HC Deb 11 June 1986 vol 99 cc315-7
7. Mr. Lawrence

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when he next expects to meet the Soviet Foreign Minister; and whether he will raise the issue of human contacts in the light of the discussions at the conference on security and co-operation in Europe in Berne.

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Tim Renton)

We hope that Mr. Shevardnadze will be able to visit the United Kingdom in the near future. My right hon. and learned Friend has raised issues of human contacts and human rights with the Soviet Foreign Minister in the past and will continue to do so. These issues were also raised during the recent visit to the USSR of the Inter-Parliamentary Union delegation led by my noble Friend the Lord President.

Mr. Lawrence

Is my hon. Friend aware that the Soviet authorities still refuse to allow thousands of Jews who have applied to leave the Soviet Union to join their families to do so? Is he further aware that in the past week yet another Hebrew teacher — Aleksy Magarik — has been sentenced to three years in a labour camp following the finding of 6g of cannabis which was planted in his luggage? Does my hon. Friend agree that if the Soviet authorities think they can blatantly disregard their solemnly entered into international undertakings on human rights and still convince the West that if they enter into solemn and binding undertakings for arms reduction it will believe them, they had better think again?

Mr. Renton

I agree with what my hon. and learned Friend has said. It is true that the Soviet Union's record on permitting Jewish emigration is unsatisfactory and that there are no signs of it improving this year. At the CSCE in Berne it was quite clear that Soviet Jewry was a great stumbling block, in that the Soviet delegation was anxious to avoid any recommendations that had a direct bearing on Jewish emigration. At the same time, the West made it clear that it would not agree to a final document which excluded Soviet Jews.

Mr. Beith

Will the Minister follow up the efforts made by the delegation in Moscow to convince the Soviet leadership that concern for civil rights and the rights of religious groups, Christians as well as Jews, is not a propaganda issue so far as the West is concerned, but an issue of real concern to many citizens in the democratic West? Will he take the opportunity to try to convince the Soviet leadership that it would be in its interests to improve its record on that matter?

Mr. Renton

Yes. We have done so many times, and we shall continue to do so. It is obviously right that the question of human rights is an integral part of implementing the Helsinki final act. It is tragic that I often hear praise from the East for the value of the Helsinki accord, but at the same time we see every chapter being flouted by it.

Mr. Marlow

My hon. Friend and the House are rightly concerned for the human rights of Jews as for everybody else. Will he point out to the Israeli Defence Minister that it would be more helpful to the human rights of Israelis if they were concerned for the democracy of Arabs as well as for Jews?

Mr. Renton

On many occasions we have made it plain to the Israeli Government that we wish to see a total withdrawal from southern Lebanon, where the rights of a number of Palestinians are being badly thwarted. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, when she was in Israel recently, raised strongly with the Israeli Prime Minister the lack of rights of Palestinians in the occupied territories.

Mr. Janner

To revert to the original question, may I thank the Government for their steps to keep this matter before the Soviet Government. I thank also the all-party delegation that went to Moscow. Will the Government please continue to press for the release of people such as Ida Nudel, Alexander Vladimar Slepak, Alexander Lerner and other winners of the annual award of the all-party parliamentary committee for the release of Soviet Jewry? Will the Government say how much we care about these people and their right—which has not been granted—to leave the Soviet Union in accordance with the Soviet Union's constitution and the Universal Declaration on Human Rights?

Mr. Renton

I very much agree with the hon. and learned Gentleman's thanks to the parliamentary delegation that recently went to Moscow for the manner in which it raised the subject of human rights with Mr. Gromyko and Mr. Gorbachev. Clearly the delegation took every opportunity to raise the subject of those distressing cases. We shall continue to raise not only the cases mentioned by the hon. and learned Gentleman but the split family cases, which concern British citizens in this country. As in the past, we shall continue to do that at every possible opportunity.

Mr. George Robertson

Will the hon. Gentleman accept that the Opposition believe as strongly as he does in civil and human rights, whether in Eastern bloc countries or any Western country? Does he agree that the unilateral vetoing by the United States and other member states of the CSCE — the Helsinki group — of an agreement in Berne which would have positively improved the ability of people to leave the Soviet Union does little or nothing to help the cause of those in the Soviet Union or other countries who saw the light at the end of the tunnel being denied by the impromptu action of the United States Government?

Mr. Renton

I note what the hon. Gentleman has said. The United Kingdom delegation was prepared to give its agreement to a document which was, in effect, a compromise reached at the end of the Berne meeting. In fairness, it must be said that the view of the United States delegation was that the recommendations in the compromise document did not go far enough, given the Soviet failure to comply with existing commitments. In some cases the United States delegation thought that the compromise document was a step backwards from the commitments made in the Helsinki final act. On that basis, there was no agreement on the document.