WPQ: Iranian election
July 31, 2009
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent discussions he has had with the government of Iran on the conduct of the Presidential election; and if he will make a statement.
Ivan Lewis: Since the election my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary have both made clear that the election was a matter for the people of Iran, but that there were concerns raised by some of the candidates needed to be addressed by the Iranian authorities. The Foreign Secretary has also made this point in the course of a telephone discussion with Iranian Foreign Minister Mottaki.
EDM 1764: Democracy in Honduras
July 31, 2009
That this House deplores the military action that has been taken in Honduras to remove the democratically-elected government; believes that only the Honduran people have the right to determine their government through a democratic process and that this action against democracy should be condemned throughout the world; and therefore calls for the immediate reinstatement of the democratically-elected government in Honduras.
WPQ: Social housing in Islington
July 31, 2009
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many properties he expects to be (a) completed and (b) purchased for social rent in the London Borough of Islington in (i) 2009-10 and (ii) each of the next four years. Austin, Ian
Answer: The forecast completions for social rented homes approved to date for the National Affordable Housing Programme in Islington are:
Forecast completions
2009-10 164
2010-11 310
2011-12 188
2012-13 27
2013-14 67
Information is not available on projections of social rented properties to be purchased in Islington.
OPQ: Afghanistan
July 31, 2009
Is the Prime Minister aware that many people in this country think that the policy is Afghanistan is fundamentally misplaced, that it has done nothing to control the drugs trade, that it has probably increased support for the Taliban and will inevitably involve NATO and other forces crossing the border into Pakistan with further problems that will result from that? Is it not time for a complete rethink of the
entire strategy?
The Prime Minister: I hope that my hon. Friend will look at the strategy that we announced in April and the way in which we have developed it over the past few months, and will note that President Obama in America is pursuing a course very similar to ours. The fact of the matter is—and we cannot ignore it—that three quarters of terrorist plots start in the mountainous and border areas around Pakistan. Before 2001, al-Qaeda was based in Afghanistan; now it is based in Pakistan. If we are to make our streets safe in Britain, we must consider what is happening in those regions. That is why our strategy is not simply military, but is intended—alongside military action—to build up the Afghan forces, to develop the Afghan economy and,
of course, to deal with the heroin trade in Afghanistan. I hope that, on reflection, my hon. Friend will recognise that people are safer in London because of the actions that we are taking in Afghanistan and pakistan.
Report June-July
July 31, 2009
The activity report for June-July covers the Parliamentary Standards Bill, the recession, housing, transport (Barking to Gospel Oak line), Afghanistan, Iran, Trident replacement, health and hospitals, local schools, and my diary of events attended.
EDM 1970: Sanctions against Sri Lanka
July 21, 2009
That this House welcomes the work of Act Now and the British Tamil Forces in hosting a meeting in the House of Commons on 21 July 2009; notes the continual suffering of the Tamil people in camps and reports of depopulation of the east of the country; further welcomes the proposals of the meeting calling for the suspension of Sri Lanka from the Commonwealth in view of the human rights violations; calls on the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to refuse development aid and loans; further calls on British-based and owned banks not to engage in activity with the government of Sri Lanka; and further calls upon the Government to take all possible diplomatic action to isolate the government of Sri Lanka in view of its abuse of human rights.
What the PM should read on his hols
July 21, 2009
As Parliament rises for the summer recess, disconsolate MPs are viewing a political scene laid waste by the recession, endless media examination of MPs’ expenses claims and a febrile media atmosphere in which debate is centred on which party would be the “best” at cutting public expenditure.
Sadly, the nearest we’ve got to a debate about poverty and social needs in the recent past has been Alan Milburn’s examination of entry to the professions by young people from non-professional backgrounds. The answer, in traditional new Labour parlance, is to promote ‘meritocracy’ rather than tackle the impoverishment of millions caused by inadequate spending on housing, education and health. There is enthusiasm for the endless means-testing of provisions instead of the traditional Labour approach of universality coupled with taxation.
As Gordon Brown heads for his own break, one wonders what thoughts he will be giving to public spending. The annual £30 billion arms budget and the burgeoning cost of the Afghanistan war - which has now reached £3 billion - are areas that seem to have evaded the scrutiny of commentators and most serious newspapers.
In answer to renewed calls for debate on the Trident nuclear missile system and its replacement, Brown vacillates between vague assertions about value for money, support for the nuclear disarmament process and retention of the “independent” nuclear deterrent.
Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth, in response to questions that he seemed to be opposed to nuclear weapons, said he didn’t agree and refused to engage in further debate. I have discovered an excellent book for Brown to read during his summer break. At 171 pages, it’s quite a find. Nuclear Weapons At What Cost, by Ben Cramer of the International Peace Bureau in Geneva, is beautifully laid out, with maps, photos and diagrams. This extremely well researched book shows the horrific levels of world military expenditure, which reached $1,464 billion last year - almost one and a half trillion dollars. This is a 6 per cent increase since 2006.
The US expenditure on nuclear weapons in 2008 stood at $52.4 billion - that’s around 12 per cent of the total defence budget. In an examination of nuclear costs, the nuclear spending per capita worldwide averages $67, with the highest being Israel at $215 per head of the population. The lowest is India at $3 per head, per year. The UK manages to spend $60 per head, equalling one nuclear warhead for every 330,000 people.
When Brown reads through the book, he will begin to understand the nature of nuclear expenditure and the damage it does. For example, the removal wholesale of people from Pacific islands during the cold war by the US, France, Britain and the Soviet Union, as well as the toxic nuclear pollutants left behind at former military test sites.
Not only are people dying from cancers in Japan following the Nagasaki and Hiroshima explosions of 1945, but they are also suffering throughout the Pacific, in Australia and in the US from nuclear tests.
In May, the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) five-yearly review will be held in New York. Brown, a man with an eye to history, could well reflect on the moral impact of one of the five nuclear states arriving at the conference with the aura of a peacemaker by cancelling the planned expenditure of £76 billion on Trident replacement and cancelling the development of a new warhead. He should say that this money will be held in reserve for peaceful disarmament and medical needs.
The NPT of itself cannot bring about disarmament, but it can at least prevent the spread of nuclear weapons among its signatory states - and Iran if an example is set by the five declared holders of nuclear weapons who are committed to making disarmament possible by the 1970 treaty.
The non-declared states of North Korea, India, Pakistan and Israel have to be encouraged into disarmament by a nuclear weapons convention that involves all states, thus ensuring there is a forum of verifiable disarmament and decommissioning.
Instead of cutting vital public expenditure and infrastructure projects, a serious examination of the defence budget would be a good start. It could, indeed, be Brown’s legacy.
EDM 1949: Chagos Islands
July 20, 2009
That this House notes that the Government has requested a further postponement in responding to the European Court of Human Rights’ request for its views on the Government’s position concerning a friendly settlement on the return of the Chagos Islanders to their homeland; further notes that it is essential that the Government upholds the highest standard of human rights; and accordingly asks the Government to consult with relevant parliamentarians before submitting its response.
Waging a directionless war
July 14, 2009
Politicians should always study history before embarking on any policy. History is a great teacher.
Afghanistan has never been occupied successfully by anybody. The British famously tried on numerous occasions to expand British India into Afghanistan. The Russian empire before the Soviet Union tried the same thing, equally unsuccessfully. The overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of a nationalist government in the 1970s led to the Soviet Union occupying the country with 200,000 troops. They, too, were defeated in a cold war proxy conflict. US support for the Mojahedin with money, weapons and training spawned the drug trade and eventually the Taliban. The Taliban were initially victorious but turned from heroes to villains in 2001.
History will tell us that the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 was neither logical nor proportionate. Eight years and thousands of deaths later, with expenditure reaching £3 billion a year, the Prime Minister tells us that the strategy is working and that, with a bit more money, effort and Afghan troops, all will be well. He seemed neither convinced nor convincing in parliament on Monday. Despite the opinion poll by the BBC and the Guardian being jaundiced to demonstrate support for the war, the reality is that the vast majority of the public have no faith in the war, do not believe it is a good use of resources nor that it has made the streets of London, or any other city, safer.
The Stop the War Coalition was founded to oppose the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and save lives, respect Afghan sovereignty and stop a trajectory of wars against predominantly Muslim countries with all the inevitable consequences. Activists in the peace movement do not support the arcane and discriminatory policies of the Taliban. However, lazy commentators conveniently confuse opposition to the presence of foreign armies with support for the Taliban. Most of the popular resentment against the US-led military mission is based on a desire for peace and independence.
The Ministry of Defence is well aware that they lost the public debate over Iraq in 2003. No amount of dodgy dossiers and stories of heroism by coalition soldiers could convince people that they had not been led into an illegal and brutal war by the vanity of the former US president George W Bush, conniving with our Blair.
By contrast, Afghanistan has often been presented as a “good war” but we should examine the claims of progress with some scepticism. Poppy cultivation and subsequent opium production is at a record high and rising as farmers are faced with poverty and low prices for wheat and other crops. Rather than insisting on total eradication, the crop could be turned into diamorphine instead.
Endless claims of ground gained by occupation forces is simply not credible when considered against the numbers and deployment of troops. Blogs by soldiers in the heat and dust of the deserts relate more accurately the misery and precariousness of their position than the sanitised press notices of the MoD.
Military analysts also attest to the sense of failure that pervades the whole operation and its lack of direction. The border regions between Afghanistan and Pakistan have never been controlled by governments in Islamabad or Kabul and drones killing families and destroying villages are a strange way to win hearts and minds. In Afghanistan, the effect of the NATO military strategy has been to bolster anti-occupation feeling and has implicitly lent support for the Taliban.
If the past history of the region does not tell us enough, modern US history offers an even more contemporary lesson. The US allowed itself to be sucked into Vietnam during the cold war to support a weak and corrupt government in Saigon. As the “enemy” became more successful, Washington’s response was more troops and more money. Eventually, over 500,000 troops were deployed, 50,000 of whom never returned. A million Vietnamese were killed. The defeat in 1976 was total and humiliating. It cost Lyndon Johnson the presidency.
Although history never repeats itself exactly, and the Taliban should not be equated with the Viet Cong in a political sense, the sense of invasion, occupation and resentment by the poor of Afghanistan against an overwhelming military occupation has a historical resonance.
The toughest questions faced by the Prime Minister or Secretary of Defence are to define war aims. The truth is that the aims of this war were never defined in 2001, but it is clear that the confused strategy has led to more wars, deaths and insecurity.
The longer the occupation of Afghanistan goes on, the worse it will get and the more dangerous the world will become.
WPQ: Western Sahara
July 14, 2009
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent reports he has received on the legality of the practices of the Moroccan Government in extracting resources from Western Sahara; and if he will make a statement.
Chris Bryant: We have received no recent reports on the legality of the practices of the Moroccan Government in extracting resources from the Western Sahara. I am however aware of academic papers on this matter by the Former Legal Counsel of the UN.The Government maintain the position that the Government of Morocco—as the de facto administering power of Western Sahara—are obliged under international law to ensure that economic activities under administration, including the extraction and exportation of phosphates, do not adversely affect the interests of the people of Western Sahara.
