India and Pakistan: Peace Representations

Baroness Verma Excerpts

Thursday 17th July 2025 Grand Committee

[Baroness Verma (Con)]

My Lords, I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hussain, for initiating this debate. Of course, all of us come with very different viewpoints from where we originate. The ultimate goal is to ensure that there is peace in the region. Therefore, the first thing we need to do is look at the elephant in the room: why we cannot have a discussion without it becoming so toxic in this country with the diasporas here. We need to remember that words matter when they are expressed here to what happens in the countries of India and Pakistan.

The Minister will of course agree that the recent attack was abhorrent. Every community in India united against the attack and came together. That is how this debate should be framed: wherever there is an attack, we come together. Far too many times, I have been in this House listening to attacks on one country or the other in a way that is unhelpful to the UK being able to be a friend to both. We, as those of that diaspora, need to start playing a constructive role in the way that we approach the debate.

I know that the noble Lord, Lord Hussain, often talks about the people in Kashmir. I am not going to talk about Kashmir, apart from to repeat what I have said to him before: that I hope that he is as affected by the deaths of all the murdered Kashmiri Pandits as he is of any other Kashmiri. We need to show that every human being matters to us, not just those who we seek to represent.

I turn to my questions to the Minister. After the attacks in Pahalgam recently, most of us will have seen the report of a Pakistani diplomat making slitting throat gestures to British protesters. That cannot be allowed in our country. I raised it in the main Chamber, but I did not get a response from the Foreign Office on what action has been taken about that incident. Will the Minister also tell the House what is happening about the aid we give and how it is utilised and monitored, so that we are not inadvertently aiding that minority of people who perform terrorist attacks? The large population of Pakistan and the large population of India do not want to be involved in such heinous crimes. Will the Minister respond on those two points?

The largest democracy on the planet is now understanding its responsibility, and we need to make sure, in the way we perform with both countries, that Pakistan, too, becomes a thriving democracy.