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North Africa and the Near and Middle East

Yes, and we will be discussing that with them. A delegation of members of the Shura Council recently visited us and spent a whole week here trying to find out how our Parliament works, how our Select Committees work, and how we hold Ministers to account. They talked to me about their desire for reform within the Shura Council and their determination that there should be elections to that body instead of its members being appointed by the King. Because they are very interested in learning from our experience of democracy, they insisted on spending the day with me in my constituency and finding out how the Member of Parliament is held to account by his constituents, how he interacts with the local council, and so on. The Minister will know that the Foreign Secretary has described Saudi Arabia as a strategic ally of the United Kingdom and that our relations will be cemented and even further prioritised. I hope that he will confirm that. The Prime Minister and the European Union talked about a Marshall aid package for Tunisia and Egypt following the revolutions in those countries. I have not heard much subsequently about that huge plan, which apparently involved up to €1 billion. I hope that it will be extended to Libya. I would like to hear what progress there is on that. I hope that some of the money will be used to facilitate British companies in trading with the region. My hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Mr Gale) is the chairman of the all-party group on Tunisia. He cannot be here, so he asked me to raise the importance of tourism to these countries. I hope that the Minister will agree that we should encourage citizens to visit Tunisia at the earliest opportunity, because it depends so much on tourism. I will finish by saying that on Wednesday I will be hosting a reception in the House of Commons for the fifth birthday of al-Jazeera English. It is a broadcaster of immense pedigree. I trust al-Jazeera far more than the BBC, regrettably, for impartiality and objective broadcasting. More than 160 people are coming to the event. Because of the strike, I will be pouring the tea and serving the cake myself as we cannot get any catering staff to do so. Hon. Members are very welcome to join us on the Terrace on Wednesday. Lieutenant Colonel Chris Parker, who came to see me, said that when he was chief of staff in Basra, they were watching al-Jazeera on television and it was the only broadcaster that was broadcasting from Basra. They saw a report on al-Jazeera which said that some of the British shelling was hitting civilians in a residential area. As a result of watching that broadcast, the artillery was stopped and innocent civilian lives were saved. We have a lot to thank al-Jazeera for. I shall leave it at that.