Clare Short: The right hon. Gentleman has expertise as the Chair of the Select Committee on Defence. Could the UK purchase American submarines more cheaply, and delay the decision? I am asking him as an authority on such matters. Would that not be a possible strategy for the UK?
Clare Short: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when Mohammed Reza, Home Office reference R1040509, a constituent of the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood, will receive a response to his application for indefinite leave to remain submitted in December 2005.
Clare Short: On the matter of the detained Israeli soldiers and Lebanon's request for the return of some of its prisoners, I think that the UN was supposed to be leading negotiations to try to obtain a package of agreement. Has there been any progress with that? It would obviously help to reduce tension.
Clare Short: The British ambassador briefed us that Syria has made considerable efforts to police that border and to prevent incursions. That should be recorded.
Clare Short: As I understand it, the UN mission is meant to disarm Hezbollah. It seems to me that that will never be achieved and that Hezbollah will never agree to be disarmed, which brings UN Security Council resolutions into disrepute. I am a passionate supporter of the UN, but if I were Hezbollah I would not agree to disarm, given the history of incursion from Israel. Does that requirement not need to...
Clare Short: I am pleased to have this opportunity to debate UK relations with Lebanon and Syria. I applied for the debate because in early January I was a member of the Anglo Arab Organisation's all-party delegation to Lebanon and Syria. The delegation was led by Lord David Steel and Jacques Santer, the former president of the European Commission, and organised by Mr. Nadhmi Auchi, the president of the...
Clare Short: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. That is an issue that I should have covered. The President of Syria spelled out clearly that Syria had secular government, while Iran clearly did not, and that they are different kinds of Governments. He said in his analysis of the system in the middle east, "We live in this region. We have to have strong relationships with our neighbours. We nurture a...
Clare Short: I cannot answer my hon. Friend authoritatively, in that I did not do an extensive survey, but comments were made to us. We met some of the United Nations peacekeepers who were deployed down on the border, and people were saying that the only help that they were getting was from Gulf states; they were not aware of help coming from other parts of the world. As I said earlier—I do not know...
Clare Short: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when Omed kadir Hamzak, Home Office Ref: O 1054841, a constituent of the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood, will be informed of the content of the decision that was made on his case on 6 December 2006.
Clare Short: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when officials in the Immigration and Nationality Directive will reply to the letter of 14 June 2006 from the right hon. Member for Birmingham Ladywood on behalf of Shelley Riley (née Morgan), Home Office Reference M1047313.
Clare Short: I really do not think that that is right. The report was commissioned by the World Bank, so it must be the property of the World Bank. If the UK Government wished to press the World Bank to publish it, it probably could be published.
Clare Short: I am pleased that the squalid British Aerospace sale of a military air traffic control system to Tanzania has reached the Floor of the House. All the parties involved in the deal should be deeply ashamed, but it is not an issue for party-political point scoring. It is good that the debate has not proceeded on that level. The truth is that successive Governments of both parties go out of their...
Clare Short: I am trying to make it clear to the House that we need to address a deep culture in our Government system. The DTI sees it as its duty to push all arms sales deals and will always find arguments for them. That is how it is and any incoming Government will face the same culture. We need to change it. When the events I was describing were taking place, the Department and I planned to offer...
Clare Short: The hon. Lady makes an important point. President Mkapa was a technocrat and a fine President, but he was not politically powerful and he inherited the contract. If the UK had done the right thing by refusing a licence under criterion 8, he would have been a very happy man, but there were penalty clauses for breach of contract and a payment of about £5 million had already been made. The...
Clare Short: At the same time, there was an offer by the European Investment Bank to provide a modern civilian air traffic control system for all the east African countries, which would have helped tourism for all of them, at a massively lower price. An alternative was on offer.
Clare Short: It seems to me—and this is very much an issue for the Secretary of State as well—that if the contract did not breach criterion 8, criterion 8 is not worth having. There is no question but that the decision damaged the development of Tanzania, and if the provision can be read in a way that allows such a decision through, it needs rewriting. Does the hon. Gentleman agree?
Clare Short: I should say to the House that the police came to see me and said that they have documents showing that it was bribery.
Clare Short: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. Has a licence ever been refused because it breached criterion 8? In my view, that licence did so absolutely, but I understand that there has been some tidying-up in the Department. Has a licence ever been refused, because it breached criterion 8?
Clare Short: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Nationality will reply to the letter from the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood of 2 November 2006 on behalf of Maguy Kalanga (Home Office reference number K1105786, acknowledgement number B27287/6).
Clare Short: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he will reply to the letter to the Immigration and Nationality Directorate of 10 October 2006 from the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood on behalf of Wenceslas Mwanda Baka Nzita (Home Office reference M729250).
