Select Committee on Foreign Affairs Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)

24 FEBRUARY 2004

MR BILL RAMMELL, MS PHILIPPA DREW AND MR JON BENJAMIN

Q1 Chairman: Minister, may I warmly, on behalf of the Committee, welcome to you to what is your second appearance. You had only just been in post for a short time when last we met. Now, no doubt, you are wholly master of the human rights field. We have before us the sixth Human Rights Report in the series. It has grown. It is much improved in my judgment, both in the content and indeed in the format. To that extent, we congratulate you and your colleagues on the work which has gone on in this still thematic report, not country by country, but even though there will be areas no doubt in the school report where we would say you could do better, it is a very worthy document. That is largely the feedback we get from those who have been able to see the report. May I begin in this way? Clearly with joined-up government what is clear from a perusal of the report is the extent to which so much of the work is the responsibility not only of the FCO but of DfID. To what extent has DfID been brought into the discussion in relation to the report and is there a case effectively for having a report which is jointly produced by both departments?

Mr Rammell: Chairman, thank you for what you have said about the Annual Report. Clearly changes have been initiated within the Foreign Office but it is worth saying that many of the changes have come in response to what this Committee has said, where annually we have engaged on these issues, and also, I have to say with non-governmental organisations in the human rights field who put forward suggestions and we have genuinely listened and tried to take those on board. In terms of the specific question about whether there should be a joint report with DfID, if we go back to the origins of this report, and I think the first one was produced in 1998, at that stage it was a joint report with DfID. I think for the first two years it was a joint report. At that stage, DfID took a decision that they no longer wished to have it as a joint report. Last year again that issue was considered at an official level, and there was not a consensus to re-establish it. There is also an issue in terms of principle, that in 1997 this Government took a decision to separate out the   international development function within government from the wider foreign policy diplomatic considerations. Were we to revert now and do a joint report, to some extent that would fly in the face of that, but I am not theological on this issue. If you have a strong view on it, I would welcome listening to that. It is also worth saying for the record that it is not something I have discussed with Hilary Benn or Gareth Thomas.

Q2 Chairman: It is still on the active agenda for consideration whether there should be a joint report?  

Mr Rammell: From our perspective, I think that would be overstating it. The decision was taken back in 2000 to cease it as a joint operation. I am saying I do not rule it out. If you have a strong view, then put that forward to us and it is something that we can consider. I think the arguments in terms of a separation of function between DfID and the FCO would somewhat logically go against that.

Q3 Chairman: Essentially, is the FCO open-minded on this?  

Mr Rammell: If a strong argument is put forward, we will have a look at it.

Q4 Chairman: May I make one other general point before calling Mr Ottaway, and it is this. Clearly the impact in terms of human rights, which we as the UK have, is not only bilaterally but also through the various organisations of which we are a member, primarily the European Union. There is more clout, as this Committee saw, for example, when we were in Teheran with the joint representations. To what extent should the impact of the UK as part of the EU be included in this report? At the moment, a section on the EU mentions enlargement but it really skates over the rest. Do you think it is worthwhile considering having a section on the work which we are able to do in partnership with Europe?  

Mr Rammell: I think the answer to that is in principle "yes", although I think, and officials might not forgive me if I do not make this point, there is an issue about the length of the report and the amount of work that goes into compiling it. Consistent with that constraint, I think there is an argument. Certainly your point about where we can work together internationally to reinforce our human rights concerns is absolutely right. We do undertake a number of joint démarches; we have done that recently in the case of North Korea. Once a month, the heads of human rights departments meet in Brussels to discuss a number of key concerns. It is also the case, if we are being self-critical, that each year at the Human Rights Commission we have not been that successful at wheeling out, for want of a better phrase, the big guns—Solana and Patten—to lobby on particular human rights resolutions, and that is an area where we could toughen up our act. All of those are positive ways that we are working through the EU. The point that maybe we ought to make that clearer is probably a valid one.

Q5 Chairman: Surely it would not require much additional work? It is what we are doing within the EU.

Mr Rammell: Yes. I think that is probably a point well taken.

Q6 Richard Ottaway: Minister, I am concerned to hear that the Human Rights Project Fund is being closed. Why have you made that decision?  

Mr Rammell: That is in line with the overall strategic review within the Foreign Office where we are in a very real sense, instead of just in terms of the activities that we undertake, responding to world events. Although inevitably part of what we have to do is to respond to world events, actually we have to prioritise our activities and ensure that our expenditure matches that. That means facing up to the key challenges, such as international terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Against that, we have taken the decision, in conjunction with the Treasury, to establish the Global Opportunities Fund and the Human Rights Fund has been merged within that. However—and I know you have received evidence on this—it is worth underlining the fact that through that process we are ending up spending more money on human rights than was previously the case. If you look at the Human Rights Project Fund spend for 2001-02, there was a figure of £6.6 million; in 2003 that was £7.4 million; this financial year, if you combine both the Human Rights Project fund of £8.1 million and other Global Opportunities Fund programmes that are spent on human rights, you reach £11.1 million. That dips slightly to £10.5 million next year, but in 2005-06 goes up to £14.5 million. That is because of greater prioritisation about where we spend human rights funding through the Global Opportunities Fund, but also taking account of the fact that if we did that exclusively, there might be some important human rights considerations that would otherwise lose out. That is why, in addition to the current GOF programmes, as from next year, we are also establishing a separate GOF human rights programme of £2 million each year.

Q7 Richard Ottaway: Is not human rights now a smaller chunk of that larger budget and the actual money being specifically spent on human rights is less than the £8.1 million that was previously allocated?  

Mr Rammell: No. The Global Opportunities Fund is much larger than the figures I have quoted. The elements of the GOF programme—and what I was quoting, to be clear, was £3 million in 2003-04, £6 million in 2004-05 and £12 million 2005-06—are the GOF elements which are being spent on human rights projects.

Mr Pope: I have one question which follows on from that because I am confused by this. There is the Human Rights and Good Governments Programme under GOF; expenditure of £7.4 million in 2002-03 will fall to £2 million in 2004-05. You are accepting that there is a fall there but there is an increase in other elements of the funding in other parts of the world. It would be helpful if you could write to the Committee to explain exactly where that funding is, because I certainly am not clear about this[1].

Mr Rammell: Certainly, and I think that is a good suggestion. As I was preparing for this Committee, I felt it was complicated as you looked through the figures. As I say, my clear understanding of the figures is that overall there is a significant increase. I would say it is important that we monitor it and you keep us to account in monitoring it to ensure that those figures actually do materialise. I will happily write to the Committee about this.

Q8 Mr Illsley: Minister, my questions are on the United Nations Commission and on human rights, which obviously feature heavily throughout the annual report. I want to ask you whether you have any view, or whether the Government has any view, on whether the election of Libya, a country with a not unblemished record on human rights, as the presiding country of the UNHCR has damaged its image in any way?  

Mr Rammell: You will be aware, and I think we discussed this in this Committee last year, that there were, to say the least, reservations about the appointment of a Libyan to that post, given the concerns about Libya's human rights record. If you look at what the individual did—and I spoke at the   Commission last year and observed her performance—overall, I think she gave a creditable performance. Certainly the chairmanship was more constructive than many people had feared. However, you are right and, given the concerns about Libya's human rights record, we certainly made clear at the time that we would have preferred the African national group to have chosen another candidate with a better human rights record to nominate. We had a choice at that stage about whether we voted against that proposition or whether we abstained. We took the view that to vote against, given concerns about polarisation within the Commission on Human Rights, would have set an unfortunate precedent that could come back to haunt us all in the longer run, and therefore we decided to register our concern and protest by abstaining. We did have a concern. That is why we abstained. However, the performance of the individual was certainly not as bad as had been feared.

Q9 Mr Illsley: Will we still continue to lobby countries like Libya, even though they have the presidency for the present time, on their human rights record? Do we still take opportunities to remind them of that?  

Mr Rammell: Absolutely, and I think in every bilateral relationship we have throughout the world, however strong those relationships, we still take the opportunities to lobby and express concerns on human rights where those opportunities exist.

Q10 Mr Illsley: Finally, are we doing anything as a country to expand the membership of the UNHCR[2] and improve its work?

Mr Rammell: We are. I came into this new last year. I had heard all the stories about the previous year's Commission on Human Rights, which is incredibly polarised, where it was block politics and there was not a genuine focus on the genuine human rights concerns. I think there was a sense, and certainly our contribution to the Commission last year went along these lines, that we wanted to move away from that. We have tried to get away from some of the block politics and to encourage people to engage genuinely on the human rights issues. There is an ongoing debate that we often have with the NGO community about whether in fact there ought to be criteria for membership of the Commission on Human Rights; i.e. you have to meet a certain standard of human rights norms before you can go on to that. I have often used the phrase that turkeys do not tend to vote for Christmas. Therefore, to get every country, a number of them with very problematic human rights records, to agree to that would be difficult. Whilst as an objective I think it makes sense, I am not sure it is achievable.

Q11 Mr Chidgey: Minister, may I ask you a few questions around the subject of corporate social responsibility? I am aware, and the Committee is aware, that the United Kingdom has been quite a leader in this whole concept of social responsibility on a corporate basis. In fact, I think we have the first Minister responsible for that, so we have led the way. However, it seems to me the Government is still relying too much on voluntary application of the various codes. Would it not be better for the Government, recognising that it does support the OECD Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises, to do something about strengthening up the mechanisms of compliance? Should not the Government be thinking along the lines first of stronger compliance mechanisms and making those guidelines compulsory?  

Mr Rammell: I think this is a genuinely important area of debate and there is a growing view within society that businesses should take on a much broader sense of their social, environmental and human rights responsibilities. Indeed, many businesses are doing that. Certainly a number of mechanisms have moved in a positive direction: the UN Global Compact that was launched in December 1999, the Voluntary Principles of Security and Human Rights, which we launched with the US back in December 2000, but I think you may be referring to the UN sub-committee's draft norms.

Q12 Mr Chidgey: I was going to come on to that a bit later. You may answer that now. Will the Government strengthen its advocacy of the UN Norms on Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and other Business Enterprises with regard to human rights? It is all part of the same question. The Prime Minister himself launched the Extractive Industry's Transparency Initiative in Johannesburg. Here again, there is the willingness of compliance. Will not the Government consider making that initiative obligatory? What about the UK taking some action in encouraging other states to work within these guidelines? There are lot of good ideas but all very much reliant on the people we are looking to be responsible taking up that responsibility without any further leverage from people in government, who I think should be taking this responsibility.  

Mr Rammell: I do understand this concern. I think one of the difficulties is that, if you look at international human rights laws, those refer to the responsibilities of states and the power of states, not of individual, non-state actors when they are private organisations. The problem, in terms of the way that the draft norms have been crafted is that it is not clear that you can actually do what is intended within the current international legal framework. I think a better approach, and one that we could certainly look at, is the one that focused on the responsibilities of states then to take the responsibility to regulate businesses. If you try, through those international mechanisms, to focus upon individual non-state actors, I think there is a significant legal difficulty.

Q13 Mr Chidgey: The problem I have here, Minister, is that we seem to be relying to a great extent on international NGOs to highlight the concerns, raise the issues and look, if you like, for pressure outside of states to get some action, but at the same time, it is often the case that the state is the customer, particularly for the extractive industries, and the customer does have a lot of leverage in how he purchases the products in a general sense. Surely there is an opportunity for the state to do a little more than it does?  

Mr Rammell: I am certainly not ruling that out, although I think there is a genuine difficulty in the sense of the international legal framework. The example you give of states using their purchasing power as a lever is important. There is a very good example, which is the Kimberley Process, in terms of tackling conflict diamonds, and we were at the forefront of working for that, which I think is a unique set-up between governments, NGOs and the private sector. There has been an active debate within that about the degree to which, once you have established the framework, you then seek to enforce verification mechanisms. That is an example of what can be achieved. In many senses, this is a new area. If you go back five or ten years, we were not even thinking about this kind of framework and these suggestions. That does not mean I rule it out but it is a developing process.

Q14 Mr Chidgey: Just taking this a stage further and in a slightly different direction, but again in the context of corporate responsibility, one of the concerns of the Committee is the opportunities provided for some, shall we say, less responsible business practices to benefit from less than effective human rights legislation in some of our overseas territories. There is a whole question here about human rights legislation in overseas territories. We have been down that road on other occasions but it is still valid. You will know about the problems in the Cayman Islands, for example of the population there, particularly the immigrant population. There is a case here that, with the devolution of power and legislation for government to our overseas territories, we have lost any ability to dictate how they should operate their internal self-government. Nevertheless, there is a responsibility in a general sense for the practice of human rights. I would like to know what the Government's position is on this. Is it in the forefront of your mind or is it tucked away in a dark recess of a cupboard? We cannot just say, "We have a bit of a problem because these territories are now independent and self-governing". There are responsibilities in a wider sense, particularly if UK companies are taking advantage of rather lax regulations, which I am sure we would not wish to allow them to do.  

Mr Rammell: It certainly is not something that is locked away in a dark cupboard. As the Foreign Office Minister responsible for our relations with the overseas territories, I regularly debate these issues. In fact, at this year's Overseas Territories' Council we had a robust exchange of views for two days about the degree to which, within the settlements coming out of the Overseas Territories White Paper, it is still the responsibility of the UK Government. So, notwithstanding that, we have an overall concern about good governance because that can impact on some of the international considerations for which, under that division of responsibilities, we still have responsibility. It is a live and active debate. Generally, the view that we take is that the Overseas Territories should adhere to the same human rights standards as the UK, and we are regularly engaged with chief ministers within the overseas territories on that issue. I do not think I am giving anything away by saying that that is a process in which there are differences of views and emphases from time to time.

Q15 Mr Olner: Minister, the report quite rightly claims that the FCO has major concerns about human rights abuses in the northern province in Indonesia. If that is the case, why are we still continuing to supply Indonesia with arms?  

Mr Rammell: If you look at the overall arms export situation—and I know you will be seeing the Foreign Secretary tomorrow and I do not want to steal any of his thunder on that issue—we do have the consolidated EU and national arms sales criteria, which are amongst the toughest in the world and ensure, and I know this as an FCO Minister who has to sign off or not arms sales applications, that it is a rigorous process and some arms sales are refused under those criteria. In terms of the specifics of Indonesia, it is the case that Indonesia is at liberty to deploy its equipment within the territory to defend its people. The main supply route for food supplies and humanitarian aid to Aceh has been attacked by the Free Aceh Movement. The Indonesian Government says that it is using British-built military equipment to secure the supply routes which provide much needed humanitarian aid. We do not have evidence to the contrary on that and we do make strenuous efforts to reassure ourselves that that is the case. If, at some stage, information came forward which contradicted that and demonstrated that British equipment was being used for internal repression, then that would clearly affect future arms sales. At the moment we do not believe, and there is a rigorous process for this, that the sales contradict the consolidated criteria and that there is a reasonable explanation for what the military equipment is being used.

Q16 Mr Olner: It just concerns me that perhaps we are sending a wrong message. One of the problems, not only in Indonesia and that side of the continent but in Africa as well, is the amount of small arms floating around these countries that causes tremendous damage to communities. It seems to me that we are not rigorous enough in ensuring that those small arms weapons are destroyed and that, as one conflict finishes, the weapons are taken away, they have left that place and, all of sudden, someone else has them and is using them again. With us supplying arms as well, it does not really take any weapons completely out of these countries.  

Mr Rammell: That is a wider issue. In terms of specific arms sales to Indonesia, I am confident, from all the information we get, that those are in accordance with the consolidated criteria. The wider point you make about small arms I think is a really serious concern. We have this major focus, and rightly, on the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and we have to be doing that, but at the same time over half a million people each year are killed through small arms. It is a concern. We have taken a number of initiatives. We launched an initiative at Lancaster House last year to try to make some progress on this issue, particularly in terms of collecting and destroying small arms. We have supported the UN Development Fund project to the tune of £7.5 million and that is the overall figure for the fund in trying to make progress on that issue. In terms of small arms, and particularly the way that impacts in Africa, that is an absolutely valid point.

Q17 Mr Hamilton: Minister, do you think that one can reconcile a human rights policy such as we have with the sale of arms?  

Mr Rammell: I think there is a legitimate defence sales industry for defensive purposes. I have observed that at a local level within my own constituency with people. I am sure other Members here have gone through that similar experience. It is a legitimate industry; people are involved in working on that. For defensive purposes, no-one ever wants to see anybody use a weapon, but there are certain circumstances in which defensive military action is justified. In those circumstances, I think these sales are legitimate.

Q18 Mr Hamilton: Accepting that defence is always justified and therefore we should continue to produce arms, can we not do more ourselves to try to destroy those arms that are either redundant or that are in some way being abused, in other words, they have been used by the genuine purchaser for whatever purpose and are then made redundant, and are then re-exported to parts of Africa where it is now cheaper to buy an AK47—I know we do not make AK 47s—than staple foods?  

Mr Rammell: I think that is a valid point. There has been a fall in the level of arms sales to Africa in the last year or so, which I think has been welcomed. The point I was making previously to Mr Olner is that the issue of small arms sales and how you tackle that and get the arms back and destroy them is one that we are taking seriously. We have launched initiatives on that front ourselves, and we are working with others. Whether we are doing that as robustly as ideally we should—and I think we are—and if that is in area of concern, I would urge Members to keep putting that view forward.

Q19 Mr Hamilton: Do you think there is a case for extra territoriality to be extended in the case of British arms brokers abroad?  

Mr Rammell: I know that issue is probably going to be picked up in the debate tomorrow.


1   Please refer to supplementary memorandum submitted by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Ev 35. Back

2   The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Back


 
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