concerned too, as its activities in country and in the region are incredibly destabilising. I cannot add anything to what I have said about proscription, but we monitor the IRGC’s activities and we will call it out and confront it.

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

The Minister is right when he says that there is universal condemnation across this House, where we have today talked powerfully about human rights abuses and the persecution of the people of Iran, particularly the women fighting for their most basic freedoms. Does he agree that if we are to learn the lessons from our suffragette foresisters about deeds not words, government needs to join up? Some 11,000 Iranians are making an application for asylum in the UK and only 98 such applications were granted last year. Iranians are the third largest group of people in the channel-crossing boats. In the previous urgent question today, people felt that the very same people whose persecution we are now talking about should be penalised. What discussions has the Minister had already with his Home Office counterparts about providing sanctuary to those people, who we recognise are being persecuted and do not wish to leave languishing in hotels?

[David Rutley]

As I have said, there are routes available. I will make sure that the hon. Lady’s points are raised with Lord Ahmad, who covers this policy area. Her words will also not be lost with the Foreign Secretary here.

Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) (Amendment) (No. 15) Regulations 2022

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2022 General Committees

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mr McCabe. I rise to speak in support of the comments made by my Front-Bench colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green, on the importance of addressing the gaps that might exist.

These measures are welcomed across the House; there is strong support for sanctions against Russia and for cracking down on what had previously been a stain on our international reputation. The challenge for all of us is in the gaps that many companies and entities use to undermine the sanctions. I am struck by the fact that the Minister talked strongly about things we could do in the UK. She will have heard my colleague on the Front Bench talk about the Crown dependencies, where many of the cracks and fissures in the sanctions regime can be found, and it is important that we see action taken. It is in the secrecy of ownership in the Crown dependencies that the Russians have found the friends that they do not find among ourselves and other nations on the world stage.

It is worth looking at just how big those gaps are. A piece of work by Transparency International last year discovered 237 large-scale corruption and money laundering cases that involved six out of the 14 UK overseas territories—countries in which we have direct control and influence. That amounted to £250 billion-worth of funds diverted from some of the world’s poorest people to these entities by around 1,200 different company measures. Many of the cases involved former Soviet states, so we know the connection to what we are talking about today.

My hon. Friend set out some strong questions, and I will add to them. What conversations has the Minister had with the overseas territories about this SI and about the need for a comprehensive designation of all these companies so that there is nowhere to hide money in the way in which we see right now, which undermines the sanctions regime that we are all trying to strengthen? What progress has been made on public company registers in those Crown territories?

We all want to see a speedy end to the conflict in Ukraine. We stand firmly with President Zelensky, but we cannot do that if we turn a blind eye to the gaps in our current legislation that allow companies to flourish and money to be diverted. I know the Minister shares that concern, but we need to set out on the record what we are going to do about it. If she wants to find cross-party agreement on the need to go further, faster in closing those gaps, she will find it in this place.

Sanctions (EU Exit) (Miscellaneous Amendments) (No. 2) Regulations 2022

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2022 General Committees

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mr Hosie. I fully associate myself with the comments of Labour’s Front-Bench spokesman, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth, on the importance of taking action on the sanctions regime.

I have a few simple questions for the Minister about the implementation of these sanctions. He will be aware that many of us have a massive interest in how, now that we have left the European Union, new regimes and forms of collaboration are enacted. As my Front-Bench colleague said, we want to see the regime work, and I hope that the Minister takes my questions in that spirit. However, there are questions, and I can see that Conservative Members also have concerns about how the measures will work.

Clearly, we previously relied on working across Europe on sanctions issues. We have talked before in this House about how assets are transferred across Europe, and how people whom we want to sanction work across different countries. Having left the EU provisions that enabled such sanctions to be enacted, it is right to introduce the regulations: they deal with a gap in our proposals on how to enact sanctions. However, the regulations are a unilateral piece of legislation. My first, very simple question for the Minister is whether he can confirm and reassure us that we will continue to get the information that we need from the European Union about those individuals to make sure that sanctions are effective? We can obviously make that commitment to information sharing ourselves. It would be helpful to hear about his conversations with the European Union and our European counterparts on this issue. It is obviously a very apposite issue at the moment when it comes to Russia and Belarus, particularly when there might not be as much of a united front as we may wish.

Secondly, and more prosaically, the regulations, as the Minister said, bring in a new power for public authorities to participate in the process. Will the Minister tell us a little more about that? In particular, the power is provisional. The regulations state that public authorities “may” disclose information. The number of public bodies that could disclose information is quite high: for example, any police officer could. Would he clarify whether that means, say, a police constable? Have police constables been given information about how they might be expected to operate under this piece of legislation? The regulations refer to

“any other person exercising functions of a public nature”.

Might we, as Members of Parliament, be required or expected to provide information under the legislation? Of course, most critically for all of us who want the sanctions to be effective—obviously colleagues on both sides of the House might have concerns about what information people might know—what happens if Members of Parliament, police constables or indeed any of these bodies do not co-operate?

As I said, the regulations say that they “may disclose information”, but they are not required to do so. Will he clarify what would happen if somebody did not disclose information? Within that environment, what monitoring will there will be of those who disclose information and, perhaps, those who refuse to do so, so that we can review how the sanctions are working? Again, it is one thing for us unilaterally to decide that we must have an operative sanction regime, but it is another thing if we do not actually know who is taking part in it and where there might be further blockages to it being effective.

The Minister talks about it being important to introduce the regulations because they would correct acronyms, for example, in legislation; there had been drafting errors—although I am pleased to see that they are not of the type that we saw in the Belgium legislation, where an entire duck soup recipe was added into legislation. But it does rather bring up one of the wider challenges, does it not, when it comes to translating EU legislation into UK law? There is so much that we were so dependent on to make our regimes effective that we have to be sure that it is done well.

Will the Minister update us on what has been happening in the three years since the legislation came in, in terms of the sanctions and the information gathering activity, when we have not had these powers? Given that we have a major piece of legislation being introduced to this House that will dispense with all forms of retained EU legislation, can he be confident that it will not affect our ability either to do that information sharing or to be able to effect these sanctions? Would he recognise that, if we are making drafting errors that require a statutory instrument to be introduced, there is a concern that any future legislation that covers translating into UK legislation does not also miss items?

A big bang approach, which is what we are going to see with this Brexit retained law legislation, may well bring up some of the problems that the sanctions legislation and this SI are trying to correct. Is he confident that there is not anything we will miss out once we have dealt with this SI? I very much hope this SI is will be effective, but I hope he will explain, in the spirit of understanding, how it will operate in person and what it might mean, not just for us as Members of Parliament, but for the police, local authority officers and maybe traffic wardens who might be asked to disclose information? It is helpful for Parliament to set out its intent now, whether it is misspelt or not.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stella Creasy]

That is helpful to hear. Will the Minister clarify something? New section 49A, for example, mentions “any police officer”, “any local authority” and “any other person exercising functions of a public nature”.

Will he clarify what level, and will there be training provided? It is quite a big request to make of a police constable to share information. Equally, this will clearly be tested because it comes across other disclosure rules. For example, there are clear guidelines about supervising officers, which do not seem to be in this legislation. What protection will there be for a police constable, for example, maybe from prosecution or censure under general data protection regulation, without clarity as to who makes the decision on what information can be disclosed, and if it is a permissive, rather than mandatory, requirement?

[Leo Docherty]

I think it is the other way around and that this will actually afford greater protection because it will make things clearer and ensure that there is no risk of GDPR being used so that a certain individual finds themselves in a regrettable circumstance. I think it will clarify. Under this legislation, the public authorities that are exposed to these sorts of issues will be required to conduct that sort of training, and they will be responsible, as we would expect.

The hon. Lady then went on to a mischievous digression, because she sought to use the unfortunate inclusion of inaccurate acronyms as a means of shaking our confidence in not just this legislation but other new legislation as we tidy up our statute following our exit from the EU. I can say that there is no duck soup in this legislation or any other. Clearly drafting errors happen in legislation; it is the way that the world works, unfortunately, but we are, as parliamentarians, amenable and available to redraft and improve, as we are doing this afternoon. Therefore, in answer to the hon. Lady’s question, yes, I am confident not only that this piece of legislation is correct and in good order, but that the vast body of legislation that will flow from our leaving the EU will also be similarly effective and accurate. On that note, I again commend the instrument to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the Sanctions (EU Exit) (Miscellaneous Amendments) (No. 2) Regulations 2022 (SI. 2022, No. 818).

Sri Lanka

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Amanda Milling]

I think I have been clear throughout that we encourage all sides to find that peaceful, democratic and inclusive approach to resolving the situation. I stress to the House that the Minister for South Asia has been doing exactly that. He has been calling for that approach, but also engaging on the ground with the high commission and through all his ministerial contacts.

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

Madam Deputy Speaker, I am sure that you, and indeed the Minister, would agree that dismissing any woman’s urgent question in this House as “silly” is disrespectful to the subject matter in hand, because we all recognise how serious the situation is.

[Dr Offord]

How dare you?

--- Later in debate ---

[Stella Creasy]

The hon. Member may chunter from a sedentary position, but the women are talking now. We are talking about human rights because many of us recognise that, as the United Nations has told us, potentially more than 100,000 Tamils were killed during the 26-year genocide. The Minister will know that the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has been investigating the matter. Further to the question that my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms) asked, there is due to be a report and further criticism after the resolution at the United Nations. Can the Minister tell us whether she has had any talks with the United Nations about whether the timetable will vary? When might our constituents finally see justice for the Tamil communities?

[Amanda Milling]

Given the situation on the ground, it is a very serious matter. We are seeing deeply concerning scenes, so I am more than happy to be at the Dispatch Box answering this question. As I have said throughout, we are concerned about the human rights environment in Sri Lanka. Our concerns are wide-ranging, from the harassment of civil society groups to the range of civilian functions being brought under military control, the increased anti-Muslim sentiment and the reversal of progress on post-conflict accountability and reconciliation. I reassure the House that we lead the way with the UNHRC process and that we encourage Sri Lanka to respect democratic and international human rights standards.