The FCO and the Spending Review 2015 — House of Commons, 2016-03-01
Topic: International Affairs
Thomas Anthony Brake (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My recollection may be slightly different from that of the hon. Gentleman, but if I recall it correctly the vote was about leaving open the option of the UK Parliament taking military action at a point in the future, which would have required another vote. The UK Parliament decided at that point to say that it did not want to leave open the option of that future action, and I regret the fact that that decision was taken On the European Union, I hope we will be able to engage in a positive campaign on this matter. This is not entirely related to the estimates, but I wonder whether the Minister for Europe has a view about whether the GO—Grassroots Out—campaign is the one that should be pushed forward as the campaign for Brexit, on the basis that it is a good cross-party campaign and is perhaps best placed to represent the Brexit campaign I have a suggestion that will cost the FCO absolutely nothing. Once, hopefully, the EU referendum campaign is over and we have convinced the country that we are better off in, I hope to see the Ministers who have quite recently come out in favour of our membership of the European Union occasionally talking about the benefits of our being in the EU. The difficulty over the next four months is that many of those Ministers who have now rightly stated that, on balance, we are better off in the European Union, have previously not highlighted some of the positives involved. This suggestion that Ministers should speak more positively about the EU will have no cost to the FCO On Syria, it would be helpful to know exactly what is being built in the budget for what we hope will happen after the ceasefire. If the ceasefire holds, and we get to a position in which there is a degree of stabilisation in Syria, there will clearly be a need for the FCO to make quite a substantial financial commitment to greater involvement in the stabilisation process that should then follow. I hope that we have budgeted for that Let me turn now to human rights and the importance of having an FCO policy that promotes human rights. The hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Ms Ahmed-Sheikh) rightly referred to what the permanent under-secretary had said, which was that human rights "is one of the things we follow, it is not one of our top priorities." He then went on to say in response to a subsequent question that "right now the prosperity agenda is further up the list" I wrote to the permanent under-secretary to get some clarity over what he was saying about human rights and the prosperity agenda. I wanted to know how the two things worked together and whether one had a greater priority than the other. He replied, for which I was very grateful, but he did not comment on his quote, but what he did provide was a useful breakdown of how many people within the FCO, in full-time equivalent terms, work on human rights versus the number of people who work principally on prosperity. The figures are that 240 people work on human rights, against 2,900 people on prosperity. I do not know what is in the estimates from a budgetary point of view, but will the Minister tell us whether there is some sort of forward vision about how that balance might change Clearly, there are many, many human rights issues around the world—the Minister will be pleased to know that I will refer to but a few of the things in the thick sheaf I have here—and I want to know the FCO will be fully engaged in that. Let me run through them very quickly. First, on Burma, it is very pleasing that there are developments there, but I know that some of the Burma campaign groups are very worried that, even with the important role that Aung San Suu Kyi is playing, some minority groups are at a greater risk now than they were before. That requires FCO attention In Bahrain, we know that the UK Government are working with the prison authorities and the police to improve the regard for human rights, but there are concerns that the policy is not yet delivering the goods. I want to be certain that the FCO is sufficiently resourced to deal with such matters. I could say the same about China as well Perhaps the most worrying development—this is where the FCO really does need to invest very heavily to ensure that it has the right number of people in place—is with regard to Saudi Arabia and Yemen. I am really concerned that, at some point in the near future, it will be confirmed that there have been breaches of international humanitarian law. There are enough organisations that have produced evidence to suggest that that is likely to be the case. The FCO will be in a very difficult position. Although the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) has repeatedly said that there have been discussions with the Saudis and that assurances have been given, it seems that the evidence points in the other direction. The FCO needs to monitor very carefully the activities of the Ministry of Defence, which is responsible for assessing whether IHL has been broken. It would be in no one’s interests to find out subsequently that, in fact, IHL had been broken in relation to the activities of the Saudis in Yemen I am pleased to hear that, perhaps without great fanfare, the Committees on Arms Export Controls has been re-established. I hope that, at its first inquiry, it will look at the question of UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia, because that is the most pressing problem I could also mention human rights issues in Sri Lanka, which remain a priority for the Tamil community. There is also the matter of the human rights of the Ahmadi Muslim community in various countries around the world where they are often put under pressure I will finish by saying that the investment that we make in the FCO, whether it is hard investment in terms of our presence around the world or the soft power to which many Members referred, must be a priority for us. It helps us to punch above our weight and to ensure that the UK, whether it is through the British Council or our embassy presences around the world, is a major player on the world stage. I would like to ensure that that continues.