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Richard Younger-Ross (Teignbridge): I shall touch on two issues in my 10-minute slot, which I shall try not to use in full. The first issue has already been mentioned,
and that is Iraq. The number of speeches on Iraq indicates that Members wish to see the issue debated fully and properly. Perhaps there is a need for a cross-cutting Question Time on the matter, given that a number of different Departments are dealing with restructuring and humanitarian aid. There are serious questions to be asked, and some confusion has arisen from Ministers' answers. A debate would give us the opportunity to resolve that confusion.I shall give an example. On 25 June, the Prime Minister told the House that the Iraqis were being disarmed. It was clear by implication that they were being entirely disarmed. Having been to Iraq with the hon. Member for Glasgow, Anniesland (John Robertson) at the beginning of June, I knew that the Prime Minister's answer was not fully correct. I asked the Ministry of Defence the same question: what was being done to disarm the Iraqis? The answer was slightly different from that of the Prime Minister. I was told that they were being allowed to hold on to non-automatic rifles and small arms. Again, that is not a fully correct answer. I was told clearly on two occasions by British commanders while I was in Iraq that they were allowing Iraqis to hold on to automatic weapons for their self-defence. Some clarity is required.
We need a debate. We also need a Question Time that will enable us to get answers from the Government. I have written to the Prime Minister on that issue and I am still waiting for a reply. It will not come this side of the recess; I suppose that it could be waiting in my pigeonhole, but I doubt it.
A number of other issues arose while we went round with the different battle groups. A huge number of munitions are lying around on the ground. It is horrifying. The Iraqi third army used metal containers as ammunition dumps. These containers are scattered across the desert, and little is being done to clear them up. The poverty of a number of tribal groups is such that children are being sent into the containers to take munitions out of wooden boxes so that they can be burned to boil water. Water has to be boiled because there is no clean water supply. At one location, mortar shells were scattered on the ground, the wooden boxes having been removed.
The poverty is such that the metals that make the shells have a value on the black market. Children are taking the shells back to their families, so that the shells can be taken apart and the metals sold on the black market. It is not surprising that a number of children have lost their lives doing this. The Army is doing what it can to advise and warn parents. It has a poster campaign. It is doing the best that it can with the resources at its disposal to clear up the munitions. However, it does not have sufficient resources.
An electricity supply is necessary so that water can be boiled by that means. The electricity system was installed by the Russians. Some power stations were damaged during the first Gulf war, and they have not been repaired since. Some power stations are running at only 10 or 20 per cent. of their capacity. The system is interlinked so that different power stations have to be online before there can be a supply. I have asked why the Russians are not there helping to rebuild their power stations. They put them in and they understand them.
However, they are not there. Serious questions need to be asked. Why are we not engaging the Russians in the rebuilding of the power station system?The Army is doing all that it can to provide and maintain a water supply. Damage is being done to the water supply, and more needs to be done to maintain it, not by the Army but by the Department for International Development, other Departments and the UN. It is frustrating that British soldiers constantly have to repair electrical cables and the water supply when their primary task should be security and maintaining law and order. To put it bluntly, there are not enough non-governmental organisations to do the work, and there is not enough aid from the Government.
I shall touch on two final issues to do with Iraq. First, we visited a doctor's surgery. It had been looted at the end of the conflict and everything was taken. The Army had done a wonderful job, because it arranged for builders to put new doors and locks on, and made arrangements to help with the restocking. The UN had provided some drugs, and the surgery also had some shelves. From its limited budget, the Army provided a refrigerator to keep drugs at the right temperature, but essential items were missing from the pharmacy. I was given a list, by the lady doctor in charge, of the basic equipment that was required, including an autoclave, a baravan, stethoscopes, a water cooler, air conditioning so that drugs could be kept for longer, bandages, and simple chairs and tables. Why, several weeks after the end of the conflict, was more not being done to make sure that those essential items for the running of a medical centre were provided?
Secondly, I asked DFID what we were doing to help restore the banking system, which is in chaos. However, I have to say that when I worked in Iraq in 1982, the banking system was in chaosthe exchange rate at the bank was very different from what it was on the black market. The Army has had to provide help to establish and run the bank in Basra. The Army has many tasks and talents, but running banks is not one of which I am aware. However, it is doing what it can to try to provide stability. When DFID says that it is doing nothing to help the banking system, I despair, because we ought to be doing something to help it. Getting it running properly is essential to the economy. I therefore hope that the Government will give us more time to debate those important issues.
I shall touch briefly on another issue on which I have been trying to press the Government for answersthe present status of general development orders. The Government are currently reviewing the planning structure, but nothing is going to be done about general development orders, which allow dock companies, railway companies and airports to build what they like on their land, provided that it has something to do with the running of the port, airport or the railway line. Those developments can have a dramatic impact on people who live close to them. Railtrack is currently putting up mobile phone masts along the length of its tracks. No planning consent is requiredit can just build them. Local people fear that, once those structures are up, if Railtrack applies for commercial use it will be hard for inspectors to refuse such an application. The structures are already in place, so it would be illogical for inspectors to turn down that application and say,
"You've got a structure, but don't use it." Many communities fear that unsightly phone masts are being constructed for commercial use at a later date.I shall give an example in my constituency, which includes Teignmouth port. I wish it every success, but it has the right to build whatever it likes on the quay. A few years ago, it took down its old sheds and built a new one. Someone standing in their front garden in Alexander terrace can see a short bit of roadit is about the same length as the distance between the Government and Opposition Benchesthen a railway line and another bit of road, with a tin shed along half its length which is about as high as the lower part of the Chamber. The railway track runs between the tin wall and the houses, and the tin wall acts as an echo chamber. No environmental consideration was given to its construction. If there had been a normal planning process, no one would have allowed such a structure to be built, creating such environmental damage. We need to review general development orders. I am not suggesting that they should be part of the normal local authority planning process, but something needs to be done to impose some control on what is allowed to be built by our ports and airports. At present, they can build what they like.
Mrs. Ann Cryer (Keighley): On Monday I received a helpful response to a question that I had tabled to the Minister for Citizenship and Immigration. I want to share the information with other Members, and I hope it will be passed on to their constituents to whom it applies.
The changes were part of a package of measures to tackle the growing menace of fraudulent or abusive marriages to circumvent immigration control."
What happened in about 40 cases that came to my attention was that as soon as the young men received their indefinite leave to remain, they left their wife and went to live with the extended family. Sometimes the girls would be pregnant by that time and would be extremely upset. Their parents were extremely upset because they had arranged the marriage. The girl would come to me and say, "I want him deported", and I had to say, "I'm sorry, you've just applied for him to have
indefinite leave to remain. There is nothing that I or the Government can do. He is going to stay. He has his indefinite leave to remain."The change is that the man cannot have indefinite leave to remain for two years. It is not much of a concession, but it will help to deter young men who were planning to come to the UK and get round immigration controls. The Government could probably go further. Often the young men go back to Pakistan, meet up with the young lady whom they would have married in any case, go through a marriage in Pakistan, come back and apply to act as a sponsor to bring the Pakistani young lady over as their wife. They are entitled to do that. They have indefinite leave to remain, so they can apply to act as a sponsor.
The situation would be helped and the young men would be deterred from doing that if a further measure were introduced by law specifying that they had to have citizenship before becoming a sponsor. That would take about five years from entering the country. It would deter the young men from putting those young ladies through a terrible experience. Having done all they could to make for a good marriage, the girls are cast to one side in favour of a woman whose marriage to the man had probably already been arranged.
I shall mention two other changes that were made on 1 April. A further measure was
The other measure prevents someone from acting as a sponsor in a marriage or fiancée application until the prospective spouse is 18. Personally, I would prefer the age 21 to be specified, but 18 is very welcome. The measure will protect girls from being forced into marriage and taken back to Pakistan for that purpose when they are aged 15 or 16. It will ensure that their parents will know in advance that they cannot act as sponsors until the girl is 18, so they will probably not trouble to take her back until they are 18 to go through the procedure of arranging a marriage and acting as sponsors.
That measure will help many girls. I believe that most of the girls who are forced into marriage are very young and are aged 15, 16 or 17. If they can mature that little bit more, until they are 18, they will have a much better chance of taking on their parents in an argument and saying, "I do not mind having an arranged marriage, but I do not want to go back to Pakistan to marry this particular person." I think that the measure will help a great deal.
It would also be a good idea to apply such an age limit to people applying to come to the United Kingdom, so that when someone is acting as a sponsor for a young person from Pakistan, Bangladesh or wherever else, that young person would also have to be 18 to enter the countryalthough, in my view, 21 might be a better age. Such a measure would make a big difference to many young women such as those whom I have helped. Many of them were brought over as a spouse, sometimes when they were as young as 15their passports were often changedafter which they were unceremoniously
dumped by their husband and their in-laws. In such situations, I am left to pick up the pieces, along with the Home Office. By and large, almost every case involves some measure of domestic violence, so we can use the domestic violence concession. I appreciate that concession, which I think was a brilliant idea. It saves a lot of girls from unnecessary suffering.All those measures represent tinkering around the edges. I appreciate what the Home Office has done so far, but I believe that the solution to all these problems would be for Asian parents to arrange marriages for their sons and daughters within the settled community. None the less, I hope that my hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House will convey my gratitude and that of my female Asian constituents to the Minister for Citizenship and Immigration.
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