Sir Jeremy Hunt
MP for Godalming and Ash · Conservative · United Kingdom
“It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I speak today as chairman of the all-party parliamentary group for financial markets and services. I refer hon. Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, which states that I accept speaking engagements from financial services companies.”
“Chief executives of banks made very ill-judged decisions to continue paying themselves large bonuses at a time when the rest of the country was suffering, and the country suffered a longer and deeper recession at that time as a result of our exposure to the financial services sector, which was much greater than that of our peers.”
“We are in a much, much better state than we were in 2008.” But I do think that it has gone slightly too far in the other direction. Sometimes we can over-correct.”
“What further action will the Government take to improve access to finance for small and medium-sized enterprises and scale-ups, which has been a particular issue in the period since the financial crisis?”
“I thank the hon. Lady for her role in helping to salvage Barings. I did not know that before. She is absolutely right to raise that issue. I do not say this in a party political way, because my party pretty much supported it at the time, but there is no doubt that, in the run-up to the financial crisis, regulation was not as tight as it n…”
“To their credit, this Government have built on those reforms with the Leeds reforms, the Pension Schemes Act 2026 and the forthcoming Financial Services and Markets Bill, all of which are extremely welcome. But, as the hon. Member for Buckingham and Bletchley said, our competitors are not standing still.”
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“I am very happy to do that. I know that our Prime Minister was hoping to speak to Prime Minister Wickremesinghe this afternoon. We absolutely want to support Sri Lankan efforts to get to the bottom of what intelligence they received—apparently, it did not reach the politicians involved, although it is important to say that, even if it had, it would not necessarily have been possible to prevent these attacks. However, we will give Prime Minister Wickremesinghe every help he requests.”
“I absolutely support what the hon. Lady is saying, because the whole point about freedom of religious belief is that people should be free to believe what they want, and that applies to people of any faith or no faith. A fundamental tenet of a free society is that people should be free to come to their own conclusions. The Bishop of Truro’s review is specifically about Christians. I hope the hon. Lady understands that that is because we have a concern that the plight of Christians worldwide has not had the attention that it needs, and we want to put that right. However, I will happily look into the issues she raises about humanist beliefs and other beliefs that are not attached to any particular religion, and write to her if I may.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for the passion of her words. Last year, according to the figures I saw, 3,000 Christians were killed because of their faith, and that was double the previous year. These are largely some of the poorest people on the planet. The oppression of Christians, just to deal with that particular issue, is often concentrated in countries such as Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Afghanistan, where we have large aid budgets and therefore a significant degree of leverage with the host countries. One purpose of this review is to understand how we can better join up our Government Departments so that we really do use the influence we have.”
“I will look into that if I may. I know that we would stand ready to help in any way we could with that situation. I am very pleased that the right hon. Gentleman asked that question, because it has reminded me of something the high commissioner asked me to pass on to the House and, through Members here this afternoon, to their constituents. He strongly encourages anyone who is in Sri Lanka on holiday to contact their friends and family just to say that they are safe. Obviously, there are a lot of people at home worried about what may have happened.”
“I am very happy to do that. There is a very large Tamil Christian community in Sri Lanka. The important work that has happened over the last decade to achieve reconciliation between Tamils and Sinhalese also needs to be about religious reconciliation and religious tolerance.”
“I am happy to give the hon. Lady that undertaking. I think a number of hard lessons will need to be learned about what happened, not least because it does seem, from statements that the Sri Lankan Government have given, that there was some intelligence forewarning of these attacks, although we do not yet know whether that meant that they could have been prevented. However, we are also keen to understand broader issues around freedom of religious belief. My own view is that the issue has been talked about a lot in the United States but not so much in Europe, and it is important that we have our perspective on it, which might be different from the perspective in the United States. That is absolutely our intention.”
“It has always been a brave thing to be a missionary, and I urge them to ensure that they are fully abreast of Foreign and Commonwealth Office travel advice in order to maintain their own safety. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that there is a broader issue here. The Open Doors report says that 245 million Christians are persecuted every year, and we think that around 80% of the people who are persecuted for their faith are Christians. That is why the independent review by the Bishop of Truro is so timely.”
“The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. When we have the Bishop of Truro’s report, I want to look at how we can build a coalition with other countries worldwide that have concerns about freedom of religious belief so that we can start spreading those lessons. One of the most important things we can do is to ensure that we express our views to any Governments, particularly in younger democracies, who might be tempted to resort to populist messages that can lead to discrimination against religious believers of one faith or another, and to make them aware of the dangers of that approach.”
“There are two specific things. When it comes to countering terrorism, we in this country have huge expertise and we share it with as many countries as we can in order to try to prevent terrorist attacks. Unfortunately, however, a lot of the persecution that the Open Doors report talks about is state organised and state sponsored, and in those cases we can use our diplomatic levers and those of our friends in other countries who share our values, to try to make it clear that that is not the right way forward.”
“I thank the right hon. Gentleman for raising that issue. I think he would agree with me that the extraordinary advances that humanity has made since the time of the Enlightenment have come about because the human race has come to accept pluralism as a mechanism for progress. However, that principle always has to be defended and I am afraid that it still has to be defended in this country. For example, we see some of the protection that is necessary around synagogues and mosques, although not yet around churches. We have to be eternally vigilant on these issues.”
“What we call countering disinformation online is an area in which this country has been taking a lead internationally. We spent £20 million on it last year and we have huge expertise. Unfortunately, we do not have to go as far as Sri Lanka to see these problems; they are also here in Europe—many of the eastern European countries are dealing with propaganda being pumped out into their social media systems, for example—and we absolutely do make that expertise available to our friends around the world.”
“The hon. Lady makes an important point. The Home Secretary was with me this morning when I briefed the Cabinet on the situation in Sri Lanka, but I will take up the specific concerns that she has raised.”
“It is early days, but I spoke to Foreign Minister Marapana yesterday, and our Prime Minister is due to speak to the Sri Lankan Prime Minister this afternoon. Our offer is there to support them in any way possible, but one of the things that we can do is what this House is doing this afternoon. We have had a nearly full house of people from all political parties wanting to show their solidarity with our friends in Sri Lanka, and I think that that is something of which we can be rightly proud.”
“I would of course be happy to do that. Sadly, what happened in Sri Lanka will colour the review and make us consider the issues around terrorism more fully. When we originally set up the review, we were perhaps not thinking that that would be such a big focus, but I think it must be.”
“I can absolutely give my hon. Friend that assurance. We are the penholder for Sri Lanka on the United Nations Security Council, so we have a particular responsibility to ensure proper accountability and reconciliation as part of the progress that is being made. I thank him for pointing out that progress. In these dark moments, it is important not to forget that there is actually a lot of hope in the country given the progress that has been made over the past 10 years.”
“I cannot really add anything to that, because the hon. Lady speaks powerfully of the responsibility of all Members, except to say that to do what she says is quite challenging. Elections are competitive things, and we get headlines by saying strong things that grab people’s attention, but we must always ensure that we stand on the right side of the line and do not foster the kind of hatred that we so tragically witnessed this weekend.”
“I can absolutely give my hon. Friend that assurance. I am pleased that he mentioned GCHQ, because it has done a spectacularly important job in recent years in helping us to understand the Daesh networks and how they operate online. That has played a significant role in the defeat of Daesh in recent months, at least in terms of their territorial possessions.”
“I entirely understand why the hon. Gentleman raises that issue. I reassure him that we support freedom of all religious belief; it is just that we think that Christianity has been slightly left behind for various reasons. More Christians are persecuted than those of any other faith, so we want to ensure that we are giving that the proper attention it deserves without excluding any other faith from our concerns.”
“My hon. Friend makes a profoundly important point, and I totally agree with him. The perpetrators of this evil attack were trying to stop freedom of religious belief, and we must ensure that they are not successful.”
“My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development will consider any need for that kind of support with the greatest of sympathy, but I thank the hon. Gentleman for drawing attention to the people who have had life-changing injuries. Around 500 people were injured in addition to the more than 300 people who tragically lost their lives, including a local employee of the British Council and his wife.”
“It is a pleasure to interrupt a mammoth Cabinet meeting to enjoy the harmony and consensus for which the House is famous. [Laughter.] The United Kingdom has long championed freedom of religion, but I think we should do more for the estimated 240 million Christians who face persecution for their faith around the world. I have therefore asked the Bishop of Truro to conduct a review, which I hope he will deliver in the summer.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for mentioning the Open Doors report, which contains some stark statistics. It states, for example, that 80% of the people who suffer persecution for their religious belief are Christians. The most striking statement is that the vast majority are in the very poorest countries: this is not, on the whole, a problem affecting people who live in affluent countries. My hon. Friend is right to mention that countries such as North Korea have been singled out. The purpose of the review is to ensure that we use all the UK’s diplomatic leverage to highlight these issues and put pressure on those regimes to change.”
“I want to ensure that we exercise maximum influence where we have that influence. The striking thing about that report is that, notwithstanding the comments that my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) made about North Korea, some of the worst offenders are in the middle east, notably Afghanistan, Libya, Sudan and Somalia, where the population of Christians has fallen from 20% to around 5%. In many of those countries, we have big aid budgets and a lot of influence.”
“I pay tribute to the Department for International Development, which has allocated £12 million recently specifically to promote freedom of religious belief. The gist of my hon. Friend’s question is right—where we have a large aid budget, with countries such as Afghanistan, it is absolutely essential that we make it clear to the Government in those countries that we are expecting progress on freedom of religious belief. We need to remember that many of the worst conflicts in the world have happened because people of different religions have clashed, so promoting harmony between religions is one of the best long-term ways of promoting peace.”
“My hon. Friend is right. I think it is fair to say that there has been some hesitation in the past in our embracing the issue of persecution of Christians—whether from a misguided concern about our history and the role of missionaries, I do not know—but now is the time when we have to put all that behind us and say that freedom of religious belief is an essential and indivisible part of freedom, full stop. The UK should always be on the right side of that issue.”
“The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I would widen the point even further, and say that women from all religions, not just Christian religions, are double victims. Where there is persecution of any religion, often women come off worst. I think the most inspiring example of courage in the face of that persecution is Nadia Murad, the recent Nobel peace prize winner, a Yazidi campaigner who suffered absolutely horrifically but is an inspiration to persecuted women all over the world.”
“I thank the hon. Lady for her interest in the Asia Bibi case, which I know is shared in all parts of this House. I reassure the hon. Lady that making sure that she is safe, and has somewhere safe to go, is a top priority for this Government. We have had numerous private discussions with the Pakistani Government about how to progress this issue. I do not want to go into the details of those discussions, but we are making progress and I am very hopeful that this will have a positive outcome.”
“The atrocities suffered by the Copts are some of the very worst suffered by Christians anywhere, and there have been several examples of those in Egypt. However, the Egyptians are trying very hard to address these issues. They recently opened a brand-new cathedral, and that is a big step forward for any country in the middle east. We obviously want to encourage them on the journey.”
“I thank the hon. Lady for asking that question. Of course China is an important country with which we have critical relations in the world, but having those relations means that we have to be able to raise issues of concern when we meet our Chinese counterparts. That is what I did when I visited China in August last year and raised concerns about freedom of religion in Xinjiang province. We had the universal periodic review in November last year, and concerns were also raised at the 40th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council. We will continue to raise those concerns with China at every opportunity.”
“The rules-based international system has made the world collectively massively safer and more prosperous than it has ever been before. This country played a major role in setting it up and we will always defend it, as we did when we held Russia to account after the terrible attack in Salisbury.”
“I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend’s comments; he could not be more right. It is incredibly important that when Russia does things such as invading neighbouring countries, as it did in Crimea, no one in this House should say things such as the Leader of the Opposition said, which is that Russia has more right on its side than Ukraine. That is quite wrong, and it is giving people permission to do that kind of thing again.”
“We have been investing a huge amount in our global leadership on climate change, and we are the G20 country that has the biggest drop in emissions per unit of GDP. We are also bidding to host COP 26, which will be the next big climate change conference on the fifth anniversary of the Paris conference. We have a different view from that of the Trump Administration, and we are very open about that with them. It is all the more important that the countries that do not share their view and that think we have a responsibility to future generations should stand proud in our support for this vital agenda.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for raising that issue. In all the debates we have about Brexit—I have now met my counterparts in every EU country—the one thing that comes across loud and clear is that the part of the world that has suffered the most from not having adherence to a rules-based international order is Europe. That is why European countries say to us constantly that they want to continue to have their vital strategic and military relations with the United Kingdom, whatever the outcome of Brexit, and that they want Britain to play a strong and influential role in upholding the rules-based order across the world. That is what we will do.”
“This is something on which my right hon. Friend the Minister for Asia and the Pacific has done an enormous amount of work through his contacts with the Sri Lankan Government. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to raise that issue, not least because many members of the Sri Lankan community in this country have a great deal of concern about it. Overall, the picture in Sri Lanka is remarkably better than it was a decade ago. However, there will never be lasting peace unless there is justice and accountability for the things that went wrong.”
“I am happy to do that. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right—we should never recognise the annexation of territory by force. That has been one of the great achievements since the founding of the United Nations. I do that with a very heavy heart, because Israel is an ally and a shining example of democracy in a part of the world where that is not common. We want Israel to be a success, and we consider it to be a great friend, but on this we do not agree.”
“I thank the hon. Lady for raising that case. Obviously, our hearts go out to her constituent’s family over a truly terrible incident. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Asia and the Pacific is very, very happy to meet her and make sure that we are doing everything that we can.”
“Let me tell my opposite number that that is exactly why we are doing everything that we possibly can to try to create peace in Yemen. It is why I am the first western Foreign Minister to meet the Houthi side, even though they were the ones that were the cause of the conflict when it began four years ago. I am the first western Foreign Minister to visit Yemen to see where we could progress the Stockholm accords. I am not prepared to let Labour pose as the great humanitarians, as their foreign policy is to support an evil regime in Venezuela that stops its own people accessing food and medicine—it just does not work.”
“The right hon. Lady just is not reflecting what has happened. Thanks to action by this Government and other Governments, a judicial process started in Saudi Arabia on 3 January and we are sending observers. We have a UN special rapporteur, Agnes Callamard, who is responsible for looking at extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, and she is leading an independent international inquiry. When I became Foreign Secretary—the right hon. Lady was shadow Foreign Secretary then, too—we did not have a peace process in Yemen, and now we do, which is thanks to the UK and the huge diplomatic effort we have been making.”
“I visited Saudi Arabia most recently on 2 March. We have a long history of close co-operation in support of regional stability, alongside frank conversations on areas of concern, including human rights.”
“I can assure the hon. Lady that we have been clear from the outset that what happened to Khashoggi was fundamentally against our values, and that there has to be full accountability and a transparent judicial process that meets international standards. That process has started and we continue to monitor it; we are sending observers to see what happens in the trial process. We continue to exercise our strong views on the issue, in private and in public.”
“Absolutely not. I raised the issue of detained women campaigners when I was recently in Saudi Arabia, and the Prime Minister has raised the case of Raif Badawi, the blogger who was sentenced to 1,000 lashes. The interesting thing about the report, if it is true, is that it was commissioned by the King, who wants to understand what is going on in the prisons, to ensure that they meet international standards of humanitarian justice.”
“I had not heard that report, but it would be excellent news. I can reassure the right hon. Lady that I raised the issue when I met the Saudi Foreign Minister on my recent visit. We have asked to have access to the trials, but that has been denied. We continue to follow the case very carefully and press it at every opportunity.”
“I start by paying tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), who stepped down last week. He served twice as Minister for the Middle East and was immensely respected and liked both in the Foreign Office, which does not happen with all Ministers, and in this House for his integrity, wisdom and kindness. Tomorrow marks the third anniversary of the detention of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe in Iran. I know that I speak for the whole House in hoping that the Iranian authorities will see beyond the differences between our two countries and allow this innocent woman to come home and join her family.”
“I am very happy to look into the case in detail for the hon. Gentleman. Turkey may be a NATO ally and an important friend of the United Kingdom, but that does not prevent us from raising important human rights issues.”
“Yes we can, and indeed we will. This November, we will host a major conference on the prevention of sexual violence as a tool of conflict. I have met Nadia Murad and Dr Denis Mukwege, the Nobel peace prize winners who have campaigned on this issue. Whether it is Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq or Burma, we are clear that this has to become an international taboo.”
“I think people would see it as very curious that a country that voted to take back control was choosing to cede control in a number of areas of vital national interest. I think they would also be concerned that it would not resolve the national debate on Brexit, because many of the people who voted for Brexit would not see this as delivering a true Brexit.”
“I very much welcome young people being involved in climate change issues; I do not welcome quite so much their missing school to do so. I would say that we are making a lot of progress in this country—in fact, I think we have done more than anyone else in the G20 on climate change—but it is not enough. As a global community, we still need to do more, which is why we want to host COP 26 and galvanise the world to take more action.”
“I thank my right hon. Friend for raising this issue, and indeed for raising it consistently. He is absolutely right: Mexico is the most dangerous country in the world in which to be a journalist. The Mexican Government have taken action, and we are in touch with them closely about what they are doing. However, we need to draw the world’s attention to this issue. According to the latest figures I have seen, 348 journalists were arrested or detained last year for doing their job. That is why this summer, jointly with Canada, we will be hosting the first ever international conference on media freedom at ministerial level.”
“We are doing lots, but the most important thing that we have to do is make sure that when there has been genocide or alleged genocide, there is accountability. Burma is a case in point, and we hosted a major meeting on that very issue at the UN General Assembly. If there is no accountability, people think they have a chance to get away with doing it again, and that must not happen.”
“NATO has, I think, been the most successful military alliance ever, and it is the foundation of our rules-based international order. My message is very simple: we must not be complacent for the future, and there is a fundamental imbalance when one half of the alliance is spending 4% of its GDP on defence and the other half—the European side—is spending between 1% and 2%.”