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"98.5% of interviewed victims have been tortured. Institutions where torture has occurred include the police, the prosecutor's office, the security services, detention centres, prison and the army."
Clearly the political strategy is not working. The Government have to address serious issues relating to the strategy of arming the Afghan national army to the level that is projected, and concentrating power in the hands of one man. Is that really the objective we want to achieve?
There is a strong argument that at some point-whether it is in 18 months, or whatever the time scale-we need to bring the military mission to a close. That does not mean that we withdraw in every sense from our responsibilities to the people of Afghanistan. We need an alternative strategy.
Incidentally, I do not buy the argument about safe havens-that terrorist groups are to be found in failed states. That is sometimes the case, but sometimes it is not. Terrorist groups can be found in robust, well established states, such as Pakistan where al-Qaeda is now. Nor do I accept the argument that withdrawal from Afghanistan would necessarily destabilise Pakistan. I would turn that on its head: the presence of western forces in Afghanistan provides a propaganda tool for the Pakistan Taliban. That is what is destabilising Pakistan. During the Taliban regime, between 1996 and 2001, there was no destabilising effect on Pakistan. In fact, the ISI-the Inter-Services Intelligence-and the Pakistani Taliban worked in conjunction, as some people suggest they still do. That argument does not hold water.
We need a different strategy. Other possibilities are being canvassed. We need discussions with the Taliban leadership, and not just locally: we need to speak to the
shura based in Quetta, as has been suggested. The Afghan Government are about to commence negotiations with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who is part of the insurgency. If it is responsible to talk to Hekmatyar, why can we not talk to the Taliban leadership as well?
A new Loya Jirga should be convened to draw up a new decentralised constitution for Afghanistan, which would properly distribute power equally among the different ethnic and regional groups, away from the hands of a corrupt President, so that people across Afghanistan could feel they had a real political stake in the future of their country, as the Foreign Secretary said. As has been suggested, that settlement could be underwritten by regional superpowers and Afghanistan's neighbours. Lastly, foreign aid could be rechannelled, away from the military mission, in return for continued local co-operation on counter-terrorism and reconstruction efforts.
Members may disagree with the strategy I have presented-it is called democracy-but we desperately need the Government to present their strategy so that its success can be measured and tested over time. Other Members should present their strategy, and we should have a parliamentary vote so that those fighting in our name in Afghanistan at least know that a proper democratic process has been followed in this country.
6.56 pm
Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab): I very much want to continue the debate where the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples) left off, rather than focusing on Afghanistan as many Members are doing. Without ignoring Afghanistan completely, I want to look at our foreign policy both over the last 12 months and in the coming years. Whoever forms the next Government, they will have to take a serious look at the role of Britain in the world, and the way we see ourselves as a global power will define what we do.
That involves, first of all, how we see our role in the United Nations. A few weeks ago, when the Foreign Affairs Committee went to New York and then to the Pentagon, it was noticeable that when we talked about Iran a language started to develop. On the one hand, we talked about the P3, meaning Russia, China and the United States, and then we talked about the EU3-France, Britain and Germany. It was a reflection of the fact that France and Britain have not exercised their veto in the P5-I think for the past 20 years. It also raised the issue of what to do about Germany, which is a significant power but does not have a seat on the Security Council. Reforms of the Security Council seem to be far off. We are a nuclear power and we need to decide where we see ourselves both in the UN and in relation to the European Union.
I will not pretend that I think what happened in the EU last week was a particularly edifying spectacle. The Herman and Cathy show may turn out to be the equivalent of Cousin Itt and Uncle Fester, or Gomez and Morticia-it certainly looks as though the Addams family are running Europe at the moment. Perhaps they will prove us all wrong. I certainly know that anybody who thinks that Cathy Ashton is an easy person to overrule will learn otherwise. However, given that it was supposed to be a significant step in the EU's establishing itself in the global world, I very much doubt whether those
appointments were a good way of going about it. More will be said about the EU a week on Thursday, when we are to have an Adjournment debate on European affairs.
I want to talk about our NATO partners and our foreign policy, but not just in relation to Afghanistan. We have just been celebrating 20 years of German reunification. I have certainly not been reluctant to criticise Germany about its military engagement. However, it may be worth reminding ourselves occasionally of what the world looks like from the standpoint of the German Government.
For the last 20 years, for the first time in the entire history of Germany, the country's boundaries were concurrent with the notion of its ethnicity. To be German, and to be perceived as German, was concurrent with the boundaries of Germany, which had never happened before. Germany has 10 neighbours and all of them are peaceful-again, for the first time in its entire history. The economy is going relatively well, too, so why pick a fight? Germany thus often looks at how both Britain and France deploy their troops in a quite aggressive way. Not only does Germany wish to be peaceful, but the current generation of politicians have become genuinely pacifist in their approach to the world. They will try to use soft power, rather than what they call hard power. If they were to use hard power, they would want to do so wearing not German uniforms but European Union uniforms. That is not Britain's approach, but we need to understand where they are coming from, and developments in the EU have not changed their ways. If we want to be a serious player in the EU, we need to accept that.
I now want to move on to something that has not been mentioned today. During the debate on the Queen's Speech, we will not have a special debate on international development, but when we talk about the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and defence, we cannot ignore the role of the Department for International Development. Frankly, when we arrive in some places in the world and see a plaque saying that a certain bit of the embassy was opened by the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and then go to an even bigger office that was opened by the Secretary of State for International Development, we realise that the FCO has a smaller budget than DFID. There is a slight suspicion that we have two foreign policies and doubt about who is running the show. That is not entirely true wherever we go, though. If we go to Helmand, we now find that what is called the senior representative-Hugh Powell-is bringing together what the MOD, the FCO and DFID do, but that does not necessarily happen in the entire world.
I want briefly to deal with international development, which is not usually in my remit as a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Christian Aid staff in the west midlands came to see me to bring to my attention a campaign and its report called "Death and taxes: the true toll of tax dodging". Essentially, it argues that taxation policy and the profits and tax policy of international companies in the developing world are deeply damaging developing countries. If we worked together and brought much greater accountability to the way that multinational companies deliver their taxation, we would help not only ourselves but many developing countries to move out of dependency to a degree of independence.
Christian Aid estimates, for example, that developing countries lose about $160 billion because corporate taxes are dodged by what it calls transfer mispricing or false invoicing. It wants international accountancy standards that require multinational companies to report on their activities on a country-by-country basis, as that would clearly identify where profits are made and where tax should be paid. If the tax was not paid, revenue authorities could therefore target their resources on companies that might be avoiding or evading their tax obligations. At the moment, because we do not do that, companies can shift their profits from developing countries to tax havens and jurisdictions where tax rates are lower.
We ought to work together much more to develop the International Accounting Standards Board, because it contains the people who make the recommendations for legal practice in more than 100 countries, but what can we do here in the UK? The Government can do something; but, much more importantly, we can work with the big four accountancy firms-KPMG, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte, and Ernst and Young-because they have an extraordinary influence on that kind of governance, without the accountability that we as politicians would sometimes expect. In this context, we need to work with the European Commission. That matters for reasons of corporate social responsibility, corporate responsibility and trade.
About 60 per cent. of the world's trade is done on a country-to-country basis, but it is accounted for by international companies, so we cannot trace 60 per cent. of the world's trade on a country-to-country basis because the multinationals control it. Whether in Afghanistan or any other country, once we get proper accountability and proper taxation, we can eradicate corruption, achieve transparency and help countries to become less dependent and get the benefits of their own wealth.
The UK Government supported such an initiative at the G20 in Berlin last June, and I very much hope that we will continue to fight that battle. Of course, we in the UK could do something fairly quickly about international tax evasion. I suggest to Ministers that, first, we should require all British nationals to file a UK tax return. Any British national paying a lower rate of tax abroad should be required to pay the Exchequer the difference between that rate and the UK tax rate. The argument for that is very simply that anyone born in this country who continues to carry a British passport and has benefited from either a British education or the health system should pay a contribution to the UK.
I wonder whether Lord Ashcroft would support my suggestion, as I understand that he still refuses to tell us whether he pays UK taxes. That also makes me rather surprised about why the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind), in a rather uncharacteristic and ungenerous comment, criticised the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee for devoting a significant part of his speech to the Turks and Caicos Islands. The Foreign Affairs Committee has managed to bring about extraordinary changes in the governance of the Turks and Caicos Islands as a result of its report, but the right hon. and learned Gentleman thought it inappropriate for its Chairman to spend so much time on that. I am sure that the fact The Independent reported on 19 November "Exclusive: Ashcroft's bank
lent millions to disgraced premier" of the Turks and Caicos Islands had absolutely nothing to do with that whatsoever.
If we want to build democracies and if Opposition Members, who now look rather sneering, want to form the next Government and if they want to criticise this Government's ethical foreign policy, their conduct will be just as important as the conduct we expect from the countries we work with. I look forward to the Opposition's response as much as I look forward to the response from the Government.
7.7 pm
Mr. Malcolm Moss (North-East Cambridgeshire) (Con): It is normally a pleasure to follow in the footsteps of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart), who is my Foreign Affairs Committee colleague. Her remarks at the end slightly tarnished a rather good speech.
Many hon. Members who have spoken tonight have quite rightly used Afghanistan as the subject of their main comments, and the number of contributions underlines the fact that a full debate on Afghanistan in the House is long overdue. For my part, I should like to restrict my comments to the current situation in the middle east.
Recent developments have shown the fragility of the middle east peace process, and negotiations have indeed stalled in recent months, although achieving a lasting peace in the middle east has become no less urgent. It is paramount that the peace process gets back on track. It seems to be derailing on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides, and both are now threatening to take unilateral action to achieve their individual ends.
Only last week, it was revealed that some in the Palestinian leadership were allegedly planning to resurrect an idea, dating back to 1988, of an independent Palestinian state based on 1967 boundaries through a resolution in the UN Security Council. That immediately led to retaliation on the part of some Israeli Ministers who said that the annexation of parts of the west bank would follow any such action by the Palestinians.
I am sure that hon. Members would agree that the spiralling animosity and belligerence on that issue cannot be allowed to deteriorate still further. A lasting peace can be achieved only through dialogue, co-operation and mutual concessions. While the blame game is no doubt very fashionable, we should not allow the responsibility for the current impasse to be laid at any particular door.
Given the Israeli response in Gaza and the election of a right-wing Government in that country, there seems to be a growing tendency to blame the stalling on Israeli intransigence, but repeated statements even now from its Government and Prime Minister Netanyahu are indeed to work towards a final settlement. In the context of that position, I would like to take this opportunity to highlight some of the progress that has been made, which we, as members of the Foreign Affairs Committee, saw on the west bank.
As the Committee noted in our report on Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories earlier this year, the Palestinian Authority Government, under Prime Minister
Salam Fayyad-who, I have to say, greatly impressed the Committee on the occasion that we met him-has shown improved capacity to deliver increased security and manage the Authority's economy and public finances. Those of us on the Committee who toured the west bank did indeed see a very significant improvement in the security presence on the streets of cities such as Jenin, Nablus and Ramallah. We saw in those places a very enlarged Palestinian security force.
At the same time, we must not overlook Israel's commitment to securing a viable Palestinian neighbour. In lieu of political talks, Israel's bottom-up approach to peace has been reasonably successful and resulted in some significant economic and security improvements in the west bank. For example, the number of manned roadblocks in the west bank has been reduced from 35 to 10 in the last few months, improving the freedom of movement and reducing travel time for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. They can now travel throughout most of the northern west bank without encountering security checks. Such positive measures have earned recognition by the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The Quartet also recently took note of Israel's positive actions.
Israel has also facilitated the transfer of a substantial quantity of arms to the Palestinian Authority, including 900 rifles, 1 million bullets and logistical equipment, including surveillance and communication gear.
As for economic improvements, the strengthened security in the west bank and the virtual disappearance of suicide bombings has resulted in a boom in the Palestinian tourism industry. For instance, the city of Bethlehem welcomed 1 million tourists last year, an increase of nearly 100 per cent. on the previous year. That boom in tourism has generated an estimated 6,000 new jobs in Bethlehem alone. Among noted improvements cited by the International Monetary Fund and other financial observers over the last 12 months are an 18 per cent. increase in the local stock exchange and an 82 per cent. rise in trade with Israel. Improved security and greater access has therefore led to a doubling of the foreign investment in west bank infrastructure, creating jobs and improving living conditions.
It is important that we recognise the very positive steps taken by Israel. The security and economic improvements in the west bank are testament to the commitment by Israel, albeit at the moment on a rather modest scale, to creating a viable and prosperous Palestinian state.
However, a recent and potentially very serious development was the announcement by the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, on 5 November that, after five years in power, he does not intend to seek re-election in January's poll. Whether Abbas will really stand down is uncertain. He has threatened to do so several times before. Most likely, this is just a protest against the recent apparent U-turn by the US over Israeli settlements. Even after President Obama's stated intention on taking office to give priority to negotiating an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, followed up by his long-awaited speech in Cairo seven months ago, peace today looks further away than ever.
The impression is that Prime Minister Netanyahu outsmarted the President on his recent visit to Washington and managed to water down Obama's previous pre-condition for talks of a freeze in settlement expansion.
Now, although Secretary of State Clinton speaks of the Israeli offer of restrictions in new settlement building as "unprecedented", the Israelis are still going ahead with the construction of 900 new homes at Gilo in East Jerusalem. It would be interesting to know where the Government stand on that recent development. Are they still adamant about a freeze on settlement construction, or do they also consider the offer as "unprecedented" and the basis to reopen talks?
President Abbas is already facing unpopularity and criticism at home for what sceptics call his acquiescence to the US without getting anything in return. The Palestinians are looking increasingly divided and leaderless, something that will only be exacerbated should Abbas make good on his threat to stand down. Hamas is, of course, expected to benefit from the fallout. What assessment have the Government made of the possible effect of a change of Palestinian leadership on the west bank? Are the Government concerned that the west bank may turn into another Gaza strip, where the Hamas takeover has turned the area into one controlled by terror and oppression?
Recent polls highlight the increasing unpopularity of President Abbas. In a poll released recently, Abbas would run neck and neck with the Hamas leader, Ismail Haniya, if presidential elections were held now. According to the poll, Abbas would receive 16.8 per cent. of the vote, compared with 16 per cent. for Haniya. The drop in Abbas's popularity did not, however, carry over into his Fatah party, which would still receive 40 per cent of the vote in elections, compared with 18.7 per cent. for Hamas. Some 23.5 per cent. of the respondents said that they do not intend to vote in the election in any event. Although people would not necessarily switch to Hamas, the poll shows that many are frustrated with the stalling peace negotiations.
Regardless of whether Abbas will stand down, Hamas has already declared that it will not take part in the elections scheduled for 25 January, and because Hamas is in control of Gaza, Fatah would be able to campaign only in the west bank. We now have Palestinian election officials advising that because they are not welcome in Gaza, they cannot hold the election in January at all. In the past few days that view has been accepted by President Abbas. Perversely, it might enable him to remain in power despite what he said about standing down as he would retain power in the guise of the leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation.
What assessment have the Government made of the proposed postponement of a January poll? Holding a free and fair election could be the key to making progress in the peace process, if a united Palestinian Authority were the outcome. On the other hand, a strong Hamas mandate on the west bank could set the peace talks back a considerable time. It is apparent that the lack of a clear and consistent policy from the west has played a part in the recent fallout and Abbas's announcement that he will stand down. It is therefore crucial that the US President now presents a clear policy for how to move towards a lasting peace settlement.
Mr. Marshall-Andrews: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Moss: I am coming to the end of my remarks and have only a few minutes left.
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