Already a subscriber? Log in
On the purely anecdotal evidence of a Select Committee Clerk, it is my understanding that minority or alternative reports are very rare. In seven years with select committees, he had only seen one instance of a Member tabling a minority report.
There are two paths open to a Member to record his disapproval. First by, “dividing the committee against those paragraphs to which he objects, or against the entire report,” or secondly by taking the extreme measure of moving an amendment to leave out the name of the Member altogether.
There are many aspects of this report that are excellent; many of the recommendations are essential for humanitarian and development progress in the Occupied Territories, which I hope to make clear later on. As such, I believed it would be an error to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and the only option I was left with was tabling amendments.
That I didn’t do so myself, I regret. However, I did work extremely closely with my colleague Stephen Crabb MP on his amendments. Stephen and I are close friends, and we spent many hours talking over our objections: I strongly agreed with all of the suggested changes that he tabled. Further evidence of the difficulty of making one’s point in select committees is the fact that, despite substantial disagreements, Stephen only forced the issue on two paragraphs out of 89.
That the record doesn’t show my support for Stephen is only a result of being unable to stay for the vote on July 17th. As you can imagine, finding the time for 11 MPs to debate a report is a challenging task and it is not unusual for Members to be called away, or indeed be unable to attend in the first place. I had another pressing engagement in the House and it was only that that prevented me from being able to stay and vote with Stephen.
Sadly my vote was a moot point anyway, as Stephen’s changes were voted down by four to one. It is little solace that my absence was not the cause of these defeats.
Select committees are relatively new to me. I have only sat on the International Development Committee since March, at which point this report was already under way, and I defer to members with much greater foreign affairs experience than myself such as John Battle MP, a man I admire greatly who worked as a Foreign Office Minister. Committees make every effort to work as a team to reach a consensus, and in the pursuit of this aim, compromises are sought. With regards to negotiations with Hamas however, no such compromise should be possible.
A Report Overshadowed
It must not be forgotten that there are many laudable features of the report, and it is a significant failing when people allow the controversial parts of a story to eclipse so completely in the national media, the bulk of an otherwise excellent report.
The Committee identifies restrictions on the freedom of movement in, and access to, the Occupied Territories as a central obstacle to development and observing that, “the Government of Israel signed up to the Agreement on Movement and Access in 2005,” and calls for it, “to respect such commitments.” The report is also unafraid to argue that, “the policy of seeking to isolate Hamas in Gaza has neither improved security nor caused Hamas to shift its position,” and that the UK Government and international community should have, “exerted much greater diplomatic pressure on the Government of Israel to lift the blockade in practice.”
Clearly the ongoing conflict between Hamas and Israel is not conducive to development in Palestine – stability is essential – and so the Committee is right to look at how the political developments of the peace process affect the humanitarian situation, if not to offer unsolicited foreign policy advice.
Other parts of the report that are ignored include the assessment of private sector economic projects such as Jenin Industrial Park, and the request that Palestinian students be permitted to take up university places abroad. How a decision to fund a UN “humanitarian access cell” to the tune of £800,000, for example, can pass without comment by the media is beyond me.
If I had objected to the whole report, I would have rejected important warnings on the danger of, “parallel (economic) universes,” and the humanitarian consequences of restricted fuel supply including the pollution of 90% of tap water. These are the difficulties I faced.
The Report’s Mistakes
I was extremely disappointed with three elements of the report: the advocacy of negotiations with Hamas without insisting on the acceptance of the Quartet’s principles; the anti-Israeli tone of the report; and the Committee’s decision to make foreign policy proposals that were beyond its remit.
That is why I wrote a press release outlining the areas I felt unable to accept, and a justification for it, which I sent to the Committee Chairman, Malcolm Bruce MP. For those who haven’t seen the pieces on Conservative Home, I argued that:
‘The underlying tone of the report is consistently critical of Israel to a degree that it is not of Hamas…the clearest example of this bias is in the phrase “Hamas must be encouraged to meet the Quartet conditions and Israel must open the borders and allow full humanitarian access”. While Israel “must” do something, Hamas “must be encouraged” to do something. Encouraging Hamas to renounce terror is insufficient, it must do so.
There is no moral equivalence between a legitimate sovereign state and a terrorist organisation. The report’s tone and failure to make this fundamental point, is indefensible.’
I opposed the report’s weak stance on talks with Hamas, observing that:
‘In fact, the report explicitly proposes dialogue with Hamas not on the basis of acceptance of the principles, but, as a result of the opportunity presented by the ceasefire, purely with an “objective of moving towards its acceptance…
By urging the “UK Government to seize this opportunity” the report suggests that it is Britain’s responsibility to include Hamas in the peace process. It is not. It is Hamas’s alone. To suggest “dialogue” with Hamas before it accepts the principles but then only offer “negotiations” once it has done so is an artificial distinction. Hamas knows without any doubt the conditions required of it, and until it renounces violence, recognises Israel and adheres to prior agreements there can be no justification for further engagement.’
Damned if you do. Damned if you don’t.
Having laid out my position to Malcolm he expressed his disappointment that I was going to issue a public objection to the report as he felt I had not given him, or the other Committee members, a chance to listen to and address my grievances, or incorporate them within the report. I felt that I should, on balance, do the Committee the courtesy of allowing it greater discussion.
It was this decision not to go public with my opposition that meant Melanie Phillips was entitled to criticise me. In fact I should thank her for taking an interest in the report in the first place and for providing the essential scrutiny that politics requires. I think she will concede though that I must be in a tiny minority of politicians whose mistake was to speak too little rather than too much!
I hope that, whatever else it does, this debate serves to focus attention on the importance of the regional issues, from the lamentable humanitarian situation to the unacceptability of allowing a terrorist organisation extort influence over a democratic state.
I have certainly learnt my lesson: that in an era of spin and counter-spin, it is the duty of MPs to make their positions unspinnable, to make their beliefs beyond doubt.
As such I can promise you that in future, no matter what differences I have with colleagues, I will never again allow myself to be associated with any call for dialogue with Hamas until they accept unconditionally the three fundamental, nonnegotiable principles of renouncing terror, abiding by previous agreements and accepting Israel’s right to exist.
Also in Society
Also by Daniel Kawczynski
Latest
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in