Human Rights in Saudi Arabia

“Many of the projects and programme activity are delivered regionally”.

In any circumstance, that would be a pretty thin defence, but in the context of everything that we know and see to be going on in Saudi Arabia, if that is where the British taxpayers’ money is being spent, at the very least we should be given a proper explanation of the spending and not some obfuscation according to accounting practices.

The Government continue to refuse to provide any information to parliamentarians about the use of IAF funds in Saudi Arabia. That, of course, raises real questions about why the Government refuse to provide that information in this age. If there is to be a bid for the IAF to continue beyond 2020, which we understand is already under consideration, surely it is critical that Members of this House get answers on just what the funds are being used for and what safeguards exist to ensure that they will not lead to further and more egregious abuses of human rights.

I have three final questions for the Minister. First, will the Government confirm that the Foreign Office will make urgent representations to its Saudi counterparts to ensure that the three individuals currently on death row in Saudi Arabia will have their sentences commuted and receive a full pardon? Given the inadequacies of the process that has brought them to this point, if the Government are serious about a policy of opposing the death penalty in all circumstances, that is the very least we should do.

Secondly, will the Government commit to publishing information on all programmes currently engaging with Saudi Arabia, including the programme documentation and assessment frameworks, and assessments under the overseas security and justice assistance guidance? Thirdly, will the Government commit to providing full breakdowns of all projects funded under the integrated activity fund, including the countries and institutions receiving funds under that programme, and details of each project’s human rights assessment under the overseas security and justice assistance guidance?

It is all very well to stand here, in the comfort of the House of Commons, and criticise Saudi Arabia for its human rights, but I am pretty sure that, if we were to go out and ask anybody we stopped on the street here what they thought of the treatment of detainees and citizens in Saudi Arabia, they would be pretty appalled. I think they would actually be angry if they knew that money paid by taxpayers in this country was being used in such a way that it could contribute to and abet those human rights abuses, and that no explanation for that would be forthcoming. That is why I think it is important that the House debates this subject today. I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for allowing the time, and I hope that we will have time to hear the fullest possible answers from the Minister.

Such advertisements for women have brought further attention to other cases of mistreatment of women, including other Moroccan women, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In one example, a Moroccan woman who married a Saudi man was raped by her husband and then imprisoned in their house after trying to report the crime. Her being released from that captivity required her to appeal directly to Morocco’s King. Those are good examples of how prevalent modern slavery is in Saudi Arabia. It is not only Moroccan women but American women as well. I am aware of American women who married Saudi nationals, live in Saudi Arabia and are subject to a situation in which other people completely rule over what they do.

Those people have all the rights that we associate with ownership. The women were forcibly abducted or kidnapped, in clear violation of the laws of other countries, and of court orders of other countries in some cases. They have been removed from those countries, far beyond the enforcement powers of the courts within those countries. They have been hidden away in family compounds for years, deprived of even a basic standard of living, including being deprived of a choice of religion, spouse or, for younger women, a choice of their age of marriage. They are denied freedom of movement and they are subjected to torture.

The stories are pitiful, and we should have tremendous sympathy for those women, but sympathy is not enough. I have explained what I have been doing in other countries. The Government can take a firm stance in raising those issues with the Governments of other countries and bringing to attention the plight of those women. It should not only be the King of Morocco who is required to do this; we should be doing it as well.

Many foreign workers in Saudi Arabia report abuse, but they are not allowed to change employer or, indeed, to leave the country without the written consent of their employer. During the year, numerous migrant workers report being laid off, sometimes after months of non-payment of salaries, and some remain stranded in Saudi Arabia without the money to move. An American study of this phenomenon revealed a lot of details, but the Saudi reaction was illustrative of the modern-day approach to dealing with a problem. They did not try to tackle the problem head-on. All they did was try to rubbish the report, which we typically see today; whether in response to antisemitism or whatever, the people who respond to reports simply choose to rubbish them and do not tend to engage. That illustrates all too well the problems that we have here.

Sadly, a number of women in this situation have been forced to work as prostitutes, even though prostitution is not officially allowed in Saudi Arabia. We should stand forcefully against any system that forces women into prostitution. We should not sit by and allow our relationship with Saudi Arabia to continue without taking up those issues and making a great point of those problems in the course of that relationship.

The treatment of the Shi’a minority population has been atrocious over many years, with many people put on trial on trumped-up and vague charges. Most significant was Sheikh al-Nimr, himself the uncle of one of the young men currently on death row but also the most prominent Shi’a cleric in Saudi, who was executed after years of persecution in the mass execution in January 2016. I think it was one of the largest of the recent mass executions—47 people were beheaded or killed by firing squad.

Again, it is outside the scope of this debate, but of course beyond all this are the atrocities being committed, and the breaches of international humanitarian law, in Yemen. It is a shame, but I think it is emblematic of the way the British Government are responding to many of these atrocities that it took victory by the Campaign Against Arms Trade in the Court of Appeal for the Government to look at suspending in any way the sales of arms that are fuelling that war. Even so, it is without any embarrassment that the Government are taking their case to the Supreme Court, no doubt with the intention of resuming sales thereafter.

That is the background to this debate, and I want to focus on a couple of those points. The first, which is particularly shocking, it is not just that many people who in other countries would just be seen as exercising their democratic rights end up in prison in Saudi Arabia, but the fact that it also happens to juveniles. Sadly, a number of young people have been executed, including in the mass execution earlier this year of 37 people, in which three young men who were juveniles at the time of their arrest were executed.

The three who have become a cause célèbre and are still at risk on death row are Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, Abdullah al-Zaher and Dawood al-Marhoon. Their cases have been raised many times in this House over a period of years. Indeed, in preparing for this debate, I looked back at an urgent question that I was granted back in October 2015. I shall say more about it in a moment, because it relates to a good decision that the previous Government made, but I referred in that exchange to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, who has taken a close interest in these matters over a number of years, writing then to the Prime Minister and raising the case of Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, yet four years on there is no less a threat. Indeed, because judicial processes have been exhausted, there is, other than the mercy of the King, nothing standing between him and other detainees and their executions.

These are difficult subjects to deal with, but they have to be dealt with, and the British Government appear to have particular difficulty in dealing with such matters in relation to Saudi Arabia even though they are outspoken in relation to other places. A type of double standard appears to operate. It would be useful to have from the Minister today an acknowledgement that these matters are serious, that they are growing, that the regime in Saudi, far from becoming more tolerant, is becoming more illiberal in these ways, and to hear what response the British Government are going to make. Sadly, as I have said and we have heard also from the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland, there is continued close co-operation—collusion—with the Saudi Government.

The matter that I was referring to from 2015 related to a prison contract that the UK had as part of a bizarre arrangement set up within the Ministry of Justice called Just Solutions International, which actively went out and sold services, often to repressive regimes, without making sufficient checks. I am pleased to say that, in response to my urgent question at that time, the then Lord Chancellor, who is now the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said that he was closing that operation down and withdrawing from the contract. He is to be congratulated on that, but it was one beacon of hope and has not really been followed up in succeeding years. Indeed, there continue to be concerns about the College of Policing and other arrangements whereby respectable UK institutions offer training—it was reported only last year that hundreds of Saudi police officers were being trained—or supervise or in some way give credibility to institutions in which practices such as torture are carried out.

[Sir Henry Bellingham in the Chair]

No doubt the Government will say, “We respect human rights and we hope that by engaging with these countries we can promote human rights,” but that is not what is happening at all. There is no sign that the engagement is in any way mitigating or addressing the way in which the Saudi authorities operate, so in effect we are colluding.

There is no clearer sign of that than the funds that have been referred to, which are largely opaque; this is within Government. Numerous attempts have been made to identify exactly where the money goes, particularly in relation to the Gulf countries. The integrated activity fund and other larger funds, which are operated through the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defence and the Department for International Development, run to more than £1 billion in total, but there is no clarity whatever about how that money is spent. Frankly, that is a disgrace.

I welcome you to the Chair for this debate, Sir Henry. This morning’s statement on detainee issues had really to be dragged out of the Government over the period of a year. It is a matter of great regret that the Government announced that they would not pursue that, despite previous promises on rendition and the Gibson inquiry and the Intelligence and Security Committee inquiries and their inconclusive nature.

There is an unhelpful trend in this Government not to deal with issues that they find embarrassing to themselves or to their close international partners. When I heard the announcement today, I thought, “Well, this is exactly what we heard about Leveson 2: ‘Nothing to see here. We’ve all moved on. No need for an inquiry.’” That is becoming an unhealthy habit of the Government. They should bear it in mind that, even if they are not prepared to confront these matters in this House or in public, they will still come to light and, as with the war in Yemen, there will be legal challenges. I have no doubt that there will be in relation to rendition. We are fortunate in this country to have a tradition of good independent journalism, of good independent non-governmental organisations, some of which briefed us for this debate, and of lawyers who will do that job if the Government are not prepared to do it themselves.

The Minister has set himself up as somebody who does take these issues seriously and wishes to see this country take its human rights responsibilities abroad as seriously as its defence and security and trade responsibilities, so it would be useful if we could see some change of tone and of policy specifically in relation to Saudi. Do we need anything further than what happened to Jamal Khashoggi just last year to raise the alarm about the way that that country is conducting itself in the region and in the world?

I shall end my comments shortly as other hon. Members wish to speak. I end simply by asking again in relation to the detainees on death row in Saudi, and specifically in relation to those who were juveniles when their alleged offences took place, that the Government redouble their efforts and use what influence they have—they say that they have a lot of influence—with Saudi, and that they do so in the strongest possible terms and the most urgent terms, because it could well be the case that at no notice we find that there has been another series of mass executions in that country.

This is a perilous time for human rights. This debate rightly highlights that Saudi Arabia is a human rights priority country for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and has been for several years. Disengaging from its political development and security will only help more authoritarian countries, which place less value on the rule of law, to become the dominant paradigm in the world.

I profoundly disagree with the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter). I believe the cancellation of the Just Solutions International contracts, which engaged in the Saudi justice system, particularly in the management of offenders, is profoundly to be regretted. I believe in the merits of interdependence. I believe that the police and justice training that we support should be delivered as far as possible. If we can do that, and sell to countries our experience—particularly the experience of the Ministry of Justice’s retired senior prison governors and probation officers—at economic advantage to the United Kingdom, so that they can improve their systems and import some of the human rights accountability, which we take for granted, it is likely to be of significant benefit overall, both financially for the United Kingdom and, more importantly, for the values we want to promote in those societies.

This year, I have worked with the hon. Members for Stockton South (Dr Williams) and for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) on a detention review panel for the female human rights activists in Saudi Arabia. I accepted the task because I believed that I would command the confidence both of Saudi Arabia and of its critics for fairness. I am trying to demonstrate in this speech that I hope to see both sides of the question. However, I was disappointed that the Saudi Government did not welcome independent oversight of the detainees’ conditions in detention when, by all measures, the Crown Prince ought to be proud of his fellow countrywomen for sharing his desire to advance reform in Saudi Arabia. I am sure the Saudi Government wish to resolve the issue. I can at least record my pleasure that, to date, the Saudi Arabian authorities appear, temporarily at least, to have released four out of the 11 women detained last year. Hopefully more will follow, as the Saudi Government must realise that the decisions leading to the activists’ detentions and the appalling circumstances and death of Jamal Khashoggi must be rectified to save the country from itself. If the lessons are to be learnt and we are to honour Jamal Khashoggi’s life’s work by ensuring a more open society in Saudi Arabia where criticism is seen as an asset to good policy making, and where there is a more open press to report criticism, it can come only if there is a change of approach from the very top. Such disasters must be used to learn lessons on the necessary limitations on Executive power.

The enrichment of Saudi Arabia has led to the education of its citizens, particularly women, which inevitably has led to and will lead to a desire for progressive change. Western nations, particularly the United Kingdom, have to stand by the current constitutional framework, which must find within it the capacity for progressive change in respect of the growing role and responsibility of Saudi citizens in their influence on policy. Of course, that means the United Kingdom faces a difficult situation.

We could choose to ostracise the kingdom, as implied by the policy proposals supported by the hon. Member for Hammersmith, with the cancellation of the Just Solutions contract. I ought to declare an interest as I was the junior Minister most enthusiastically in support of setting up Just Solutions in order to get its methodology away, so I treated the cancellation of that contract as disastrous and an immense personal disappointment. If we followed the prescription of the hon. Gentleman, we could turn the kingdom into a pariah and push it into the arms of Russia and/or China which, incidentally, are two other human rights priority countries for the United Kingdom. Populist diplomacy and noisy condemnation will always be heard, humiliating the key decision makers at the top. Cynically, if its target audience is just the domestic media and NGOs in the United Kingdom, in those terms it would be successful. But in terms of effecting support for human rights and advancing them in Saudi Arabia, and advancing and securing the position of Saudi Arabia within those nations committed to the current rules-based international order, I suspect the policy advocated by the hon. Gentleman might not be quite so successful.

There is a degree to which it should be true that public shaming and the isolation of offending regimes can occasionally be a spur to progress, but it is better to offer a solution, to engage, and to assist by using our centuries-long hard-won experience of accountability for the rule of law. Rather than tell the Saudis sanctimoniously what their values ought to be, we should have these debates to challenge our friends and encourage them to see the merits of an open civil society, for the benefit of their nation’s policy making if nothing else. Given such a process and our influence, we should be able to agree that they could do nothing better than to release the female detainees straight away.

Previously, change came slowly to Saudi Arabia. It was a conservative country with a cautious monarchy. That caution appeared to be swept away with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, but expecting it to suddenly transform into a fully-fledged accountable democracy overnight was never going to happen. Britain remains in a position to help the Crown Prince move away from the path of a leader lethally intolerant of dissent. As our ally, there is a necessity for Saudi Arabia to uphold the highest standards of a consultative monarchy by better engaging with its citizens. There remains an opportunity for Saudi Arabia to set a course for a better future for its society and its economy, learning from the human rights disasters of 2018. Those are the terms used by Saudi Arabia’s own Foreign Minister about what happened to Jamal Khashoggi—it was described as a disaster.

The alternative to a consultative monarchy is an absolute monarchy, and down that route lies disaster and probably eventually revolution. Before that disaster and revolution lies terror and repression. In the west we need to ask ourselves whether we want a penitent reformer in charge of Saudi Arabia or a rolling back to a hard-line clerical domination that reflects the values of centuries earlier or some other revolutionary horror. To reapply the words of Talleyrand, the murder of Jamal Khashoggi was not only a crime; it was a mistake. We must help Saudi Arabia to deliver accountability for the crime, and for its future, we must do our best to ensure that it does not compound the mistake.

I reiterate the concern about the treatment of young people in detention, particularly the lack of legal representation, the use of false confessions and their execution, which is simply unacceptable. I am also concerned about journalists. We have already heard about the tragic and revolting killing of Jamal Khashoggi, whose body, if media reports are to be believed, was chopped up into small pieces and melted down using some type of acid, so it was in a form that could be disposed of. I do not think it gets any worse than that, and yet the Saudis are our allies and friends.

We have to join the UN and Dr Callamard, who is looking into the matter as the UN’s rapporteur, in applying more pressure. We have to show more backbone in the way we interact with our military allies. In particular, I want the Minister to address what is going on in relation to the investigation. Will the UK join the UN in asking questions about its next steps? We cannot allow the matter to drop and just stand next to Mohammed bin Salman at G20 meetings and take photos and so on. We have to say something, have some backbone and be much stronger.

Like Jamal Khashoggi, journalists in general and people who tend to speak out and protest about the Saudi regime come under tremendous pressure, including execution. I look forward to hearing from the Minister what steps he will take as a new Minister, with a fresh approach, to inject more backbone and strength into our approach in this important regard.