Iran

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. That is incredibly important. It is not clear to me whether that is what caused the shooting down of the Ukrainian airliner in this case, but I am very willing to hear his points on that and on any initiative related to it.

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

I welcome the efforts of my right hon. Friend and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in going to Amman this weekend to express condolences for the death of our partner and friend Sultan Qaboos. Does he agree that, reaching out through friends in the region, particularly Qatar, Kuwait and, of course, the new Sultan Haitham in Oman, would be a good avenue for making sure that Iran not only comes back into the fold and frees its people from this awful tyranny, but perhaps gives up the policy of hostage-taking that has taken not just Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe away from her daughter, but many, many others from their families, too?

[Dominic Raab]

Like my hon. Friend, I pay tribute to the Sultan of Oman for his incredible track record of service to his country, and we look forward to working with the new Sultan and the Government of Oman on all those issues. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to condemn the taking of dual nationals into detention. The taking of Nazanin and of all the UK dual nationals is groundless. Their treatment has been well below the standards that we would expect. Fundamentally, they should all be released without condition. This is part of the pattern of unlawful behaviour that Iran needs to correct if it wants to come in from the international cold.

Britain in the World

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2020 Commons Chamber

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

I remember that my maiden speech was rather quicker—about four minutes—so I am glad you have given us a little bit longer, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I would like to start with some condolences. Not only do the people of Ukraine and Iran deserve our condolences, but the people of Oman. Sultan Qaboos was a great friend of the UK. His partnership with our country has enabled a peace process in the region to go on for years, very quietly and very sensitively. He has been an enormous friend. I look forward to our Government working with Sultan Haitham in the years to come.

The past two years in Parliament have, for me, been shaped by chairing the Foreign Affairs Committee. It was a huge pleasure to have had that chance. We published some 23 reports and 24 special reports. We had amazing help from the most fantastic Clerks in Parliament. I would like, if I may, to name three Clerks of the Committee—Chris Stanton, Tom Goldsmith and Chris Shaw—and thank them for their amazing work. I would also like to pay tribute to the former Member for Fife, Stephen Gethins, who was a very dear friend of ours, and to Ann Clwyd, who sat with us and was absolutely inspirational in many different moments.

The overarching area that we covered was not the academic exercise of foreign ideas; it was how we best promote the interests of the British people. How do we ensure the prosperity and happiness of these islands? What should we aim for? Who should we work with and how? We looked for solutions to the problems we face and sat patiently through hours of testimony, listening carefully to witnesses to find ideas that would help us to change the world for the better for all of us. I hope that as a Committee we served this House and our country well.

Many ideas came out of our inquiries and some, I am glad to say, have been adopted. Others are enduring and could still be adopted, should the Minister wish to do so. The top five areas of work for me were defending democracy against autocracies such as China and Russia; building bridges with partners such as India and Japan; growing businesses in new markets such as South America; our own organisation and the skills we need in our own Department to succeed; and, of course, starting afresh in Europe. We addressed the dangers to democracy in many reports, but none more so than our two reports entitled “Moscow’s Gold”, about the price of Russian money, and “A Cautious Embrace”, about the way in which some autocracies prey on our educational and cultural institutions. We argued each time that the Government must stand up for the values that make us stronger.

Those values define others, too. I am very glad that the Prime Minister is keen on bridge building, because there is a bridge that we would like him to build on: the living bridge that Prime Minister Modi speaks about—that link between peoples and between diasporas. The Home Secretary, who was an important contributor to that report, now has the power to put in place some of the recommendations she herself wrote: on simplifying the visa system; on making it easier for students, businesses and skilled workers to come to the UK from countries such as India; and on using technology to make things faster and cheaper. We must also look at new friends. Our report on South America did just that, calling for the trade commissioner’s team to be boosted and looking at how our great companies, such as JCB and Diageo, were already embedded in the continent and how much further we could go. When we look at the law, we see a platform that is being built on in those countries and could be built on elsewhere.

Closer to home, our new relationship with the European Union, and separately with the 27 sovereign nations that make it up, will be built on co-operation and friendship. I hear what the hon. Member for Stirling (Alyn Smith) says, but we must hope for the continuation of that good will and co-operation. I know that we are asking a lot of our partners. We are asking them to change when they did not choose to, but the truth is change is coming to Europe anyway. We know that there are changes within the European Union and between European states already. The world has changed, so it is hardly surprising that we must look to change with it.

The transformation that Britain is about to undergo internationally will define much of the work of this Government. Despite that, the Committee found, sadly, that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office was too often unable to bring policy together. Sadly, it is not even paying diplomats as much as other civil servants. If we are to deliver a global Britain, we need a clear direction and high morale to attract those who will shape our place in the world. That means a clear focus on the task ahead. We have an opportunity and a Government ready to set a course for ourselves and, I hope, for the world, with the kind of foreign policy that will be exciting and ambitious, and which I believe can be done.

Why am I so confident? The mandarin who was quoted in The Sunday Times last week, saying that this Administration do not care about foreign policy, is clearly wrong. The handling of the Iran crisis, leaving pressure to mount on the dictators in Tehran and not giving them an easy escape, has shown a deftness that we have been lacking for too long. Last month, the Government won the ability to deliver, and for the first time in almost a decade, we have a British Government that can decide a policy, shape it and make it happen. That will change the calculations of others, and while our partners may struggle, our Prime Minister is for the moment unchallenged at home. That gives confidence to friends and focuses the minds of enemies. The word of No. 10, the Foreign Secretary and the Defence Secretary is now real and deliverable and can be relied on, so now is the moment to build new partnerships.

I was privileged as Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee to welcome delegations from around the world, and one thing that struck me was, as the hon. Member for Stirling put it, how we are seen ourselves—[Interruption.] Forgive me for waking him from his reverie. When I met groups from South Korea, Japan, Colombia and many others, I heard from them that we are a partner that they seek to join. That is important, because they see not just our departure from the European Union, but our co-operation in networks such as the UN, NATO and the Commonwealth, which my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) champions so frequently, and many more besides—many of them born out of the imagination of British diplomats over many years.

[Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)]

I am proud to serve under my hon. Friend’s chairmanship of the Foreign Affairs Committee, on which I have served for the last 10 years. He would not want to end his remarks without referring to our reports on the British overseas territories and our success in persuading the Foreign Office at last to allow territories and dependencies the right to lay a wreath on Remembrance Sunday to remember those from the overseas territories and Crown dependencies who fought and died. It has taken years for that to happen and, because of our report, it has finally occurred.

[Tom Tugendhat]

I would love to claim credit for that, but the truth is that it is my hon. Friend’s work. He has championed that over a decade and has made a difference not just to the high commissioners, ambassadors and premiers who come to London, but to the hundreds of veterans and thousands of their families who are watching from around the world, seeing this home of remembrance every year.

The British Government should recognise that we have two pretty simple aims that we can, and should, go for: the happiness and the prosperity of the British people—no more than that. That is the strategic goal of any British Administration, and the question now is how we should deliver that. I think that we can build on three areas. We want an open world where the rule of law, freedom of navigation and freedom of trade, alongside the protection of our climate and human rights, work together by defending international treaties, by creating common practice and sometimes by independent action. This is what shaped our past, and although we should not try to go back there, we should certainly learn from it.

Fractures with Europe over history have seen us sail to the East and West Indies developing trading networks in ways that we would never replicate today, but that reminds of us a wider world. Today, partnering with new independent trading nations as equals, we have a new opportunity: to bring the new Indies together.

Over the past 70 years, we have heard one mantra constantly: alignment—alignment with everyone, alignment around the world. Whether it is with the European Union or others, it has seemed that the only way to get ahead is to replicate, and we must look to change that. More than ever, we need a world that dares to experiment and innovate, to get the best ideas and solutions for the challenges that we face. That requires an independence of mind. Not being part of the three great continental trading blocs—China, the European Union and the United States—this new group could focus on recognition, rather than alignment, and new ways of working together: a less rigid partnership, more Commonwealth, perhaps, than common purpose. That may be the better starting point. Many of my friends may be surprised to hear me say this, because I remain a passionate European— I would have to be with a wife who is French, and I remain still afeard of her. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) put it, Britain is and will remain in Europe, but of course, Europe is not Brussels.

Europe is 450 million people. Its cultures are as diverse as the people in northern Finland and southern Italy. It is what has given us and the world amazing art and culture, science and innovation. That came not from common alignment, but from competition and experimentation that led to the natural selection of ideas. Europe’s fractured land mass allowed ideas to take root and allowed experiments to find different solutions to the problems we face. Co-operation, not unanimity, should be what we aim for, and not just with Europe. The new Indies—the new partnerships—will be a way to build that.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Gentleman has spoken passionately about many parts of the world. In terms of the horn of Africa in particular, he knows that I am a long-term supporter of the cause of Somaliland, a place where not only do we have trading potential and great historical and cultural links with what was a British protectorate, but the Department for International Development plays a key role. Does he agree that such regions and countries are places where we could bring all parts of British foreign policy together?

[Tom Tugendhat]

My hon. Friend—I say that because he is a friend—is absolutely right: it is about the way that we partner with countries around the world, including Somaliland, bringing together not just foreign or aid efforts, but sometimes justice, the rule of law, policing and maybe even defence to make sure that we have a co-operative and integrated approach to delivering real change to such countries. That is exactly where we should be going.

Forgive me, Madam Deputy Speaker; I will wrap up very quickly. Our role should be to build on the insurance model that we had, and to remember that we can underwrite many of the ways that the world has traded in looking at the norms that we set out. Just as we sailed the seas, we must sail the new accountancy, looking at ways to create entities that share the responsibility that we expect of companies with aspiration and innovation. We need a revolution in thinking, and we need to experiment with regulations that promote growth and opportunity.

This will not work as long as the rules are regularly flouted. That is why China’s adherence to the rule of law is of great concern. State-owned and state-subsidised business such as Huawei not only use data from police states where human rights are regularly violated—such as Xinjiang—but seek a market dominance that we should resist. Urging South Korea’s Samsung and Japan’s Fujitsu to bid in the 5G world would make more sense than deepening our dependence on the Chinese Communist party. This is a 70th birthday gift that it does not need. Closer to home, Russia’s rhetoric and aggression are a reminder that we need to remain vigilant, and our nuclear fleet remains an essential part of our defence. It is to this world that the Government’s new foreign and defence review should respond, and it needs to be ambitious.

We want a world of opportunity and investment, where we can not only stretch our wings but partner with others. That will sometimes mean the United States, it will sometimes mean Europe, and it will sometimes mean others around the world, but as global Britain, we need global partners. As we chart a new course for our country, I am glad that we are looking forward. Too much of the past four years has been spent looking backwards and fighting battles that have been settled. I am glad that we have a Prime Minister who has set out an ambitious agenda, because that ambition matters. I am grateful that you have given me the time to explore these ideas, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

It is a great pleasure to call Daisy Cooper to make her maiden speech.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stafford (Theo Clarke). I think we have already seen and heard enough to know that she will be a credit to her constituents and to her party. I am also pleased that she paid such a kind tribute to her predecessor. However, I say to her as someone who does regular surgeries in four or five of my larger villages that if she does a surgery in every one of the villages she read out, and the ones she did not, she will be extremely busy indeed.

Before I turn to the debate proper, I want to make an observation about the speech by the hon. and gallant Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat). It was a good speech, but I have two observations. The hon. and gallant Gentleman said that we would work with the European Union and the 27 countries, but have we not noticed that over the past two or three years the European Union has operated as an extremely disciplined single bloc? I think that trying to pair one or two countries off would be a fool’s errand. My second observation is that in the past week or so we have heard comments from Michel Barnier that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to complete a comprehensive trade deal in 11 months. We also heard Ursula von der Leyen saying last week that the UK would have to compromise and prioritise, so I hope that the hon. and gallant Gentleman agrees that we should suggest to the Government that putting the setting of objectives first and silly timetables second might be a really good way to proceed.

[Tom Tugendhat]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving way. I will not address his second point—he has addressed it thoroughly enough—but on his first point, there are many areas in which we co-operate bilaterally with France. The Lancaster House and Sandhurst agreements are among many examples.

[Stewart Hosie]

Indeed, but I think the hon. Gentleman understands the point I was making, which was that we do not want to find ourselves tied to ridiculous red lines and timetables when the objectives are the key thing.

It is a pleasure to take part in this debate on the Gracious Speech. As with every Queen’s Speech or programme for government, there are certain measures that one would welcome—not least, in the case of this Queen’s Speech, the announcement of increased tax credits for research and development. I say that because innovative economies are more productive economies, and when we come to combat the inevitable decline caused by Brexit, the more innovative and productive we can be, the better. A word of caution, however: research and development tax credits are a function of corporation tax, and not every innovative or innovating company, particularly the small ones, pays corporation tax. So if we can have a little imagination from the Treasury Bench about how we support innovation in smaller companies, that would be very welcome. I also welcome the announcement that measures will be developed to tackle hostile activity by foreign states, and I hope that that builds upon some of the excellent work already done in the private and public sectors, and essentially by the National Cyber Security Centre.

Although some of the measures to tackle climate change are very welcome, particularly coming from this Government, they are described as being “world leading” when they are nothing of the kind. The sad truth is that is a thin and poor programme for government. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) said when opposing the programme on the opening day of this debate, our party stands against this Government’s

“cruel, punishing policies and narrow, backward-gazing politics.”—[Official Report, 19 December 2019; Vol. 669, c. 51.]

I would go further than that. Some of the measures in the programme—such as an immigration Bill that will end in law the free movement of people—will further diminish the UK’s ability to attract the best and brightest, as well as much-needed labour in other sectors, and very much risks turning the UK into an insular, reduced and backward-looking place.

Before addressing the impact that ending free movement will have on the agriculture, hospitality and care sectors, the brain drain that the UK Government’s hostile environment is already causing, and the brutish logic of the Tory party—whose plans will reduce the ability of young Scots and, indeed, youngsters from throughout these islands, to live, love, work and study freely throughout Europe—we might want to consider the practical implications of trade and how those matters are related.

When Commission President von der Leyen said last week:

“Without the freedom of movement of people, you cannot have the free movement of capital, goods and services”,

the Government should have listened. At a time when we need to boost trade, we should be paying attention to the damage that will be done to capital markets, the City of London and the ability to export services, all of which depend on people being able to travel freely. Given the damage that Brexit will cause to UK global trade, the UK Government should be doing everything possible to remove every conceivable obstacle to protecting and enhancing the opportunities to maintain and grow trade of all sorts—free, fair trade, with a level playing field. Instead, in spite of the clearest of warnings, yet more obstacles are being erected, this time by ending in law the free movement of people, which will further weaken and diminish the UK’s ability to strike good trade deals to compensate for the losses and minimise the additional costs that Brexit will cause.

We should put a couple of numbers on this. Everybody knows that there are dozens of economic assessments of Brexit. With one exception, they are universally negative. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research provides an average assessment. We could lose perhaps 20% of total global UK trade with a bad Brexit, and that is where we are heading. If we cut a deal with all the main English-speaking economies and with all the BRICS countries—Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa—we might claw back 5% or 6%. It does not take a genius to work out that we will soon run out of large countries with which to cut deals to compensate for the losses, so adding additional obstacles strikes me as making no sense.

Australian Bushfires

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Wheeler]

Of course, the hon. Member asked about climate change. On that, the most important thing is that we are going to be chairing COP26, so we have ambitious climate change targets for all countries going forward. When I go on trips to other countries, I am looking forward to asking all of them how ambitious they are going to be. On money, specifically, we are increasing our international climate finance offer from £8.5 billion between 2016 and 2020 to £11.6 billion over the period 2021 to 2025, in order to help developing countries take action.

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

It is a great pleasure to see you in your place, Madam Deputy Speaker. I welcome the Minister’s statement and I am very grateful that the Prime Minister has made the offer to his opposite number Scott Morrison. I also welcome the partnership the Minister has spoken of, but is there more we could do? I ask that because the Foreign Office has such excellent links with the Australian Administration—indeed, we were one and the same until about the 1960s. We have several members of the Commonwealth of Australia sitting on these Benches, and it is a pleasure to have them here. Can we look at co-operating with regional partners, bringing together an alliance of others not just to engage in Australia but to deal with the forest fires we are seeing around the world?

[Mrs Wheeler]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. He is perhaps soon again to be the Chairman of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs. [Interruption.] I said “perhaps”. One thing that was really helpful when Lord Ahmad was out in Australia was the fact that we hold the Chair-in-Office of the Commonwealth at the moment. One thing we are doing as part of the Commonwealth is getting member states to work together on this matter, through initiatives such as the Blue Charter and the Queen’s Commonwealth Canopy. So we are there as a group promoting environmental protection across the world.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Stephenson]

The UK has committed to finding a sustainable solution to the Rohingya crisis. We will continue to work in Myanmar and Bangladesh to ensure safe and dignified returns, and ensure that they are all voluntary. Through the European Union, we imposed sanctions on 14 individuals responsible for human rights violations during the 2017 Rohingya crisis. We will continue to work with the United Nations, the EU and other international actors to hold to account those responsible for these appalling atrocities.

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

May I add the tributes of Kent to your speakership, Mr Speaker? May I also personally pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd), who has spoken up on human rights issues in this House for 30 years and has not tired of arguing for people around the world whose rights are challenged? May I also thank her for what she has done over the past two years, when she has been on the Foreign Affairs Committee and been an amazing friend, counsel and adviser? The last report that she has played her part in is on the human rights of this country and how democracies can defend themselves against autocratic influence from around the world. Does the Minister agree that there is much more we can do to defend academic freedoms in this country from Chinese influence and democratic freedoms from Russian influence?

[Andrew Stephenson]

The UK has a long tradition of protecting human rights domestically and fulfilling our international human rights obligations, but, as my hon. Friend the Chair of the FAC has just said, there are concerns about academic freedoms, particularly given the influence of China, and Russian interference. Those two issues are serious and I know that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary pays close attention to them.

Intelligence and Security Committee Report on Russia

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2019 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

The timelines for the submission of the report, relative to the timelines of submissions of previous reports, speak for themselves. The CT attacks report took about six weeks to turn around, with four weeks between its submission and a response from the Government, and the detainees report took about three weeks from the point of submission to the point of response. Such timelines are not unusual, and, although I am sure that they were made in absolute good faith, I do not recognise the comments of the ISC secretariat. The timelines speak for themselves.

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

The Minister is entirely right to say that scrutiny dispels fantasy, and this is one of those moments when I feel that scrutiny would be entirely appropriate to dispel that fantasy. There can be few Members like my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), or my right hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Mr Simpson), or, indeed, many other members of the ISC, who were all personally chosen by the Prime Minister for their judgment, their character and their wisdom. Would it not be appropriate—at a moment when the country is focused on the most important democratic event that we will hold for, certainly, a number of years—for the information that is needed for us to judge its legitimacy to be put before the House, so that people can see the fantasy that some are claiming, and this can all go away?

[Christopher Pincher]

I do not question the probity of those who have compiled this report, and I certainly recognise the wisdom of my hon. Friend, who chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee. I therefore think it unfortunate that some in the House have chosen to question the probity of Government officials and the wisdom of the Prime Minister in properly scrutinising an important report that has been laid before him. As I have said, that report went to No. 10 on 17 October. It will be properly scrutinised, but that set of considerations has not been concluded yet.

Turkish Incursion into Northern Syria

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

No; that is well known. We need to be strengthening NATO, not weakening it, as well as working very closely with our UN partners and agencies.

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

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood). Does my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State know of any other policy decision by any ally that has so exposed our troops in combat, weakened our alliances in the region, undermined our essential security partnership in NATO and empowered our enemies in Russia and Iran? Will he perhaps also tell me what he will be doing to ensure that the UK invests more fully in our own defence and security to support the multinational alliances that keep us safe and extend the security that our people rely on around the world?

[Dominic Raab]

My hon. Friend, the Chair of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, raises a number of good points. No, I cannot think of an occasion when such a close NATO ally has behaved in such a way. It raises concerns about the humanitarian situation and the counter-terrorism situation. My hon. Friend is also right to point out that it is all the more reason—an impetus—for us to invest in our military. We are one of leading members of NATO that are committed to spending 2% of GDP on defence, and we are committed to investing; and he will have heard the Chancellor’s comments on future investment. We also need to recommit and reinvigorate the NATO alliance because it is not clear to anyone—at least on the Government Benches—what would replace it.

Britain's Place in the World

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2019 Commons Chamber

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

My hon. Friend is speaking powerfully about freedom of religion or belief. As he knows, my Committee is looking to take evidence in an inquiry on this subject in the coming weeks. Will he speak for a moment about the importance of the Foreign Office in supporting freedom of religion or belief? For example, his own work defending Asia Bibi in Pakistan and speaking up for Coptic Christians in Egypt has been extremely important to many of us.

[Rehman Chishti]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee. I look to his work for guidance because across the House Members of Parliament are respected for their expertise, understanding and credibility, and he demonstrated that on the Asia Bibi case, when he held the Government to account for not doing the right thing. I thank him for standing up for our British values. I resigned from the Government over that case because I did not agree with the way in which it was handled, and the current Prime Minister supported me. If the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee wants me to give evidence as the Prime Minister’s special envoy for freedom of religion or belief, I would be more than happy to do so—subject to the rules and criteria of the Foreign Office and the Prime Minister’s office.

I have tendered my terms of reference—eight objectives and 27 terms—to the Prime Minister in order to carry out my work. I have met and listened to brilliant British and international non-governmental organisations such as Christian Solidarity Worldwide, Aid to the Church in Need and Open Doors. I have also met diplomats from across a number of different countries and parliamentarians from Nigeria, and I now look forward to meeting the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary to take this work forward.

CSW’s website states that 83% of the world’s population live in nations where religious freedom is threatened or banned. How can that possibly be right? We are talking about countries in east Asia, Latin America, the middle east, north Africa, south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa; there is persecution across the world. The Bishop of Truro’s report makes it very clear that Christians are the most persecuted faith in the world, and that freedom of religion for everyone should be a priority for countries around the world.

I should make a declaration of interest. Before going to the Vatican for three days, I was in Bahrain for over 36 hours, where I met His Majesty King Hamad and looked at the Bahrain declaration. For the two days that I stayed there, the Government of Bahrain provided my accommodation before I went on transit to the Vatican. That happened last week and will be on the Register of Members’ Financial Interests within the timescale. On my visit, I made it clear that we need to work with countries such as Bahrain—which has had churches since 1823 and a Hindu temple for 200 years—along with other international partners.

Before I delivered my terms, I met communities that are persecuted around the world. Here in the UK, I met the British Ahmadiyya Muslim community and the Baha’i community, and listened to them talk about the persecution they face. Working with individuals across the board, I will ensure that freedom of religion is pushed at every possible level.

Let me finally pay tribute to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, who has done immense work over the past 40 years on inter-faith dialogue—theological debate and discussion is how we are going to deal with intolerance. I say to colleagues from across the House that I look towards them so that we can have these frank discussions and take this vital work forward, because every citizen has a right to practise their faith openly and freely.

US Troop Withdrawal from Northern Syria

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

I understand the right hon. Lady’s frustration. We must be clear that we cannot act alone and that we have to act with our partners. That is the reality. The Kurds are not being stabbed in the back by the United Kingdom, but US actions are obviously a matter for the US. I hope that my remarks have provided my understanding of the extent and scope of what is in the President’s head, so far as I can, and it seems that some of the more exaggerated claims have probably been overdone. However, the right hon. Lady is right that the situation is highly kinetic and that things change from moment to moment. If things do change further, I rather suspect that I will be back in his place before too long.

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

The Minister will be aware that one principle of military action is the need for surprise, but we normally try to surprise the enemy, not our friends. Here we find ourselves surprised by the actions of our most important ally, and our allies on the ground have been surprised by the possibility that they may find their homes under serious threat from another of our important military allies—Turkey. Will the Minister please assure me that our other allies in the region are being assured that the UK will not make a pattern of being a fair-weather friend but will commit to our allies seriously and properly?

[Dr Murrison]

The only point I would make about surprise is that President Erdoğan has, of course, threatened this on a number of occasions, and he has previous in relation to Afrin. This has not come out of the blue, but I agree that we need to ensure that we do everything we can to understand our colleagues’ thinking on these matters so that we can act in a relatively joined up way, if possible.

Sanctions Policy and Implementation

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

Thursday 3rd October 2019 Westminster Hall

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

I beg to move,

That this House has considered sanctions policy and implementation.

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Davies. Sadly, I will not be following your example with a 12-hour peroration; I will limit myself to merely five.

I am very pleased to move this motion on a subject about which the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, which I am privileged to chair, has felt strongly for several years, because sanctions are one of the tools that defend the commercial frontline of the United Kingdom. This debate is an opportunity for me, and I hope others, to speak about the country’s sanctions policy. In June, the Committee published our first report on sanctions, and last month we received the Government’s response. On behalf of my colleagues, I thank everyone who submitted evidence, particularly those who appeared in person.

We focused on sanctions policy because it increasingly matters. Two thirds of the UK’s sanctions are currently agreed and implemented at European Union level, so we need a coherent and robust sanctions policy ready for when we leave the organisation. However, Brexit is far from being the only reason for urgency. An effective sanctions policy is an important part of something much more fundamental to communities across our country. It is not just a crucial part of UK foreign policy and national security and the rules-based international system, although of course it is part of all of those; it is a rampart that defends public confidence in open and honest markets. It is, in many ways, a defence of the capitalist system on which we have built our prosperity and economy for so many years. That matters because confidence in that system is key to our future prosperity, but that confidence is in short supply.

Two years ago, Matthew Elliott and James Kanagasooriam wrote an excellent report, “Public opinion in the post-Brexit era”, based on polling by Populus. They found a growing tendency among people of all ages—not just the young—to label capitalism as greedy or corrupt. We all know about the problems in some markets that explain why people think of the word “greedy”, but I am interested in why they think capitalism is corrupt. The answer, I think, lies in people’s growing awareness of how a tiny number of people have made staggeringly large sums of money, and of how those oligarchs use bankers, lawyers, accountants and company formation agents in this country to protect their ill-gotten wealth. Last year, the compelling BBC series “McMafia”, based on a book that Misha Glenny wrote a decade ago, did a superb job of dramatising how they have done so.

If there was any residual complacency about this country’s role in international corruption, Oliver Bullough’s book “Moneyland”, which was published only a few months later, dispelled it. His extraordinary tome is an essential read for anyone who wishes to understand how international finance can corrupt even us—even here, in one of the most law-abiding societies in the world. Oliver Bullough set out the three-step cycle that oligarchs follow—steal, hide, spend—and described the role that middlemen in this country play in parts two and three of that process. It is nothing to be proud of, but it means that our sanctions policy can have real bite.

Our sanctions policy can be a real tool of foreign influence. The reliance of many oligarchs on London as a place to launder and spend the money that they have stolen creates an opportunity for us to carve out a role as the champion of a more moral capitalism. From arts, to education, to property, we all know that this country has sometimes been too tolerant of those who would do us harm using our schools, our galleries and our buildings that house them. Well-aimed sanctions will help us to tackle the dangerous, corrosive perception that all capitalism is corrupt by making less easy the lives of those whose wealth derives from theft and violence.

Evidence that we took during our “Moscow’s Gold” inquiry last year reinforced that point. We heard how the En+ Group was listed on the London stock exchange at a time when the sanctions regime in the UK was not equipped to prevent that, even though the company was linked to sanctioned organisations in Russia. As part of that inquiry, we invited Linklaters to give evidence. It is a highly reputable law firm that conducts half of the deals in Russia—or so it says—and acted for En+ during the listing. We invited it to give evidence not on any specific client, which of course it could not do, but on the nature of doing business in the legal wild west that is modern Moscow. It declined to do so. I will leave others to judge what that says about its willingness to offer evidence to the British people. I welcome the Government’s confirmation that they will explore ways to block listings on the London stock exchange on national security grounds.

In “Moscow’s Gold”, we advocated a Magnitsky Act, which many in the House will have heard of. It is named after Sergei Magnitsky, a tax adviser who was tortured to death in Russia. The law would enable the Government to impose sanctions on human rights abusers around the world. The measures were all included in the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill, which has now become law, but there was uncertainty as to whether sanctions could be implemented before Brexit and the end of any transition period. I am pleased to see that the Government have established that there is no obstacle to doing so, and I very much welcome the Minister’s acknowledgement of that.

Many of our allies have already implemented the measure. It is not just targeted at Russia, despite the name; it is targeted at human rights abusers around the world. A Magnitsky Act would enable us to join our allies and send a powerful signal that we support the victims of human rights abuse around the world and will not profit from their abusers’ theft and murder.

As our latest report on sanctions shows, there is much else still to be done. Witnesses repeatedly told us that the Government’s approach to sanctions is fragmented and incoherent. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office makes the policy, which a variety of other Departments then implement. Departments interpret sanctions policy inconsistently and, sadly, too often with very little guidance. It does not help that sanctions and anti-money laundering policies are separate. As the then Minister of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Sir Alan Duncan), put it when giving evidence to our Committee, financial crime

“is not quite our patch.”

To bring more coherence to the sanctions policy of the United Kingdom, we recommended that the Government establish a senior responsible officer for policy and its delivery. While multiple senior responsible officers overseeing sanctions policy exist within the Foreign Office, Brexit offers a perfect opportunity, as the Government note, to create one who can span the whole of Whitehall. We also recommended that this person should be accountable to the National Security Council, which should in turn designate sanctions strategy as an urgent priority. We have therefore called for a review this year by the National Security Council to ensure that the resources that it needs to make sanctions a priority are in place. To be effective, the review should explore how the UK can explore its heft in financial services and address exactly how we should engage with our international partners and influence their decision making in the years ahead.

This report was the second one we have published in this Parliament on the connection between finance and foreign policy. In “Moscow’s Gold”, we showed how Russia is using our financial markets to subvert the international rules-based system. What is more, the cynicism that that generates undermines our own faith in the order that has kept us safe.

We are looking at more work, however. One area that we are beginning to investigate is the nature of autocratic engagement with democracies such as ours. Although the focus, so far, has been on Russia, we could list many other countries. We could certainly look at some of the ways in which China uses its state assets to influence markets around the world. The United States is also considering that, so we will be working on it together.

Our new report shows that the Government have much to do if they are to make sanctions an effective weapon and not cede the initiative to others in the field. In a world where financiers have become foot soldiers in foreign policy, we need to wake up and recognise that our international financial markets are the frontline. They can be used against us, but they also give us a home advantage. In a world where the rule of law is threatened, the pursuit of dirty money is now a vital part of foreign policy.

That fight starts on our doorstep. There is no room for complacency; we need to hurry. The UK is on the frontline of financial crime. Our people deserve a better defence and they deserve to have the weapons to achieve it. We need to make sure that our commercial fortifications are as strong as our physical ones. We need a Royal Navy for the financial markets.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for the Middle East and North Africa (Dr Andrew Murrison)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I shall do what I can to expand my speech to fit the time available. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) on introducing this subject for debate today. I am sorry there are not more people here to debate the matter. It is, as the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant), who speaks for the Scottish National party, says, an important matter and such a debate would ordinarily be attended by a significant number of colleagues wishing to contribute—but these are not normal times, are they?

The speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling was magisterial; he hit the nail on the head, and I will do my best to cover the issues he has raised. I also congratulate him and his Committee on their report of 5 June. As the ex-Chairman of a Select Committee myself, I know a little about drafting Select Committee reports. I understand full well that the main thing is to get the title right, and his report’s title certainly shoots from the hip: “Fragmented and incoherent: the UK’s sanctions policy”. I do not think we need to read much further, although I did, last night. I read it in great depth and detail to know where the Foreign Affairs Committee is coming from. Since the report, a lot has happened and I hope in my remarks to be able to persuade my hon. Friend of that.

I apologise that the Minister for Europe and the Americas, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher), is not in the Chamber today; he is the Minister with responsibility for sanctions, but he is abroad on duty. I have dealt with sanctions a fair amount because of my geographic portfolio, so I hope I am reasonably well placed to comment on some of the issues contained within the report and the more general questions. I enjoyed the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling about capitalism in general. We could have such a debate for many hours, but this is not the place—you would probably call me to order, Mr Davies, if I attempted to do that. However, I sympathise with the general thrust of what my hon. Friend said. I am reminded the remarks made about a decade ago by Peter Mandelson, now Lord Mandelson, about being “intensely relaxed” about people getting “filthy rich”. I did not particularly like that at the time, not because I object to people becoming wealthy if they have the talents and the attributes to do so, but because I objected to the word “filthy”, which probably touches on the thought processes that will have gone through the minds of members of my hon. Friend’s Committee when they drafted their report on dirty money from Russia.

It is clearly not the case that this country does not want people to invest here. London and, indeed, Edinburgh rely heavily on inward investment and financial transactions. However, this country has a reputation for standards—that is part of the UK’s attractiveness as a source for foreign investment—and that depends on sufficient, adequate and proper regulation and the rule of law. In anticipation of Brexit, we will need to think about that when transposing into our domestic law the European Union’s rules and regulations, and when we consider what we will do next. Clearly—I will come on to this—we need to be alongside others. Today’s contributors made the point well that this is so much more effective if we work with others. We also need to consider what the UK will need to do unilaterally. There are advantages, I would say, in our soon to be autonomous status and in being able to do things more rapidly. That has to be counted as one of the advantages of Brexit after 31 October. I would certainly anticipate that being the case in relation to sanctions, but I absolutely accept the added value in acting multilaterally in that particular space. There is very good evidence to suggest that that is the best way to approach sanctions in the main.

Sanctions are a key tool for the pursuit of our foreign policy and national security objectives. They play a central role in supporting our efforts on priority issues, including tackling human rights abuses, which formed the substance of a great deal of what the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee touched on. They are central to countering terrorism, to the non-proliferation of chemical weapons and to upholding the rules-based international system.

This country has consistently played a leading role in the use of sanctions at the United Nations and the EU, to support our foreign policy objectives on Russia for its actions in Ukraine, and on Iran and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to slow or halt nuclear proliferation. In the last year alone, we have led the way in the adoption of sanctions against challenging individuals, from hate preachers to Syrian businessmen intent on funding the murderous Assad regime. We also led efforts to establish the first EU chemical weapons sanctions regime, and secured travel bans and asset freezes against individuals and leadership in the Russian intelligence service responsible for the use of chemical weapons on the streets of Salisbury last year. That is an issue about which I feel particularly strongly, since my constituency abuts that of Salisbury. I am very pleased that Messrs Chepiga and Mishkin have fallen foul of that particular sanctions operation. You will remember, Mr Davies, that they were the gentlemen who professed to show a particular interest in English ecclesiastical architecture but who were clearly part of the GRU. Fortunately, we have been able to apply sanctions to them. It is those sorts of individuals, and the entities they work for, that any future sanctions regime would seek to act against.

In total we implement 37 UN and EU sanctions regimes, and almost 2,000 individuals and entities are prevented from travelling to, or investing in, the United Kingdom as a result. The Government’s focus over the past two years has rightly been on preparing for Brexit. The Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act received Royal Assent in May 2018, and since then we have laid 24 statutory instruments, mostly in order to transfer EU and UN sanctions regimes into domestic law from the point that the United Kingdom will no longer be bound by the EU.

We have reviewed about 1,000 individual EU sanctions designations to consider whether they satisfy United Kingdom legal thresholds. We have also set up the necessary processes to allow us to publish on gov.uk the names of those sanctioned under United Kingdom sanctions. The scope of that task was unprecedented, and as such we prioritised the work accordingly to ensure the continued application of existing sanctions after Brexit. I am sure that right hon. and hon. Members will understand that, first and foremost, our focus with this and every other Brexit-related piece of work across Government is on having to transpose into UK domestic arrangements 40 years’ worth of EU norms, values, rules and regulations. That has been the principal focus across Government, and I think that most people will understand how important that is.

After we leave the EU, however, we will have our own independent sanctions powers and will be able to consider exactly how we use sanctions as part of our broader foreign policy. Once we are outside the EU, we will have the opportunity to deploy sanctions more swiftly and decisively in support of our national interest. In the event of an international crisis, we will no longer have to wait for consensus among 28 members of the EU, but will be able to act in our national capacity. The sanctions Act and the supporting secondary legislation give us the freedom to decide national sanctions as we see fit, aligning with our key priorities, notwithstanding my remarks about acting together.

Sanctions are most effective when jointly enforced by many nations. That is why we fully intend to continue to drive co-ordination on sanctions with our key partners, EU members and other close allies such as the US or Canada, and through the G7. Indeed, in the 5 June report, the importance of working together is underscored several times, notably by authorities such as Professor Paul Cardwell and RUSI, who were quite clear that sanctions are most effective when they are applied multilaterally—a point that was well made by the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for Glenrothes.

We will continue to use our permanent seat on the UN Security Council to ensure co-ordinated and effective action on UN sanctions; indeed, that was one of the issues that was discussed around the bazaars last week at the UN General Assembly, from which—by force of circumstance, sadly—Ministers were untimely ripp’d. Nevertheless, it is clearly an important part of the toolbox that multinational forums such as the United Nations are exercised about. They are right to be, and it is very often at those forums that such measures are most effectively exercised. We will continue to make sure that that is the case with the European Union and with others.

The United Kingdom wants a supportive and constructive relationship with the EU as constitutional equals going forward, and as friends and partners we want to face the challenges that lie ahead together. Although we will exercise the power to impose sanctions independently, that will not prevent the United Kingdom from co-ordinating with the European Union. The outcome will be that we enjoy both freedom of manoeuvre and the option of working alongside the EU on sanctions where our objectives align.

In answer to a point raised by the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr Mahmood), however, we cannot set out in detail how the UK and the EU will co-operate on sanctions in future until the terms of the United Kingdom’s departure from the EU are clear. I am sorry that I cannot be any more specific, but he will understand that these things are all evolving all the time. With respect to the future relationship, it would be very difficult to be more prescriptive about what the future will look like, not least because the United Kingdom is only one party to the arrangements going forward. That is a matter that will have to be determined, but it seems to me that of all the things to determine in the future relationship, such issues are perhaps among the lower-hanging fruit.

The United Kingdom’s impact in multilateral settings has ensured that sanctions play a part in confronting and combating a range of hostile state activities. It has also ensured that those sanctions have wide applicability beyond the United Kingdom’s jurisdiction. We led the debate on maintaining and strengthening multilateral sanctions against Russia for its illegal annexation of Crimea and for its destabilising actions in eastern Ukraine. The United Kingdom also fully supports new sanctions in response to Russian elections in Crimea and Sevastopol, the construction of the Kerch bridge, the illegitimate elections in the Donbass, and Russia’s attack on Ukrainian vessels in the Black sea. National sanctions will also allow us to continue to constrain the ability of those who wish to do us harm, to encourage changes in behaviour from malign actors, and to send a clear signal about the role of global Britain as a moral anchor in the world today.

Let me turn to the Magnitsky powers, which were the principal focus of the remarks of the Chairman of the Select Committee. As he knows, preparatory work is under way to implement a new independent human rights sanctions regime as soon as practicable after we leave the European Union. That work has proceeded apace since March—from around the time that he delivered his report. It was probably reasonable for the Select Committee to comment at that time about its concern that not enough planning had been done for the subsequent sanctions regime, but I assure him that a great deal has happened since then.

[Tom Tugendhat]

Our report had the desired effect.

[Dr Murrison]

Indeed. One has to take credit where one can in this business, and I am pleased to say that my hon. Friend is right to take some of the credit for moving the narrative along. More particularly, I am pleased to see that the work in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which also involves others, as I will come on to, has been proceeding apace. I am comfortable that we are in a good position to deal with some of those things in a timely manner at the point of our departure on 31 October.

As a non-lawyer, it is sometimes challenging and tricky to get my head around some of the complexities of the issue. The worst thing that we could do would be to create bad law that would be challengeable, because it would cost the British taxpayer many millions of pounds to defend the UK Government against people with very deep pockets. The last thing that my constituents want is for large sums of their cash to be disbursed to some of those individuals in damages. It is absolutely right that, across Government, we work hard to make sure that the legislation is in place and the statutory instruments are prepared in such a way as to minimise the chance of the UK Government being challenged by lawyers.

The sanctions regime that we are discussing derives from the so-called Magnitsky powers provided for in the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act. Clearly, all those here gathered are intensely interested in that legislation and its secondary legislation. Establishing a national human rights sanctions regime will show the United Kingdom’s commitment to human rights worldwide and will be an important plank in our post-Brexit foreign policy. It will allow the United Kingdom to impose travel bans and asset freezes, and it will ensure that people who abuse human rights anywhere in the world will not be able to travel here or invest in our economy. The Government will publish the names of those subject to those sanctions.

To impose a sanctions regime for human rights, we have drafted a statutory instrument to ensure the associated processes and structures are in place to implement and manage it. It is important that we set it up correctly, and I am absolutely focused on ensuring that those processes and structures are as legally robust and watertight as they can be. That has perhaps accounted for some of the delay that was remarked on in the report, in which the frustration of Select Committee members was palpable. I hope that my hon. Friend the Chair of the Select Committee understands the reasons for that. There is a need to replicate EU sanctions following Brexit and work has been going on in the past few months with legal draftsmen to ensure that the subsequent regime, particularly in relation to the Magnitsky clause that was introduced by the 2018 Act, is robust and will hold water against what is likely to be a hostile response from some of those designated under the legislation.

Hon. Members will be pleased to know that we are working closely with key partners, such as the US and Canada, which already have specific human rights sanctions regimes, to co-ordinate our efforts and to ensure that the sanctions that we impose have maximum effect. The Government are absolutely committed to tackling illicit finance, corruption and money laundering. We do not want dirty money here; money launderers are not welcome in the UK. We are actively implementing our anti-corruption strategy, led by the Prime Minister’s anti-corruption champion, my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose). The National Security Council has met twice to discuss the issue, and the Government are consulting on reforms to Companies House and on introducing legislation to require foreign companies that own or purchase property in the UK to provide beneficial ownership information.

We have new and exciting tools to tackle illicit finance, such as unexplained wealth orders and account freezing orders, which were introduced under the Criminal Finances Act 2017. Those have been used to isolate millions of pounds across hundreds of bank accounts. Consequently, and as a direct result of all that work, the Financial Action Task Force found in 2018 that the United Kingdom had the strongest anti-money laundering regime of more than 60 countries assessed to date. I think we should all be proud of that, but there is no complacency. In July 2019, we published an economic crime plan in conjunction with the private sector. The plan outlines the public and private sectors’ collective ambition to combat economic crime and sets out a series of actions that both sectors will undertake to enhance the United Kingdom’s economic crime response. The plan was the first output from the economic crime strategic board, which the Chancellor and the Home Secretary co-chair. We are also actively looking at the possibility of introducing a power to block a listing on the London stock exchange on national security grounds. The work is well under way.

Although the issues are primarily the responsibility of the Home Office and the Treasury, the FCO plays a part as well. It leads the international delivery of the Home Office serious and organised crime strategy, supporting the overseas territories and Crown dependencies in tackling illicit finance and co-ordinating with the Department for International Development, Her Majesty’s Treasury and other Departments to deliver a global anti-corruption programme. It is important to understand the central role of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Ministers within the FCO are signed up to jointery and the idea that if we are to deal with all the issues that we have been discussing this afternoon, we need a cross-Government response.

I note the concerns about senior responsible officers for sanctions, and I read the remarks in the report very carefully. If we had a senior official responsible for this piece of work, which runs like a vein through the whole of Government business, I would be concerned about their being isolated. Although the proposal is that such an individual should report to the NSC, my worry—it is a concern that I have more generally with the machinery of government—is that we would be taking important bits of Government policy outside implementing Departments and making Departments respond in a sort of silo format to the NSC. Before too long, we would find that the NSC was responsible for a raft of bits of Government policy, and Departments were in some way isolated and frozen out. The Departments are expected to implement all of this and they have the experts and the expertise to deal with it, and I am vaguely uncomfortable with such a proposal.

In defence of the current position—all issues around the machinery of government are of course kept under review and are always subject to change and modification—the national security strategy and implementation groups, with which my hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling will be familiar, are headed up at director general level and report directly into the NSC. I know that Russia is a particular concern of the Foreign Affairs Committee, for example, and the one on Russia is influential in securing that cross-Government response to the challenges posed by that particular malign actor. My sense is that such a mechanism serves Government well and is the best fit right now, but as with anything in this space, it is always subject to constant review and reappraisal.

The remarks made in the report are important in informing the general debate on how we do this. I hope that the Chairman of the Select Committee, and others, will understand the rationale for perhaps resisting, at this juncture, the solution proposed in the report. Perhaps it is something we may come back to at a future date.

The Foreign Office is intent on supporting the United Kingdom’s effort to strengthen international standards in general. You will be interested to reflect, Mr Davies, on the fact that in spring at the Open Government Partnership summit in Ottawa the Prime Minister’s anti-corruption champion, my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare, launched a global leadership group to drive international efforts to strengthen international beneficial ownership transparency. The United Kingdom is an active member of the G20 anti-corruption working group and will be strongly represented at the conference of states parties to the UN convention against corruption in Abu Dhabi in December. As the Foreign Affairs Committee has identified, sanctions are a powerful foreign policy tool and form part of the overall approach to protecting the United Kingdom from threats from overseas and to delivering our foreign policy. Dirty money should not be in the United Kingdom, and we should be using domestic law enforcement tools and international co-operation to send a clear signal that we do not tolerate illicit finance in any form, not simply for moral or legalistic reasons.

Part of the power of the United Kingdom in terms of financial services is the reputation that we have for upholding the rule of law—and in particular for dealing with anything to do with illegality, corruption or things that transgress our rules and norms. That is much of the power of the City of London and, indeed, other financial centres such as Edinburgh, and it must continue. Unless we take these matters seriously we shall find that the reputation of the United Kingdom falls away in that respect, and we will all suffer as a consequence. There is therefore a strong financial imperative to ensure that our sanctions regime is as robust as it can be.

The United Kingdom is a global leader on sanctions, as I hope my remarks have explained. It is a major contributor to the development of international sanctions policy. I am very proud that when Ministers go to institutions such as the UN General Assembly we can be seen to be in a leadership position in respect of much of the debate. We can already draw on more sanctions expertise and resources within Government than any other European partner, and maintaining that capacity will be a priority after we leave the EU. We have increased the number of officials working on sanctions across Whitehall and intend to maintain those numbers beyond Brexit. The United Kingdom has one of the world’s largest and most open economies, and London is one of the world’s most attractive destinations for foreign investors. That means that the sanctions we impose will really bite.

The Foreign Office’s primary objective is to ensure that we can continue to use sanctions as an effective foreign policy tool to tackle some of the most serious threats to our national security and moral values and to drive forward our foreign policy. That is why our focus over the last two years has been to safeguard existing sanctions in the United Kingdom post-Brexit and why we will have a new global human rights sanctions regime.

To conclude—I have filled the time available as best I could—sanctions will remain a key part of the United Kingdom’s approach to a wide range of foreign policy priorities after we leave the EU. The importance that we attach to sanctions is reflected in the huge effort put into our preparations for Brexit and the additional resourcing that we have put in place across the FCO network. As I am sure hon. Members can understand, it was right for the Government to prioritise the work to ensure that existing sanctions would continue to apply in the event that we leave the EU without a deal. However, I hope that they will equally understand that in the past few months we have put an enormous amount of work into determining the future relationship, and that they are content with the general approach. I am grateful for all the recommendations outlined in the Foreign Affairs Committee’s report of 5 June and our response to it, since when a great deal has been done. I am by no means complacent about the task ahead, but I hope that the Committee will accept that we are on track.

Once we are outside the EU, we will continue to work in concert with others and will have the opportunity to implement our own autonomous sanctions, including on human rights, to combat threats, protect our norms and protect our values. We will continue to demonstrate through our actions that the UK is and will remain a global sanctions leader.

[Tom Tugendhat]

I am grateful for the Minister’s speech, which recognised not just many of the ideas that I raised but many of the ideas that the Foreign Affairs Committee has debated. That demonstrates that, despite having been Chair of another Committee, he was assiduous in following the work of ours, even before he became a Foreign Office Minister.

I am also grateful to my friend the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr Mahmood), who has been of invaluable support in many projects that I have done outside this place. His kind words supporting the Committee’s work and recognising the challenge that we all face, on whichever side of the House we sit, are extremely well received; I thank him for them.

The hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) spoke extremely well on behalf not just of his party but of the House. He recognised many areas in which we all face similar challenges; one area that he did not mention, but could have, was the UK Government’s responsibility with respect to Scottish limited partnerships, on which he and his party have assiduously led the campaign. His speech reminded me that one reason why we are in this position in the UK is that we have the legacy of a very unusual political and economic system of absentee landlords that lends itself to foreign oligarchs in a way that many other economic systems do not.

I am particularly grateful to the Minister for speaking about the rule of law, because it is the economic underpinning of the United Kingdom. It is fundamental, and highlighting it is extremely important. That leads me on to an area that none of us mentioned, but that perhaps we should have—the challenges in places such as Hong Kong, where the human rights abuse of individual citizens could easily raise questions about Magnitsky implementations. It may also raise questions about the position of British judges on the Court of Final Appeal. After all, at what point is the defence of commercial justice reliant on civil justice? At what point does the undermining of civil rights in a territory undermine the ability of any judge affiliated to the UK—certainly a former UK High Court or Supreme Court judge—to deliver justice? At what point is that no longer possible? Maybe that is a question for another day.

The fundamental point is that the UK’s reliance on its economic markets is essential, as we know. We therefore need to look at whether the markets are not just open and fair but properly regulated with rules that are properly enforced. In the same way that the Minister’s ancestors on Her Majesty’s men of war—like their counterparts on Her Majesty’s frigates and destroyers today—implemented the rules of the sea and fought the evils of the slave trade and so many other forms of tyranny in the pirate wars from 1600 to about 1900, there is a place for a new red ensign to fly over our financial markets. Everyone should know that the people who put their money here and invest through London, Edinburgh or the UK’s markets, and the businesses that use those institutions, cannot be the human rights abusers, thieves and oligarchs who enrich themselves in places such as Moscow by raping and pillaging the people. They should know that because our markets have the best sanctions regimes to prevent any such crimes.

[Mr Mahmood]

I congratulate the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee on mentioning the Navy’s fight against slave traders. It is very important to point that out, particularly now that we are in Black History Month.

[Tom Tugendhat]

I am grateful that the hon. Gentleman raises that issue. It is also worth mentioning that today is the anniversary of the death of Alan Henning; I do not know how many hon. Members remember him, but he was a taxi driver with a huge heart and enormous courage who took aid to Syria. His abusers probably enriched themselves in ways that we can only imagine. One very encouraging thing that the Foreign Office is doing—forgive me if it is not quite in the sanctions line—relates to the work of the British Museum in fighting the vile trade in historic artefacts. It is clearly connected to the sanctions issue, so I hope that the Foreign Office will pick it up, although the Committee did not cover it in our report.

I thank you for your chairmanship, Mr Davies, and all hon. Members present. I particularly thank the Clerks of the Foreign Affairs Committee, whose work has been exceptional, on this and many other subjects.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered sanctions policy and implementation.

Yemen

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

Tuesday 1st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Stephenson]

Let me start by thanking the hon. Gentleman for his tireless efforts as Chair of the International Development Committee in raising awareness of the humanitarian crisis that is going on following the conflict in Yemen. I am grateful for his sustained work supporting the UN-led peace process and the work of the UN special envoy. Yemen, as he rightly said, is the world’s worst humanitarian disaster, and it is crucial that we continue to do everything we can to enable a peaceful solution to end the cycles of violence, and I share his statement about the chronic underfunding of the humanitarian relief at the moment. The British Government, our new Prime Minister and our new Foreign Secretary remain committed to keeping Britain at the forefront of efforts to find a political solution to this conflict. We are committed to using our resources to address the humanitarian crisis.

I had to leave the UN General Assembly early because of the recall of Parliament, so I am not fully briefed on what the Prime Minister discussed with the Iranians, but I am more than happy to take that away and find out whether Yemen was discussed with the Iranian Government.

The hon. Gentleman raises the Human Rights Council and the Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen. He will be aware that the UK voted in favour of the UN Human Rights Council resolution to renew the mandate of the UN Group of Eminent Experts. Although we welcome the renewal of that mandate, it is disappointing that a single consensus resolution was not possible. We continue to support investigations into allegations and incidents that have happened in this conflict and we continue to push for a ceasefire. It is important, as the hon. Gentleman said, that that covers all parts of the country and that we get as much buy-in as possible. There is no military solution to this conflict; there has to be a political solution. For that to work, everybody must sit round the table and discuss the best way forward.

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

My hon. Friend is making a very expert defence of the Government’s policy in Yemen, but I wonder whether he could perhaps go even further in celebrating the work that Martin Griffiths has done as the special representative there. Will he also tell us a little bit about the work that his Department and other Departments in Government have done with Governor David Beasley of the World Food Programme? The work of the United Kingdom and others in opening up the port of Hodeidah to ensure that food aid is getting in, and the work that is being done with the Emirates and the Saudis in various other areas, is incredibly important in making sure that we have a coalition that works to relieve suffering in that country. Perhaps the Minister can say what more he and his colleagues will do to ensure that the UK’s voice is indeed the voice of reason and peace in the area.

[Andrew Stephenson]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question and for his support for the UN special envoy and his work. We all need to support Martin Griffiths, and to ensure that everybody gets behind the UN-led peace process. In my own portfolio of sub-Saharan Africa, I have been impressed—really impressed—by the World Food Programme’s ability to deliver aid to some of the most conflict-afflicted countries. I have seen at first hand its work in South Sudan and Somalia since my appointment and I am more than happy to look further into what it is doing in Yemen. I know that it is doing an incredible amount of work there. At this point, I should add my apologies for the fact that my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Middle East and North Africa is not in his place. He is undertaking some of his duties as an army reservist, and that is the only reason he is not taking this urgent question.