Foreign Affairs Committee - Minutes of EvidenceHC 529-ii

HOUSE OF COMMONS

ORAL EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE THE

FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE

FCO’S HUMAN RIGHTS WORK IN 2012

TUESDAY 9 JULY 2013

MARK BUNTING AND NIGEL FRY

BARONESS WARSI, AMY CLEMITSHAW AND SIMON SHERCLIFF

USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT

1. This is a corrected transcript of evidence taken in public and reported to the House. The transcript has been placed on the internet on the authority of the Committee, and copies have been made available by the Vote Office for the use of Members and others.

2. The transcript is an approved formal record of these proceedings. It will be printed in due course.

Oral Evidence

Taken before the Foreign Affairs Committee

on Tuesday 9 July 2013

Members present:

Richard Ottaway (Chair)

Mr John Baron

Sir Menzies Campbell

Ann Clwyd

Mike Gapes

Sandra Osborne

Andrew Rosindell

Rory Stewart

Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: Nigel Fry, Head of Distribution, BBC Global News, and Mark Bunting, Head of Strategy and Policy, BBC Global News, gave evidence.

Chair: I welcome members of the public to this sitting of the Foreign Affairs Committee. This is the second of two evidence sessions we are holding as an inquiry into the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s human rights work in 2012. The first was held on 11 June with Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

We’ve decided that one of the subjects we will focus on is internet jamming as it affects human rights and freedom of speech. I am delighted to welcome Nigel Fry, Head of Distribution at BBC Global News, and Mark Bunting, Head of Strategy and Policy at BBC Global News. Gentlemen, thank you for coming. Is there anything you would like to say by way of an opening remark? I have a very general question to get the ball rolling.

Mark Bunting: We are in your hands.

Q65 Chair: Thank you. Looking at the scale of the problem of jamming and internet blocking, we have picked up evidence of a noticeable decline in media freedoms worldwide. Do you think that is a fair comment, and do you have an explanation as to why that might be the case?

Mark Bunting: Yes, that is fair comment. Freedom House have done the most consistent and authoritative research in this area. I think there are two main drivers for it. The first is that the world is a more unstable place, and instability tends to bring with it attempts to constrain media freedom. The BBC has seen that very personally and directly in Turkey, where one of our correspondents has come under very direct attack from the authorities in recent weeks in response to her reporting on the crisis there. But in many other countries-the Middle East, North Africa, even Greece-we have seen restrictions on journalists’ ability to work freely.

The second thing is that, as new media have become more prevalent and it has been easier for people to spread information, so that has triggered something of a backlash from regimes which want to constrain the ability of populations to share news and information. That can take a range of different forms: it can be regulatory restrictions, or more insidious attempts to intimidate or repress freedom of speech. But I think regimes have tried to get better at doing that as a result of the greater access to the media that people around the world now have.

Q66 Chair: The justification put forward by some countries-countries that don’t feel inhibited by the highlighting of which countries may be involved-seems to be upheld by the constitution of the International Telecommunications Union. Do you think that constitution is a justification for some of the jamming we’re seeing?

Mark Bunting: I will kick off, and Nigel might want to pick up on some of the technical details. I think there is that inconsistency in the international framework, and you have to consider the point in the constitution of the ITU that you mentioned, which does give states the right to cut off communications that appear dangerous to the security of the state, or contrary to its laws, public order or decency. That is quite an open power. You have to set that against article 19 of the UN declaration of human rights, which gives a countervailing right to receive and impart information and ideas through media. Our view is that there is a distinction to be made. We see the provision of accurate and impartial news and information as a universal right, and that is one of the motivating drivers for the BBC to operate around the world. But we also completely accept the right of countries to define their own regulatory rules, reflecting the cultural norms of the country or the expectations of local audiences.

I think one specific difference is that of course, when states take part in jamming or blocking communications, that often has an effect not only on their own populations but on audiences outside their borders and organisations. These include the BBC and a range of other broadcasters, which are trying to go about their business and to provide media and information in ways that are protected by the human rights framework. So I don’t think the ITU constitution in itself can be used as a justification for the kinds of jamming that we have seen on occasion from countries such as Iran.

Q67 Chair: Even though it says in article 34.2 that they reserve the right to cut off, in accordance with their law, when it appears dangerous to the security of the state, or contrary to its laws, to public order or to decency? Do you think they are going too far in that interpretation?

Nigel Fry: There is an editorial point in there that Mark may wish to reflect on as well, which is around the BBC’s editorial values and the way the BBC portrays content. I don’t think the BBC would necessarily broadcast any content if it felt it was inciting violence or anything of that nature. The other issue with jamming is that the coverage of these satellites is immense, typically going from the UK in north-western Europe, through Europe across to Afghanistan and touching North Africa as well, and covering a population of 120 million people. So when one of these services is jammed, the effect is quite widespread and affects many countries. It affects a number of channels, typically 10 or 12, because of the way television channels are combined on and broadcast from a satellite. So the collateral damage, as we call it, is quite considerable.

Q68 Chair: Have you ever thought of modifying your content to remove the justification for jamming?

Mark Bunting: No. That would be the short answer. The BBC has always been very clear-and it is the reddest of red lines for the BBC-that we would not adapt content in that way to avoid restrictions. Where there are regulatory limits on what we can do-there are a number of countries, for example, where the BBC is not allowed to acquire licences to broadcast news-we have made attempts to offer other kinds of service which would enable us still to have a presence in that country. In Nigeria and India, for example, where there are rules against international broadcasters holding news licences, we try to provide other kinds of information and creep as close to the boundaries of news as we can without incurring regulatory prohibition. But that is a slightly different thing from the kind of technical jamming you were asking about.

Q69 Mr Baron: Whether it likes it or not, BBC Global News is a key part of Britain’s soft power armoury. In fact, it is a very important part. BBC World Service has a deserved reputation for impartial and unbiased reporting. But we are making cuts, not just to news services but to the British Council and to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, at a time when many other countries are increasing their spend on soft power. To what extent do these cuts actually bite at the front end when it comes to things like jamming? Is there no relationship at all? Is it just that if a Government decide to jam, no matter what funding you give services they are not going to get round that? Or is there a relationship between funding and your ability to reach audiences?

Mark Bunting: Shall I kick off on that, and then Nigel might pick up on the technical side of it? Many of the services that have been jammed in the recent past have been among our most important, most obviously our Persian language service, in which we have invested a lot of resources over a number of years. We have worked very hard to work around the jamming and to ensure that the service gets in. In that case, I can say that there has been no impact from reduced funding on our commitment to the service or, indeed, on our determination to find a way of getting the service to audiences.

Services such as our Chinese service are in a slightly different situation. We made a decision, in the light of the cuts in the comprehensive spending review, to move to an online only method of distribution for Chinese. That was driven by the recognition that the audience in China was no longer listening on short wave, partly because short wave has itself been very effectively jammed by the Chinese, but also because short wave radio is just not a prevalent way of accessing information. We took a strategic view at that point that in the long run, the internet was going to be the platform on which Chinese people were most likely to be able to access our service, although that is also quite effectively jammed by the Chinese as things stand.

There are other parts of the world where there may be a strong case for the BBC having some sort of presence, but in our view, it has historically been so difficult for the BBC to reach the audience that we haven’t felt it would be justified to launch a service in those countries. North Korea has historically been difficult to reach.

Q70 Mr Baron: Are you saying that it is difficult because of lack of money, or because of technology or whatever? Please confine your answers to the relationship between funding and efficacy in reaching these audiences.

Mark Bunting: It is certainly something we take into account, but I would say that I cannot think of any service that we have closed because jamming has made it impossible for us to reach the audience. With Chinese, we needed to make cuts and it was appropriate, in our view, to close the radio service in Chinese because it was having no impact. We re-diverted resources into the online service instead, so that we could continue to provide a service in that language. I think it’s true to say that we haven’t closed-and I can’t see a scenario in which we would close-a service entirely because it was being blocked by the authorities. We would always try to find a way of getting the service in, but the way in which we do that will evolve over time.

Nigel Fry: The point I was going to make is that, with something like the Persian service, our objective in identifying the satellites that we want the service to be carried on is: those satellites that deliver the greatest audience. There are some satellites available that are resistant to jamming, but they aren’t very popular and they deliver only around 5% of the audience. Most of the audience is delivered through a very popular satellite, and so we are balancing the available budget, if you like, with the most efficient return on audience through the satellite.

Q71 Ann Clwyd: A stock answer to parliamentary questions, when you ask what efforts the Foreign Office is making to influence human rights decisions or related decisions, is to talk about quiet diplomacy. Can you point to any way in which quiet diplomacy has improved media freedom in another country?

Nigel Fry: Can I talk about the jamming?

Mark Bunting: Yes; you talk about that and I’ll reflect on the FCO part of the question.

Nigel Fry: One of the things worth pointing out about the approach we have taken to tackle jamming is that it is on a number of levels: a technical level, an operational level, a regulatory level, and then there is the political and diplomatic level behind it. We certainly keep colleagues in the Foreign Office well briefed on what we are doing to enable them to have the conversations they need to have. I think maintaining that three-pronged approach has proven very successful and has helped to build some strong alliances with other European countries and also with the US.

Mark Bunting: There are a number of examples; they are small examples but they might be what you are thinking about. We very often have situations where EC licences or visas have been revoked, or there are pressures on our freedom to operate. The FCO has been very, very helpful and supportive in helping us with those issues, such as the Turkish example that I mentioned earlier. The Foreign Office people here and in Turkey were very helpful in brokering conversations with the authorities in Turkey and helping to put an end to the pressure that our journalists were facing.

In Vietnam recently, there were moves that could have resulted in BBC World News no longer being available in Vietnam, along with a number of other international broadcasters and again, the Foreign Office desk was very helpful in managing that relationship for us. There are a lot of small, isolated examples like that. I am not sure that I can point to one where there has been a transformation in media freedom through that route, but obviously we work very closely with the Foreign Office and they are very helpful on those matters.

Q72 Sir Menzies Campbell: Picking up on that, there is a paradox in that the countries that would not be affected by diplomatic efforts are precisely the kind of countries that jam and, vice versa, the countries that you would not need to use diplomatic efforts in relation to are the countries that would not, as a matter of course, jam. I am just wondering how strong diplomatic pressure can be in those circumstances, not least because the ITU criteria are pretty widely drawn, to put it mildly. It would be very peculiar if a totalitarian state could not find a way of bringing itself within those criteria.

Nigel Fry: The work that has gone on with the allies is about putting pressure on the industry and creating a strong coalition across the industry. That, in turn, can influence the other regimes that you are talking about.

Q73 Sir Menzies Campbell: We are talking alliances. I think I am correct that there is a European broadcasting organisation. Am I right? Is it more effective if the diplomatic pressure comes through that or is it more effective it comes country to country? Have you any experience of that?

Mark Bunting: The coalition is rather less-[Interruption.]

Sir Menzies Campbell: Hold on a moment. We will try to create circumstances in which you can hear yourself speak.

Mark Bunting: The approach that we have taken in the Iranian case in particular, in which Nigel has been very heavily involved, is to bring together quite a broad-based coalition of actors, so it includes the other international broadcasters. It includes the satellite industry, and it includes the EU and UN bodies in a slightly less formal way. We have tried to create a climate in which it has become harder for a number of reasons, both diplomatic and in terms of the satellite industry’s willingness to co-operate, for the Iranian regime to successfully drive through its strategy of jamming. Diplomacy is part of that, but perhaps it is not quite the same as a traditional style of diplomatic pressure on the Iranian Government. It is more about creating a climate in which it is tricky for them to see their strategy through.

Q74 Mike Gapes: Can I take you to the way in which the International Telecommunication Union can work at the international level? I understand that there is an arbitration process, and you referred to it in your submission. What happens if one state claims that another state is jamming its services? What sanctions can be enforced if there is an infringement of the articles and the regulations?

Nigel Fry: Our experience of that process is one whereby when the evidence has been gathered and presented to the Radio Regulations Board and to the BR, as it is called within the ITU, they then looked at the evidence and asked France-in this case, the filing agency was France; the administration was France-to work on a bilateral basis with the Iranians. The Iranians disputed the evidence that was presented; they said they had no knowledge of the jamming taking place. It was met with denial and, under those circumstances, it was not possible to take forward the arbitration.

Q75 Mike Gapes: What can you do if a state denies it and refuses to accept? What sanction can follow?

Nigel Fry: That is the challenge that we face at present. The ITU is a body conceived, and works best, in developing technical standards and allowing nations to communicate with each other when they wish. What we have now is a political issue that challenges the scope of the ITU, and that some would say is beyond the scope of the ITU.

Q76 Mike Gapes: In effect, there is no enforcement mechanism.

Nigel Fry: There is no enforcement mechanism and no arbitration mechanism identified that is seen to be viable.

Q77 Mike Gapes: That is for radio and telecommunications. What about the internet? Is there any mechanism or international structure by which you can deal with internet jamming? Is that covered by any mechanism?

Nigel Fry: The two are in the same basket. We know now of the importance of international communications, be it on the internet or in broadcasting, in terms of global influence, diplomacy and balance of power. We are dealing with technologies that are so relevant to the 21st century, but the mechanisms of government and international bodies have not been developed to cope with the consequences.

There is no single body able to deal with those issues. Last November, there was the world conference in Dubai, which started to consider regulation and governance of the internet, but the conference broke down and was unable to reach agreement on even quite basic matters.

Q78 Mike Gapes: The ITU as such does not even mention the existence of the internet.

Nigel Fry: The ITU is split into the radio sector and the telecoms sector. The telecoms sector was the one that organised the world conference, which was starting to try to develop mechanisms for governance of the internet. The perspectives of delegations were quite diametrically opposed. The result was that the conference was not a success at all.

Mark Bunting: The ITU has tried to take on that responsibility but has not yet successfully found a way to do so.

Q79 Mike Gapes: It needs a consensus to do that, does it?

Nigel Fry: Indeed, yes. The issue is that we are moving into areas of content and politics that go far beyond the scope of the ITU. Many feel that it is something that the ITU should not tackle because its mechanisms are not appropriate for dealing with such issues.

Q80 Mike Gapes: Does that mean there needs to be further consideration of this area? If the ITU is not able to deal with it, should the United Nations directly take on the issue and have some new approach that deals with the 21st century, rather than 80 or 90 years ago?

Nigel Fry: Yes, indeed. It is something that Governments need to look at in their own right. There are issues with internet security as well as internet content. At the same time, we have the wider global issues of regulation or otherwise of the internet and content. Structures within Governments and the international domain need to be looked at to see if they are appropriate for where we are at the moment.

Q81 Sandra Osborne: You say in your brief that technology will make broadcasts more resistant to jamming, and that it is being introduced by operators at the moment, but it will take five or 10 years before that technology is widely available. Why will it take so long?

Nigel Fry: The prime issue is the life of the satellites. In fact, the time scales may be slightly longer. Satellites have a life of 10 or 15 years and once they are in orbit, the operators are very reluctant to move them to another position. Some satellites are configured to work in groups of two or three, which means their design is quite specific. While there are satellites at the moment that provide some resistance, and there are others going into service later this year that will work for other broadcasters and again will provide them with resistance to jamming, it will take many years for that cycle of new satellites to be launched and to replace the existing ones.

Q82 Sandra Osborne: What about commercial interests? To what extent are the commercial interests of satellite providers the key to preventing or constraining jamming?

Nigel Fry: One of the things that we are working to do is to try and ensure that the whole industry moves forward together, and that they recognise the challenge that they face as an industry-the vulnerability of the industry to jamming.

Some operators attempted to look at others and say, "Well, it’s their problem, not ours. Therefore they have to solve it." The competition there could either work for or against incentivising the operator suffering the jamming to invest in new technology. We are trying to say it is a problem for the industry, and to encourage them all to move forward and develop solutions that are more resistant to jamming.

Q83 Rory Stewart: This is a basic technical question, which I do not really understand the answer to. To what extent does it make a difference to someone in Iran, for example, in terms of their access to a BBC website, whether they are receiving their internet through a satellite or through a copper or fibre-optic cable connection?

Nigel Fry: It would make little difference. While we are looking at the issue of satellite jamming from the broadcast sector, there is of course a lot of telecoms traffic continuing to go through satellites. That is always kept in the background and it is always quite difficult to access some of the figures and information around it. A lot of internet traffic, though, does go through satellite.

Q84 Rory Stewart: I am just trying to understand why using a satellite would not allow you to escape the local restraints. For example, let us say that Ethiopia, for the sake of argument, owned all the internet service providers. Why could you not set up a dish on your roof in Ethiopia and then access some ISP outside Ethiopia?

Nigel Fry: There are constraints-typically, licensing constraints-in a country, as to what equipment is legal or not legal. People who are able to access that sort of equipment would be able to do that, but it would not be the majority of the population.

Q85 Rory Stewart: In how many cases is the blocking of websites happening through state ownership of ISPs, and in how many cases is it happening through other means? Let us take a couple of examples. Ethiopia, Iran and China: what is the situation in terms of state ownership of ISPs, and the way in which the blocking works?

Nigel Fry: I cannot comment specifically on the level of state ownership. The level of state influence, though, would be quite high and one would imagine that if an ISP wanted to continue in business, it would have to abide by whatever direction was coming from central Government. The use of the ISP to put constraints on internet access is the easiest and cheapest, most probably, for any Government to undertake.

Q86 Rory Stewart: So it does not really matter, in essence, whether the request for a website is being routed to a non-existent server or whether it is simply being disallowed. In fact, the way in which the Government does it is not actually that relevant, directly. So long as the Government has either ownership or influence over the ISP, they are going to be able to get in the way of it, through three or four different technical means.

Nigel Fry: Yes.

Q87 Rory Stewart: This goes back to the earlier question. There is a general assumption in your memorandum which would not have been made in the Cold War. During the Cold War, nobody would have said, "Look, we can do technical things to try to get round this, but the only way this is going to be resolved is through some great international conference, where pressure is made diplomatically", because we acknowledged that the Soviet Union, for the sake of argument, was not likely to accede to those kinds of requests for internet freedom. Why do you think the world has changed so much? During the Cold War, we spent a lot of time and ingenuity trying to beat these systems, without fantasising that there was going to be some international silver bullet which would resolve it, but in your memorandum you seem to be proposing such a thing as being the long-term solution.

Nigel Fry: I would not say that it was true that we-the BBC, the UK or the international community more generally-had given up on finding tools to circumvent some of these challenges. The BBC does use some technology to try to help audiences in places like China to get access to our websites. It does require a certain amount of work and effort and technical sophistication on the behalf of the users and it certainly is not a silver bullet. The US authorities are spending much more substantial sums of money on this kind of technology than we are, and they share the lessons and the techniques they learn from that with us.

The point we were trying to make in the memo is that in the long run, purely by virtue of the nature of the internet as a global communications network, there needs to be a legal framework in place that can effectively address the range of issues it raises, whether they be commercial, cultural or related to the issues we are talking about today. Eventually, the most effective way of managing it will be to have some form of international agreement.

Q88 Rory Stewart: Let us assume that is some way off. These states believe they have a clear national interest in keeping this stuff out, so to that extent, the Cold War has not completely ended. In the meantime, is there more that we can do, whether through virtual private networks or setting up internet proxy sites, so that we are not simply taking lessons from the United States, but are more energetically collaborating financially with our allies and with major west coast internet providers, and so that you, the BBC, do not have to reach deep into your pockets to set up these fancy ways of getting round the system? We could have a general EU-US investment with a large amount of capital and money so that those VPNs and proxies operate more effectively.

Nigel Fry: We are already using the same supplier as other European broadcasters and the US, and working at a more commercial level with the same suppliers, so that we can use the circumvention technologies and products and apply them in the market. We are taking more of a market-based approach, rather than one that is directly collaborative.

Q89 Rory Stewart: Do you have enough resources? If you had more money, could you do more? What constraints are you currently facing? Let us say we somehow managed to write you an extra £50 million cheque by getting Google, the United States Government and everybody else to cash in, what would the BBC be able to do that it cannot currently do, in terms of circumventing?

Nigel Fry: It is early days with this type of technology. There is less than a handful of suppliers, so it is a question of identifying the best route forward. As you say, we must work with the other international broadcasters to see whether we can bring that coalition together. However, they are state-funded organisations, so they do not necessarily collaborate particularly well. It is a question of developing the best approach based on the products available in the market.

Mark Bunting: It is true that the resources we have available for this kind of activity are constrained compared with what the US Government have put into this area. The point Nigel is making is that many of these technologies are not particularly well tested or developed at this point. Looking ahead over a longer period-the next 10 years or so-could this be one of the things that has the greatest effect on our ability to have an impact on countries such as China, as we were discussing earlier, in the context of short-wave radio not working any more? Yes, absolutely. We are keenly interested in this area, and we would like to do more in it. We constantly have to balance, from a BBC perspective, investment in long-term, slightly speculative, technical products, versus sustaining the quality of the offer we are providing to our audiences across the world right now. That is a long-term strategic tension that we have to manage.

Q90 Rory Stewart: How practical is the idea that the way to overcome the problem that you will never have the finances to do this on the scale that countries such as the United States are able to do it is to pool resources? Or should you simply to go to the US and say, "You believe in the BBC; you believe in freedom of expression. Would you deliver these things-the alternative means of getting around the systems?"

Mark Bunting: We have a very good relationship with our peers-not just the US, but a number of other global players with international broadcasting interests. They share a lot of their expertise with us. It is helpful for them to do that, because that broadens it out from just being a US campaign against the Chinese-to caricature it-into a broader international collaboration. That has been very helpful.

Will we reach a point where we need to be investing more heavily ourselves? I think that is possible. I don’t think we are quite there yet, but it is one of the areas that we are looking at as we plan over the next few years.

Q91 Chair: Final question. We have been talking mainly about broadcast and internet. Does everything you have been saying apply to social media? I gather there was a Twitter feed into Iran. Does that get jammed?

Nigel Fry: The social media side is attacked in a slightly different way. Colleagues have faced-

Q92 Chair: It is attacked?

Nigel Fry: Yes, through defamation and the creation of fake sites that potentially carry 90% or 95% of the same content as the legitimate Facebook site. They will have 5% spurious content added to them, which clearly has not come from the author of that site. I have not heard of Twitter feeds being corrupted or hacked, but certainly Facebook.

Chair: You had short notice for that question. If you have any further thoughts on social media, drop us a line. We would appreciate it. Thank you both very much for coming along. It has been really helpful.

Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: Baroness Warsi, Senior Minister of State, Amy Clemitshaw, Deputy Head, Human Rights and Democracy Department, and Simon Shercliff, Head of Counter Terrorism Department, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, gave evidence.

Q93 Chair: May I welcome Baroness Warsi, Senior Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and her officials. A warm welcome to you.

Baroness Warsi, is there anything you would like to say by way of an opening statement? I have a very general first question to get the ball rolling.

Baroness Warsi: I am quite happy for you to start with the first question.

Q94 Chair: Okay. You have been in post for 10 months. What have your human rights priorities been during that time?

Baroness Warsi: This was an incredibly interesting area for me, because, in my job before I came into politics, it was something that I was already familiar with and I had seen it from a different perspective. To be on the inside of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and dealing with this from a different perspective was probably one of the challenges that I was looking forward to.

What I did quite early on was to go through our priorities that had been set at the beginning of this coalition Government and the six specific priorities that we had set in the human rights and democracy department. We also looked at how human rights were effectively mainstreamed as well, because one of the concerns that I had early on was that, although these were our six priorities, how did that therefore impact upon other issues that we may have in other countries? One of the big challenges for me early on was to make sure that our country briefs and information were given not just to Foreign and Commonwealth Ministers, but to other Ministers who travelled to these countries, to make sure that they were properly briefed on human rights issues in that particular country.

The second issue was personal priorities. I made freedom of religion and belief a personal priority. If members of the Committee are interested, I can go through that in detail as to how we have moved that agenda on. Thirdly, it was about trying to find new ways in which to have a debate around human rights, bringing in experts and making sure that we added to the strength that we already had, for example, in the human rights advisory group. We have specifically brought in an expert on Islam, who has now been appointed. It was about bringing additional expertise in areas where I felt we needed further advice.

Q95 Chair: Can I first congratulate you on introducing the criteria for countries of concern in the report? This Committee has been pressing for that for some time, as have others. Looking at the criteria that have been established, the last one leaps out at us. It says: "How active the UK is in the country and our level of engagement there." How did that get in? Our level of engagement there does not really affect whether or not there is human rights abuse.

Baroness Warsi: Our human rights work is not just about the things that we are concerned about; it is also about the things about which we can do something. Human rights in individual countries is also about that individual country’s journey in how they view human rights and what they intend to do about it and how they even recognise whether certain things are classified as human rights. Among the refining criteria to the overarching criteria are the main criteria: the gravity of the human rights situation in any one country, and the severity and extent of particular abuse in that country.

We took on board what the Committee said last time and tried to articulate a much more refined agenda to say, "That is what we are concerned about, but what are the specific things we look for under that when we assess what is a country of concern?" For me, it is not just about saying that a country has issues in relation to human rights; it is also about saying, "What can we do? Are there certain countries that we can make a priority, because we have made some progress on an area and we need to push that to take it to the next level?" That is why the level of UK activity and engagement is about the practical application of our values and ideas.

Chair: Fair enough.

Q96 Rory Stewart: The Foreign Secretary made a speech in February at RUSI in which he laid out a new vision of combining human rights and countering terrorism overseas. It has come under a certain amount of criticism from Amnesty and others, who have suggested that the vision is weak. My first question, though, is what is actually new about the vision? What did the Foreign Secretary say that represents a change in policy? Is there anything that we are doing now that we were not doing before?

Baroness Warsi: From what I understand, it is one of the first public speeches about CT and our policy on it. It was important for the Foreign Secretary to articulate what our thinking is, what we view as the current counter-terrorism threat and for us to describe the framework within which we intend to operate. It is stripped back initially to basic principles: the first responsibility of a state is to keep its citizens safe, but that does not come at any cost. We try as far as possible to abide by the highest possible standards in exercising the powers that we need to exercise to keep our citizens safe. The speech was an articulation of where we were, what the problem was and the framework within which we intend to operate.

If you want me to go wider than that, I will talk in terms of how the Government’s approach is different. In terms of values and our reputation overseas, human rights campaigning is ultimately about our reputation. The early settlement of the Guantanamo Bay civil cases was an opportunity to start to draw a line under some of the concerns that were raised. We published the consolidated guidance about how our intelligence services operate overseas in relation to detainees and the questions about detainees overseas.

We have a pretty transparent system within Government through the National Security Council, in which I have had a lot of personal involvement, where the different bits of Government sit around the table where these discussions are had and these decisions are made. Having the intelligence information available to all those Ministers around the table before we start those discussions means that the discussion is much more informed, and that gives us an opportunity to check robustly some of these issues around the table. There is also the Justice and Security Act 2013, which provides oversight and security and is only a few weeks old. I think that there is a marked change and that speech was starting to lay out some of that.

Q97 Chair: Can I turn to the suspended detainee inquiry? As you know, Sir Peter Gibson was holding an inquiry into the improper treatment of detainees, which was then suspended following the allegations of rendition to Libya of Abdel Belhadj and Sami al-Saadi. It is proposed that once that process has completed, a judge-led inquiry will be set up and there will be consultation on its form. Have any discussions taken place with any of the human rights NGOs about that?

Baroness Warsi: No, they have not, because the inquiry, as you are aware, reported about a year ago. It did not proceed to a full inquiry. Sir Peter Gibson was then asked to mark out those areas where he felt that we could focus the inquiry once the criminal investigations and criminal cases had come to an end. Those matters are clearly still ongoing and at this moment in time the Government are still looking carefully at his report. We are clear that we will make as much of that public as possible in due course.

Q98 Chair: Do you have a time scale for that?

Baroness Warsi: I do not. That is a question that I have asked, and I am aware that the report is being considered at this moment in time, but the clear view is that once the police investigations have been concluded, there will be, as you said, a fully independent, judge-led inquiry into these matters.

Q99 Chair: The finding of the documentation inside the intelligence agencies in Tripoli after the fall of the Gaddafi regime was pretty serious stuff. We expressed concern a year ago that the Metropolitan Police inquiries were taking an unnecessarily long time and asked what the Government could do to jolly it up. In response to that, they said that those were matters for the Metropolitan police. None the less, this cannot just go on ad infinitum; we have to draw a line at some point. Don’t you think that it is taking an inordinately long time to conduct what really is a fairly narrow-based inquiry?

Baroness Warsi: I have to be careful about commenting on intelligence matters. This is my first Foreign Affairs Committee appearance-

Chair: To which you are very welcome, but we do ask quite focused questions.

Baroness Warsi: I am sure that it will be a good experience. I took some advice on the remit of the Foreign Affairs Committee and the remit of the Intelligence and Security Committee and what kind of answers would be provided to one and to the other. I had quite extensive discussions with officials on the questions that you are raising and, indeed, I have discussions with the Minister who has responsibility for these, Alistair Burt, on a day-to-day basis.

I am sure that Sir Peter Gibson’s report is being considered at this moment in time and there is a commitment to make as much of that public as we possibly can, but the Metropolitan police inquiry and operation is ongoing. We do not know when that will conclude and unfortunately I do not have time scales to give you, but if and when that further information is available, I am sure that either Alistair Burt or the Foreign Secretary will write to you.

Q100 Chair: Sure. I think that it is important not to confuse two inquiries here. There is the inquiry led by Sir Peter Gibson, who, in due course, will publish what he feels able to, and I accept what you said about the time scale. My concern and the Committee’s concern is about how long the Met is taking to investigate the allegations of rendition, particularly the Belhadj ones and the evidence found in the ruins there. Without divulging any classified material, do you not think that this is taking an inordinately long period of time?

Baroness Warsi: It would be difficult for me to comment on Metropolitan police investigations. What I can comment on from a Foreign Office perspective is whether these matters are being looked at properly in terms of the report.

There are a number of issues that have an overlap with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office that are subject to police proceedings. We come across this all the time on all sorts of issues. It is incredibly important that in such cases we are not seen to be involved in police investigations in any way, including in terms of the pace of the investigation. Using my pre-politics hat, there are a number of questions that I would certainly be asking as a criminal defence lawyer if I felt that there had been any ministerial involvement in the pace and detail of criminal investigation.

Chair: Please note that we continue to watch this closely.

Q101 Sir Menzies Campbell: I am sympathetic to the view that you have just expressed about the fact that publication at this stage might prejudice an inquiry, but it goes a little further than that. Drawing on your legal experience, if there were to be a decision to take proceedings and prosecute, as long as these were live and had not yet been dissolved, the same issues would come into focus in relation to publication as do during the duration of the police inquiry. Is that right?

Baroness Warsi: Sorry, I did not quite understand how that question was phrased.

Sir Menzies Campbell: The Government are rightly exercising discretion about the question of the publication of any contents of Gibson during the police investigation. If the investigation produces prosecutions, the Government will have to continue to exercise that discretion until the point at which the prosecutions are exhausted.

Baroness Warsi: Are concluded. That is right.

Q102 Sir Menzies Campbell: So that could be quite a long time indeed.

Baroness Warsi: It could be, but that should not stop the Government laying out what I think are the broad parameters of our approach, which the Foreign Secretary has done. I do not think that it should stop the Government settling civil cases, which they are doing. I do not think that it should stop us strengthening legislation, which, looking forward, would prevent some of the concerns that have been raised. I do feel, however, and I think Members will appreciate, that we need to allow criminal investigations, whatever format they may take-whether the matter goes to court and whether there is a formal prosecution and verdict thereafter. We have to allow that to take place before we start the formal inquiry. I think Sir Peter Gibson was asked to guide us in terms of the quite specific areas where, having seen what he has seen, he felt a future investigation would take us.

Q103 Rory Stewart: Minister, we requested in our report last year some reports on monitoring. In their December response, the Government said that the information was already in the public domain but undertook to provide the details to the Committee. We did not actually receive a letter until you wrote to us on 3 June. What was responsible for the six-month delay in replying to the questions around monitoring?

Baroness Warsi: Was this monitoring of "deportation with assurances"?

Rory Stewart: Yes.

Baroness Warsi: I cannot explain what the delay was about. That is the direct answer to the direct question. I can certainly go away and find out. I hope, however, that I answered your specific questions quite fully in the letter.

Rory Stewart: If we could perhaps in slower time get an answer to what the delay was-

Chair: In quicker time I hope.

Q104 Rory Stewart: In quicker time, as the Chairman says.

Could you give a sense of what is happening with "deportation with assurances"? How many people have actually been returned under DWA arrangements and are currently being monitored?

Baroness Warsi: The latest information that I have is that 11 have been returned, specifically to Algeria and Jordan. Currently, 13 applications are in progress. You will be aware that there are five countries with which we have "deportation with assurance" agreements, which are Algeria, Jordan, Ethiopia, Morocco and Lebanon.

Q105 Rory Stewart: I would like a little more detail on how exactly this works, because, as an amateur, it looks as though there is not a lot of clarity, at least for the Committee, on what exactly the monitoring arrangements are in Morocco. In Algeria, it appears as though the embassy is responsible for the monitoring. In Ethiopia, it is the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, about which there have been some questions. Could you give us some sense of those three types of monitoring arrangement?

Baroness Warsi: I think that the monitoring arrangements for Morocco are still being finalised, but you are correct that the others have now been fixed. We do not think that one size fits all, because the structures in an individual country can differ. Sometimes there are quite strong Government-linked structures and sometimes there is quite a strong independent human rights commission and a strong NGO sector. Sometimes we feel that we need to keep that in-house in the embassy. Even the terms of reference of the detail of each individual agreement are quite country-specific, because the concerns that we have about returning people to individual countries depend on the kind of things that we think that country may have done in the past, or on our concerns about what it is capable of doing.

Q106 Rory Stewart: To ask a very naive question to conclude this part, if an embassy member in Algeria discovered that somebody we deported or returned was not being treated properly, what would happen?

Baroness Warsi: When we sign a deportation with assurances agreement, countries put their reputations at stake in doing that. The DWA is always part of a much broader relationship with a country. When the detailed discussions on DWAs take place-that is, of course, a Home Office lead-we sit down and in quite some detail go through various scenarios and monitoring. Monitoring includes being given access to detention facilities and being allowed to go in with experts on trauma and physical and mental injuries. We think that the strength and robustness of those relationships and agreements mean that there would be serious consequences to the relationship between two countries if it was to break down because they were to breach the basis of that DWA.

Q107 Rory Stewart: The answer seems to be-to put it in very naive, blunt terms-that it would be quite difficult to do something about the individual concerned. It would have a radical effect on the nature of the relationship or any future deportations, but in the case of the individual, it would be quite difficult to work out what exactly one could do in that situation. Would that be right?

Baroness Warsi: I think that the terms of these agreements would allow us to intervene, in terms of getting access, making our concerns known and the consequences that therefore follow from that. Maybe I am being naive when I say that I genuinely believe that when we are in these detailed discussions with these countries, any country wanting to breach a DWA in relation to an individual and to risk the whole diplomatic relationship between two countries off the back of an individual gives me some comfort. We have to strike a balance between being able to keep our country safe and being able to return people who are not conducive for us on these shores, and to seek whatever agreements we can and be sure in our mind that we are satisfying both our national and international obligations.

With countries that we do not currently have agreements with, but with which there are potential discussions about agreements, we are doing quite extensive work with many of them on other areas as well. The DWA is part of a process and part of a broader relationship where we feel that they are heading in the right direction and we are working with them. It also, remarkably, has quite interesting, positive impacts on their criminal justice systems, because discussions and processes that we take part in with them ultimately have an impact on the way in which they deal with matters domestically, not just in relation to the specific individuals that we return.

Q108 Rory Stewart: Finally, on Jordan and Abu Qatada, in the FCO explanatory memorandum on the treaty, your Department says that the UK does not need a treaty basis to provide mutual legal assistance. Can you clarify why we decided to have a treaty with Jordan, rather than a memorandum of understanding? Does that imply that in future, we will be going for treaties rather than MOUs when dealing with countries?

Baroness Warsi: My understanding is that we have got both. This goes back years and years, but there were initially concerns under article 3 around torture, and the Court held that the MOU was sufficient to satisfy them that article 3 would not be breached. Further concerns were raised about article 6 and the right to a fair trial. We felt, therefore, that we needed to have a specific treaty between the two countries on fair trials and process to satisfy the Court. It did not just satisfy the Court;1 it clearly satisfied Abu Qatada as well, because he felt that he was now in a position where he would go back. I believe that most people were content with that result.

Q109 Rory Stewart: But that does not necessarily mean that we will be seeking treaties rather than MOUs with other countries in future, does it?

Baroness Warsi: Each case is different, and it is important that we do not allow our future discussions with countries to be focused around an individual case. That is bad law making, and it is bad diplomacy. In this case, which had become quite iconic in so many different ways and had a huge public profile, we felt that it was important to go down this route. It may well be that with other countries we do not have to do the same thing. I am not sure that it necessarily sets a precedent, but equally I am not sure that it is something that we would never use again.

Q110 Sandra Osborne: I would like to ask you about violence against women and the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative. The initiative is very welcome, but it has come under some criticism in relation to the emphasis placed on impunity rather than prevention, and I note that the recently updated FCO business plan stands by that approach towards impunity and not so much towards prevention. Are you open to doing more work on prevention, which, at the end of the day, is the only thing that is going to change things for the long term?

Baroness Warsi: I do not think it is an either/or choice. We have been doing prevention work for many years, under the previous Government and the Government before that. The issue of women’s rights and the different stages that individual countries have reached in relation to women’s rights is something that we have been heavily engaged in, and DFID continues to be engaged in. For example, in a country that I have responsibility for, Afghanistan, the Secretary of State for International Development has made women’s rights one of her big priorities in terms of DFID work. That is prevention of violence, making sure that legislation in relation to violence, domestic violence and abuse is implemented properly, and working with other countries and other NGOs in providing safe houses and shelters. All that preventive work is being done.

All of us, as Ministers, have personal priorities-it is what drives us, as politicians, to do the jobs that we do, because there is something that we fundamentally want to become involved in and change. The initiative is something that is incredibly important to the Foreign Secretary, and therefore through him the whole of Government has come to realise that political will in this area has been so lacking.

It is something that I am hugely supportive of. I saw this first hand in my pre-political days when I was dealing with asylum applications. You would find that sexual abuse during conflict-I saw it specifically during the Balkans and then with refugees coming out of Kurdistan and Iraq-was the part of the case that would not come to light until many, many months after an application had been submitted, because it was something that victims felt they could not talk about; they felt they would be victimised a second time if they brought it to the fore. In some cultures and communities, that had consequences for family relations. There was just a general sense that this was a part of the crime that people could get away with: there was a general culture of impunity.

The Foreign Secretary felt that this required political will, and I am incredibly proud of the way in which he has led on this, including the successful communiqué at the G8 recently, with more money and more support pledged for this initiative. There are proposals to take this further at the United Nations General Assembly ministerial meeting in September this year. So as I said, I do not think it is an either/or. I think it is about giving quite specific political will to a horrendous by-product of conflict and war, which is sadly overlooked.

Q111 Sandra Osborne: In relation to the team of experts, a few countries have been prioritised so far. What is the constraint on the team of experts: are there financial constraints, or is it that there are not enough experts to cover the ground required, given that, as you know, many countries have extreme and systemic violence against women?

Baroness Warsi: This is a two-way relationship. We have to make sure that countries that we work with are ready for this and have bought into this agenda. We cannot do this to them; we have to do it with them, because that is when the experts are most successful. There are some countries that we have already deployed to and others with which we are having further discussions-for example, during the Somalia conference, this was an element that we took forward with the Somali Government.

There are plans for these experts to be deployed to more places around the world, but it has to be on the basis of what is needed there. Is it about victim support? Is it about strengthening the judicial system? Is it about the gathering of evidence? Is it about dealing with a current situation-for example, on the borders outside Syria-or is it about something that happened in the past, as in the Balkans? Each situation requires a different type of expertise and a different kind of expert. We have some fantastic experts. We have over 70 experts already in this area, but we intend to work with experts and communities and countries that are open to taking this initiative forward.

Q112 Sandra Osborne: You mentioned Afghanistan. We have been told by Amnesty that women in Afghanistan feel that the rights that have been gained are slipping away and that, in relation to violence against women, more of the substantial resources that have been put into security in Afghanistan should be directed towards family response units and towards having more female police officers, if the law on elimination of violence against women is to be implemented in any way effectively. What is the Government’s view about that?

Baroness Warsi: I absolutely agree with you. I absolutely agree that we need to make it a priority. I do not know whether you know some of my own history on our intervention in Afghanistan and some of the concerns that I have. I am sure that people around the table have similar concerns. Having been in Afghanistan and made the sacrifices that we have made, and the people of Afghanistan have made, it is important that we do not allow the gains that we have made to slip-and there have been real gains. When I took over this portfolio in September, I had quite a cynical perspective on these issues, but I have been incredibly impressed with the amount of progress that has been made on women’s rights. That is why the Secretary of State’s prioritising of women’s rights and violence against women as part of the DFID agenda is important.

The amount of money that we are currently committed to with the DFID work will continue post-2014 and the withdrawal of our troops, so the level of funding will remain. You will also be aware that the issue of women’s rights is part of the Tokyo accountability framework, so it is tied in: they have to make progress in return for us doing what we have agreed to do.

There have been some setbacks with the law, in terms of it not proceeding as quickly as it should have done and its being implemented in the way that it should be. We need to carry on putting on pressure about that, while also recognising that it is an incredibly conservative society with its own challenges. Sometimes I think that, in the public mind, we forget what Afghanistan was like pre-Taliban: it certainly wasn’t the swinging ’60s there and then suddenly things changed. We have to be realistic about what happened in Afghanistan pre-Taliban and about the societies that existed there, and then work with the grain of those societies as well.

There have also been some positive statements-for example, the statement by Foreign Minister Rassoul at the Human Rights Council in Geneva earlier this year. Again, there was a big focus on the issue of women’s rights. When I have been out there, on every visit to Afghanistan I have had a women-focused meeting either with NGOs, with parliamentarians, or with female members of the High Peace Council, discussing things like how women will be involved in the reconciliation process with the Taliban. So let me reassure you all by saying that I, as the Foreign Office Minister who has day-to-day responsibility, and the Secretary of State, who has responsibility in Afghanistan, are hugely committed to this.

Q113 Sandra Osborne: I am pleased to hear it. The same problems exist in the Kurdish regional government-controlled areas of Iraq. You mentioned difficulties in implementing these laws. You have also talked about the long-term nature of cultural change, which is fair enough, but expectations have been raised, particularly in Afghanistan. Should aid be tied to a requirement to take this issue more seriously and to implement the laws effectively?

Baroness Warsi: Of course, we have the same challenge in Iraq, with the family violence legislation-there are concerns whether that has been properly implemented. I am not as experienced on Iraq; it is not a country I have day-to-day responsibility for.

Conditionality is there through the Tokyo accountability framework, but it has to be practical conditionality. Diplomacy and politics are the art of the possible, and there is no point setting conditionality which we feel cannot be met in the short term. We have to keep pushing things in the right direction. It is better to stay there and to keep pushing so that people keep going down the right path than it is to disengage because they are not doing things in the way we would like. So I am quite a pragmatist on this.

I also think we need to have some incredibly robust discussions. My own background has enabled me, certainly in places like Afghanistan, to go that little bit further in those discussions. Sometimes, much of this is rooted in culture and religion, and we have quite long cultural and theological debates. I think diplomacy should go that far and we should be prepared to challenge certain views: we should challenge them without saying that particular values or women’s rights are the preserve of western democracies, but that they are, actually, the preserve of humans-that is what we are, first and foremost. Again, I know from personal experience that we have been prepared to push those boundaries on this and many other issues-child abuse, for example, and the abuse of young boys in Afghanistan.

The kind of overall discussion I had with, for example, Zainab Bangura, who is the special representative to the Secretary-General on violence against women and girls, was about how we challenge the notion in many of these countries that there should be punishment for permissive sexual relations, but impunity for non-permissive sexual relations. How do you start to unpick some of those societal challenges? If a young man and a young woman engage in consensual sexual relationships, they are subject to all sorts of corporal and capital punishments, but with violence against women, there is almost a culture of, "Well, we can dismiss that." Zainab Bangura, with her background, is incredibly interested in starting to do some of these things.

One of the issues is about having that wider debate and expertise around how, sometimes, faith and culture play a role. That is why the Foreign Secretary’s advisory group brought in somebody who was an expert on Islam to help us have some of the theological background and unpick some of these arguments.

Q114 Ann Clwyd: Baroness Warsi, is there not a big gap between the rhetoric and the reality? For instance, the FCO’s annual report talks about the family violence Bill in Kurdistan, which criminalises forced marriages, child marriages and the abuse of girls and women and bans female genital mutilation. The FCO described that as a big step forward, but Human Rights Watch and Amnesty say that the implementation of the family violence Bill is "poor" and that "dozens of girls and practitioners said that they had either undergone or performed FGM since the law was passed." Who is following up the implementation? Human rights organisations are saying, "It’s all very well, but this is not being implemented." We cannot quite say this has been a good thing if it has not been implemented.

Baroness Warsi: I would say it is a good thing and I will try to explain why. The first point is acknowledgment. The second point is having the political will to change the parameters within which these matters can be dealt.

Q115 Ann Clwyd: But whose political will?

Baroness Warsi: Their political will.

Q116 Ann Clwyd: It is obviously not there if these things have not happened.

Baroness Warsi: You can go to countries-I do and my colleagues do-where these issues are not even on the table and up for discussion.

Q117 Ann Clwyd: Sorry, but you say in your annual report that this is a big step forward. How can it be a big step forward if it isn’t actually being implemented? As for FGM, about which there is a lot of concern in this country, it persists. Can you show that any of these laws are being implemented? That is what I am asking.

Baroness Warsi: You will be aware that there are many cases of FGM in this country, where we have a much more sophisticated system of policing.

Q118 Ann Clwyd: But no prosecutions.

Baroness Warsi: Yes. Despite the fact that the legislation has been on the statute book under the previous Government and this Government, we are still struggling to get the evidence-

Q119 Ann Clwyd: As I put it on the statute book, I am particularly interested in its implementation. It is not being implemented in this country, and we suggest that it might be implemented in Kurdistan, Iraq, Afghanistan and so on. It is not true, is it?

Baroness Warsi: I completely understand what you are saying. Like you, I and many others have been campaigning on this issue for many years. I still feel that getting a first step-it is only a first step, but it is a significant one-of getting legislation on the books and setting the parameters is important, so I do see this as a success. But you are absolutely right: until this is implemented and girls’ lives are saved and changed as a result, what is the purpose? That is why we are engaged with a number of projects in Iraq and other places where FGM is prevalent, but also in the United Kingdom where we work with women’s groups to try to get them to come forward-

Q120 Ann Clwyd: We know about the United Kingdom. You mentioned Iraq and Kurdistan and the report mentions Afghanistan. What support will there be from the UK Government, for example, and the wider international community for Afghan women after the NATO pull-out? I cannot see it. I think they are being sold down the river.

Baroness Warsi: I do not agree, because I hear from Afghan women when I am in Afghanistan. Of course they raise real concerns-worries about when ISAF forces are no longer there in a combat role-but, to give some anecdotal evidence, women say, "Things will never go back to the way they were because we all have mobile phones," and, "They can never change back to the way things were because too much progress has been made. Despite challenges, we have too many allies who will not allow things to slip backwards." You probably know Sima Samar; she was the chairman of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and is an incredibly impressive lady. She continues to fight these battles, but is still sure that it will not go back to the way it was. It is not perfect.

Q121 Ann Clwyd: How are we going to help them? If the political and security situation deteriorates how can we help those women?

Baroness Warsi: I am confident that many of the projects that we have started will continue. For example, in Helmand, there is a much more cohesive working with UN bodies. All the different UN bodies are coming together and are the basis for some of this work continuing in places where we will not be providing the security. Then there is a confidence in the Afghan national security force. Every time I go I see them taking more and more control of more and more posts. They are now in control of 90% of check posts in the country. There are countries that have similar problems to Afghanistan in which we do an incredible amount of good work on women’s rights. Therefore, I am confident that we will carry on doing good work on women’s rights after the troops are drawn down.

Q122 Ann Clwyd: Thank you. Finally, in the Afghan section of the FCO’s human rights report it says: "Extensive new project activity is also planned for 2013 to support women’s leadership at a national level." Could you provide us with fuller details? Perhaps not now-you might want to send us those details if they are not to hand.

Baroness Warsi: I can. It is activities such as parliamentary exchanges, making sure that they are part of delegations when they are attending and ensuring that we help them with parliamentary training and how to be effective as parliamentarians, in terms of bringing through legislation. I can send you a full list of proposed projects from the Department for International Development.

Q123 Mike Gapes: Can I take you, Minister, to Sri Lanka? For several years-in fact, for many years-successive Government reports have expressed concern and said that Sri Lanka is, and remains, a country of concern. I have a specific issue that I want to raise with you. It relates to the position taken by Ministers in answer to questions that I and others have raised about the removal from the UK of individuals to Sri Lanka who subsequently came back to this country and were given asylum here because of the mistreatment they received or because of concerns that they could not be sent back a second time. We have been told by Foreign Office Ministers and others that there is no credible evidence that Sri Lankans have been returned by the UK immigration authorities and then tortured on their to return to Sri Lanka. Is that still the position of the Government? Do you still believe that there are no substantiated allegations that any individuals sent back to Sri Lanka have then been tortured?

Baroness Warsi: I think the position is that we do not feel that anybody returned to Sri Lanka will be tortured per se-

Q124 Mike Gapes: That is not what my question is. That may be your view generally, but I am asking a specific question about specific individuals who have been returned. Is it the position that there are no substantiated allegations?

Baroness Warsi: We have concerns about torture in Sri Lanka-

Q125 Mike Gapes: I understand that, and that is also in the answers that we have had before from Ministers-you are concerned about the situation, etc. The specific question I have got relates to people that we have sent back to Sri Lanka who subsequently have come to this country and been given asylum the second time they were here. As you know, there have been freedom of information requests by Freedom from Torture, and there are statements made to this Committee by Human Rights Watch that dispute the position that the Government have taken. And I understand that the Government have actually been asking for the NGOs to provide the names of the individuals, and many of us believe-certainly the NGOs believe-that that puts those individuals’ families at risk in the context of Sri Lanka.

My question is specific: is it still the position of the Government that there is no credible evidence, and that there are no substantiated allegations? Is that still the position that you are taking?

Baroness Warsi: We are taking the position that the court gave its judgment earlier this month about our position about returning people to Sri Lanka-

Q126 Mike Gapes: You are talking about the 5 July decision?

Baroness Warsi: I am talking about the 5 July decision, and the Home Office is currently considering that decision, where-of course-the Home Office’s country guidance was looked at. The Home Office is currently looking at that decision, and looking at-whether in light of that decision-it will or will not change its current position. I do not have a final answer on that, but I can certainly make sure that when the Home Office has made that decision that we write to you.

Q127 Mike Gapes: So the Government at this moment have not changed their position? They are still-at this moment-saying that there is no credible evidence and that there are no substantiated allegations?

Baroness Warsi: The position we have is twofold: one, that there are allegations of torture, and we know torture happens in Sri Lanka; but secondly, not everybody who is returned from the United Kingdom is subjected to torture-

Q128 Mike Gapes: That is not my point, and you know that.

Baroness Warsi: I think that is probably, Mr Gapes, as far as I can take it on this occasion, but I will certainly make sure that the Home Office writes to you once it has considered its-

Q129 Mike Gapes: Okay. Can I then raise with you the wider question of UK-Sri Lanka relations? In the light of the fact that there is a deep concern-I have a large number of constituents who have asylum in the UK who have come from Sri Lanka over the last 10, 15 years-you as a Government decided that the Prime Minister would attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting later this year in Colombo. Why, if we were not prepared in 2009 to support the proposal that was made at that time within the Commonwealth for Sri Lanka to host the CHOGM meeting in 2011, did we then not object to the proposal that was made in 2011 that Sri Lanka should host the CHOGM in 2013?

Baroness Warsi: There are two parts to that: the decision to go, and the decision to object in 2011. There were initially concerns raised about when Sri Lanka wanted to host, and it was put back because when the initial date for hosting was put forward, there were concerns about the human rights situation.

Q130 Mike Gapes: And that was under the previous Government?

Baroness Warsi: Of course.

Q131 Mike Gapes: And then they decided to go to Australia-to Perth-instead in 2011?

Baroness Warsi: Of course.

Q132 Mike Gapes: My question is why did this coalition Government think it was appropriate not to object, whereas the previous Government did object in 2009?

Baroness Warsi: My understanding is that we did raise those concerns in 2011-perhaps this is the point where I bring in one of my experts. If we do not have the answer here, I can formally write to you. My understanding is that we did raise our concerns, but the appetite at the Commonwealth meeting was not such that it would prevent Sri Lanka from hosting the Heads of Government meeting.

Q133 Mike Gapes: Is it not the case that decisions in Commonwealth meetings are taken by consensus?

Baroness Warsi: Yes, they are, but not unanimously.

Q134 Mike Gapes: Sorry. Can you unpack that for me because I don’t understand?

Baroness Warsi: You can have consensus without everyone around the table having completely agreed to the situation.

Q135 Mike Gapes: In other words, the Government decided not to press the matter in 2011, because the general view was that other countries were content with it being in Sri Lanka?

Baroness Warsi: No. I think I will have to go back to the details and the read-out of that particular meeting to find out what our objections were, who raised them and how we raised them. It would be wrong for me to comment on a meeting at which I was not present. If it helps, what I can tell you about is the discussion in relation to our attendance and our relationship with Sri Lanka. There have been huge discussions within Government. It was not an easy decision. The arguments not to attend were strong; the arguments to attend were strong, too. In the end, we took a decision that to not attend and to boycott was not going to take our concerns in relation to human rights any further, and that CHOGM could be used, and will be used, as an opportunity to shine a light on Sri Lanka and its lack of progress, despite its own reports, on the issue of human rights. The Foreign Secretary has indicated that, beyond CHOGM, he will certainly be looking to travel and meet groups and the Sri Lankan Government to raise these concerns. The Minister with responsibility for this, Alistair Burt, raises this matter on a weekly basis with his counterparts and indeed the high commissioner here.

You are probably aware that I have a double-hatted job; I also have a domestic role in terms of faith and communities, so I am incredibly aware of the views and concerns of the British Tamil community around our attendance. Indeed I was at its international conference that it held in Portcullis House. I am also aware of the consequences of foreign policy on domestic issues and domestic communities. All that was fed in, and discussions between Alistair Burt and the Sri Lankan-British Tamil community have also taken place. It is not an easy decision, nor is it one that we take lightly. It is not a decision that we all sit entirely comfortably with, but we do feel that our commitment to the Commonwealth goes beyond the country in which it is held, and that our commitment to shining a light on the real human rights concerns that we have in Sri Lanka outweigh a boycott.

Mike Gapes: Okay. We will watch it closely and see what happens.

Q136 Chair: Can I clarify a point? You will have a copy of the Foreign Secretary’s letter of 30 May 2013, which is attached to your brief. Paragraph 3 says, "The decision to hold CHOGM in Sri Lanka in 2013 was taken at the 2009 Port of Spain CHOGM where Sri Lanka’s offer to host CHOGM was discussed by Foreign Ministers before being referred to Commonwealth heads to decide. All Commonwealth heads agreed a package that included Australia’s bid to host in 2011 and Mauritius’ in 2015."

Baroness Warsi: Chairman, I am sorry to intervene but I have a vote.

Chair: I thought you said that it would be after 5 o’clock.

Baroness Warsi: I was hoping it was going to be after 5 o’clock.

Chair: You must go. We will await you. If colleagues want to leave, we will not restart until at least 4 o’clock.

Sitting suspended.

On resuming-

Chair: Minister, thank you for being so speedy in getting to the vote and back-you ran for about half a mile, as far as I can see. We have a vote, as I told you, at 16.27, so I would like to finish this session by then.

Ann Clwyd: May I ask about Burma, Minister?

Chair: Ann, I apologise, but Ming had a question he wanted to ask on the last subject.

Q137 Sir Menzies Campbell: Minister, you know that the Commonwealth is based on the Harare Declaration, which sets out that the Commonwealth is based on a proper respect for human rights. In the case of South Africa, under threat of expulsion it left voluntarily. In the case of Zimbabwe, there has been a suspension.

You will also have understood from the questions asked by Mr Gapes that there is real anxiety among some members of the Committee about the fact that the CHOGM should be held in Sri Lanka, in the light of what we regard as credible evidence from respected human rights groups. Just what would it take for a CHOGM to be cancelled because the human rights position was unacceptable?

Baroness Warsi: It would require more consensus and potential leadership than we are maybe seeing in the Commonwealth at the moment. I had quite frank discussions at the Foreign Ministers meeting that took place in London not so long ago in terms of the concerns that we felt it was important for the Commonwealth to be raising and the necessary people in the chairs to be raising on the issue of Sri Lanka. I know what we would find unacceptable. At the moment my colleagues and I find the human rights situation in Sri Lanka incredibly serious, as well as their approach to implementing some of the recommendations that have come out. We have to balance that with our commitment to continuing to shape and play our role within the Commonwealth.

You will be aware of some of those discussions within the Commonwealth about how sometimes the world is seen in quite a polarised way. It is important for us to remain and support and direct the Commonwealth and countries in it, as far as we can, to the right place. That is not just in relation to Sri Lanka. We have concerns about LGBT rights and the use of the death penalty in Commonwealth countries, but they are individual nations and countries that have come together.

Q138 Sir Menzies Campbell: The difference about the CHOGM, of course, is that it is an opportunity for a shop window. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility, is it, that the Government of Sri Lanka will use the fact that the CHOGM has come to Sri Lanka as some kind of endorsement of its position and policies?

Baroness Warsi: It may do, but we have also been very clear in pointing out to Sri Lanka that, if it thinks in that way, it should also be acutely aware in today’s media age of the spotlight that will be shone upon Sri Lanka and the lack of progress in many areas. We have already seen many reports coming out of Sri Lanka. Many of our own broadcasters have been involved in highlighting and exposing some of the atrocities that happened in Sri Lanka.

Q139 Sir Menzies Campbell: Have we discussed this with the Canadians? I think they are taking a more robust view than has been expressed by the British Government.

Baroness Warsi: They are, but I am not sure of the details of that discussion.

Q140 Sir Menzies Campbell: I think the Canadian Prime Minister said that he would not go. Isn’t that right?

Baroness Warsi: I think the Canadians have indicated that, but I am not aware of the discussions that we have had with the Canadians on that.

Sir Menzies Campbell: I will leave it there, in that case. Thank you.

Q141 Ann Clwyd: On Burma, there were some criticisms when economic sanctions were lifted, although the arms embargo still remains. There are still a number of political prisoners; there is an argument over how many. Having lifted economic sanctions, what political levers do we have as far as Burma is concerned?

Baroness Warsi: One of the policy areas that I have been looking at is how we operate sanctions and apply them as part of a broader policy response, rather than a just quick policy response that can be seen not as an end in itself but part of a series of policy levers. Specific sanctions that were targeted at specific concerns and wrongs are not the same concerns and wrongs that we possibly have now as those we had two or three years ago, because Burma has been on that journey to becoming a more responsible international player. However, this is a country that has made progress.

Q142 Ann Clwyd: No one disagrees with that. My question is: what levers do we still have, since we have lifted economic sanctions? Do we have any?

Baroness Warsi: I think the biggest lever is the fact that this is a country that wants to be part of an international community. It is a country that is trying to do the right thing, saying the right things and heading in the right direction, but it has got much further to go.

As far as specific sanctions are concerned, you will be aware that the sanctions needed the consent of every single member state to remain in place. If a single member state objected, everything including the arms embargo would have fallen away. We felt it was important for the arms embargo to remain, and therefore reach consensus on the other sanctions still to have that level of protection.

Q143 Ann Clwyd: You probably know that President Sein announced in February that a committee would be set up to review the cases of political prisoners who were still in detention, and that representatives of civil society organisations and political parties would be represented on the committee. Has that committee been set up? Is it working?

Baroness Warsi: I have had some involvement with Burma, predominantly through the freedom of religion and belief priority. It is not clear from this document whether that committee has been set up.

Q144 Ann Clwyd: In order to save time, perhaps you could let us know.

Baroness Warsi: Yes. It is not clear from this. In terms of my own involvement in Burma, the Minister with responsibility for Burma is Hugo Swire, and you may be aware that he was one of the first western Ministers to visit, and indeed to visit Rakhine province.

Q145 Ann Clwyd: That is what I was going to ask you about-whether you have raised with the Burmese Government allegations that serious crimes have taken place against the Rohingya community. What plans are there to raise these concerns with Opposition leaders, who have been criticised for remaining silent on the issue, including Aung San Suu Kyi herself?

Baroness Warsi: These issues have been raised with the president, with senior Ministers and with Aung San Suu Kyi. We think that the ethnic reconciliation element is probably one of the areas where by far the least progress has been made. You might be aware that the presidential adviser on ethnic reconciliation-the Minister who has responsibility for that-and the Minister for reconciliation within the Rakhine province were here with a delegation a couple of months back to look at our experiences post-Northern Ireland. I met with them, and the arguments that they made in relation to the Rohingya community centred around them not having been in Burma for long enough, the fact that they looked different and the fact that they had a different religion. The irony of the fact that they were having this conversation with me was clearly lost on them. I had to say, "There are many of us in this country who do not look the same, who have a different religion and who have not been here for more than half a decade, but we are still British."

Every country is on its own journey, and it was important to be able to have quite frank discussions with them on this area. The fact that the commission was set up and has reported, and the fact the president has welcomed some of its findings, is a positive move but we think it needs to go further. We think the proper consideration of the issue of citizenship, and full citizenship, is where this eventually needs to go. We presented quite strong evidence about information that we had about the hundreds of years of Rohingya presence in Burma. What I am trying to say is that this is an issue that I am personally passionate about and that the Minister with responsibility for Burma is incredibly passionate about. The Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister have raised this as well.

Q146 Ann Clwyd: Can I ask you, then, if things do not improve as far as the Rohingyas are concerned-I was at the UN recently, where they had first-hand knowledge of what was going on with the community-would the UK Government support an international investigation into the plight of the Rohingyas?

Baroness Warsi: I think the president has indicated that he will allow an Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights office to open. That commitment was given many months back, and we have been pushing-indeed, we did so at the recent UN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva-for this office to open. We think that that would be a good forum through which we could all operate on these issues. As well as that, our ambassador is incredibly engaged on this and was one of the first ambassadors into Rakhine province as well as Kachin.

Chair: I interrupt to say that our vote may come earlier than expected. May I ask you, without cutting down on the beef, to keep your answers succinct?

Q147 Ann Clwyd: It is just that the UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the country said that he regretted the absence of "recommendations to address impunity" or to ensure that investigations were held into "allegations of…violations targeting the Muslim community". I have not heard what the UK Government feel about the report or whether they agree with those observations.

Baroness Warsi: I cannot remember the details of all the recommendations in the report, but we broadly welcomed the fact that the report had happened, that recommendations had come forward and that the President had accepted them. There were, however, some specifics that we did say that they needed to go further on. What those specifics were, I cannot properly recall off the top of my head, but we certainly were not content with how far the report went.

Q148 Ann Clwyd: Would you be able to let us know what the UK Government’s response is?

Baroness Warsi: Certainly.

Ann Clwyd: On Uzbekistan-

Chair: I fear that we have not got far enough on to say that we will write to you with the rest of our questions. I am afraid that it is going to be your turn to wait now. How are you placed time wise?

Baroness Warsi: The only thing I have is another vote.

Sitting suspended.

On resuming-

Chair: Thank you for your patience.

Q149 Ann Clwyd: Back to Uzbekistan. Do you think that a harder bargain could have been driven with Uzbekistan when the UK was negotiating agreements permitting the withdrawal through Uzbekistan of equipment from Afghanistan?

Baroness Warsi: You are probably aware that we have a policy that gifting any equipment is treated in the same way as selling equipment. The same procedure and the same criteria that we would consider for granting an export licence are the criteria that I consider in particular in relation, for example, to this gifting. Because Uzbekistan is a country that I have responsibility for, once the detail of what could potentially be gifted came through, I spent some time with officials going through the various options and the consequences of various items that we could have given them. I got advice from the arms export department, the human rights and democracy department and from the desk, so it is quite a long process. An agreement to have a transit agreement, which is necessary for us in terms of troop draw-down as we approach 2014, and for gifting to be part of that, is not a done deal. It is gifting to be part of that, but what we give them is subject to controls thereafter.

Q150 Ann Clwyd: What monitoring can be done to ensure that the gifted equipment is not actually used for internal repression?

Baroness Warsi: It is one of the criteria that we consider, and if there is any sense that this equipment has been or could be used for internal repression, the mandatory obligation is to refuse. Whether that is selling or gifting, I would apply exactly the same rules. I went into quite a lot of detail about parts, vehicles, how many of these vehicles they had had in the past, where they have bought them from, where they had been used, and, when there had been internal disturbances, as you are aware there have been in Uzbekistan, whether the police or the army used them.

I take these obligations incredibly seriously, as do my colleagues, because this is the kind of thing that, not just before this Committee but committees in future, we would be answerable for. Under this Government, there is much more ministerial oversight of these decisions, and that is important.

Q151 Ann Clwyd: Getting back to the monitoring, what kind of monitoring will take place on the ground to ensure that that equipment is not used for internal repression?

Baroness Warsi: I think that would be dealing with the issue after the horse has bolted. What is more important is getting advice from our post, which we did, about whether this kind of equipment has ever been used for internal repression in the past. That, for me, is a much stronger indication.

Q152 Ann Clwyd: Mistakes are made. I am on the Committee on Arms Exports Controls and mistakes are made and then the FCO has to review its position on licences, so always the same question: what king of monitoring takes place? I have seen it in so many countries where some of our equipment has been used, despite all the promises beforehand, for internal repression. Therefore, there is always a criticism of the actual monitoring that takes place on the ground.

Baroness Warsi: That monitoring takes place as our human rights work that we do anyway. Our officials in our embassy in Uzbekistan, as in other countries, consistently monitor the human rights situation. They are in contact with NGOs who work on the ground and they are in touch with journalists and human rights defenders who are in the thick of these disturbances as and when they happen. They have quite a lot of information about what was used and how it was used, and that was exactly the kind of information that I went back to ask for before I made a decision.

Of course I accept that mistakes are made, but I think that is really too late. What we need to do as Ministers, is be as sure as we possibly can that the items that we are allowing to be sold, or the items that we are gifting in situations like this cannot be used for internal repression, but also for other bits of the criteria, which would mean there would, under normal circumstances on a sale, be a mandatory refusal.

Q153 Chair: Zimbabwe is still a country of concern, yet we have relaxed our attitude to the sanctions. Is this as a result of an improvement in human rights?

Baroness Warsi: Of course, we still have concerns about human rights in Zimbabwe, and we continue to work with NGOs on the ground. However, we feel that, since the national unity Government in 2009, progress has been made. Targeted sanctions were being applied to specific situations, which had now possibly changed. As you will be aware, this is a crucial year for Zimbabwe with elections approaching. Indeed, there is a suggestion that they will be called possibly by the end of this month. Much of our assessment in relation to how much progress has been made will come to the fore at that moment. I think it can be a watershed moment for the process that Zimbabwe has been on.

On sanctions, it is important that we are clear about why we are applying them; what effects they will have; that they are targeted; that they are part of a broader policy approach; and that when things start to improve they are also part of the policy approach in terms of lifting and allowing that country to make some progress as well. We feel that Zimbabwe is heading in the right direction, and these elections will be an important moment.

Q154 Mike Gapes: Can I take you to Russia briefly? We have been told that the human rights climate in Russia today is as bad as it has been at any point in the post-Soviet period. Would you agree with that assessment?

Baroness Warsi: I do not think I am enough of an expert on Russia to be able to make a judgment.

Q155 Mike Gapes: As the human rights Minister, would you agree that human rights in Russia are as bad as they were at any point since the Soviet Union?

Baroness Warsi: As the human rights Minister who has been in post for 10 months, I can certainly say that in the last 12 months we have seen a deterioration in the situation.

Q156 Mike Gapes: Therefore, what is the purpose and what is your assessment of the UK-Russia human rights dialogue? What has it achieved?

Baroness Warsi: I think it does have a purpose. It is important for us to maintain a forum within which these discussions can be had. We might not always be successful in moving Russia, but the fact that it is an opportunity for us to push them and try and get some progress is important. I am a firm believer in engaging with people we disagree with, rather than disengaging because we disagree with them. I do not think we can achieve things by not talking to them.

We also use them as a basis for where sometimes we get some movement at director level dialogues-for example, when politicians meet their counterparts. When the Prime Minister met President Putin recently, he raised some specific human rights issues. Some of those discussions that happen at director level form that thinking.

Q157 Mike Gapes: You will know that the NGOs are very concerned about recent legislation in Russia, including definitions of international NGOs as "foreign agents". Was that issue raised with the Russians when we had our human rights dialogue?

Baroness Warsi: Human rights issues were raised between the Prime Minister and President Putin. I do not know whether that matter was specifically raised.

Q158 Mike Gapes: What about the meeting in May?

Baroness Warsi: I do not know whether it was raised at the dialogue, but I can find out. In terms of the law on foreign agents, we are incredibly concerned about it, but, whether that was one of the issues raised, I do not know.

Q159 Mike Gapes: Perhaps we could have a written submission that gives us details of what was raised-in detail, not generalities.

Baroness Warsi: I can do that.

Q160 Mike Gapes: Finally, the Russia-EU discussions about visa-free travel. Because the UK is not a member of Schengen, we are not part of the decision-making process between the Schengen countries and Russia, but we are able to attend meetings. Have we expressed a view about whether the European Union should be rewarding Russia with visa-free travel in the light of our human rights concerns in Russia?

Baroness Warsi: I know we have had discussions with Brussels, both in the working groups and at the European Council. What the nature of those discussions was and whether we raised these concerns, I do not have that information to hand. Rather than try and second-guess what took place, let me tell you correctly what happened in those meetings-I will write to you. But I can tell you that we have been in discussions, even though we do not play an active part in the formal negotiations.

Q161 Chair: Are you concerned about human rights in Bahrain?

Baroness Warsi: I am concerned about human rights in Bahrain. The Bahrainis, thankfully, are concerned about human rights in Bahrain. I had an incredibly frank conversation with the Foreign Minister when he was here, a few months back. We consider the Bahrainis to be an important partner and important friend, and with that friendship, as I said to the Foreign Minister, comes a level of honesty and frankness about these issues. Certainly, they are committed. They are making some progress. It is not as quick as they or we would like, but we do feel that they are heading in the right direction.

Q162 Chair: Yet it is not on your list of countries of concern.

Baroness Warsi: It was brought up last time by this Committee, as to why it was not a country of concern, on that particular occasion. As well as generally discussing countries of concern and what the criteria were for countries of concern, I looked at the specific issue of Bahrain.

I am sure you are aware, Chairman, how we document the information which then informs ministerial judgments. We get country briefs, information from NGOs, and because we receive information from all our ambassadors and high commissioners, we have an opportunity to be able to kind of judge this against what is happening in different countries. After the recommendations from the Committee here, we also spoke to the human rights advisory group and they came back with further things which, for example, posts should be looking at when assessing a human rights situation. They said, "Is there, for example, a special representative appointed by the Secretary-General at the UN?", "Who is operating in that country?" So they gave us additional things to look at in terms of countries. Having considered all that, we felt that there were concerns, and it was on a trajectory and we needed to keep that under review, and that is why it is a case study, but we did not feel that it fell within a country of concern, at this stage.

Q163 Chair: On this theme of values versus interests, we do quite a lot of business in Bahrain and the surrounding countries and we have been expecting for some time a business and human rights strategy, which weighs up the arguments as to how you address interests versus values. Its target date for publication was September last year, yet we do not have it. I wonder whether you could give us an update on where that has got to.

Baroness Warsi: I might be part of the problem there, Chairman, because I felt that it was important for that policy to be robust and to take into-I saw an early draft a few months into starting the job and the Foreign Secretary did, as well. We sent officials away to do further work. You are probably aware that DFID, MOD and BIS have fed into this policy, as well as engagement with business.

I am of the belief that you cannot-coming predominantly from the private sector-operate as a successful business in the long term in an unstable environment, whatever the returns might be in the short term, and that it is ultimately in the interests of business for countries to be stable. Countries will ultimately only be stable if they are on the right path in terms of their human rights agenda. The Sarvar tragedy in Bangladesh, with the fire, again brought some of these things to the fore.

I have seen what is effectively a final draft; I think I saw that last week. There are some further details that I have looked at again. I think there was some suggestion that we would look for a date for publishing it. I was quite keen for that not to be done just before or during recess. It was important for Parliament to be sitting when we announced this. So I hope that it will be very soon.

Q164 Chair: It will be a very important document because in this accelerating world we live in, a key issue is how you balance the two together.

Following on that theme, what progress has been made on drawing up a list of goods that might be used to restrict freedom of expression on the internet and might be subject to export controls?

Baroness Warsi: The whole debate about freedom of expression is so new in terms of the way in which technologies are developing. There are some things that you and I might regard as benign technology-the kind of stuff that is on my computer at home so that I know what my kids are doing and where they are surfing. As a parent with young children, I think that is important. That could be used in quite illegitimate ways by regimes around the world that want to try to track what human rights defenders are doing, for example. The criteria we use are the same that we would use on exporting arms, so we would look at whether this could be used in an illegitimate way. If we felt that it could be and it fell within the consolidated criteria for not allowing this to be exported, it would not be.

Discussions are taking place at the moment. There was a conference at the back end of last year at Baku in Azerbaijan, and then a further conference-the WCIT conference-last December in Dubai. There were discussions about what the parameters are, about protections online compared with offline, and about what is considered to be legitimate. Of course, if something is proportionate and reasonable, and it is for protection-we have controls on our internet on child pornography, for example-it is quite right to have those protections in place, but there has to be a legitimate purpose for that and there has to be independent oversight of it. That aspect of it is part of that discussion.

Q165 Chair: And what about drawing up a list? Do you think that a list will appear?

Baroness Warsi: I am not sure whether we will draw up a definitive list. I think Amy might be able to help here.

Amy Clemitshaw: Some cyber-type goods are on the list of controlled goods, so they are already subject to arms export controls. However, as the Minister says, this is a fast-moving area. The key concern in our discussion with industry and other Governments is to ensure that we come up with a global solution that will create a level playing field for business in all countries. There will obviously be implications of any new controls.

Baroness Warsi: It is one of the questions that I asked. If you were a small, innovative IT company operating out of the north of England, how would you know that the goods you were about to supply could be used in this way? There is some outreach work done by BIS with these businesses. Sometimes, tragically, companies find out when their goods are stopped at port. As this is fast moving, we need to allow that space to remain as free as possible for business to thrive and for innovation to continue. It has done, because no Government have had their hands on that space, but we are acutely aware of how these items can be used.

Q166 Chair: Without clarity there is no policy, really.

A couple of loose ends. In Colombia, the British embassy has been emphasising to NGOs that they should work in partnership with the Colombian Government. As a result, some NGOs have been boycotting, or refusing to take funds that we are offering them. Is that as a result of a decision made in Colombia by the post, or centrally here in London?

Baroness Warsi: That decision has not been taken. We are not refusing funds to NGOs that will not work in conjunction with-

Chair: No. They are not seeking funds because of our insistence.

Baroness Warsi: The point I am making is that we are not insisting on them working with the Colombian Government. From my understanding, that decision has not been taken. We work with the Colombian Government on projects that they are doing on human rights. We work with NGOs that do not work with the Colombian Government-we work bilaterally with them and completely independently of the Colombian Government. My understanding-I have checked with desk on this-is that we do not have a policy, and no decision has been taken, that we will work with NGOs only if they are prepared to work with the Colombian Government.

Q167 Chair: So why does Amnesty International describe it as an unreasonable condition?

Baroness Warsi: I cannot answer that. I can answer from the information I have based on the conversations that I have had.

Q168 Chair: Does the question surprise you? Are you aware of an issue in Colombia?

Baroness Warsi: I was aware that this issue had come up and that there was some suggestion that we had insisted that only NGOs that work with the Colombian Government would be funded. I asked about that and was told that it is not the case.

Q169 Chair: Where do you think it has come from?

Baroness Warsi: I have no idea where it has come from, but when I asked, I was told that it was not the case.

Q170 Chair: Can you drop us a line on that? Clearly there is something going on.

Baroness Warsi: I can. It might be that Amy has further information.

Amy Clemitshaw: We are very happy to write, and all I would add is that across all our programme funding, one of the things we are looking for is what is going to make the most effective project. In many cases, depending on the type of project, having the involvement of the Government is pretty much a condition of delivering what it is about, but obviously that will vary by project.

Baroness Warsi: But I think that the Chairman’s question was: have we taken a decision or have we explicitly said that to NGOs in Colombia? My understanding from the briefing and the information that I have is that that is not the case, but if that is not correct-Amnesty clearly seems to think that there is some suggestion-I will certainly write to you. However, I will write to you in any event and explain where we think that that idea may have come from.

Chair: Add it to the growing list.

Baroness Warsi: It is added to the growing list of things I am going to write to you about.

Q171 Chair: We have had some evidence from NGOs that insufficient priority is being given to children’s human rights. Is that a fair comment?

Baroness Warsi: We have to prioritise those areas where we feel we want to try to focus some political energy and maybe even some resourcing, but that does not mean that other human rights are not looked at. In fact, we may find that some of our priority areas do not apply in specific countries and other human rights priorities apply. For example, children may not be a priority under the human rights and democracy programme, but in Uzbekistan, a country with which I have been involved, the issue of children in cotton fields is a very specific issue that is absolutely part of the issues we would raise. I do not think that those rights are overlooked, but I accept that we take judgments about which areas we are going to prioritise.

Q172 Chair: Thank you very much. I think that that completes our questions. Have you got over all the points that you wanted to make?

Baroness Warsi: I think I have-it has been broad. This has been a good first experience of a Foreign Affairs Committee sitting, so thank you.

Chair: We look forward to seeing you next time. Thank you very much indeed to you and your two colleagues.