CORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 116-ii HOUSE OF COMMONS ORAL EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE THE FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE HUMAN RIGHTS TUESDAY 19 JUNE 2012 MR JEREMY BROWNE, VIJAY RANGARAJAN, and IRFAN SIDDIQ Evidence heard in Public Questions 70 - 166 USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT 1. This is a corrected transcript of evidence taken in public and reported to the House. The transcript has been placed on the internet on the authority of the Committee, and copies have been made available by the Vote Office for the use of Members and others. 2. The transcript is an approved formal record of these proceedings. It will be printed in due course. 1 Oral Evidence Taken before the Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday 19 June 2012 Members present: Richard Ottaway (Chair) Mr Bob Ainsworth Mr John Baron Sir Menzies Campbell Ann Clwyd Mr Frank Roy Sir John Stanley Rory Stewart Examination of Witnesses Witnesses:Mr Jeremy Browne MP, Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Vijay Rangarajan, Director of Multilateral Policy, Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Irfan Siddiq, Head of Arab Partnership Department, Foreign and Commonwealth Office gave evidence. Q70 Chair: I welcome members of the public to this second evidence session of the Committee’s inquiry into the FCO’s human rights work in 2011. I also welcome Mr Jeremy Browne, the Minister of State in the Foreign Office with responsibility for this area. Minister, when you open I would be grateful if you could introduce your two colleagues. Do you want to make an opening statement or go straight into questions? Mr Browne: I have not prepared an opening statement, because I did not anticipate you asking me to make one. I could improvise one, or shall we go straight into questions? Chair: Let us get on with it. Mr Browne: Why don’t my colleagues introduce themselves? Vijay Rangarajan: I am Vijay Rangarajan. I am director for multilateral policy in the Foreign Office. I am responsible for the UN, international organisations, human rights and conflict. Irfan Siddiq: I am Irfan Siddiq, head of the Arab Partnership Department in the Foreign Office. I am here to cover Middle East and north Africa issues. Chair: I give a warm welcome to both of you. Minister, the report is longer than it has been in the past. Is it any better? Mr Browne: I hope so. We do not measure the value or the quality of the report merely by the number of pages it contains, but it is certainly an extremely comprehensive document. Producing it is hugely time consuming within the Department. It is worth drawing the Committee’s attention to just how many hours of work go into compiling the report not only 2 in the relevant Department in London but in our posts around the world which draw intelligence and submit their ideas. It is a very substantial body of work. I am sure that it is capable of being improved upon, but it is a gold-standard piece of work and it is regarded as such by Foreign Affairs Departments in other countries. Q71 Chair: Are there any substantial changes from last year in its format or presentation? Mr Browne: There are some minor changes, I think. We are constantly keeping under review the content, and two countries have been added to the countries of concern—Fiji and South Sudan. It is an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary process of change. We have also introduced a significant change beyond the actual physical document. As you rightly said, this is an overview of the calendar year 2011, but we have also introduced a mechanism for quarterly updates, which gives us a bit more flexibility. Otherwise the criticism that people sometimes make is that here we are halfway through 2012, and in the last few months there have been particular concerns about country x, but they do not appear to feature prominently in the most recent report. We would respond, “Well, obviously the report would not cover the last few months. It covers the calendar year 2011.” We are trying to have that extra flexibility so that when situations become of greater concern, we do not have to wait until the following year’s report before we have a formal mechanism for drawing people’s attention to them. Also, if I am being positive about it, if there is improvement in one of the countries of concern we want to have an ability to reflect that improvement in our quarterly report as well. Q72 Chair: I agree and I welcome that—it is one of the joys of modern technology. In the process of preparing the report you receive the advice of an advisory group. Could you tell us more about the function of the group? Is it to allow them to make the points that they want, or is it to answer your questions? Mr Browne: For the avoidance of confusion, let me say that the report is not really the product of the meetings of the advisory group. Everything we do is informed by the advisory group, but the report is compiled by the relevant section of the Foreign Office, drawing on the insights of our missions around the world, regardless of the advisory group. So it is not a compilation of the conversations we have had in that forum. The advisory group offers extra firepower to our knowledge and consideration about human rights. It has many different valuable aspects. One is that we can draw on the insights and knowledge of people who take a keen interest in human rights issues; but it is also a good opportunity for them. Chief executives of significant NGOs have the opportunity to sit for an extended period with the Foreign Secretary and bring to his attention their areas of greatest concern. We can draw on their knowledge and insights, but they can inform us at the same time. Q73 Chair: Can they offer advice at any time? Do they have to meet in a formal setting, or do they drop in? What are the mechanics? Mr Browne: We have the main advisory group, which the Foreign Secretary chairs and which meets every six months, and three sub-groups to the advisory group—one on torture, one on the death penalty and one on internet freedom—which meet periodically as well. There is a general understanding that if members of the advisory group—I always say this, because I chair the sub-groups and attend the main meeting that the Foreign Secretary chairs—have a particular area of concern or interest or an insight to impart, they should not 3 feel that they have to wait until the next formal opportunity to raise it with us. We have a department within the Foreign Office which I hope is alert to new ideas and new thinking—I am sure that they are—and people should feel free to phone or e-mail them in order to draw issues to their attention. Q74 Sir Menzies Campbell: I wonder if I might press you a little on the question of countries of concern. What is the purpose of identifying a country as being a country of concern? Is it simply to name and shame, or does doing so trigger a different kind of response from the Foreign Office towards that country—for example, more resources being expended here in London; additional staff in the post abroad; the use of leverage, perhaps, through military or development assistance? That is a question of two halves, I suppose, but it seems to me that they are quite obviously linked. Putting it colloquially, what’s the point? Mr Browne: It is all of those things. Part of the purpose is to name and shame, as you put it—to demonstrate our disapproval—but it also provides a framework for the priorities of the Department, for Ministers. Of course, there is a judgment call to be made. It is difficult, because there are some countries that any reasonable person would include—the China and Iran end of the scale. At the other end of the scale are countries that you very obviously would not include—the Scandinavians, for example, are pretty good—but the question is how many you do include. There are judgment calls in the middle. You could have 35, 40 or 45 countries, but you would then dilute the impact of being included—that is the tension. The other difficulty is that over time we should be looking, where we can, to take countries off the list. It would be depressing if we felt that no country ever improved enough to be removed from the country of concern list, although of course that would require mature political debate because it is unlikely that a country will go from being a country of concern to an enlightened and benign liberal democracy in one step. The question is whether concern about them has sufficiently lessened so that they no longer need to be on the list even though there are still concerns about them. The quarterly process gives us the opportunity perhaps to indicate where progress is being made and where a country could, if it makes further progress, come off the list. It does inform the priorities that we give to those countries. Vijay Rangarajan: I want to add two things. First, in addition in the report is an innovation, a series of four case studies, so there is a category of countries in between those formerly of concern where there is a problem and we are flagging it for analysis and reporting during the year.