King’s Speech

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Wednesday 15th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I will welcome him as Foreign Secretary, but I will never forgive Prime Minister David Cameron for the casual way that he called the Brexit referendum for party-political reasons when the country was not calling for one, the poor management of the referendum campaign and the exclusion of people crucially affected by it, such as 16 and 17 year-olds. As I recall, it was meant to end divisions within the Tory party; over seven years later, we can see how well that worked.

However, I hope that the appointment of the future Lord Cameron will continue the improvement in relations with the EU that, to be fair, James Cleverly began, such that the Windsor Framework and our re-entry to Horizon were agreed. But it is possible to seek so much more, from easing the Brexit red tape costing businesses, jobs and consumers so dearly—including people such as touring artists—to rejoining the student exchange programme Erasmus and other EU programmes valuable to our businesses, economy and civil society.

I was among members of the European Affairs Committee of your Lordships’ House meeting French MPs this morning, who recalled that the number of French students at British universities has dropped from 13,000 to 3,000—a sorry development when soft power is so important in the modern world. Our committee is currently conducting an inquiry into the scope, in the light of the invasion of Ukraine, for greater UK-EU co-operation on security and defence as a complement to NATO. I was glad to hear the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, repeat the Labour pledge of a security pact with the EU. At least the UK has joined the European Political Community. I hope an early priority of the new Foreign Secretary will be fixing the date and agenda for the UK hosting its next meeting next year.

I am sure the new Foreign Secretary will also continue the close liaison with the EU and member states on political and military support for Ukraine, as well as on sanctions against Russia, all of which have been pretty successful. We cannot let Ukraine down. I applaud the Minister’s pledges. I am sure the Government will support the process of Ukraine’s accession to the EU.

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s judgment this morning striking down the Government’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, we will hear a lot of bombast about pulling out of the European Convention on Human Rights, even though the Supreme Court highlighted other domestic, as well as international, legal impediments to exposing asylum seekers to the risk of refoulement. I note that a lot of whatever co-operation we have with the EU in areas such as law enforcement, internal security and business data transfers is predicated on our membership of the convention.

We are due to debate next week, on a regret Motion from my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones, new proposed data protection regulations. Using powers in the retained EU law Act, the Government propose to replace references to EU concepts of fundamental rights and freedoms with references to the ECHR. This is already a worrying loss of some rights, but the regulations would completely collapse if we pulled out of the ECHR. That would be a loss to business.

Turning to the Israel-Gaza situation, I attended at lunchtime a screening of the footage taken from the body cameras of Hamas terrorists—and from CCTV, victims’ phones and Intercept—who participated in the horrific outrages of 7 October. I did not want to attend but I felt I had to out of respect for the victims. Let us be clear: this was not a Hamas war on Israel; it was a massacre—a pogrom—of Jews. As the Hamas terrorists celebrated the number of Jews they were killing, whose bodies they burned and mutilated, they cried, “Praise Allah. Allah is great”. This is desecration of the great religion of Islam.

While most people attending the pro-Palestinian marches in London have not expressed hatred towards Israel and/or Jews, some have. The steep rise in incidents of anti-Semitism has been appalling, and for our Jewish fellow citizens to feel frightened or uncomfortable coming into central London, or wearing visibly Jewish dress, such as the kippah, is deeply shaming. I also deplore any incidents of Islamophobia. I of course understand the calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, but I would like to know how, in that case, Hamas is going to be removed from Gaza and its military capacity eradicated, as not only Israel wants. I note the US confirmation that Hamas is using the Al-Shifa hospital as an operational base.

Lastly, on a question asked many times, can the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, in replying, tell us why on earth the Government will not proscribe Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps?