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Middle East

As chairman of the all-party group on Saudi Arabia, I felt that this was an opportune moment to make a few brief comments on that country and share with the Minister some of the reflections on my recent visit to the kingdom with fellow parliamentarians. I led a delegation to Riyadh in February, and I am grateful to Prince Mohammed of the Saudi embassy here and Prince Sultan for their extraordinary efforts to make us feel welcome and ensure that the trip went smoothly. Saudi Arabia is an important ally, especially in counter-terrorism. During our trip, we received many briefings from Saudi intelligence officers, who started to tell us about the extraordinary exchange of information that goes on between them and our intelligence and security officers. I was pleased to hear about the co-operation and mutual trust on sharing information and fighting terrorism. As the Minister knows—he spoke so eloquently at the recent two-kingdom dialogue conference—Saudi Arabia is grappling with terrorism and it has equal difficulty in trying to tackle the problem. However, we were shown, as was the Foreign Secretary last week on his visit to Saudi Arabia, many of the pioneering ways in which that country is trying to rehabilitate offenders and dissuade them from wanting to be terrorists. We also met many Ministers and King Abdullah, the custodian of the two holy mosques. In our discussions, he showed a great fondness and respect for our sovereign. I believe that the two sovereigns have a close working relationship and I was therefore pleased that he came to our country for the state visit. He sincerely wants good links with the United Kingdom and I hope that the Government will continue to promote Anglo-Saudi relations at every opportunity. As the Minister may know—I have informed the Foreign Secretary—the king is initiating a forum for multi-faith dialogue in Saudi Arabia. Although he is the custodian of the two holy mosques, he wishes to hold more of an inter-faith dialogue between Islam and all the other religions around the world. We should support him in that. The Saudis are slightly dismayed about the total lack of media interest in King Abdullah’s tremendous efforts to initiate that forum. I regret that lack of interest, and I hope that the Minister will do everything possible to ensure that the British media start to report more effectively and more widely the king’s tremendous efforts to pursue the matter. During our visit, we also heard discussions about the possibility of building the first Christian church in Saudi Arabia. The Minister knows that many Christians live in Saudi Arabia and I spoke up on the issue when I visited the kingdom. Starting to allow Christian communities to build churches would be a healthy step and I hope that the Minister will use his influence with the Saudis to promote that. Our meetings with Saudi young people showed me their determination to achieve change and modernise their society. Time and again, I refer to the liberal elite—the BBC and most newspapers—who run our media. They like to denigrate Saudi Arabia and always focus on the negative aspects of that society. My hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt) talked about being like a scratched record. I for one intend to be like a scratched record in the House of Commons, in putting forward the alternative—the positive side of Saudi Arabian culture—and confronting our liberal elite media, which focus only on negative stories and denigrating Saudi Arabia. Saudi is an oasis of stability in the middle east and we need to support it as much as possible.