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4 Mar 2009 : Column 273WH—continued
The question is now what should be done. Does the Minister believe that we can still persuade Iran to stop, or at least suspend, its policy of enrichment? It is quite possible for Iran to have a working civil nuclear energy
programme without the need to enrich material on Iranian soil. Is it possible to insert into the system an effective and verifiable barrier between the acquisition of a nuclear capability and the development of a nuclear weapon, so that any temptation to move to nuclear break-out could be deterred, and any step towards it, however slight, could be detected, and appropriate action could be taken?
In my party, we welcome President Obama’s outreach to Iran, but we believe that that message needs to be complemented by a greater determination on the part of the European Union to provide effective sanctions, to make it clear to Tehran that the alternative to engagement in response to the American initiative is major damage to the interests of Iran and its people. In particular, we want European sanctions against new oil and gas investment and a ban on new export credits. We have a chance available to us, but time is short, and I hope that the Minister will explain how the British Government plan to take policy forward in the next few months.
10.48 am
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Bill Rammell): I congratulate the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Wallace) on securing today’s debate, which has been constructive and well informed—across the Chamber. As hon. Members are aware, 2009 is shaping up to be a very significant year for Iran’s relationship with the international community. The United States, rightly in my view, is offering to extend its hand, and Iran, bluntly, will have to decide how to respond. President Obama said on 27 January that
“it is important for us to be willing to talk to Iran, to express very clearly where our differences are, but where there are potential avenues for progress.”
So far, the fist has remained clenched, but there is still time for Iran to change its approach. Iran could, and should, choose to transform its relationship with the international community. Such a decision would benefit Iran and its people and the whole international community. However, to take advantage of the opportunities that would flow from such a change, Iran must face up to its responsibilities, many of which it currently chooses to ignore.
We touched on the nuclear issue. Iran ignores its obligations to the UN and the International Atomic Energy Agency. It chooses to defy the will of both by continuing to enrich uranium, and refusing the IAEA the access that it seeks. Iran disregards its responsibilities; it supports terrorism and chooses to undermine stability and security in its own neighbourhood. Inside its borders, Iran pays no heed to the commitment that it has freely undertaken to its people to uphold international standards of human rights.
The point is that Iran has choices to make and the opportunity to change course. On the nuclear file, Iran can suspend enrichment, take up the E3 plus 3 offer and enjoy the many benefits that will come from co-operating with the international community, rather than standing toe to toe with us and seeking further confrontation and isolation. Iran could pursue its legitimate interests in the region through legitimate means, and play a constructive rather than destructive role. On human rights, Iran could take steps to recover the prestige it claims for itself by guaranteeing the rights of its people.
Our position is clear; we would like to have the opportunity of engaging in a positive and constructive relationship with Iran. We share interests across a wide range of issues, including promoting stability, security and economic development in Iraq and Afghanistan. If Iran took the opportunity and changed course, we could work together constructively. However, Iran’s behaviour undermines our confidence, and makes a mockery of the claims that it makes for itself. Until Iran changes course, we will be uncompromising in calling on it to meet its obligations.
I now address some of the points made this morning. I start by answering the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre, who initiated the debate. Let me be clear; we are not advocating or talking about regime change in Iran. We have made that clear both publicly and privately. This country has no hostility to Iran. As a number of Members said, it is a country with a long and distinguished history and a great culture.
We are open to contact with Iran. The Foreign Secretary has told Foreign Minister Mottaki that the United Kingdom sincerely wishes for a more positive relationship; but that requires Iran to change its behaviour, in particular to take up our offer on the nuclear file. If it does not do so, we will be forced to continue on the current path.
The hon. Gentleman also spoke about the suspension of enrichment by Iran in 2004. We need to look forward, rather than back to missed opportunities. Both sides have to be committed to the process. The international community is certainly willing to engage, but Iran has to meet its international obligations. The scope of the 2004 suspension was ambiguous, and Iran continued to enrich at a low level. That is one reason for the lack of trust and confidence.
I took some exception to the hon. Gentleman’s comments on the failure to tackle the drugs problem in Afghanistan. Progress is being made, but it is a colossal challenge. One problem in trying to thwart the drugs trade there is that although Iran supports Afghanistan through capacity building, it also gives the Taliban financial support, weapons and training. Support for the Taliban works fundamentally against the stability that we need in Afghanistan in order to undermine the drugs trade. The House should be unanimous in calling for Iran to stop such activities.
The hon. Gentleman underplayed the threat of Iran developing a nuclear capability. For almost two decades, Iran has concealed its nuclear programme. Five successive UN Security Council resolutions have urged Iran to engage, but it flatly refuses to do so. The latest IAEA report from Dr. El Baradei, published on 19 February, clearly demonstrates that there is a continuing unwillingness to engage, or to provide the information about the alleged studies with a military dimension that has been called for by the international community.
Some people pooh-pooh or dismiss concerns about Iran’s nuclear capability, but if it gains a nuclear capability it will inevitably invite a response from other countries in the region. That will lead to an arms race in the middle east, which is one of the surest ways of stepping towards Armageddon.
Mr. Wallace:
I do not underestimate the dangers of Iran having a nuclear weapons system. However, it would be right to observe that the international community
could not prevent North Korea, Pakistan or India from developing one. Moreover, although Pakistan and India did so, the west continued to engage with them. Iranians would ask what they had to lose. We must be clear about what they could lose.
Bill Rammell: I agree. The thrust of our policy is about getting Iran to confront the choice that it faces and the direction in which it should go.
I welcome what the hon. Gentleman said in support of the state of Israel. However, to deny the responsibility of the supreme leader for what President Ahmadinejad said when he spoke of Israel being wiped off the map of the world and being wiped from the pages of time—I believe that such sentiments are abhorrent, and I hope that all hon. Members share that view.
The hon. Gentleman also mentioned the importance of there being no preconditions for talks. For a country that has a track record of being enormously well-versed in playing for time and stringing out the process so that the fundamental problem is not tackled, talks without preconditions are a real concern. I support the view of President Obama that we cannot just engage in talks for talks’ sake.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman) made a helpful and well-informed contribution. He rightly focused on the influence that Iran wields in the region. Iran arms, trains and funds Hezbollah, Hamas and other Palestinian rejectionist groups. That is wrong, it is destabilising, and it is dangerous. It is of enormous concern not only to us, the United States and the rest of the international community but to every Arab leader to whom I have spoken. It is a fundamental reality that we cannot deliver peace in the middle east without Iran changing its behaviour. We need to work with other Arab states on the matter.
I respect the hon. Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale), but on the question of the People’s Mujahedeen Organisation of Iran delisting, he engaged in a rewriting of history. I know, because I was at the centre of things, that the Government went out of their way to ensure that the decisions of our courts and of the European Union Court of First Instance on delisting were respected; it was others in the EU that we needed to win over—something that we did subsequently.
The hon. Gentleman asked some specific questions about Camp Ashraf. He will know that the US handed responsibility for it to Iraq on 1 January. The high commission for refugees and the International Committee for the Red Cross are involved, and the US received assurances from the Iraqi Government about the continued well-being of residents. We will obviously monitor the situation.
The hon. Gentleman asked a specific question about a visa case. That is a matter for the Border and Immigration Agency, but if he writes to me or to the Minister for Borders and Immigration, my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, East and Saddleworth (Mr. Woolas), we can provide a response.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) made an important contribution on human rights in Iran. We must remember that Iran is one of a handful of countries that still execute juveniles; more than 140 are on death row. Iran has a draft law before the Majlis that would bring in a mandatory death sentence for the
crime of apostasy. With such alleged crimes being treated in that way, Iran has no right to be respected for its human rights record.
This has been an important debate. We want to work with Iran and we want a peaceful relationship with the country, but the problems that exist must be resolved, particularly the nuclear issue. Without a resolution, the region, the entire middle east and the wider world will have major problems. That is why we believe that Iran faces a choice. I and the Government urge Iran to engage with the international community and to take the benefits that are available through the substantive offers that are on the table. It should seek those benefits, but to do so Iran has to respond to the genuine concerns that exist.
British Curry Industry
11 am
Joan Walley (in the Chair): For the benefit of hon. Members taking part in this debate, I would like to let them know that I am using the annunciator clock; we are not in a different time zone from the other clocks on the wall.
Anne Main (St. Albans) (Con): I am pleased to have secured this debate, because the curry industry is frustrated and threatened by severe staff shortages and has been trying to get some clarity from the Government about possible solutions. Curry houses can be found all over the UK; there are more than 12,000, employing some 80,000 workers and contributing an estimated £3.5 billion to the British economy annually. Yet the curry industry is in crisis: unfortunately, it has been a casualty of the Government’s failure to get a proper grip on the immigration system. In response to mounting public unease over what some describe as unfettered immigration from A8 economic migrants, the Government have sought to introduce a points-based system, which has disproportionately affected certain sectors, including the curry industry.
In an article for TheIndependent, Jerome Taylor wrote:
“I think part of the problem is the government’s patronising attitude towards the curry industry, which is one of the greatest immigration success stories of the past 40 years, not only in changing the British palate forever but also contributing considerably to the Treasury coffers... A vibrant industry such as the ethnic restaurant trade shouldn’t be penalised because the successful and ambitious children of restaurateurs have higher aspirations than doing what their parents did or because this government has caved into the anti-immigration hysteria and cut off the supply of chefs”.
That is a very strong sentiment, but I have some sympathy with elements of it.
Ministers have expressed sympathy for the plight of the curry industry and have apparently asked the Migration Advisory Committee to look into the matter. However, it is telling that, currently, no representative of the Bangladeshi curry industry is either on the Migration Advisory Committee or in the Migration Impact Forum. Even worse, the Government appear to have announced only last month that Ministers plan to compel restaurants and takeaways to recruit skilled cooks from people already resident in the UK or elsewhere in the EU. That announcement pre-empts a report from the Migration Advisory Committee on whether more job sectors should be removed from the special shortage occupation list, which allows firms in specified sectors to bring in staff from overseas. Sadly, that pre-emptive strike seems linked to highly publicised wildcat strikes over foreign workers allegedly taking British jobs.
All this is leaving the industry in an impossible position. It wants to work with the Government. Unfortunately, the numbers coming in to work in the curry industry are relatively small, yet the effects of the new immigration system will be disproportionately high. It is estimated that staff shortages will cost restaurants an average of £19,000 every year. In today’s economic climate, the economic impact of a downturn in or failure of many of the curry industry’s major restaurants in the UK would be catastrophic, particularly on many high streets.
The points-based system works against the curry industry. It is impossible to show formal recognisable catering academic qualifications obtained in Bangladesh. As has been observed, in Bangladesh, one is either totally poor, or rather wealthy, and the latter do not go in to catering. However, that does not mean that many restaurants are not bringing in skilled chefs—they just cannot necessarily prove it. Under the new points-based immigration system for workers outside the EU, which came into force at the end of February, chefs need to speak English and have academic qualifications to live and work in the UK.
I am sure that such qualifications are desirable for many people who wish to come and work in our country, but sadly, in a country as poor as Bangladesh, such qualifications are extremely hard to achieve. The Bangladesh Caterers Association says that such policies have left its members in an invidious position. They cannot recruit trained Bangladeshi cooks but are critically short of staff, which is threatening the future of the industry in the UK.
Owners of restaurants who came to the UK and set them up—although often called “Indian”, a great number are Bengali from East Bengal, which is now Bangladesh, and predominantly from Sylhet, which is twinned with St. Albans, in the north-east of the country—find that their children do not want to work in their parents’ business. Many of them are setting their sights on becoming professional accountants, doctors, engineers and lawyers, and they are succeeding. Having met Bangladeshi families in my constituency, I know that that pattern is repeated again and again. It is part of an immigration success story and a tribute to the hard work ethic that typifies the Bangladeshi community. All young people, whatever their race, are being encouraged to skill up and get a toolkit of qualifications that will help to ensure career progression and job opportunities. Yet the curry industry cannot currently offer that educational opportunity. I shall explore that point a bit more later.
No business can function without a pool of skilled staff from which to recruit. Yet the Government have inadvertently—I hope—made the situation worse, because without working with the industry to put in place a safety net, immigration policy was altered overnight, causing, as we have heard, raids on restaurants and people falling foul of regulations. There is not a lack of dialogue on this matter, but there is a lack of action and short and long-term solutions.
Damian Green (Ashford) (Con): My hon. Friend rightly mentions training. I am particularly concerned about high unemployment in the Bangladeshi community in this country. Does she agree that proper and better training, in this country, for British people of Bangladeshi origin would be a double-whammy winner, because it would help the curry industry, as well as one of the groups in our society most prone to unemployment?
Anne Main:
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and the curry industry recognises the mismatch. Some young Bangladeshi people would probably consider entering the curry industry, which is enormously successful and offers many opportunities, but no career training and progress path is in place. Unemployed people want to make career choices, so it is peculiar that they cannot
obtain a skills set that will ensure that they can not only find employment in the curry industry, as a waiter, kitchen porter or whatever, but make a career for themselves. It would also allow them to obtain qualifications that they and the industry value.
In February 2008, the then Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons, the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman), suggested that there was no case for applying different immigration rules for this group of workers. Despite the ongoing dialogue, the door has been shut for a long time. She said:
“It is, of course, important that Indian restaurants in this country retain their high standards. However, I do not think that anyone can seriously suggest that different immigration regulations should apply to the sector. As the hon. Gentleman knows, there was a debate yesterday on this matter following the Home Secretary’s statement”.—[Official Report, 21 February 2008; Vol. 472, c. 532.]
It was made quite clear, therefore, that the Government never had any real intention of altering the immigration system to favour a particular group of workers, yet they have done nothing to help the industry to put in place an alternative solution.
Successive Immigration Ministers have met with representatives of Bengali caterers, including the Bangladesh Caterers Association, the Guild of Bangladeshi Restaurateurs and the Greater Sylhet Development and Welfare Council, all of which are actively engaged with the Minister. I wish to pay tribute to Enam Ali, who produces Spice Business magazine, is a restaurant owner, extremely influential in the industry and organises the British curry awards; to Mr. Rashid, president of the Bangladesh Caterers Association, which is the voice of the industry, and who has also met the Minister; and to Mr. Faruk Shahagir from the Bangladesh-British Chamber of Commerce. All of those men have met regularly and are frustrated that their industry, which has so much to offer, cannot get the ear of the Government, to sort out the problem. That really is a worry.
I pay tribute to those who have worked to raise the profile of the British curry industry and to champion its cause—some of them are here today to hear—but I share their frustration that they cannot move this forward. As my hon. Friend said, Ministers have suggested that unemployed Bengalis in Britain should fill the vacancies. In a Government-directed command economy, that might be feasible, but simply to say that unemployed Bengalis ought to work in the curry industry is derisory.
Unemployed Bengalis are no different from any other unemployed people in the UK. If merely fitting unemployed people to vacancies was the answer to the problem, we would not have to import large numbers of foreigners to pick fruit, de-bone carcases and do other unpleasant jobs that we are told that the indigenous population cannot or will not do.
Eastern Europeans may be able to serve as waiters, but they may not have the cultural sensitivity or the language that is necessary to work in a curry house kitchen. Mr. Rashid, who is president of the Bangladesh Caterers Association, says that eastern European workers are not the solution. He observes that they do not last terribly long and that they are not really keen on working in the industry.
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