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United States of America

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) on securing this debate. Anybody who watched the television coverage of President Obama's inauguration would have been moved by what they saw. For a start, as a number of other hon. Members have mentioned, it was the inauguration of the first African-American President. Some journalists described it as a second reconstruction. Hearing and seeing the reaction of ordinary African-American voters, I felt the sense of a country coming together, a century and a half after its bloody civil war. The inauguration also demonstrated what American citizenship and democracy mean, as the leaders of the nation, rival candidates and rival parties assembled at the Capitol and we saw the peaceful transition of power from one President and one political party to another. Out of curiosity, I looked on the internet to see how al-Jazeera was covering the events. It was covering the inauguration live. I could not help but wonder what impression would be gained by the millions of viewers living in countries where people cannot choose their own Government or rid themselves of leaders in whom they have lost confidence when that spectacle of American democracy in action was displayed in front of them. The starting point for this debate is that the United States, for all its faults, is still a land of opportunity and a beacon for much of the rest of the world. It is a country where central to the idea of citizenship is the notion that any ambition, any dream, can be realised. When I was observing the Republican convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul, I was struck by the fact that every taxi driver I talked to seemed to come from either Ethiopia or Eritrea, but that each was now determined to make himself into an American and achieve as much as he could in his new life in the new world. It is a good thing that the dominant world power since 1945 has been a country committed to democracy and the rule of law, but American influence and power rest on far more than military force. One must consider as well its commercial influence and its cultural influence through television, film, music, sport, brands of clothing and the food that is conspicuous in virtually every country of the world that one can visit. When it comes to relations between this country and the United States, we have shared and suffered a great deal together over the past 100 years. I shall not recount the history, but every weekend, when I go to Princes Risborough library in my constituency, I see a modest brick monument to an American pilot, Lieutenant Sparky Cosper from Texas. During world war two, he was flying over the Chilterns when he had a problem with his plane, and he deliberately steered it to crash in the countryside, killing himself rather than endanger the lives of citizens in the town below. That sort of individual case was replicated, I am sure, in many towns and villages throughout the United Kingdom. [Mr. Eric Illsley in the Chair] Looking forward, I think that our relationship with the United States should be close, but it ought never to become slavish. We share a great deal—language, culture and a relationship built on trade, investment, defence and intelligence—but we do not need to be starry-eyed. There have been unhappy episodes in our history: 1812 is one such example; one also thinks of President Theodore Roosevelt's efforts in the late 19th century to build up a blue-water American navy, partly because of fears that the United States might have a military clash with the British empire. Although I certainly wish President Obama and his Administration well, we should not pretend that they will be anything other than hard-headed in the defence of United States interests first and foremost. That is what their electorate expect. My questions for the Minister concern four subjects that seem important in terms of our bilateral relationship with the United States. The first is international trade and protection. Most of us in this country, across party boundaries, hoped that some of the Democratic party's campaign rhetoric about the need for protectionism would not be translated into legislative action. We have been concerned about the ““Buy American”” provisions that are now being debated in Congress. I note that those provisions have been somewhat watered down by amendments tabled within the last week. However, when I was in Toronto last Thursday and Friday, the Canadian Ministers with whom I discussed the issue were certainly of the view that the deal was still far from being a satisfactory one. In particular, they felt that individual states and individual municipal authorities in the United States might be able to invoke protectionist clauses in their procurement contracts, on the grounds that they themselves were not parties to international agreements prohibiting protectionism. I would be interested to learn what approaches on this subject British Ministers have made and intend to make to their counterparts in the new US Administration. I would also like to receive from the Minister some assurance that the British Government really will stand by our long-standing commitment to free trade, as something that is not only in the interests of our own country, but in the interests of spreading prosperity among the poorest countries in the world. Secondly, I want to say a few words about Iran. I welcome without reservation President Obama's decision to have contact with the Iranian regime. It is very easy to talk to one's friends, but if one simply refuses to talk to people one ends up diminishing the opportunities for mutual understanding, let alone the opportunities for diplomatic progress. However, in line with that new American approach to Tehran, there needs to be real determination on the part of European countries to back up America's carrot with a rather bigger stick than European powers have been willing to brandish up to now. I know that it is difficult to get European agreement on these matters. However, more than 12 months have passed since the Prime Minister said that we needed to have a block on new European oil and gas investment in Iran and so far no legislative action to give effect to that ambition has been forthcoming. Frankly, it is galling to hear the Iranian deputy Commerce Minister boast, as he did last month, that 67 per cent. of Iran's foreign trade in 2007 came from Europe and that he is able to say:"““EU members are not paying any attention to the UN resolutions against Iran.””" I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us what her colleagues are saying to their counterparts in other European countries about the need to back up President Obama's diplomatic overtures to Iran with sanctions that clearly demonstrate the intention of the whole of the European Union to isolate Iran commercially if it is not willing to enter into serious discussions about how to obtain verifiable assurances that it will not develop nuclear weapons. Thirdly, the question of Iran brings me on to broader questions of nuclear doctrine and nuclear policy. In the past 12 months, it has been striking to see how men who have been characterised as hawks in US politics—men such as former Secretaries of State Kissinger and Shultz and former Senator Sam Nunn—are now campaigning very publicly for significant changes in US nuclear doctrine and for a major reduction, to be achieved through negotiation, in the stocks of nuclear weapons that are held internationally. Do the British Government support those initiatives? The Foreign Secretary's paper last week suggested that they are behind such an approach, but I want to tease out from the Minister whether our Government believe that that new strategy has implications for their policies on the modernisation of Trident and the future of the British nuclear deterrent. Finally, I cannot avoid saying a few words about the allegations that have been made about torture and abuse. Harking back to my opening remarks about the importance of America's democratic moral example, if we and the United States say that we stand for democracy and the rule of law, evidence that we have failed to live up to those standards in practice does us significant harm in international relations and indeed in terms of domestic public confidence. Can the Minister say whether the Government are minded, even at this stage, to make fresh representations to the US Administration following the court ruling in the case of Mr. Binyam Mohamed? In a letter to my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), dated yesterday, the Foreign Secretary said:"““I did not, however, discuss the details of Mr Mohamed's Judicial Review proceedings.””" That is, he did not discuss them with Secretary of State Clinton when he visited the United States. In the letter, the Foreign Secretary goes on to argue that that was because the High Court had given British Ministers a copy of its judgment in ““advance”” of it being handed down, on ““strict conditions”” of confidentiality. However, the Foreign Secretary went on to say in his letter to my right hon. Friend that a US spokesman had said on 4 February that"““The United States thanks the UK government for its continued commitment to protect sensitive national security information and preserve the long-standing intelligence sharing relationship that enables both countries to protect their citizens.””" The right hon. Gentleman went on to say in his letter:"““On that basis, I saw no need to speak again to Secretary Clinton in the period between the judgment's public release and my statement on Thursday.””" The problem that we have here is that the judges stated on 4 February that it was"““difficult to conceive that a democratically elected and accountable government could possibly have any rational objection to placing into the public domain such a summary of what its own officials reported as to how a detainee was treated by them””." The judgment said that there would not be a breach of national security if that summary was made public. I accept, straight away, that it is possible for judges to get it wrong and to make assumptions that the disclosure of particular material would not harm national security interests when, in fact, it could do so. I also accept that the terms of an intelligence-sharing relationship must give to the country supplying the information a veto on whether or not that information is disclosed, but it is of course open to a country supplying intelligence to decide to waive that right of confidentiality. I find it baffling that the Foreign Secretary appears not even to have made a request to the US to do that. I therefore hope that the Minister will also be able to say something about that point when she responds to the debate. In my view, relationships between Britain and the United States need to be built on both friendship and frankness. There will be times when our interests clash and there will be occasions when we disagree about particular issues. However, I am confident that our shared values and our shared interests mean that the relationship between our two countries will remain of critical importance to both in the years to come.